182 FORT YUMA 
tains cross the river, and through which it has worked 
for itself a deep channel. This cafion is known to all 
the trappers, and is said to extend from two to three 
hundred miles, throughout which distance it is only 
passable in two or three places. As he progressed, 
Alarchon made diligent inquiries about the country 
and people. In reply he was told that the river ran 
much further up into the land than he had yet come ; 
but his informers did not know its head, as it was still 
very far in the interior. He learned also that many 
other streams fell into it. As far as he went, he found 
the natives cultivating maize. They brought him cakes 
of maize and loaves of mezquique.* Neither wheat nor 
beans were known to them. To ascertain this fact, 
our traveller took with him these articles, which he 
showed the Indians, and at which “they expressed 
much wonder.” He found cotton growing, but nowhere 
saw any fabrics made of it; whence he naturally was 
led to believe that they knew not the art of spinning 
and weaving. The natives told him that there were 
twenty-three different languages spoken along the 
river. | 
It is a singular fact, that although Francisco de 
Ulloa explored the Gulf of California in 1539, and 
Alarchon in 1542, at which time the latter discovered 
and passed up the Colorado, the fact that California had 
been ascertained to be a peninsula came to be forgot- 
ten, and it was regarded as an island until some time 
*T imagine the mezquique to be flour made of the mezquit bean, 
which is now used by the California Indians, as well as by the Coco-Ma- 
ricopas and Pimos of the Gila. 
