waste or desert than any district I have seen. It nevertheless
has occasional oases, with fine grazing lands about them, and the
mountains, which are more broken and detached, have distinct
marks of volcanic origin. The ranges though short, have generally
the same parallel direction as those further east. It is the
country of the Papago Indians, a peaceful and friendly tribe,
extending down to the Gulf coast, where they are mixed up
somewhat with the Cocopas of the Colorado. From Sonoita I
explored to the Gulf shore, near the mouth of Adair Bay. It was
62 miles, following a dry arroya most of the way, and the point
at which I struck the Gulf was in latitude 31 degrees 36 minutes
34 minutes. The "Bay" is about 15 miles across, and from all I
could learn, 15 miles long, and represented as having four
fathoms of water. It is completely encircled by a range of sand
hills, reaching north-west to the Colorado river and south-east
as far as the eye could discover. These "sables" are probably
eighty or ninety miles in extent, by five to tenbroad.

"Notwithstanding it appears to be the most desolate and
forlorn-looking spot for eighty miles around the head of the
Gulf, the sand hills looking like a terrible desert, nature seems
even here, where no rain had fallen for eight months, to have
provided for the sustenance of man, one of the most nutritious
and palatable vegetables.

"East of the Tinaja Alta or high tank range, lie the famous
Sierras del Ajo, now United States territory. These mountains
derive their name from the vast deposits of red oxide and green
carbonate of copper found about them, and which the Indians have
made use of to paint (ajo) themselves with. The mines are