The violence of the river’s action became…
source date: 1891
availability: public-domain

f the infant Cocopah Indians were asphyxiated. Suddenly a crash of thunder and flashing lightning clear- ed the atmosphere and the poor Indians were hopeful that all danger had passed when the water of the river became agitated and great clouds of mist arose hundreds of feet. The violence of the river’s action became fiercer and fiercer, and arose with a rapidity which was simply frightful. The Indians hur- ried back to their homes, the greedy water of the tidal wave following them on, swallowing their cattle, horses and fields of grain, driving them to the mesa, over 100 feet above the bed of the river, and the spray from the angry water even then reached them. About 7 o’clock the heavens above and the earth below tried to unite, and a good genuine earthquake warned the warriors of the Cocopath nation that a new kind of danger had befallen their people. The force of the first shock was exceed- ingly violent, and increased with intensified force until the fourth and supposedly the last, when every man, woman and child were thrown down, many being seriously hurt.