engineers, soldiers, and other members of
Mr. Bartlett's party, engaged in traversing
the northern frontier of Mexico, and of myself.
For my own part let me own that I
neither hungered nor thirsted, nor was weary
by the way, having been curried comfortably
stretched upon a sofa through deserts and
wildernesses, and among all savages encountered
by my fellow travellers. I was carried
about on my sofa by a couple of stout
volumes that have played the part of chairmen
excellently—let me say so much in a
certificate at parting—never wearying or causing
weariness. They have just been equipped
by Mr. Bartlett, and are ready to carry any
man who will make use of them through many
of the half-unknown regions of Texas, New
Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua.

Forty-five miles of unmitigated desert, and
we traversed much of it by moonlight. It
was not so thoroughly a desert to the fancy
as the ruin of some mighty palace of a thousand
and one columns, for our way was
among tall fluted pillars twenty and thirty
feet high, now and then budding out into
grotesque shapes, or balanced in groups of
two or three or four upon a single massive
stem, so that they might be likened to
enormous candelabra. At the base of these
pillars there were a few dwarf plants growing,
very thinly scattered over the whole stony
surface of the plain. The moonlit pillars
were the chief plants of the district. They
had spring up out of the rock from which
they draw not only their own life, but the
means of supporting life in others. Every
column is a gigantic cactus, of a kind until
recently but seldom seen by travellers, for it
exists in wilds that have only in these last
days come to be frequented. It is called the
Giant Cereus, or more commonly the Petahaya,
that being the name it bears in its own
country. It is at home on the high table
lands on each side of the river Gila, and in
various parts of the state of Sonora, where it
grows often in the crevices of rocks, and
other places out of which one might think
that no plant could get sustenance. It takes
such a form as has been just described,
shooting up sometimes even to a height of
fifty feet, and having a stem occasionally
seven feet in circumference. Imbedded in
the fleshy mass of the plant are ribs of
elastic wood, extending to the root and
giving strength to the huge column. When the
plant is dead its flesh decays, and there
remain these bones displayed after the fashion
of a mighty skeleton. In addition to the
fluting, each column is beset with clusters of
spines, six large ones and many small ones in
each cluster. Late in May or early in June
the petahaya blossoms. The flowers are
borne on the summits of the columns, have
many yellow stamens, stiff, curling petals of
a creamwhite colour, and are altogether about
three inches across. The fruit is shaped like
a long egg, and of about the bigness of an
egg, green with a tinge of red when fully
ripe. Within its outer coat is a red pulp,
containing many little black smooth seeds;
this pulp is exposed by the fruit's bursting in
due time, that is to say, in July or August,
and after a few days' exposure to the sun,
being dried to about one-third its original
bulk, drops out of its skin. It is then in
taste and appearance something like the
pulp of a dried fig, but its taste of fig is
complicated with that of the raspberry. The
Pimo and Coco-Maricopa Indians collect this
ripe pulp of the petahaya, and roll it into
balls, which may be stored and kept for winter
use. They also boil the pulp in water, and
let it evaporate until it has about the thickness
of molasses, in which state it is preserved by
them in earthen jars. In either form it is
extremely palatable.

We have got out into the wilds indeed
when we are among Pirnos and Coco-
Maricopas, who eat petahaya pulp upon the banks
of the river Gila. Is it allowable to refer for
a minute to the map ? Into the Gulf of California
flows the Rio Colorado. The last
tributary to the Colorado flowing from the
interior is the Gila, which comes to it through
an extensive tract of uninhabited desert,
broken with isolated mountains, destitute of
grass, or wood, or water. The course of the
Gila is throughout by rocky wilds and barren
plains in which man cannot live. In summer
great part of the river bed is dry; water
occurs only here and there—grass only here
and there; the mules of travellers subsist
mainly on willow herbage and the mezquit
beau. There is thick vegetation, especially
willow, cotton wood, and mezquit bean, in
many parts that border on the river course,
and there are districts upon which various
Indian tribes have obtained a footing. Of
these the most predatory and cruel are the
Apaches, the most prudent and civilisable are
the before-mentioned Pimos and Coco-Maricopas,
two small nations living side by side,
speaking distinct languages, but close allies.
Of all the Indian tribes in North America
Mr. Bartlett considers these to be morally
the best, and it is his opinion that they could
be converted easily into a civilised community;
a small one certainly, for of the
united nations the whole population is not
taken to be more than perhaps two thousand.
They value teaching, even wish to learn to
read, pure savages as they are, but what kind
of teaching they will get may be inferred from
the fact that their small colony lies on the track
of the gold diggers, who journey overland from
the United States to California. This desert
region forms in fact one of the last stages of
the difficult overland route to the diggings.

With the thermometer every day above a
hundred in such shade as can be found, with
bushes to impede a waggon near the river,
rocks and loose sand on the plateau, a summer
journey by the Gila cannot be recommended
as a pleasant expedition to the tourist. We