the bull-fights were held, and the old fort. They told also about the cock-pits—and about the refreshing drinks they had.
My thirst began to be abnormal. We bought a dozen cocoanuts, and I drank the milk from them, and made up my mind to go ashore at the next port; for after nine days with only thick black coffee and bad warm water to drink, I was longing for a cup of good tea or a glass of fresh, sweet milk.
A day or so more brought us to Guaymas, another Mexican port. Mrs. Wilkins said she had heard something about an old Spaniard there, who used to cook meals for stray travellers. This was enough. I was desperately hungry and thirsty, and we decided to try and find him. Mrs. Wilkins spoke a little Spanish, and by dint of inquiries we found the man's house, a little old, forlorn, deserted-looking adobe casa.
We rapped vigorously upon the old door, and after some minutes a small, withered old man appeared.
Mrs. Wilkins told him what we wanted, but this ancient Delmonico declined to serve us, and said, in Spanish, the country was "a desert"; he had "nothing in the house"; he had "not cooked a meal in years"; he could not; and, finally, he would not; and he gently pushed the door to in our faces. But we did not give it up, and Mrs. Wilkins continued to persuade. I mustered what Spanish I knew, and told him I would pay him any price for a cup of coffee with fresh milk. He finally yielded, and told us to return in one hour.
So we walked around the little deserted town. I could think only of the breakfast we were to have in the old man's casa. And it met and exceeded our wildest anticipations, for, just fancy! We were served with a delicious boullion, then chicken, perfectly cooked, accompanied by some dish flavored with chile verde, creamy biscuit, fresh butter, and golden coffee with milk. There were three or four women and several officers in the party, and we had a merry breakfast. We paid the old man generously, thanked him warmly, and returned to the ship, fortified to endure the sight of all the green ducks that came out of the lower hold.
You must remember that the "Newbern" was a small and old propeller, not fitted up for passengers, and in those days the great refrigerating plants were unheard of. The women who go to the Philippines on our great transports of to-day cannot realize and will scarcely believe what we endured for lack of ice and of good food on that never-to-be-forgotten voyage down the Pacific coast and up the Gulf of California in the summer of 1874.
CHAPTER V. THE SLUE
At last, after a voyage of thirteen days, we came to anchor a mile or so off Port Isabel, at the mouth of the Colorado River. A narrow but deep slue runs up into the desert land, on the east side of the river's mouth, and provides a harbor of refuge for the flat-bottomed stern-wheelers which meet the ocean steamers at this point. Hurricanes are prevalent at this season in the Gulf of California, but we had been fortunate in not meeting with any on the voyage. The wind now freshened, however, and beat the waves into angry foam, and there we lay for three days on the "Newbern," off Port Isabel, before the sea was calm enough for the transfer of troops and baggage to the lighters.
This was excessively disagreeable. The wind was like a breath from a furnace; it seemed as though the days would never end, and the wind never stop blowing. Jack's official diary says: "One soldier died to-day."
Finally, on the fourth day, the wind abated, and the transfer was begun. We boarded the river steamboat "Cocopah," towing a barge loaded with soldiers, and steamed away for the slue. I must say that we welcomed the change with delight. Towards the end of the afternoon the "Cocopah" put her nose to the shore and tied up. It seemed strange not to see pier sand docks, nor even piles to tie to. Anchors were taken ashore and the boat secured in that manner: there being no trees of sufficient size to make fast to.
The soldiers went into camp on shore. The heat down in that low, flat place was intense. Another man died that night.
What was our chagrin, the next morning, to learn that we must go back to the "Newbern," to carry some freight from up-river. There was nothing to do but stay on board and tow that dreary barge, filled with hot, red, baked-looking ore, out to the ship, unload, and go back up the slue. Jack's diary records: "Aug. 23rd. Heat awful. Pringle died to-day." He was the third soldier to succumb. It seemed to me their fate was a hard one. To die, down in that wretched place, to be rolled in a blanket and buried on those desert shores, with nothing but a heap of stones to mark their graves.
The adjutant of the battalion read the burial service, and the trumpeters stepped to the edge of the graves and sounded "Taps," which echoed sad and melancholy far over those parched and arid lands. My eyes filled with tears, for one of the soldiers was from our own company, and had been kind to me.
Jack said: "You mustn't cry, Mattie; it's a soldier's life, and when a man enlists he must take his chances."
"Yes, but," I said, "somewhere there must be a mother or sister, or some one who cares for these poor men, and it's all so sad to think of."
"Well, I know it is sad," he replied, soothingly, "but listen! It is all over, and the burial party is returning."
I listened and heard the gay strains of "The girl I left behind me," which the trumpeters were playing with all their might. "You see," said Jack, "it would not do for the soldiers to be sad when one of them dies. Why, it would demoralize the whole command. So they play these gay things to cheer them up."
And I began to feel that tears must be out of place at a soldier's funeral. I attended many a one after that, but I had too much imagination, and in spite of all my brave efforts, visions of the poor boy's mother on some little farm in Missouri or Kansas perhaps, or in some New England town, or possibly in the old country, would come before me, and my heart was filled with sadness.
The Post Hospital seemed to me a lonesome place to die in, although the surgeon and soldier attendants were kind to the sick men. There were no women nurses in the army in those days.
The next day, the "Cocopah" started again and towed a barge out to the ship. But the hot wind sprang up and blew fiercely, and we lay off and on all day, until it was calm enough to tow her back to the slue. 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. The officers and soldiers were desperate for something to do. So they tried fishing, and caught some "croakers," which tasted very fresh and good, after all the curried and doctored-up messes we had been obliged to eat on board ship.
We spent seven days in and out of that slue. Finally, on August the 26th, the wind subsided and we started up river. Towards sunset we arrived at a place called "Old Soldier's Camp." There the "Gila" joined us, and the command was divided between the two river-boats. We were assigned to the "Gila," and I settled myself down with my belongings, for the remainder of the journey up river.
We resigned ourselves to