The herald., 1894-03-26
WILL Be A PERILOUS VOYAGE,
Down the Colorado Into the
Gulf Of Mexico
To the Island Where the Savage Ceris
Indians Dwell.
The siOop Examiner, BuiIt at Yuma and
Manned by Four Explorers. to At
tempt Trip to Frisco by
River and Sos.

and. II the thing Is feasible, to weather
Cape San Lucas, asd proceed slong the
coast to San Francisco. She was on the
stocks back Of the Colorado River Steam
Navigation company's sheds week ago,
almost ready TO be launched.
The projectors OF the vessel and OF the
trip ere r. E. l.. Robinson, an ex-
lieutenant in the army, and Charles
Cowell, formerly an Arizona penitsntiary
guard. Since then they have taken into
par.nership in the venture George
Clarke, well-known trapper and ex-
ploref, who year ago went down the
Colorado aud the gulf single handed,
and, after rather lengthy trip, sue
cessfully reached Gusymas. The original
projectors could have made no better
selection, because Clarke ie q natural
born sailor, and most handy man with
the plane and saw, and one who has had
great experience, both in the river and
the gulf, whereas the other two lack
this latter prerequisite in dangerous
and arduous trip.
When the idea OF the voyage entered
the mind OF Robinson and Cowell, they
employed tie services of a superannueted
Of large boat which might be very suit
able to go down the river, although she
could hardly ever come up stream again,
but the design was OF such character
that 1t would have been scorniully re-
jected by any one acquainted with the
choppy and violent seas that are raised
in the gulf OF Cortez by the gusts OF
wind springing up there almost in
simultaneously. Indeed, the man who
designed the yacht seems to have more
knowledge OF the proper lines for a
barn, or, to be charitable, OF a house
boat, than Of eea'going craft.
With a length OF some "a feet the boat
"a flstbottomed one) has eight feet beam
and her bottom is nearly as wide as the
deck, while the length of the center
board is totally inadequate for craft OF
her dimensions, her tonnage being said
to be nearly 10 tons
The carpenters who built the shell
were about 90 practical shipwfights as
its designer, and the result was boat
go utterly weak to Withstand nsety
weather that IL did not seem probable
she would ever be hoated until Trapper
Clark took hand and strengthened her
in such way that now @ trip which
may meet with success is by no means
impossible or even improbable. The
boat has been christensd the Exam
iner," and there are many OF those who
90 down every day to watch her who
aarcastically cay that the name is an apt
one because she will examine the bottom
long before her trip is completed and
carry down into Davy Jones' locker the
bold explorers who mean to sail in her.
Her owners, however, have full conf
dence in her powers.
Lieutenant Robinson and George
Clark, the trapper, know the Lower
Colorado we'll and have great stories to
tell about the river which is facetiously
called the Nile of the West by Journal
istic Munchausen who dwellB in Yuma.
The former has good deal to say about
the "bores" or high tides which periodi-
cally run up the Colorado river with
great velocity, rendering its navigation
exceedingly unsafe at those periods. He
hclds that the scheme OF Mr.. l.. @.
Hughes, at present governor of Arizona,
by the grace of Cleveland, to make the
river navigable for sea going vessels is
for that reason alone impracticRble. Mr..
Clark on the other hand has never seen
the bores OF such size and violence az
Mr.. Robinson and others have, but he
is just as disinclined to admit that the
Colorado can be made navigable and
Yuma seaport within less than q couple
OF thousand years.
The alluvium carried down in the red
waters of the Colorado have formed
banks innumerable all along its bed,
and these keep shifting as the speed OF
the current changes so that it w0uld be
q hard matter for fat bottomed river
boat even, let alone an ocean going
craft, not to get stuck, or snaggsd, or
hopelessly wrecked fifteen times an
hour in the never ending twists and
turns which make a trip OF twenty
miles from Yuma to the border in O
straight line expand to three times that
distance when the river route is chosen.
The main desire of the explorers is to
visit Tiburon island. which lies of the
Sonora coast in about the same latitude
as Hermosillo. This island is to great
extent terra incognita to the general
reader. For this there are many rea.
sons. The gulf navigation is confined
to few Mexican "pAilebotes,' who
have no business at Tiburon, and in the
second place it is inhabited by tribe
of Indians, called Ceris, who are ex-
ceedingly Jealous OF allowing anybody
to land ON its shores. They are very
wild and inhospitable, and will resist q
landing by force.
On account of the vsluelesaness of
the island the Mexican government has
never cared to subjugate the Indians or
enforce its rule over the savages, and as
q consequence the stories that have
been told by travellers are exaggerated
and fabulous. 1t lie not long ago that a
man who claimed to have been
warned away from Tiburon while
anxious to get water there for
his craft stated that it contains
over 1000 Indians; that they are the
only -bloeded descendants of the
Aztecs left in Mexico; that they are
cannibals, etc. The island is q very
rocky one. with some peaks, according
to surveys by the British admiralty,
rising to height of 1000 feet, and the
nature of the soil is in every particular
similar to that of Sonora, from which 1t
is only separated by a channel of less
than two miles in width, and of that of
Lower California. which lies ON the
west OF Tiburon, ct q more considerable
distance. From these premises it must
be aveTred that 1t cannot support 1000
idle Indians, nor even one-third of them.
The Cerio are not -blooded de-
scendants OF the Azteca at ell. but be-
long to the Apache race, and are close
cousins OF the Oocopahe, who have their
habitat on the Colorado from Yuma
dnWu into Hannre uIv..~ak 80 t. lom~