Alter, a small town, with a Mexican
garrison, is the nearest settlement. All accounts concur in
representing the journey as one of extreme hardship, and even peril.
The distance is not exactly known, but it is variously represented at
from four to seven days' journey. Persons bound for Sonora from
California, who do not mind a circuitous route, should ascend the Gila
as far as the Pimos village, and thence penetrate the province by way
of Tucson. At the ford, the Colorado is 1,500 feet wide, and flows at
the rate of a mile and a half per hour. Its greatest depth in the
channel, at the ford where we crossed, is four feet. The banks are low,
not more than four feet high, and, judging from indications, sometimes,
though not frequently, overflowed. Its general appearance at this point
is much like that of the Arkansas, with its turbid waters and shifting
sand islands."
The narrative of Lieut. Emory, of his journey from this point across
the Desert of California, becomes highly interesting and
characteristic.
"_November 26_.--The dawn of day found every man on horseback, and a
bunch of grass from the Colorado tied behind him on the cantle of his
saddle.
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