90 
The Colorado River 
lack of the three drops of water he would sprinkle over them if 
only they would let him do it.” With this idea ever in mind 
he toiled up and down the lower Colorado, and received assist¬ 
ance from a Yuma chief called Captain Palma. Once when he 
came up the river to Yuma, where he had left Padre Eisarc, 
the report the latter gave was so encouraging that Garces ex¬ 
claims: “I gave a thousand thanks to God to hear them sing 
psalms divine that the padre had taught them.” He further 
declared that Captain Palma would put to the blush for observ¬ 
ing the forms of piety, “many veteran Christians, by the rever¬ 
ence and humility with which he assisted at the holy sacrifice.” 
But alas for the padre’s fond hopes! 
The Yumas called the Colorado Javill or Hahweel according 
to Garces; and he also says the name Colorado was given be¬ 
cause, as the whole country is coloured, its waters are tinged 
in the month of April, when the snows are melting, but that 
they are not always red, which is exactly the case. The name 
is also said to be a translation of the Piman title “buqui 
aquimuti. ” 
Leaving Mohave June 4, 1776, Garces struck eastward across 
Arizona, guided by some Wallapais, but with no white com¬ 
panion. These people had told him about the distance to 
Moki and the nature of the intervening region. Heading 
Diamond Creek ^ on his mule, Garces made for the romantic 
retreat of the Havasupais in the canyon of Cataract Creek, a 
tributary from the south of the Grand Canyon. He was the 
first white man, so far as known, to visit this place, and in 
reaching it he passed near the rim of the great gorge, though 
he did not then see it. This was the region of the Aubrey 
cliffs and the place in all probability where Cardenas ap¬ 
proached the Grand Canyon, 236 years before. Garces arrived 
among the Havasupai or Jabesua, as he called them, by follow¬ 
ing a trail down their canyon that made his head swim, and 
was impassable to his mule, which was taken in by another 
'This name, by the way, has no connection with the notorious “Arizona” 
diamond swindle of more recent years. It bore this name in Ives’s time and the 
swindle was much later—1872. The alleged diamond field also was not in 
Arizona at all, but in north-western Colorado. 
