530 THE COLORADO DESERT. Book III. 
CHAPTER VII. 
From the Colorado to Los Angeles — The Desert — Old Sea-shore — Discharge 
of Water from the Colorado into the Desert — Different Qualities of the 
Soil — Toads and Frogs in the Desert — The Little Lagoon — Dead Fish — 
Mountain Chains — Rain Water — The Stony Desert and the Gypsum 
Desert — Bones of destroyed Herds of Cattle — Mineralogical Ants — 
General Character of the Country from hence to Los Angeles — Extent of 
the North American Steppes — Region of Annual Grasses and Plants — 
Wild Cerealia — The original Cause of the Absence of Trees is of a 
Geological Nature — Yalleci to — A half-starved Man — San Felipe — 
Rocky Pass — Camphor Scent of the Plants — Warner's Rancho — Hot 
Sulphur Springs — Californian Indians — Large Herds of Cattle — Grass 
and Clover Seed as natural Fodder for Cattle — Santa Ana — One Meteoro- 
logical Region encroaching upon another — Colonel Williams's Rancho — 
An expensive Shepherd — We share the Flesh of thirty Pigs with the 
Vultures — Extensive use of Strychnine — Tertiary Group of Hills — 
Asphalt Springs — Los Angeles — Return to Civilization. 
The preparations for the continuation of our journey left 
me no time to visit Fort Yuma, or to make myself 
acquainted with the nature of the Colorado and the ^and 
around it. The notorious Colorado desert lay before us, 
extending northwards from the river to the foot of the Cali- 
fornian Mountains. Corresponding to this on the south, 
lies a similar waterless waste, through which the road passes 
to El Altar, by the so-called Tinaje Alta, a dreaded route 
upon which travellers every year die from want of water. 
It took us five days after we left the Colorado to reach 
the first Californian watering-place. There are a few 
scanty wells on this road, of natural origin, but improved 
by the hand of travellers. They contain, however, too little 
water for the necessities of so large a caravan as ours ; we 
therefore divided into three companies, which were to start 
at intervals of one day, and it fell to me to head the first 
