It was covered by low succulent plants, of the same kind with those growing on the sea-shore.

The Colorado, at the pass where we crossed it, is only about sixty yards wide; generally it must be nearly double that width.

Its course is very tortuous, being marked by willow-trees and beds of reeds: in a direct line the distance to the mouth of the river is said to be nine leagues, but by water twenty-five.

We were delayed crossing in the canoe by some immense troops of mares, which were swimming the river in order to follow a division of troops into the interior.

A more ludicrous spectacle I never beheld than the hundreds and hundreds of heads, all directed one way, with pointed ears and distended snorting nostrils, appearing just above the water like a great shoal of some amphibious animal.