By that time I had about given up all hope of getting any farther, and if the weather had only been cooler I could have endured with equanimity the idle life and knocking about from the ship to the slue, and from the slue to the ship.

But the heat was unbearable.

We had to unpack our trunks again and get out heavy-soled shoes, for the zinc which covered the decks of these river-steamers burned through the thin slippers we had worn on the ship.
That day we had a little diversion, for we saw the "Gila" come down the river and up the slue, and tie up directly alongside of us.

She had on board and in barges four companies of the Twenty-third Infantry, who were going into the States.

We exchanged greetings and visits, and from the great joy manifested by them all, I drew my conclusions as to what lay before us, in the dry and desolate country we were about to enter.
The women's clothes looked ridiculously old-fashioned, and I wondered if I should look that way when my time came to leave Arizona.
Little cared they, those women of the Twenty-third, for, joy upon joys! They saw the "Newbern" out there in the offing, waiting to take them back to green hills, and to cool days and nights, and to those they had left behind, three years before.
On account of the wind, which blew again with great violence, the "Cocopah" could not leave the slue that day.