124 
The Colorado River 
sixty beaver in a night, and finally they were obliged to halt 
and make another canoe. So they went slowly down, occa¬ 
sionally killing a couple of hostile natives, or deer, panthers, 
foxes, or wild-cats. One animal is described as like an African 
leopard, the first they had ever seen. At length they came to 
a tribe much shorter of stature than the Yumas, and friendly. 
These were probably Cocopas. Not a patch of clothing existed 
in the whole band, and Pattie’s men gave the women some old 
shirts, intimating, as well as they could, that they ought to wear 
some covering. These people were well formed, and many of 
the women had exceptionally fine figures if the judgment of 
the trappers can be trusted in this respect. When a gun was 
fired they either fell prostrate or ran away, so little did they 
know about firearms. The chief had a feast of young dog 
prepared for his guests, who partook of it with reluctance. All 
communication was by signs, and when the chief imitated the 
beating of surf and drew a cow and a sheep in the sand, point¬ 
ing west, they thought they were at last nearing the longed-for 
Spanish settlements, and went on their way joyfully. Little 
did they imagine that the settlements the chief described were 
far off on the Californian coast. 
The new year, 1828, came in and still they were going down 
the river, taking many beaver. As a New Year’s greeting a 
shower of arrows from a new tribe, the Pipis, fell amongst 
them. The trappers killed six of them at one volley, and the 
rest ran away, leaving twenty-three beautiful longbows behind. 
The only clothing the dead men had on was snail-shells 
fastened to the ends of their long locks of hair. The trappers 
now began to seek more anxiously for the mythical settle¬ 
ments. “A great many times each day,” says Pattie, “we 
bring our crafts to the shore and go out to see if we cannot 
discover the tracks of horses and cattle.” On the i8th they 
thought some inundated river entering was the cause of a slack¬ 
ening of the current, and finally they began to rig oars, think¬ 
ing they would now be obliged to work to get on down-stream, 
but presently, to their surprise, the current doubled its rate and 
they were going along at six miles an hour. None of them had 
ever had any experience with tides, and they therefore failed to 
