The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-06-26

time, with a descent of about fifteen.
degrees at night, without undulyz eXcit-
ing the 5000 persons, greasers and In
dams, who make up Yuma's population.
"All conditions combine to make the
town the hot place it is. To begin with,
it is. situated In a low basin on the brim
of the sluggishs dirty Colorado river,
which .strays through the desert sands
and adobe soil down to the gulf of Cali
fornia. Across this river, away to the.
west and the south, stretches the great
Colorado desert, many thousand square
miles in area. Such a CHASTITY wilderness.
is the great patch of sand that no one is
sufficiently dauntless or foolhardy to
cross by wagon or on foot in the late
spring and summer. and never in the
dead of winter, unless accompanied by
companions and supplied with an abund-
ance of food and drinking water, for,
besides the deadly heat, there are sand
storms of such magnitude that whole
companies of adventures and several de-
tachments of Uncle Sans boys in blue III
pursuit of hostile Indians have been
wiped out by them.
LITTLE RAIN FALLS.
Rain falls in Yuma and-its vicinity not
more than five times a year, and then only
in the early winter months. Some heavy
| floods occur in February and March, how
ever, when the waters of the Colorado rise
and overflow the banks because or the
| rapid melting of the snow upon the noun
tains of Colorado and Northern Arizona
and the heavy rainfalls in Southern Cali
fornia. When the waters recede some
thousands of acres of fertile bottom lands
are uncovered along the sides OF the
river, an area of aliuvial mud, and the
Indians rush to them to plant mesQuit
beans and melon seeds for their annual
crops. The richness of these bottom lands
has attracted much attention in the East
| of recent years and many enterpr1sing
are growing small fruits and melons.
which are first in the market, even in
| Southern California and Los Angeles.
of adobe Of shs and bres they ape
story and have walls from two to three
feet thick Everyone, without regard to
sort or condition, sleeps out OF doors at
night for nearly ten months IN the year,
for 1t is almost impossible to endure the
heat and closeneSs of any apartment from
the: beginning Of spring until the advent
an. eminence early in the morning, the
view presented by Yuma Is one to be re-
membered for years by one unaccustomed
to Arizona life. Hundreds, and hundreds
of men, women and children, each prone
upon q cot and sound asleep, may be seen
on the roofs and piazzas, or in the in
homes. Some are sleeping in their light
est garments, others are covered by the
thinnest of sheets, while little boys and
girls and infants sleep the sleep of the
innocent and conscious free without any
incumbrance of clothing or covering. In
the railroad hotels all the beds are made
up every day in late spring and summer
on the piaZZas, and the guests obtain
whatever sleep they can until a. M. by
which time the sun has risen so high that
1t is impossible for even an old inhabitant
to sleep longer.
Years ago the army garrison at Yuma
was famous among officers and men as
the most dreaded and despised post on
the frontier, and 1t is probable that no
other fort in the extreme West ever con-
tanned so many men who later became
great and distinguished military leaders.
Among them were Generals Albert Sidney
Johnston, Custer, Phil Kearney, Edward
F. Beale, Longstreet and Mcdowell, all
premiership there and commented fer
vently in their letters and diaries upon
the internal heat.
{" John Phenix, whose real name was
Fl. 4. Derby. and who was lieutenant
in the regular army, besides being the
| father of his peculiar style of American
humor, died in Yuma. To his pen is at
| tributed that hoary, decrepit old story
| about the soldier who had lived and died
| in the garrison at Yuma, and whose ghost
came back one night for his army blank
AN INTERESTING PRISON.
"But most interesting of all to the
| stranger from the East, PERHAPS, is old
Yuma prison, now the Arizona peniten-
| tfary, and dreaded as much by modern
criminals as it was once feared by resrac-
| tory regular army men. 1t stands upon
| RADIO and ella rivers for miles. On one
| side is the dirty Colorado and on the
| other three sides the terrible desert A
| wall sixteen feet high incloses the prison.
The wall is eight feet thick ait the base
and five feet thick at the top. Within 1t