Chap. VT. JOURNEY DOWN THE GILA. 509 
CHAPTEE VI 
Journey down the Gila — Casas Blancas — Campo Grande — Hydro-geolog ^al 
Remarks — The Cocomaricopas — Ethnological Remarks from the Narra- 
tive of their Chief — Hair and singular Head-dresses — Robbers and Mur- 
derers in our Camp — Insecurity of the Gila and Colorado Region — 
Revolutionary Movement in Sonora — Valley Pass and rocky Desert — 
Heat of the Gila Valley — The Chief of the Pimas and indescribable 
Music — Hickey's Hollow — Annual Grasses — Lava Terraces of the Gila 
Valley — Indian Hieroglyphics — Opinion as to their Meaning — Footpath 
worn in the Rocks of a Mountain Summit — Conjectures as to the Age of 
the Hieroglyphics — A Party of Cocopas in our Camp — View from Summit 
of Mountain — Arrival at the Colorado — Camp Yuma — The Yuma Indians 
— Colorado City ■ — Passage of Steamer — Crossing the Colorado. 
After passing the lagoon we travelled through the night, 
and rested the following day in a grove of algarobbias, on 
the bank of the Gila, near a group of temporary huts of 
the Pimas. The river, which I had pictured to myself 
as a large stream, was here only a small brook, flowing 
over a sandy bed. Poplars, willows, and various kinds of 
shrubs, grow on its banks ; the rest of the bottom land is 
covered with algarobbias, while barren alluvial terraces rise 
on each side, covered with the usual desert growth of these 
regions. At noon the water of the stream, which is clear, 
and has a considerable fall, was so warm that our animals 
would not drink. 
We travelled again through the night, and passed some 
Pima villages in the dark, so that I lost the opportunity 
of seeing the domestic life of this interesting race. At 
Tucson we had engaged some muleteers, who had been 
often along the Gila; and they told me that in one of the 
villages was a " Casa blanca de Montezuma" — a white 
house of Montezuma. This is the expression used by the 
