It was impossible to remain with a considerable number of men in a
country destitute of sustenance; so we followed the Gila River down to
its junction with the Colorado, and camped on the bank opposite Fort
Yuma, glad to be again in sight of the American flag. The commanding
officer, Major--afterwards General--Heintzelman, issued the regulation
allowance of emigrant rations, which were very grateful to men who had
been living for some time without what are usually called the
necessaries of life. Fort Yuma was established in 1851, to suppress the
Indians on the Colorado, and to protect emigrants at the crossing.

It was apparent that the junction of the Gila and Colorado must be the
seaport of the new territory.

The Colorado was supposed to be navigable nearly seven hundred miles,
and steamboats were already at Yuma transporting supplies for the post.
By the treaty with Mexico of 1848 the boundary line was established from
the mouth of the Rio Grande northwardly to the headwaters of the Gila
River, thence along the channel of the Gila River to its confluence with
the Colorado. The treaty then says: "From a point at the confluence of
the Gila and Colorado rivers, westerly to a point on the Pacific Ocean
six miles south of the southernmost point of the Bay of San Diego."

As the geography of the country was not well understood at the time, it
was not presumably known to the makers of the treaty that the boundary
line would include both banks of the Colorado River in the American
boundary, but it does. By a curious turn in the Colorado River, after
passing through the gorge between Fort Yuma and the opposite bank, the
boundary line of the United States includes both banks of the River to
the crossing at Pilot Knob, nearly nine miles. When the State of