AGUA FRIA.—SUMMIT OF SIERRA MADRE.— EL MORO. 
63 
the wagons, helped themselves to a drink. One or two of the servants were invited to join 
them, but they declined, knowing that the keg contained alcohol for preserving zoological spe¬ 
cimens, and retaining also a vivid recollection of an order given at the Choctaw Agency that 
the spirit should he drugged with arsenic. The news was not agreeable to the drinkers, and 
their anxiety was increased by very soon becoming painfully sick. They entered camp, feeling 
that they must die, or send for the doctor and expose themselves; but love of life proving 
stronger than fear of punishment, they applied to him for relief. They were informed that the 
spirit itself was the only poison they had taken, and the ipecacuanha it contained would soon 
relieve them of that. The fright and subsequent jokes of their companions will probably pre¬ 
vent similar depredations in future. 
November 17 —Camp 67.—Started at daybreak ; ascended a hill seventy feet high, and thence 
proceeded by a gradual rise eight miles to Agua Fria. The barometric profile gives a grade 
greater than that of yesterday, the mean being seventy-five feet, and the maximum ninety feet, 
per mile. This could be reduced by increasing the distance. The whole march has been 
through a beautiful pine forest, affording timber in abundance. Game is plenty. Antelope, 
black-tailed deer, hares, squirrels, and small birds, having been noticed. Our hunters were 
successful, and have added several interesting specimens to the zoological collection. 
Agua Fria is a permanent spring whose waters gush from a broken bed of lava, flow about 
half a mile, and then hide themselves again among volcanic rocks. This is the last stream 
upon our route that seeks admission to the Atlantic. Its source is near the summit of Sierra 
Madre, 7,760 feet above the level of the sea. We met here a party of Acoma Indians. They 
had been hunting in the mountain forests, and the quantity of game they had killed spoke well 
for their archery. They wanted merely to sell us venison, of which we had plenty, and did 
not seem disposed to be particularly sociable. We tried to write a vocabulary of their lan¬ 
guage, but the words given were so long and so difficult to pronounce, that we gave up the task. 
A few flakes of snow fell to-day. 
November 18 —Camp 68.—Leaving Agua Fria, we turned around the point of a hill and 
ascended a ravine to the foot of a bluff ridge about two hundred feet high, leading to the 
summit of the Sierra. The usual odometer survey followed the road in its passage over the 
crest. With compass and barometer, a reconnaissance was also made by going up the canon to 
its head, climbing the narrow divide, passing into a similar ravine upon the western slope of 
the Sierra, and rapidly descending to the level at which we commenced. By a deep cut of a 
few hundred yards, a railroad might be brought to the head of the canon ; thence a tunnel, 
with a slightly ascending grade, would open into the opposite ravine. The distance by the 
reconnaissance was about a mile; but, judging by the courses taken, it cannot exceed three 
quarters of a mile from the foot of the ridge upon one side to the corresponding point upon the 
other. The rock could be easily excavated, as it is a soft though compact limestone. From 
the mouth of the proposed tunnel, a very regular slope, averaging for eight miles fifty feet per 
mile, led to a wide valley in which we found “El Moro,” called by Simpson Inscription Rock. 
Here we encamped. This side of the mountain is also covered with timber. The view towards 
the southeast shows an apparently unbounded forest. The mesas and valleys westward appear 
comparatively barren, though there are scattered clumps of trees and dwarf cedars among the 
ravines and upon the slopes. No water was met with till we reached our present camp, about 
eighteen miles from Agua Fria. 
El Moro is the Inscription Rock so minutely described by Simpson, in 1849. Approaching 
its northeast corner, which is rectangular, the cliffs appear truly vertical and smooth to the 
height of nearly two hundred feet. Here are found the Spanish inscriptions and the Indian 
hieroglyphics. Upon the eastern face the rock projects somewhat like a bastion. At the re¬ 
entering angle there is a semi-cylindrical recess, slightly shelving, and as smooth as if a cascade 
had poured for ages over the top. Below is a spring or pool of water supplying the camp ; but 
affording barely sufficient for the mules and cattle. The summit of the rock, which is of white 
