some of them cannibals. Indeed, I may
as well here observe that most of the tribes inhabiting the Colorado are
men-eaters, even including the Arrapahoes, on certain occasions. Once we
fell in with a deserted camp of Clubmen, and there we found the remains
of about twenty bodies, the bones of which had been picked with
apparently as much relish as the wings of a pheasant would have been by
a European epicure. This winter passed gloomily enough, and no wonder.
Except a few beautiful groves, found here and there, like the oases in
the sands of the Sahara, the whole country is horribly broken and
barren. Forty miles above the Gulf of California, the Colorado ceases to
be navigable, and presents from its sources, for seven hundred miles,
nothing but an uninterrupted series of noisy and tremendous cataracts,
bordered on each side by a chain of perpendicular rocks, five or six
hundred feet high, while the country all around seems to have been
shaken to its very centre by violent volcanic eruptions.

Winter at length passed away, and with the first weeks of spring were
renovated our hopes of escape. The Arrapahoes, relenting in their
vigilance, went so far as to offer us to accompany them in an expedition
eastward. To this, of course, we agreed, and entered very willingly upon
the beautiful prairies of North Sonora. Fortune favoured us; one day,
the Arrapahoes, having followed a trail of Apaches and Mexicans, with an
intent to surprise and destroy them, fell themselves into a snare, in
which they were routed, and many perished.

We made no scruples of deserting our late masters, and, spurring our
gallant steeds, we soon found that our unconscious liberators were a
party of officers bound from Monterey to Santa Fe, escorted by
two-and-twenty Apaches and some twelve or fifteen families of Ciboleros.
I knew the officers, and was very glad to have intelligence from
California. Isabella was as bright as ever, but not quite so
light-hearted. Padre Marini, the missionary, had embarked for Peru, and
the whole city of Monterey was still laughing, dancing, singing, and
love-making, just as I had left them.

The officers easily persuaded me to accompany them to Santa Fe, from
whence I could readily return to Monterey with the next caravan.

A word concerning the Ciboleros may not be uninteresting. Every year,
large parties of Mexicans, some with mules, others with ox-carts, drive
out into these prairies to procure for their families a