MIRAGES.
About September 1, 1848, on my way from Independence, Mo., to Santa Fé,
N. M., I met some of the soldiers of General Donaldson's regiment
returning from the Mexican War on the Hornather or dry route, lying
between the crossing of the Arkansas and Cimarron. It was about noon
when we met. I saw them a considerable distance away. They were on
horseback, and when they first appeared, the horses' legs looked to be
from fifteen to eighteen feet long, and the body of the horses and the
riders upon them presented a remarkable picture, apparently extending
into the air, rider and horse, forty-five to sixty feet high. This was
my first experience with mirage, and it was a marvel to me.
At the same time I could see beautiful clear lakes of water, apparently
not more than a mile away, with all the surroundings in the way of
bulrushes and other water vegetation common to the margin of lakes. I
would have been willing, at that time, to have staked almost anything
upon the fact that I was looking upon lakes of pure water. This was my
last experience of the kind until I was returning later on in the
season, when one forenoon, as my train was on the march, I beheld just
ahead the largest buffalo bull that I ever saw. I stopped the train to
keep from frightening the animal away, took the gun out of my wagon,
which was in front, and started off to get a shot at the immense fellow,
but when I had walked about eighty yards in his direction, I discovered
that it was nothing more nor less than a little coyote, which would not
have weighed more than thirty pounds upon the scales.
The person who imagines for a minute that there is nothing in the great
desert wastes of the Southwest but sand, cacti, and villainous reptiles
is deluded. It is one of the most common fallacies to write down these
barren places as devoid of beauty and usefulness. The rhymester who made
Robinson Crusoe exclaim, "Oh, solitude, where are the charms that sages
have seen in thy face?" never stood on a sand-dune or a pile of volcanic
rock in this Southwestern country just at the break of day or as the sun
went down, else the rhyme would never have been made to jingle.
To one who has never seen the famous mirages which Dame Nature paints
with a lavish hand upon the horizon that bounds an Arizona desert, it is
difficult to convey an intelligent portrait of these magnificent
phenomena. And one who has looked upon these incomparable transformation
scenes, the Titanic paintings formed by nature's curious slight-of-hand,
can never forget them. They form the memories of a lifetime.
Arizona is rich in mirage phenomena, which, owing to the peculiar
dryness of the atmosphere, are more vivid and of longer duration than in
other parts. The variety of subjects which from time to time have been
presented likewise gives them an unusual interest. Almost every one who
has lived in the Territory any length of time, and one who has merely
passed through, especially on the Southern Pacific Route, is familiar
with the common water mirage which appears at divers places along the
railroad. The most common section in which this phenomenon may be seen
is between Tucson and Red Rock, and through the entire stretch of the
Salton Basin from Ogilby to Indio.
Here in the early morning or in the late afternoon, if the atmospheric
conditions be right, lakes, river, and lagoons of water can be seen
from the train windows. Ofttimes the shimmering surface is dotted with
tiny islands, and the shadows of umbrageous foliage are plainly seen
reflected in the supposed water; yet an investigation shows nothing but
long rods of sand-drifts or saline deposits.
Animals as well as men are deceived by these freaks of the atmosphere.
Many instances are recorded where whole bands of cattle have rushed from
the grazing grounds across the hot parched plains in pursuit of the
constantly retreating water phantom, until they perish from exhaustion,
still in sight of running brooks and surging springs. Prior to the
advent of the railroad through this region, when overland passengers
passed by on the old Yuma road to San Diego, scores of adventurous
spirits perished in chasing this illusive phantom. It is said that one
entire company of soldiers was thus inveigled from the highway and
perished to a man.
One of the most interesting sights of this class is to be seen almost
any time of the year in Mohave County, down in the region of the Big
Sandy. Here for leagues upon leagues the ground is strewn with volcanic
matter and basalt. It is one of the hottest portions of the continent,
and except in the winter months it is almost unendurable by man or
beast.
At a point where the main road from the settlements on the Colorado to
Kingman turns toward the east, there are a number of volcanic buttes. At
these buttes just before sunrise the famous cantilever bridge which
spans the Colorado River near the Needles, seventy miles distant, is
plainly visible, together with the moving trains and crew. The train has
the appearance of being perhaps an eighth of a mile distant, and every
motion on board, the smoke, the escaping steam, are as natural and vivid
as though not a hundred yards away.
At this same point huge mountains are seen to lift themselves up bodily
and squat down again in the highway. Near these buttes, which are known
as the Evil Ones, away back in the sixties a small force of cavalry was
making its way from Fort Yuma to Fort Whipple. Owing to the extreme heat
during the day, and as a further precaution against the hostile Indians,
they were obliged to march at night, finding shelter in some mountain
cañon during the day.
Shortly after daybreak, as they were preparing to go into camp, a whole
legion of painted devils appeared on their front and hardly a quarter of
a mile distant. The troops were thrown into confusion, and an order was
immediately given to break ranks, and every man concealed himself behind
the rocks, awaiting the attack which all felt must necessarily end in
massacre.
For some minutes the Indians were seen to parley and gesticulate with
each other, but they gave no signs of having noticed their hereditary
foe. The unhappy troopers, however, were not kept in suspense long. As
the great red disk of the day began to mount slowly up over the
adjoining mountains, the redskins vanished as noiselessly and as
suddenly as they had appeared.
Used as they were to treachery, and fearing some uncanny trick, the
soldiers maintained their position throughout the long hot day, nor did
they attempt to move until late in the night. Some weeks later it was
learned from captives that on that very morning a band of nearly one
thousand Chinhuevas and Wallapais were lying in wait for this same
command but ninety miles up the river, expecting the soldiers by that
route.
The most remarkable of all the mirages which have been witnessed in
Arizona, at least by white man's eyes, was seen some years ago by an
entire train-load of passengers on the Southern Pacific Railroad, near
the small eating station of Maricopa, thirty-five miles below Phoenix.
The train was due at the eating station at 6.30 A. M.
At 6.15 o'clock it stopped at a small water-tank a few miles east.
During this stop the trainmen and such of the passengers as were awake
were amazed to see spring out of the ground on the sky a magnificent
city. The buildings were of the old Spanish and Morisco architecture,
and were mostly adobe. Spacious court-yards lay before the astonished
lookers-on, filled with all varieties of tropical fruits and vegetation.
Men and women clothed in the picturesque garbs of Old Spain were seen
hurrying along the narrow, irregular streets to the principal edifice,
which had the appearance of a church. Had the astonished spectators been
picked up bodily and landed in one of the provincial towns of Seville or
Andalusia, they would not have seen a more dazzling array of stately
senoras and laughing black-eyed _muchachas_ of the land of forever
_manana_.
But the vision lasted much less time than it takes to write of the
strange occurrence. It vanished as mysteriously as it came. Of course
all of the hysterical women fainted. That is one of woman's
prerogatives, in lieu of an explanation.
This phenomenon remained unsolved for two or three years. About that
time, after the mirage was seen, a young civil engineer who was among
the witnesses was engaged on the Gulf coast survey from the headwaters
below Yuma to Guaymas. In the course of his labors he found himself at
the old Mexican pueblo of Altar, and there he saw the original of the
picture in the sky seen three years before near Maricopa Station. The
distance, as a buzzard flies, from Maricopa to Altar is more than a
hundred miles.
The native tribes are very superstitious concerning the mirage, and
when one is once observed, that locality receives a wide berth in the
future.
In the secluded Jim-Jam Valley of the San Bernardino Mountains there are
the most marvelous mirages known to the world. The wonderful mirages of
the Mojave Desert have been talked about a great deal, and they are
entitled to all the prominence they have had. But those of the Jim-Jam
Valley are far more wonderful than these.
It is called Jim-Jam Valley because of the strange things seen there,
and I defy any man, however sound of mind he may be, to go in there and
not think he has "got 'em" before he gets out.
This valley is about twenty-five miles long by fifteen miles wide. It is
uninhabited. It is bordered by the main San Bernardino range on the
east, and by a spur of the Sierra Magdalenas on the west. There is no
well-defined trail through the heart of it. The valley is a desert. The
surrounding mountains are terribly serrated and cut up. The peaks are
jagged. Altogether the surroundings are weird and forbidding.
Leaving Fisk's ranch on the trail at the foot of the Sierra Magdalenas,
you climb an easy grade to Dead Man's Pass, the entrance to the valley.
Go in, and pretty soon you see lakes, and running rivers, and green
borders, and flying water-fowl. Willows spring up here and there, and in
the distance you see water-lilies.
What you behold contrasts finely with the rugged mountains, and you are
charmed with it, and go on thinking you have struck an earthly paradise.
Indian camps appear in view, and little oarsmen propel fantastic crafts
upon the waters. Advancing still farther, dimly outlined forms may be
seen, and the pantomime reminds you of a strange hobgoblin dance.
Sometimes a storm brews in the valley, and then the scene is all the
more terrible. Forked lightning blazes about, and strange, uncouth
animals, differing from any you have ever read about, are to be seen
there.
These phenomena are seen for a stretch of about fifteen miles, up and
down the middle of the valley principally, and they have been viewed by
a great many people. They can not understand why the forms of the
mirage, if such it may be called, are so much more strange there than on
the Mojave Desert.
Everybody is in awe of the valley, and there are mighty few men, however
nervy they may be ordinarily, who care to go there a second time.