Rank also
mattered not; Lieutenant-Colonel Wilkins and his wife lay down to
rest, with the captains and lieutenants and their wives, wherever
their respective strikers had placed their mattresses (for this
was the good old time when the soldiers were allowed to wait upon
officers 'families).
Under these circumstances, much sleep was not to be thought of;
the sultry heat by the river bank, and the pungent smell of the
arrow-weed which lined the shores thickly, contributed more to
stimulate than to soothe the weary nerves. But the glare of the
sun was gone, and after awhile a stillness settled down upon this
company of Uncle Sam's servants and their followers. (In the Army
Regulations, wives are not rated except as "camp followers.")
But even this short respite from the glare of the sun was soon to
end; for before the crack of dawn, or, as it seemed to us,
shortly after midnight, came such a clatter with the fires and
the high-pressure engine and the sparks, and what all they did in
that wild and reckless land, that further rest was impossible,
and we betook ourselves with our mattresses to the staterooms,
for another attempt at sleep, which, however, meant only failure,
as the sun rose incredibly early on that river, and we were glad
to take a hasty sponge from a basin of rather thick looking
river-water, and go again out on deck, where we could always get
a cup of black coffee from the Chinaman.
And thus began another day of intolerable glare and heat.
Conversation lagged; no topic seemed to have any interest except
the thermometer, which hung in the coolest place on the boat; and
one day when Major Worth looked at it and pronounced it one
hundred and twenty-two in the shade, a grim despair seized upon
me, and I wondered how much more heat human beings could endure.
There was nothing to relieve the monotony of the scenery. On each
side of us, low river banks, and nothing between those and the
horizon line. On our left was Lower * California, and on our
right, Arizona. Both appeared to be deserts.
*This term is here used (as we used it at Ehrenberg) to designate
the low, flat lands west of the river, without any reference to
Lower California proper, - the long peninsula belonging to Mexico.
As the river narrowed, however, the trip began to be enlivened by
the constant danger of getting aground on the shifting sand-bars
which are so numerous in this mighty river. Jack Mellon was then
the most famous pilot on the Colorado, and he was very skilful in
steering clear of the sand-bars, skimming over them, or working
his boat off, when once fast upon them. The deck-hands, men of a
mixed Indian and Mexican race, stood ready with long poles, in
the bow, to jump overboard, when we struck a bar,and by dint of
pushing, and reversing the engine, the boat would swing off.
On approaching a shallow place, they would sound with their
poles, and in a sing-song high-pitched tone drawl out the number
of feet. Sometimes their sleepy drawling tones would suddenly
cease, and crying loudly, "No alli agua!" they would swing
themselves over the side of the boat into the river, and begin
their strange and intricate manipulations with the poles. Then,
again, they would carry the anchor away off and by means of great
spars, and some method too complicated for me to describe,
Captain Mellon would fairly lift the boat over the bar.
But our progress was naturally much retarded, and sometimes we
were aground an hour, sometimes a half day or more. Captain
Mellon was always cheerful. River steamboating was his life, and
sand-bars were his excitement. On one occasion, I said, "Oh!
Captain, do you think we shall get off this bar to-day ?" "Well,
you can't tell," he said, with a twinkle in his eye; "one trip, I
lay fifty-two days on a bar," and then, after a short pause, "but
that don't happen very often; we sometimes lay a week, though;
there is no telling; the bars change all the time."
Sometimes the low trees and brushwood on the banks parted, and a
young squaw would peer out at us. This was a little diversion,
and picturesque besides. They wore very short skirts made of
stripped bark, and as they held back the branches of the low
willows, and looked at us with curiosity, they made pictures so
pretty that I have never forgotten them. We had no kodaks then,
but even if we had had them, they could not have reproduced the
fine copper color of those bare shoulders and arms, the soft wood
colors of the short bark skirts, the gleam of the sun upon their
blue-black hair, and the turquoise color of the wide bead-bands
which encircled their arms.
One morning, as I was trying to finish out a nap in my
stateroom, Jack came excitedly in and said: "Get up, Martha, we
are coming to Ehrenberg!" Visions of castles on the Rhine, and
stories of the middle ages floated through my mind, as I sprang
up, in pleasurable anticipation of seeing an interesting and
beautiful place. Alas! for my ignorance. I saw but a row of low
thatched hovels, perched on the edge of the ragged looking
river-bank; a road ran lengthwise along, and opposite the hovels
I saw a store and some more mean-looking huts of adobe.
"Oh! Jack!" I cried, "and is that Ehrenberg? Who on earth gave
such a name to the wretched place?"
"Oh, some old German prospector, I suppose; but never mind, the
place is all right enough.
