TO THE COCO-MARICOPA VILLAGES. 201 
bushes for the animals; and for ourselves, every luxury 
that a camp life affords. 
Accordingly, as the sun began to throw its long 
shadows across the hills, and when about half an hour of 
daylight remained, we moved from camp. The road 
was pretty good and less sandy than before. We did 
not now take the table-land, but kept on a lower ter- 
race, which seemed to lead along the spur of a dark 
rocky hill, until we were suddenly brought to a stand, 
The river had washed away the terrace, and left no 
passage. We were therefore obliged to retrace our 
steps a short distance, and pass over the hills, which 
were exceedingly rocky, and overgrown with cactt. 
Not being able to discern the smaller ones among the 
rocks, the mules were several times stopped by coming 
in contact with their thorns. From one poor creature 
the blood flowed as though he had been purposely 
bled; many of the men, too, had cause to remember 
this night’s march among the cacti. At two o'clock, 
the moon, which until then had given us a faint light, 
went down, when we were compelled to stop, as 1t was 
impossible to find our way through the light and deep 
sand in which we then were. The packs were accord- 
ingly removed from the mules, although the saddles 
were left on; and the wagon-mules were tied to the 
mezquit bushes near. We then lay down on the bare 
sand just where we were, and, rolling our blankets 
around us, for it was quite cool, slept soundly until 
daylight. 
June 25th. With the break of day we were again 
off, having no mules to catch, no tents to strike, or 
breakfast to get. In an hour anda half we struck a 
