On one occasion, I said, "Oh!
Captain, do you think we shall get off this bar to-day ?" "Well,
you can't tell," he said, with a twinkle in his eye; "one trip, I
lay fifty-two days on a bar," and then, after a short pause, "but
that don't happen very often; we sometimes lay a week, though;
there is no telling; the bars change all the time."
Sometimes the low trees and brushwood on the banks parted, and a
young squaw would peer out at us. This was a little diversion,
and picturesque besides. They wore very short skirts made of
stripped bark, and as they held back the branches of the low
willows, and looked at us with curiosity, they made pictures so
pretty that I have never forgotten them. We had no kodaks then,
but even if we had had them, they could not have reproduced the
fine copper color of those bare shoulders and arms, the soft wood
colors of the short bark skirts, the gleam of the sun upon their
blue-black hair, and the turquoise color of the wide bead-bands
which encircled their arms.
One morning, as I was trying to finish out a nap in my
stateroom, Jack came excitedly in and said: "Get up, Martha, we
are coming to Ehrenberg!" Visions of castles on the Rhine, and
stories of the middle ages floated through my mind, as I sprang
up, in pleasurable anticipation of seeing an interesting and
beautiful place. Alas! for my ignorance. I saw but a row of low
thatched hovels, perched on the edge of the ragged looking
river-bank; a road ran lengthwise along, and opposite the hovels
I saw a store and some more mean-looking huts of adobe.
"Oh! Jack!" I cried, "and is that Ehrenberg? Who on earth gave
such a name to the wretched place?"
"Oh, some old German prospector, I suppose; but never mind, the
place is all right enough. Come! Hurry up! We are going to stop
here and land freight. There is an officer stationed here. See
those low white walls? That is where he lives. Captain Bernard of
the Fifth Cavalry. It's quite a place; come out and see it."
But I did not go ashore. Of all dreary, miserable-looking
settlements that one could possibly imagine, that was the worst.
An unfriendly, dirty, and Heaven-forsaken place, inhabited by a
poor class of Mexicans and half-breeds. It was, however, an
important shipping station for freight which was to be sent
overland to the interior, and there was always one army officer
stationed there.
Captain Bernard came on board to see us. I did not ask him how he
liked his station; it seemed to me too satirical; like asking the
Prisoner of Chillon, for instance, how he liked his dungeon.
I looked over towards those low white walls, which enclosed the
Government corral and the habitation of this officer, and thanked
my stars that no such dreadful detail had come to my husband.
