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Show 590 Ex. Doc. No. 41. with. In travelling over this region, as :vell as all p~ante. coun~ tries the most casual observer is struck w1th the grac~at10ns In ~he class'es of })lants, an~l will instinc.tively, almost, fi~d h1msclf mak1ng inquiries of a botan1cal sort of h1s own; the cactl stand alone; but they, in one extreme, approach a shrub; the other, ~ fungus. T~e agave stands at the. head of its spec~es, but follow lt. uo~n, a.n~ lt will be found of {1 dfcren t sorts, un ttl one appears scarce d tshnguishable from g~a~s. The acac~a,. from the thorny bush and m~squite, to the senstllvc plant, exlnbtt.s th~ same. general charactenstics. Step a little further, antl the mfi.nt~e vanety of the bean and pea stripe show anal agou characten sllcs. All th c plants and grasses of this country appear to have a thorny defence. Why they are so protecte<1,Icann?t yet di~cover. No ~loubtthew~sdom of Providence i shown therein. Wlute and blue hmestone dtp W. Distance, six miles. November 3.-Th sun ro e as u ual upon a dear morning quite cool· after breakfast the Pino1eros came in with a few mules, whicl1 we bought, at the rate of a blanket, three yards of domestic, a knife, and. looking -g lass, for a mule. Animals arc cheap to people who steal all they have; and they have very little usc for them, except to cat, as their conn try is too rocky to need their animals much t.o travel about. They brought with them a handsome Span~ ish boy, taken from his home several years ago; he seemed contented; his master said he liked him too well to sell him, upon the generals offering to buy him. They brought some of the cooked muscal to the general; it ta ted something l1ke sweet pumpkin baked, and looked very much like it. Our camp is situated in a (lccp ravine, with a narrow bottom on the creek; th e hills steep on each side, composed of the diluvion of one hundred feet thick, which is composed of the boulders of the rocks which form the adjacent mountains, cemented by silicious sand and lime. The blue and white limestone are specimens of what we found yesterday, containing enimity and other fossils. A squaw had some cry, tals of metal of yellowish color, but rated them too hig-h for purchase. There is a fine silver mine, it is said, on the an Pedro. The old squaw came into camp arrayed in a light ging11am dress, trimmed with lace, no doubt the spoil of some Sonora damse I, who had put all her industry upon this, her fandango dress. The old woman had no pins to fasten it behind, so she soon strippecl her arms and breast of the encumbrance, and rode out of camp in a reel flannel shirt, which s!Jc had got in trade from one of the soldiers. Our howitzers got up this evening perfectly dismantled. Captain Moore set to work and contrived a new coupling, so that we hope to get along better; they have been a complete drag upon us so far. The small wheels are good to prevent upsetting as far as may be, but the smaller the wheels the greater the friction, and a small stone • Part of this limestone is a busira, containino- small frao-mcnts of slate and other rocks in smnll piocos, which would mako a beau~iful ma~ble . Tho" whole of tho stone is very compact. In a boulder. ?f. the sandstone l~mg loose, I saw a central stone, which appeared to have a.~eumulatod ~1Llc10us sand around 1t before becoming inoorporatcd in tho bed of sand. Oppos1te to the pomts, the layers of accum.ul&.tion were thrust, ... I f Ex. Doc. No. 41. 591 is a great obstacle. The road we had to come is perhaps worse in some places t~an they were expected to have been taken over; they have several times rolled off a steep place, carrying the mules with them down the hill. November ~.-Ma~checl at 8, an(l look a outhwest cour ·e, gradually ascendmg untd we could sec far over the co untry to the ~ortheast.; t.he s?ow-capp~cl mountain was U~us to be een, and at It~ base It 1s s~Hl .there IS a route. from th1 plare by which the Kwteros. go to Zuru. I have been Informed that the expresses of the president of Lucson once were in the habit of going to the lo.we r settlements of New Mexico in ten dayR, probably to Zuni or ~ 1 b o lJ eta ; the. r o u t e w o ~d < 1 p r o? a b I y b e n o r t h e a s t from t hi s p 0 s i _ t10n: Lucson 1 ·about ninety miles soulhwc t of the mouth of San Pedro. We, in our course, within a few miles, pa~~ed green hollows b~tween th e hills, con.taining a sratt~red growth of sycamore, oak, willow, cherry, m_usqt11t, senna, cactt, agave, haC'kbrrry, ash, w.alnut, zala, ceda r, ptnc, a dwarf black gum, grape vines, various k Ln d s o f grass , 1 a m b s q u ~ r .t e r , ( t h c see d of w h .i c h t h c In c1 i an eat,) squash, and sundry.fam!ltar wccdR, all showmg the sign s of autumn, except ~he hvc oak and evcrgr ens; scarce any ilowrrs to be seen, all bcwg gone ~o ser·~l. About six miles from camp we found t.he rock out.cropptng, d~p 30 d~~rees southwest, granite be~ ow, WI~h.Iargc gra111s, a~cl enttrcly dt, Integrated, and one part of It. contatn ing mall mo.rscls of other rock imbedded, then the 1>udd m g s ton e wIth r o u n ~l . I :n b e d d c d p c b b I e s a b o u t t h c s i z c of g 0 0 s e eggs, cemen ted by, Ilicxous san cl, then black slate· then sancl tone t 11 cn compact 1t' me. lone, forming- un even cliffs to' the northeast ' g iving a slope of 30 degrees southwest; on these hills there was ~ g~od deal of timber. Our road was rough and rocky; about 12 mdes we came to a place where ~arson had .slept wh n going up; ther ~ we got wat~r enough to clrmk by serapmg the sand; hrre 0 ur how1tz ers were dtrccted to spend the night, and we pushed on to the river, 12 miles furth~r. Six mile from the river we fell into a valley of a dry stream, which gave us a good road down to the river· here we fell into anothrr Indian trail, larger than that we were upon~ both were fresh signs of cattle lately driven from Sonora. These I~dians have now been 17 years living by the plunder of Sonora· when they are r e qui r c d to ~top , it w i ll r quire. e it her money or {)ow de r to make them obey . Along the road. SI<~ c we observed in many places that the grass had be en burned 111 h tt 1 e patches; th i occurr~ d all along the road: why the .eau e o~ it is unknown, probably signals. As we approached the nver agam, several new species of plants sho\\ ")d thcm ~ elv es ; a new cac.tus, a new variety of the SpanIsh bayonet, and others of nondescnpt ch aracter. On the Gila we fO'und a few sprigs of the cane. The diluvial beds we first came to ns we left camp occur again on the river in their usual thickness in places surmounte~ by trap., wh~ch ~ er~ again makes its appearance. Where we stnke the nver xs stdl m the ca11on, but below us it is practicable for the wheels; we went up stream half a mile here and found a camp of scanty grass. . ' November 5.-Move at 9? a2d conc.lud.e to .se.ek a. b~tter camp lower down; our road was stdl the Indtan stealing trad, which we |
