ten
luncheon we were ready to start, the boat was shoved off, and we were
embarked for Mexico.

Half an hour later we passed the abandoned Imperial Canal, the
man-made channel which had nearly destroyed the vast agricultural
lands which it had in turn created. Just such a flood as that on which
we were travelling had torn out the insufficiently supported
head-gates. The entire stream, instead of pushing slowly across the
delta, weltering in its own silt to the Gulf, poured into the bottom
of the basin nearly four hundred feet below the top of this silt-made
dam. In a single night it cut an eighty-foot channel in the unyielding
soil, and what had once been the northern end of the California Gulf
was turned into an inland sea, filled with the turbid waters of the
Colorado, instead of the sparkling waters of the ocean. Nothing but an
almost superhuman fight finally rescued the land from the grip of the
water.

A short distance below, just across the Mexican line, on the
California side, was the new canal, dug in a firmer soil and with
strongly built gates anchored in rock back from the river.

Half a mile away from the stream, on a spur railway, was the Mexican
custom-house. I had imagined that it would be beside the river, and
that guards would be seen patrolling the shore. But aside from an
Indian fishing, there was no one to be seen. We walked out to the
custom-house, gave a list of the few things which we had, assured them
that we carried no guns, paid our duty, and departed. We had imagined
that our boat would be inspected, but no one came near.

The border line makes a jog here at the river and the Arizona-Mexico
line was still a few miles down the stream. We had passed the mouth of
the old silt-dammed Colorado channel, which flowed a little west of
south; and we turned instead to the west into the spreading delta or
moraine. About this time I remarked that I had seen no store at the
custom-house and that I must not neglect to get provisions at the next
one or we would be rather short.

"We passed our last custom-house back there." Al replied, "That's
likely the last place we will see until we get to the ranch by the
Gulf."

No custom-house! No store! This was a surprise. What was a border for
if not to have custom-houses and inspectors? With all the talk of
smuggling I had not thought of anything else. And I could tell by Al's
tone that his estimation of my foresight had dropped several degrees.
This was on