to stimulate than to
soothe the weary nerves. But the glare of the sun was gone, and after
awhile a stillness settled down upon this company of Uncle Sam's
servants and their followers. (In the Army Regulations, wives are not
rated except as "camp followers.")

But even this short respite from the glare of the sun was soon to end;
for before the crack of dawn, or, as it seemed to us, shortly after
midnight, came such a clatter with the fires and the high-pressure
engine and the sparks, and what all they did in that wild and reckless
land, that further rest was impossible, and we betook ourselves with
our mattresses to the staterooms, for another attempt at sleep, which,
however, meant only failure, as the sun rose incredibly early on that
river, and we were glad to take a hasty sponge from a basin of rather
thick looking river-water, and go again out on deck, where we could
always get a cup of black coffee from the Chinaman.

And thus began another day of intolerable glare and heat. Conversation
lagged; no topic seemed to have any interest except the thermometer,
which hung in the coolest place on the boat; and one day when Major
Worth looked at it and pronounced it one hundred and twenty-two in the
shade, a grim despair seized upon me, and I wondered how much more heat
human beings could endure. There was nothing to relieve the monotony of
the scenery. On each side of us, low river banks, and nothing between
those and the horizon line. On our left was Lower [*] California, and on
our right, Arizona. Both appeared to be deserts.

* This term is here used (as we used it at Ehrenberg) to
designate the low, flat lands west of the river, without any
reference to Lower California proper,--the long peninsula
belonging to Mexico.

As the river narrowed, however, the trip began to be enlivened by the
constant danger of getting aground on the shifting sand-bars which are
so numerous in this mighty river. Jack Mellon was then the most famous
pilot on the Colorado, and he was very skilful in steering clear of the
sand-bars, skimming over them, or working his boat off, when once fast
upon them. The deck-hands, men of a mixed Indian and Mexican race, stood
ready with long poles, in the bow, to jump overboard, when we struck
a bar, and by dint of pushing, and reversing the engine, the boat would
swing off.

On approaching a shallow place, they would sound with their poles, and
in a sing-song high-pitched ton