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that we should see sights and portents in the heavens, making playful allusion to events in old Rome.1 Its appearance was so sudden that I am sure that there was not a man in the party upon whom it did not make an impression.
Captain Gift says:
At Blue Water we were met by two citizens of Tucson, who came to apprise us of the fact that the Federal forces were evacuating the Territory, and had already burned Fort Breckinridge, and, in passing through Tucson toward Fort Buchanan, had burned the town grist-mill, the only one upon which the people had to depend for their flour.
Therefore, much indignation existed, and there was a general wish to join forces with us and punish the vandals.
The Federal troops amounted to four companies-two infantry and two dragoon-and with our force of thirty men, the people could combine an equal number, and, by pouncing suddenly on the enemy, it was thought an easy victory could be obtained.
Many of our party were eager to burn powder, and try their mettle; but the general restrained them with the same argument he had used at Yuma-we must commit no illegal act. We rested by the pure waters, and grazed our animals on the pastures near Tucson, for two days.
The country through which they passed was uninhabited, except at rare intervals.
There were a few villages of
Pimos Indians, a peaceable agricultural tribe; but the country was infested by roving bands of
Apache and
Navajo Indians, tribes very similar to the Comanches, heretofore described in this volume.
Timber was scarce; and, on every hand, the distant landscape was broken by rugged ranges, or bald, isolated mountains.
Sometimes the road passed through a region of thorns and cacti, of all forms and sizes, prickly and threatening, that pressed their spines against the unwary traveler.
Then the road would ascend from these depressed valleys to high, rocky table-lands, threading the most accessible paths around the foot of detached ridges and “lost mountains,” on which grew a scanty herbage of agave, salt grass, and wild-sage.
Captain Gift tells the following anecdote of their stay at
Tucson:
Encamped near us was a party of Texas Unionists, bound to California.
During the afternoon one of the elders of the party came over to enjoy a little
