| OCR Text |
Show 434 DESCRIPTION OF THE COLORADO. scant of pasturage, though in some stretches is found a low grass; it abounds in carrizo, tides, bledos, and other tall grasses ( zacatones), whose seeds the Indians eat. The quality of the soil on its banks is good, except here and there an alkaline piece of ground, so that the Indians sow and harvest every kind of grain; and the banks of this river being cultivated, and widened in some places, not only can it support its own inhabitants and those adjacent { havitadores y circunvez-itws), but also a much larger population. This river is as it were a barrier to the Serranos and Yabipais, who do not venture to ford it, and on particularly necessary occasions the natives cross it on some logs ( unos polos). Hence may be inferred the little trouble the Apaches will cause us, fixing our establishments on the other side of the river. The nations who inhabit from the disemboguement thereof, on one and the other side, and in their successive order, are: Cucapa; Jalliquamai; Cajuenche; Yuma; Jalchedun; ' Jamajab; Chemeguaba; Yabipai; Payuchas; and Yutas. I note that crops only extend up to the Jamajabs, for that thence upward the river runs so boxed- up ( encaxonado) that neither does the ground yield anything nor can cultivation be effected; aye, Garces proceeds to name we recognize carrizo as Phragmites communis, the common cane; tule is any bulrush or species of Scirpus; bledo and other zacatones are wholly uncertain. |
