almost still water; and yet up to our highest position the Sulphur might have been warped or towed by a steamer. During the rainy season, which commences about the middle of November, and terminates about the end of February, the river is said to overflow its banks, when its impetuosity is such that navigation (for the craft of this country I suppose) is then impossible. The annual rains do not, however, of necessity inundate these low lands, but in severe seasons, after heavy falls of snow, they produce one immense sea, leaving only the few scattered eminences which art or nature have produced, as so many islets or spots of refuge.
Upon these spots the tribes who inhabit these low lands are frequently compelled to seek shelter, principally, however, on those artificially constructed,—as all were which we examined. They consist merely of a rounded pile, raised about fifteen feet at the apex above the surrounding level; the space from which the earth is removed forming a ditch to carry off the superfluous water.
Our pilot termed them Rancherias, (as they also do any place to which the natives resort,) and assured us that each was the separate property of a distinct tribe. None exceed one hundred yards in diameter; and confined within such a compass, it is fearful to contemplate the ravages which disease must make in an inclement season, or the misery which the survivors must endure thus pent up with the dead and dying.
