Troubadours of Summer

Dangerous, the sandbars products of seasonal changes on the river, which was now at a wintry low. The cold made Möllhausen's efforts at collecting insects and reptiles difficult, even as it brought visitors to their campfire, native people of several tribes. One, Ives wrote, was a "notorious rogue" who tried to cheat him in trading, but who "was highly amused at being fairly caught." Others were generous, others curious-and almost all, Ives recorded, were apprehensive about what such strange people were doing in their country. "I can scarcely blame him for his disgust," Ives wrote of one unhappy Mojave Indian, "for he must suspect that this is the first step towards an encroachment upon the territory of his tribe."

February 1 found Explorer at the mouth of the Bill Williams River, between present-day Parker and Lake Havasu City, then as now one of the most beautiful spots along the lower river, with its dramatic rock formations and flocks of waterfowl. "New and surprising effects of coloring added to the beauty of the vista," Ives wrote of the river canyon. "In the foreground, light and delicate tints predominated, and broad surface of lilac, pearl color, pink and white contrasted strongly with the somber masses piled up behind." Traveling up a "fairy-like pass," the party entered the Chemehuevi Valley, passed through what Ives called Mohave Canyon, and came into the Mohave Valley proper, a place "clothed in spring attire" that, Ives recorded, the whole crew found so beautiful that they applauded.

They would not be so pleased with the country that followed, though. Fortunately, they were now guided by a Mojave man named Ireteba, who later helped Joseph Walker explore the country around Prescott. Ireteba was used to white people, but most of his compatriots, Ives recorded, seemed to "think us their inferiors," particularly when he produced a mariner's compass to impress them with modern technology. It did not have the desired effect: "They soon learned its use, and thought we must be very stupid to be obliged to have recourse to artificial aid in order to find our way."

Conditions on the river worsened. A steady wind beat against the ship, whipping down tall, narrow Pyramid Canyon, followed by a great sandstorm that blinded the crew and forced them to pull into a cove for shelter. The storm subsided after a day, even as the rock walls grew steeper and the rapids stronger. Explorer struggled and heaved against the fierce river. Finally,

SCENES FROM AN EXPEDITION Möllhausen's engravings of the

on March 12, near the site of present-day Hoover Dam, Ives "determined not to try to ascend the Colorado any further."

Ives divided the party, sending half back to Fort Yuma with the ship while taking Möllhausen, Newberry and Egloffstein inland, crossing over the mountains eastward at the spot where the little town of Oatman now stands, climbing into the Cerbat Mountains.

By early April, Ives had descended to the floor of what he named "the Big Canyon" along Diamond Creek. "Big Canyon" would stand on a few maps for another decade, until John Wesley Powell renamed the place Grand Canyon once and for all. Spring snow squalls and lightning storms marked Ives' passage overland, past Bill Williams Mountain and the San Francisco Peaks, to the Hopi Mesas and the waterless lands of the Navajo until, finally, the land party reached Fort Defiance on May 22, 1858.

The Ives expedition took nearly six months and covered more than a thousand miles-as the crow flies-and many more as the steamship chuffs and the mule plods. Ives was clearly taken by the country he and his comrades had covered, but even so, he concluded, "It seems intended by nature that the Colorado River, along the greater portion of its lonely and majestic way, shall be forever unvisited and undisturbed."

Ives' report was also little visited once the Utah War ended. He neither courted nor received the fame of contemporary travelers such as John Charles Fremont, but went to work with his customary diligence, helping to design and engineer the great monument to George Washington that would soon begin to rise over the nation's capital.

Although the Civil War came, though a native of New York City, Ives joined the Confederate cause and served as an aide-decamp to President Jefferson Davis. He moved to New York at the end of the war and died just three years later, at the age of 40, having helped change the course of American history. Al Gregory McNamee writes about Arizona history, culture and geography for the Encyclopaedia Britannica and several European publications as well as for Arizona Highways. He lives in Tucson.

Cicadas inspire myths and mischief