been
carried in canteens by the Indians.

_October 4-_--All day long we pass by the foot of the Echo Cliffs, which
are in fact the continuation of the Vermilion Cliffs. It is still a
landscape of rocks, with cliffs and pinnacles and towers and buttes on
the left, and deep chasms running down into the Marble Canyon on the
right. At night we camp at a water pocket, a pool in a great limestone
rock. We still go south for another half day to a cedar ridge; here we
turn westward, climbing the cliffs, which we find to be not the edge of
an escarpment with a plateau above, but a long narrow ridge which
descends on the eastern side to a level only 500 or 600 feet above the
trail left below. On the eastern side of the cliff a great homogeneous
sandstone stretches, declining rapidly, and on its sides are carved
innumerable basins, which are now filled with pure water, and we call
this the Thousand Wells. We have a long afternoon's ride over sand
dunes, slowly toiling from mile to mile. We can see a ledge of rocks in
the distance, and the Indian with us assures us that we shall find water
there. At night we come to the cliff, and under it, in a great cave, we
find a lakelet. Sweeter, cooler water never blessed the desert.

While at Jacob's Pool, several days before, I sent a runner forward into
this region with instructions to hunt us up some of the natives and
bring them to this pool. When we arrive we are disappointed in not
finding them on hand, but a little later half a dozen men come in with
the Indian messenger. They are surly fellows and seem to be displeased
at our coming. Before midnight they leave. Under the circumstances I do
not feel that it is safe to linger long at this spot; so I do not lie
down to rest, but walk the camp among the guards and see that everything
is in readiness to move. About two o'clock I set a couple of men to
prepare a hasty lunch, call up all hands, and we saddle, pack, eat our
lunch, and start off to the southwest to reach the Moenkopi, where there
is a little rancheria of Indians, a farming settlement belonging to the
Oraibis, so we are told. We set out at a rapid rate, and when daylight
comes we are in sight of the canyon of the Moenkopi, into which we soon
descend; but the rancheria has been abandoned. Up the Moenkopi we pass
several miles, in a beautiful canyon valley, until we find a pool in a
nook of a cliff, where we feel that we can defend ourselves with
certainty, and here we camp fo