aken, even though a pack-train was to leave,
after the departure of the boat, to transport extra supplies to the end
of the voyage, wherever that might be. It is not easy to understand why
so large a party was necessary. Some few miles above Yuma they came
to the first range of mountains that closes in on the water, suddenly
entering a narrow pass several hundred feet deep. Seven miles farther
on, they went through a small canyon where another range is severed.
This was called Purple Hill Pass, while the first one was named
Explorer's Pass, after the steamer. The first approach to a real canyon
was encountered a short distance above. Emerging from this, called
Canebrake, from some canes growing along the sides, the Explorer ran
aground, resting there for two hours. They had now passed through the
Chocolate Mountains, the same range that Alarcon mentions, and as he
records no other he probably went no farther up than the basin Ives is
now entering, the Great Colorado Valley. Alarcon doubtless proceeded to
the upper part of this valley, about to latitude thirty-four, where
he raised the cross to mark the spot. Two miles above the head of the
canyon, the power of the Explorer was matched against a stiff current
that came swirling around the base of a perpendicular rock one hundred
feet high. With the steam pressure then on, she was not equal to the
encounter and made no advance, whereupon she was headed for a steep
bank to allow the men to leap ashore with a line and tow her beyond the
opposition. Above, the current was milder, but the river spread out
to such an extent that progress was exceedingly difficult, and Ives
expresses a fear that this might prove the head of navigation, yet
he must then have been aware (and certainly was when he published his
report) that Johnson at that very moment was far beyond this with a
steamer larger than the one he was on. It was now January 17, 1858,
and it was on January 23d, that Johnson was at the point where Beale
intended to cross. The steamer was used as a ferry and then left the
same day for Yuma. Captain Johnson with his steamboat had been to the
head of navigation. Ives and Johnson must now pass each other before the
end of this month of December, and the meeting of the two steamers took
place somewhere in this Colorado Valley, for, under date of January
31st, Ives says: "Lieutenant Tipton took advantage of an opportunity
afforded a few days ago, by our meeting Captain Johnson, w