The Arizona sentinel., 1888-10-13
DOWN THE COLORADO.
A Pleasant Outing at San Fel,pe

l
 ED. SENTINEL:-In compliance witt : your request to 'tell you all about it, l will give you the few notes which
 made of our trip to the Gulf. Thi.
 tale will not abound with narratives O
 thrilling adventures or hair breadth
 escapes from death tor worse fates)-
 because we had none-prepared as wt
 were on leaving Yama to stand almos
 any kind of siege for an indefinite pe-
 riod; our two boats well loaded witt
 bacon, flour, beans and other similar
 appetizing "confections" we started
 on our downward course" without any
 of the cankering dread which Colum-
 bus might have felt when starting out
 on his celebrated voyage of discovery
 when racking his brain in the endeav
 or to remember if he "hadn't forgotten
 something" he was paralyzed by the
 discovery that the bottle of snake
 medicine had been left behind. We
 had no snake medicine on our mani
 fest-or elsewhere-for our worthy
 captain was familiar with the ground
 which was about to be viewed for the
 first time by the rest of our party, and
 he knew the snakes down there were
 all right physically, and needed no
 medicine.
 The party consisted of Capt J. A.
 Mellon, H. H. Powell, Col. Jerry Shine, a passenger for the Colony, and your humble servant We were "aided
 and abetted" by four delegates from
 the Cocopah tribe, all men of fine physique and abnormal appetites, stur- dy sons of the desert in whose guile less bosoms no thought of evil or de sire to work had ever found resting place. At l2:l0 a. m. of Saturday, Sept. Dist, our little fotilla silently and majestically dropped away from the side of the Steamer Mohave, and we were afoat on the limpid bosom of the mighty Colorado. (That word ''limpid" don't, somehow, seem to de scribe exactly the waters of the Colo rado, but it's good word, anyhow). However, as 1 observed, we foated, and the current, aided by the man C war stroke of the doughty Change and his assistants, rapidly bore us toward the ''Land of the Montezumas. By the way, we did not meet any of MT. Montezuma's family on the trip, and 1 have reason to believe they have moved away. However, the land is there. By the time the sun had risen we were some twenty miles or more from Yuma, and soon afterward had passed the Sonora line and bid fare well (. e. a poco tiempo farewelD t, our native land. Our feelings on this momentous occasion were varied and extensive, but l calmed mine down with couple of hard tack and expe- rienced no bad results.
 During the day we overlook ana i passed skiff containing a man whom i 1 judged to be the original clone Fisherman" He informed us that he had come from Black Canon and had | passed Yuma two days before; was on | his way to Lerdo Colony "to see man" and had no definite idea as to his ultimate destination. He had eaten nothing for some time (couldn'+ the exact date of his last meaD as his larder had been overhaul ed during his temporary absence from the boat and all hls grub stolen. We supplied him with provisions from our own ample store and left him to pur- sue his way to the Colony, where he arrived a few hours behind us, at 5 D. m. on the 22d.
 We made our first camp at Melon Patch Slough, eighty miles from Yu- ma, and were up and away again at } a. m. of the 23d. We reached the Colony at noon, having made the dis 5ance of l20 miles (by river) in 24 hours of actual travel; 36 hours out from Yuma. This rate of progress 1 was rather slow to suit the Captain, who had made frequent appeals to the noble red men in the effort to increase our speed, but without any lasting effect. We halted at the Colony for couple of hours Gust long enough to get Jerry Shine out of the boat) and he Indians improved the opportunity % restow our cargo of grub, by trans :errlng it from the hold of the boat to heir own expansive holds. The Gap ain after observing their work on hat 'lunch" made rapid mental cal 'ulation of the tonnage; or stowage capacity of each Indian, and decided hat 1.-two of 'em were better than our if the rest of the party intended Q eat anything on the trip" and so decided to leave the two best appe- ites at Lerdo. The others did not eem to manifest that extreme anxiety o go or with the expedition which vas to be expected of them, but after | little persuasion they decided to ac- company us. /,
 From Yuma to the Colony the river nd its banks had presented but few hanges of appearance, there being the anne alteration of high banks and | 'ars, heavily grown stretches of cot : onwood, willow and mesquite timber, nd long stretches of new land near .