A Good Place For The
Camp Was Found At Coxe's Tanks, Trenches Were Dug Around The
Tents, And The Earth Banked Up To Keep Us Warm.
The cool air, our
great fatigue, and the comparative absence of danger combined to
give us a heavenly night's rest.
Towards sunset of the next day, which was May Day, our cavalcade
reached Stoneman's Lake. We had had another rough march, and had
reached the limit of endurance, or thought we had, when we
emerged from a mountain pass and drew rein upon the high green
mesa overlooking Stoneman's Lake, a beautiful blue sheet of
water lying there away below us. It was good to our tired eyes,
which had gazed upon nothing but burnt rocks and alkali plains
for so many days. Our camp was beautiful beyond description, and
lay near the edge of the mesa, whence we could look down upon the
lovely lake. It was a complete surprise to us, as points of
scenery were not much known or talked about then in Arizona.
Ponds and lakes were unheard of. They did not seem to exist in
that drear land of arid wastes. We never heard of water except
that of the Colorado or the Gila or the tanks and basins, and
irrigation ditches of the settlers. But here was a real Italian
lake, a lake as blue as the skies above us. We feasted our eyes
and our very souls upon it.
Bailey and the guide shot some wild turkeys, and as we had
already eaten all the mutton we had along, the ragout of turkey
made by the soldier-cook for our supper tasted better to us tired
and hungry travellers, perhaps, than a canvasback at Delmonico's
tastes to the weary lounger or the over-worked financier.
In the course of the day, we had passed a sort of sign-board,
with the rudely written inscription, "Camp Starvation," and we
had heard from Mr. Bailey the story of the tragic misfortunes at
this very place of the well-known Hitchcock family of Arizona.
The road was lined with dry bones, and skulls of oxen, white and
bleached in the sun, lying on the bare rocks. Indeed, at every
stage of the road we had seen evidences of hard travel, exhausted
cattle, anxious teamsters, hunger and thirst, despair,
starvation, and death.
However, Stoneman's Lake remains a joy in the memory, and far and
away the most beautiful spot I ever saw in Arizona. But unless
the approaches to it are made easier, tourists will never gaze
upon it.
In the distance we saw the "divide," over which we must pass in
order to reach Camp Verde, which was to be our first stopping
place, and we looked joyfully towards the next day's march, which
we expected would bring us there.
We thought the worst was over and, before retiring to our tents
for the night, we walked over to the edge of the high mesa and,
in the gathering shadows of twilight, looked down into the depths
of that beautiful lake, knowing that probably we should never see
it again.
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