TO THE COCO-MARICOPA VILLAGES. 199 
ance of having been recently filled with water. It 
was now dry, except in a few holes which had been 
dug to obtain it. We found the water in these holes 
quite brackish, and unfit to drink; consequently we 
were obliged to send our animals about a mile and a 
half through the wood to the river, from which we 
also brought water for our own use. So thick was the 
wood, that it was found impracticable to force our 
wagons through. This was the most beautiful spot we 
had encamped in since leaving the little valley of San 
Isabel, in California. We pitched no tents, finding a 
better and more agreeable protection in the thick 
and overhanging willows, the leaves of which extended 
to the ground. Beneath these bushes we were well 
sheltered from the sun, and passed the most comfort- 
able day we had yet experienced along the parched 
regions of the Gila. Distance travelled, eighteen 
miles. | 
We opened a cache* in the bank here, in which 
Dr. Webb had buried a quantity of things, when the 
party under his charge passed down the Gila in Decem- 
ber last. Every thing was found safe and in good 
condition. The wolves had smelled something below 
the surface, although there were no provisions there, 
and had dug up and exposed a corner of the tent in 
which the articles were enveloped. Had either travel- 
lers or Indians’been here since, they would have car- 
* Cache. (French). A cavity or hole in the earth, in which travel- 
lers bury their provisions or goods. The word is used by the Hudson’s 
Bay traders, and by the hunters and trappers of the prairies and the 
Rocky Mountains, even to the shores of the Pacific. 
