wickiup was running very low, necessitating the putting of the family on short allowance. She was, in short, not a bit like the traditional "fair Alfaretto" in any respect; nevertheless I would have looked twice at an angel from heaven had one been offered in trade for her, unless the angel had come with a coach-and four, or on horseback, leading a spare horse, at the very least.
There is a little river, called the Aqua Blancho, issuing out of the San Bernardino Mountain, at the San Gorgonio Pass, at the upper end of the valley, and sinking in the sands of the desert soon after reaching the plain. Its waters are pure and cool, but no tree nor blade of grass grows on its desolate banks. From its source in the barren rock-ribbed mountain to its sink in the desert sands, through all its course, it is an accursed river, flowing ever in silence through a land accursed. But after it sinks and is permanently lost to sight, it contributes something to the comfort of mankind. It supplies the poor Coahuilas' wells fifty and a hundred miles to the southward, and nourishes a growth of the mezquite trees along the western side of the valley. In these mezquite groves the Indians have what is left of their villages since the small-pox has decimated them; and from the trees they gather the long, yellow, sugary beans, which, pounded into a paste and baked as bread, form with the piñions, or mountain pine nuts, almost their only diet the year round. The small-pox was a terrible infliction upon them, but a more terrible one followed close upon it. When the Indians of the
