 CHAPTER XI. THE LITTLE COLORADO TO THE FOOT OF THE GRAND CANION AUGUST XIII. We are now ready to start on our way down the great unknown. Our boats tie to a common stake, chafe each other as they are tossed by the fretful river. They ride high and buoyant, for their loads are lighter than we could desire. We have but a month's rations remaining. The flour has been resifted, through the mosquito net sieve. The spoiled bacon has been dried, and the worst of it boiled. The few pounds of dried apples have been spread in the sun, and re-shrunken to their normal bulk. The sugar has all melted, and gone on its way down the river. But we have a large sack of coffee. The lightning of the boats has this advantage. They will ride the waves better, and we shall have but little to carry when we make a portage. We are three-quarters of a mile in the depths of the earth, and the great river shrinks into insignificance as it dashes its angry waves against the walls and cliffs that rise to the world above. The waves are but puny ripples, and we but pygmies running up and down the sands, or lost among the boulders. We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. Would falls there are, we know not? Would rocks be set the channel, we know not? Would walls rise over the river, we know not? Ah, well, we may conjecture many things. The men talk as cheerfully as ever. Jests are bandied about freely this morning. But to me the cheers somber, and the jests are ghastly. With some eagerness, and some anxiety, and some misgiving, we enter the canyon below, and are carried along by the swift water through walls which rise from its very edge. They have the same structure that we noticed yesterday, tears of irregular shells below, and above these steep slopes to the foot of marble cliffs. We run six miles in a little more than half an hour, and emerge into a more open portion of the canyon, where high hills and ledges of rock intervene between the river and the distant walls. Just at the head of this open place, the river runs across a dike, that is, a fisher in the rocks, open to depths below, was filled with eruptive matter, and this uncooling was harder than the rocks through which the crevice was made. And when these were washed away, the harder volcanic matter remained as a wall, and the river has cut a gateway through it several hundred feet high, and is many wide. As it crosses the wall, there is a fall below, and a bad rapid, filled with boulders of trap, so we stop to make a portage. Then on we go, gliding by hills and ledges, with distant walls and view, sweeping past sharp angles of rock, stopping at a few points to examine rapids, which we find can be run, until we have made another five miles when we land for dinner. Then we let down with lines, over a long rapid, and start again. Once more the walls close in, and we find ourselves in a narrow gorge, the water again filling the channel, and being very swift. With great care and constant watchfulness we proceed, making about four miles this afternoon, and camp in a cave. At daybreak we walk down the bank of the river, on a little sandy beach, to take a view of a new feature in the canyon. Here too four hard rocks have given us bad river, soft rocks, smooth water, and a series of rocks harder than any we have experienced sets in. The river enters the niece. We can see but a little way into the granite gorge, but it looks threatening. After breakfast we enter on the waves, at the very introduction it inspires awe. The canyon is narrower than we have ever before seen it, the water is swifter. There are but few broken rocks in the channel, but the walls are set on either side with pinnacles and crags, and sharp angular buttresses, bristling with wind, and wave-polished spires extend far out into the river. Ludges of rock jut into the stream, their tops sometimes just below the surface, sometimes rising a few or many feet above, and island ludges and island pinnacles and island towers break the swift course of the stream into shoots and eddies and whirlpools. We soon reach a place where a creek comes in from the left, and just below the channel is choked with boulders, which have washed down this lateral canyon, and formed a dam over which there is a fall of thirty or forty feet, but on the boulders foothold can be had, and we make a portage. Three more such dams are found, over one we make a portage, at the other two are shoots through which we can run. As we proceed the granite rises higher, until nearly a thousand feet of the lower part of the walls are composed of this rock. About eleven o'clock we hear a great roar ahead, and approach it very cautiously. The sound grows louder and louder as we run, and at last we find ourselves above a long broken fall, with the ledges and pinnacles of rock obstructing the river. There is a descent of perhaps seventy-five or eighty feet in a third of a mile, and the rushing waters break into great waves on the rocks, and lash themselves into a mad white foam. We can land just above, but there is no foothold on either side by which we can make a portage. It is nearly a thousand feet to the top of the granite, so it will be impossible to carry our boats around, though we can climb to the summit up a side gulch, and, passing along a mile or two, descend to the river. This we find on examination, but such a portage would be impracticable for us, and we must run the rapid or abandon the river. There is no hesitation. We step into our boats, push off, and away we go, first on smooth but swift water, then we strike a glassy wave and ride to its top, down again into the trough, up again on a higher wave, and down and up on waves higher and still higher, until we strike one just as it curls back, and a breaker rolls over our little boat. Still on we speed, shooting past projecting rocks, till the little boat is caught in a whirlpool, and spun round several times. At last we pull out again into the stream, and now the other boats have passed us. The open compartment of the Emma Dean is filled with water, and every breaker rolls over us. Hurled back from a rock, now on this side, now on that, we are carried into an eddy, in which we struggle for a few minutes, and are then out again, the breakers still rolling over us. Our boat is unmanageable, but she cannot sink, and we drift down another hundred yards through breakers. How we scarcely know! We find the other boats have turned into an eddy, at the foot of the fall, and are waiting to catch us as we come. For the men, for the men have seen that our boat is swamped. They push out as we come near, and pull us in against the wall. Our boat bailed, on we go again. The walls now are more than a mile in height, a vertical distance difficult to appreciate. Stand on the south steps of the Treasury Building in Washington, and look down Pennsylvania Avenue to the capital. Measure this distance overhead, and imagine cliffs to extend to that altitude, and you will understand what is meant. Or stand at Canal Street in New York, and look up Broadway to Grace Church, and you have about the distance. Or stand at Lake Street Bridge in Chicago, and look down to the central depot, and you have it again. A thousand feet of this is up through granite crags. Then steep slopes and perpendicular cliffs rise one above another to the summit. The gorge is black and narrow below, red and gray and flaring above, with crags and angular projections on the walls, which cut in many places by side canyons seem to be a vast wilderness of rocks. Down in these grand gloomy depths we glide, ever listening, for the mad waters keep up their roar, ever watching, ever peering ahead, for the narrow canyon is winding, and the river is closed in, so that we can see but a few hundred yards. And what there may be below we know not. So we listen for falls and watch for rocks, stopping now and then in the bay of a recess, to admire the gigantic scenery. And ever as we go there is some new pinnacle, or tower, some crag or peak, some distant view of the upper plateau, some strangely shaped rock, or some deep, narrow side canyon. Then we come to another broken fall, which appears more difficult than the one we ran this morning. A small creek comes in on the right, and the first fall of the water is over boulders, which have been carried down by this lateral stream. We land at its mouth, and stop for an hour or two to examine the fall. It seems possible to let down with lines at least a part of the way, from point to point, along the right-hand wall, so we make a portage over the first rocks, and find footing on some boulders below. Then we let down one of the boats to the end of her line, when she reaches a corner of the projecting rock, to which one of the men clings, and steadies her while I examine an eddy below. I think we can pass the other boats down by us, and catch them in the eddy. This is soon done, and the men in the boats in the eddy pull us to their side. On the shore of this little eddy there is about two feet of gravel beach above the water. Standing on this beach some of the men take the line of the little boat, and let it drift down against another projecting angle. Here is a little shelf, on which a man from my boat climbs, and a shorter line is passed to him. And he fastens the boat to the side of the cliff. Then the second one is let down, bringing the line of the third. When the second boat is tied up, the two men standing on the beach above spring into the last boat, which is pulled up alongside of ours. Then we let down the boats for twenty-five or thirty yards by walking along this shelf, landing them again in the mouth of a side canyon. Just below this there is another pile of boulders over which we make another portage. From the foot of these rocks we can climb to another shelf, forty or fifty feet above the water. On this bench we camp for the night. It is raining hard, and we have no shelter, but find a few sticks which have lodged in the rocks, and kindle a fire, and have supper. We sit on the rocks all night, wrapped in our ponchos, getting what sleep we can. AUGUST 15. This morning we find we can let down for three hundred or four hundred yards, and it is managed in this way. We pass along a wall by climbing from projecting point to point, sometimes near the water's edge, at other places fifty or sixty feet above, and hold the boat with the line while two men remain aboard, and prevent her from being dashed against the rocks, and keep the line from getting caught on the wall. In two hours we have brought them all down, as far as it is possible in this way. A few yards below the river strikes with great violence against our projecting rock, and our boats are pulled up in a little bay above. We must now manage to pull out of this, and clear the point below. The little boat is held by the bow, obliquely up the stream. We jump in and pull out only a few strokes, and sweep clear of the dangerous rock. The other boats follow in the same manner, and the rapid is passed. It is not easy to describe the labour of such navigation. We must prevent the waves from dashing the boats against the cliffs. Sometimes where the river is swift we must put a bite of rope about a rock to prevent the boat from being snatched from us by a wave, but where the plunge is too great or the chute too swift, we must let her leap and catch her below, or the undertow will drag her under the falling water and sink her. Where we wish to run her out a little way from the shore, through a channel between rocks, we first throw in little sticks of driftwood, and watch their course, to see where we must steer so that she will pass the channel in safety. And so we hold, and let go, and pull, and lift, and ward, among rocks, around rocks, and over rocks. And now we go on through this solemn, mysterious way. The river is very deep, the canyon very narrow, and still obstructed, so that there is no steady flow of the stream, but the waters reel and roll and boil, and we are scarcely able to determine where we can go. Now the boat is carried to the right, perhaps close to the wall. Again she is shot into the stream, and perhaps is dragged over to the other side, where, caught in a whirlpool, she spins about. We can neither land nor run as we please. The boats are entirely unmanageable. No order in their running can be preserved. Now one, now another is ahead. Each crew laboring for its own preservation. In such a place we come to another rapid. Two of the boats run at per force. One succeeds in landing, but there is no foothold by which to make a portage, and she is pushed out again into the stream. The next minute a great reflex wave fills the open compartment. She is waterlogged, and drifts unmanageable. Breaker after breaker rolls over her, and one capsizes her. The men are thrown out, but they cling to the boat, and she drifts down some distance alongside of us, and we are able to catch her. She is soon bailed out, and the men are aboard once more, but the oars are lost, and so a pair from the emedean is spared. Then for two miles we find smooth water. Clouds are playing in the canyon today. Sometimes they roll down in great masses, filling the gorge with gloom. Sometimes they hang aloft from wall to wall, and cover the canyon with a roof of impending storm, and we can peer long distances up and down this canyon corridor, with its cloud roof overhead, its walls of black granite, and its river bright with the sheen of broken waters. Then a gust of wind sweeps down a side gulch, and, making a rift in the clouds, reveals the blue heavens, and a stream of sunlight pours in. Then the clouds drift away into the distance, and hang around crags and peaks and pinnacles and towers and walls, and cover them with a mantle that lifts from time to time, and sets them all in sharp relief. Then baby clouds creep out of side canyons, glide around points, and creep back again into more distant gorges. Then clouds arrange in strata across the canyon, with intervening vista views to cliffs and rocks beyond. The clouds are children of the heavens, and when they play among the rocks, they lift them to the region above. It rains, rapidly little reels are formed above, and these soon grow into brooks, and the brooks grow into creeks, and tumble over the walls in innumerable cascades, adding their wild music to the roar of the river. When the rain ceases, the reels, brooks, and creeks run dry. The waters that fall during a rain on these steep rocks are gathered once into the river. They could scarcely be poured in more suddenly if some vast spout ran from the clouds to the stream itself. When a storm bursts over the canyon, a side gulch is dangerous, for a sudden flood may come, and the inpouring waters will raise the river so as to hide the rocks. Early in the afternoon we discover a stream entering from the north, a clear, beautiful creek, coming down through a gorgeous red canyon. We land and camp on a sand beach above its mouth, under a great overspreading tree, with willow-shaped leaves. August 16. We must dry our rations again today, and make oars. The Colorado is never a clear stream, but for the past three or four days it has been raining much of the time, and the floods poured over the walls have brought down great quantities of mud, making it exceedingly turbid now. The little affluent which we have discovered here is a clear, beautiful creek, or river, as it would be termed in this western country, where streams are not abundant. We have named one stream, away above, in honor of the great chief of the bad angels, and as this is in beautiful contrast to that, we conclude to name it Bright Angel. Early in the morning the whole party starts up to explore the Bright Angel River with the special purpose of seeking timber from which to make oars. A couple of miles above we find a large pine log, which has been floated down from the plateau, probably from an altitude of more than six thousand feet, but not many miles back. On its way it must have passed over many cataracts and falls, for it bears scars in evidence of the rough usage which it has received. The men roll it on skids, and the work of sawing oars is commenced. This stream heads away back under a line of abrupt cliffs that terminates the plateau, and tumbles down more than four thousand feet in the first mile or two of its course, then runs through a deep narrow canyon until it reaches the river. Late in the afternoon I return and go up a little gulch just above this creek, about two hundred yards from camp, and discover the ruins of two or three old houses which were originally of stone laid in mortar. Only the foundations are left, but irregular blocks of which the houses were constructed lie scattered about. In one room I find an old meeling-stone deeply worn as if it had been much used. A great deal of pottery is strewn around, and old trails which in some places are deeply worn into the rocks are seen. It is ever a source of wonder to us why these ancient people sought such inaccessible places for their homes. They were, doubtless, an agricultural race, but there are no lands here of any considerable extent that they could have cultivated. To the west of Orabi, one of the towns in the province of Tussian in northern Arizona, the inhabitants have actually built little terraces along the face of the cliff where spring gushes out, and thus made their sights for gardens. It is possible that the ancient inhabitants of this place made their agricultural lands in the same way, but why should they seek such spots? Surely the country was not so crowded with people as to demand the utilization of so barren a region. The only solution suggested of the problem is this. We know that for a century or two after the settlement of Mexico, many expeditious were sent into the country now comprising Arizona and New Mexico, for the purpose of bringing the town-building people under the dominion of the Spanish government. Many of their villages were destroyed, and the inhabitants fled to regions at that time unknown, and there are traditions among the people who inhabit the pueblos that still remain that the canyons were these unknown lands. It may be these buildings were erected at that time, sure it is that they have a much more modern appearance than the ruins scattered over Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. Those old Spanish conquerors had a monstrous greed for gold and a wonderful lust for saving souls, treasures they must have if not on earth, why then in heaven, and when they failed to find heathen temples bedecked with silver, they propitiated heaven by seizing the heathen themselves. There is yet extant a copy of a record made by a heathen artist to express his conception of the demands of the conquerors. In one part of the picture we have a lake, and nearby stands a priest pouring water on the head of a native. On the other side a poor Indian has a cord about his throat. Lines run from these two groups to a central figure. A man with beard and full Spanish peniply. The interpretation of the picture writing is this, quote, be baptized as this saved heathen, or be hanged as that damned heathen, unquote. Doubtless some of these people preferred another alternative, and rather than be baptized or hanged, they chose to imprison themselves within these canyon walls. August 17. Our rations are still spoiling. The bacon is so badly injured that we are compelled to throw it away. By an accident this morning the cellaratus was lost overboard. We have now only musty flour sufficient for ten days, and a few dried apples, but plenty of coffee. We must make all haste possible. If we meet with difficulties such as we have encountered in the canyon above, we may be compelled to give up the expedition and try to reach the Mormon settlements to the north. Our hopes are that the worst places are past, but our barometers are all so much injured as to be useless, and so we have lost our reckoning and altitude, and no not how much descent the river has yet to make. The stream is still wild and rapid, and rolls through a narrow channel. We make but slow progress, often landing against a wall and climbing around some point to see the river below. Although very anxious to advance, we are determined to run with great caution. Lest by another accident we lose our remaining supplies. How precious that little flower has become! We divide it among the boats and carefully store it away, so that it can be lost only by the loss of the boat itself. We make ten miles and a half, and camp among the rocks on the right. We have had rain from time to time all day, and have been thoroughly drenched and chilled, but between showers the sun shines with great power, and the mercury in our thermometers stands at one hundred and fifteen degrees, so that we have rapid changes from great extremes which are very disagreeable. It is especially cold in the rain tonight, the little canvas we have is rotten and useless. The rubber ponchos with which we started from Green River City have all been lost, more than half the party or without hats. Not one of us has an entire suit of clothes, and we have not a blanket apiece, so we gather driftwood and build a fire. But after supper the rain coming down in torrents extinguishes it, and we sit up all night on the rocks, shivering, and are more exhausted by the night's discomfort than by the day's toil. The day is employed in making portages, and we advance but two miles on our journey, still it rains. While the men are at work making portages, I climb up the granite to its summit, and go a way back over the rust-colored sandstones and greenish-yellow shales to the foot of the marble wall. I climb so high that the men and boats are lost in the black depths below, and the dashing river is a rippling brook, and still there is more canyon above than below. All about me are interesting geologic records. The book is open, and I can read as I run. All about me are grand views, too, for the clouds are playing again in the gorges. But somehow I think of the nine days' rations and the bad river, and the lesson of the rocks and the glory of the scene are but half conceived. I push on to an angle where I hope to get a view of the country beyond, to see if possible what the prospect may be of our soon running through this plateau, or at least of meeting with some geologic change that will let us out of the granite. But arriving at the point, I can see below only a labyrinth of black gorges. August 19. Rain again this morning. We are in our granite prison still, and the time until noon is occupied, in making a long, bad, portage. After dinner, in running a rapid, the pioneer boat is upset by a wave. We are some distance in advance of the larger boats. The river is rough and swift, and we are unable to land, but cling to the boat, and are carried downstream over another rapid. The men in the boats above see our trouble, but they are caught in whirlpools, and are spinning about in eddies, and it seems a long time before they come to our relief. At last they do come. Our boat is turned right side up and bailed out. The oars, which fortunately have floated along and company with us, are gathered up, and on we go, without even landing. The clouds break away, and we have sunshine again. Soon we find a little beach with just room enough to land. Here we camp, but there is no wood. Across the river, and a little way above, we see some driftwood lodged in the rocks, so we bring two boatloads over, build a huge fire, and spread everything to dry. It is the first cheerful night we have had for a week, a warm drying fire in the midst of the camp, and a few bright stars in our patch of heavens overhead. August 20th. The characteristics of the canyon changed this morning. The river is broader, the walls more sloping, and composed of black slates that stand on edge. These nearly vertical slates are washed out in places, that is, the softer beds are washed out between the harder, which are left standing. In this way curious little alcoves are formed, in which are quiet bays of water, but on a much smaller scale than the great bays and buttresses of marble canyon. The river is still rapid, and we stop to let down with lines several times, but make greater progress as we run ten miles. We camp on the right bank. Here on a terrace of trap, we discover another group of ruins. There was evidently quite a village on this rock. Again we find meeling stones and much broken pottery, and up on a little natural shelf in the rock, back of the ruins, we find a globular basket that would hold perhaps a third of a bushel. It is badly broken, and as I attempt to take it up, it falls to pieces. There are many beautiful flint-chips also, as if this had been the home of an old aeromaker. August 21. We start early this morning, cheered by the prospect of a fine day, and encouraged also by the good run made yesterday. A quarter of a mile below camp the river turns abruptly to the left, and between camp and that point is very swift, running down in a long broken chute, and piling up against the foot of the cliff where it turns to the left. We try to pull across so as to go down on the other side, but the waters are swift, and it seems impossible for us to escape the rock below, but in pulling across the bow of the boat is turned to the farther shore, so that we are swept broadside down, and are prevented by the rebounding waters from striking against the wall. We toss about for a few seconds in these billows, and are then carried past the danger. Below the river turns again to the right, the canyon is very narrow, and we see in advance but a short distance. The water, too, is very swift, and there is no landing-place. From around this curve there comes a mad roar, and down we are carried with a dizzying velocity to the head of another rapid. On either side high over our heads there are overhanging granite walls, and the sharp bends cut off our view, so that a few minutes will carry us into unknown waters. Away we go on one long winding chute. I stand on deck, supporting myself with a strap, fastened on either side of the gun-wail. The boat glides rapidly where the water is smooth. Then, striking a wave, she leaps and bounds like a thing of life, and we have a wild, exhilarating ride for ten miles which we make in less than an hour. The excitement is so great that we forget the danger until we hear the roar of a great fall below. Then we back on our oars, and are carried slowly towards his head, and succeed in landing just above, and find that we have to make another portage. At this we are engaged until some time after dinner. Just here we run out of the granite, ten miles in less than half a day, and limestone walls below. Good cheer returns. We forget the storms and the gloom, and the cloud covered canyons, and the black granite, and the raging river, and push our boats from shore in great glee. Though we are out of the granite, the river is still swift, and we wheel about a point again to the right, and turn so as to head back in the direction from which we came. This brings the granite inside again, with its narrow gorge and black crags, but we meet with no more great falls or rapids. Still we run cautiously, and stop from time to time, to examine some places which look bad. Yet we make ten miles this afternoon, twenty miles in all today. Next twenty-second. We come to rapids again this morning, and are occupied several hours in passing them, letting the boats down from rock to rock, with lines for nearly half a mile, and then have to make a long portage. While the men are engaged in this I climb the wall on the northeast to a height of about two thousand five hundred feet, where I can obtain a good view of a long stretch of canyon below. This course is to the southwest, the walls seem to rise very abruptly for two thousand five hundred or three thousand feet, and then there is a gently sloping terrace on each side for two or three miles, when we again find cliffs one thousand five hundred or two thousand feet high. From the brink of these the plateau stretches back to the north and south for a long distance. Away down the canyon on the right wall I can see a group of mountains, some of which appear to stand on the brink of the canyon. The effect of the terrace is to give the appearance of a narrow winding valley with high walls on either side, and a deep, dark meandering gorge down its middle. It is impossible from this point of view to determine whether or not we have granite at the bottom, but from geologic considerations I conclude that we shall have marble walls below. After my return to the boats we run another mile and camp for the night. We have made but little over seven miles today, and a part of our flower has been soaked in the river again. August twenty-third. Our way today is again through marble walls. Now and then we pass for a short distance through patches of granite like hills thrust up into the limestone. At one of these places we have to make another portage and taking advantage of the delay I go up a little stream to the north, waiting it all the way, sometimes having to plunge into my neck, in other places being compelled to swim across little basins that have been excavated at the foot of the falls. Along its course are many cascades and springs gushing out from the rocks on either side. Sometimes a cottonwood tree grows over the water. I come to one beautiful fall of more than one hundred fifty feet and climb around it to the right on the broken rocks. Still going up the canyon is found to narrow very much, being but fifteen or twenty feet wide, yet the walls rise on either side many hundreds of feet, perhaps thousands, I can hardly tell. In some places the stream has not excavated its channel down vertically through the rocks, but has cut obliquely, so that one wall overhangs the other. In other places it has cut vertically above and obliquely below, or obliquely above and vertically below, so that it is impossible to see out overhead. But I can go no farther. The time which I estimated it would take to make the portage has almost expired, and I start back on a round trot, waiting in the creek where I must and plunging through basins. The men are waiting for me, and away we go on the river. Just after dinner we pass a stream on the right, which leaps into the Colorado by a direct fall of more than one hundred feet, forming a beautiful cascade. There is a bed of very hard rock above, thirty or forty feet in thickness, and there are much softer beds below. The hard beds above project many yards beyond the softer, which are washed out, forming a deep cave behind the fall, and the stream pours through a narrow crevice above into a deep pool below. Around on the rocks in the cave-like chamber are set beautiful ferns, with delicate fronds and enameled stalks. The frondlets have their points turned down to form spore cases. It is very much the appearance of the maiden-hair fern, but is much larger. This delicate foliage covers the rocks all about the fountain, and gives the chamber great beauty. But we have little time to spend in admiration, so on we go. We make fine progress this afternoon, carried along by Swift River, shooting over the rapids, and finding no serious obstructions. The canyon walls, for two thousand, five hundred, or three thousand feet, are very regular, rising almost perpendicularly, but here and there set with narrow steps, and occasionally we can see a way above the broad terrace to distant cliffs. We camp tonight in a marble cave, and find on looking at our reckoning that we have run twenty-two miles. August twenty-fourth. The canyon is wider today, the walls rise to a vertical height of nearly three thousand feet. In many places the river runs under a cliff in great curves, forming amphitheaters, half dome shaped. Though the river is rapid, we meet with no serious obstructions, and run twenty miles. How anxious we are to make up our reckoning every time we stop, now that our diet is confined to plenty of coffee, a very little spoiled flower, and very few dried apples. It has come to be a race for a dinner. Still we make such fine progress that all hands are in good cheer, but not a moment of daylight is lost. August twenty-fifth. We make twelve miles this morning, when we come to monuments of lava standing in the river, low rocks mostly, but some of them shafts more than a hundred feet high. Going on down three or four miles, we find them increasing in number. The quantities of cooled lava and many cinder cones are seen on either side, and then we come to an abrupt cataract. Just over the fall on the right wall, a cinder cone, or extinct volcano, with a well-defined crater, stands on the very brink of the canyon. This doubtless is the one we saw two or three days ago. From this volcano vast floods of lava have been poured down into the river, and a stream of molten rock has run up the canyon three or four miles, and down we know not how far. Just where it poured over the canyon wall is the fall. The whole north side, as far as we can see, is lined with the black basalt, and high up on the opposite wall are patches of the same material, resting on the benches and filling old alcoves and caves, giving the wall a spotted appearance. The rocks are broken in two along a line which here crosses the river, and the beds we have seen while coming down the canyon for the last thirty miles have dropped eight hundred feet on the lower side of the line, forming what geologists call a fault. The volcanic cone stands directly over the fissure thus formed. On the left side of the river opposite, mammoth springs burst out of this crevice, one hundred or two hundred feet above the river, pouring in a stream quite equal in volume to the Colorado Chiquito. This stream seems to be loaded with carbonate of lime, and the water evaporating leaves an incrustation on the rocks, and this process has been continued for a long time. For extensive deposits are noticed in which are basins with bubbling springs. The water is salty. We have to make a portage here, which is completed in about three hours, then on we go. We have no difficulty as we float along, and I am able to observe the wonderful phenomena connected with this flood of lava. The canyon was doubtless filled to a height of one thousand two hundred, or one thousand five hundred feet, perhaps by more than one flood. This would dam the water back, and in cutting through this great lava bed, a new channel has been formed, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other. The cooled lava, being a firmer texture than the rocks of which the walls are composed, remains in some places, in others a narrow channel has been cut, leaving a line of basalt on either side. It is possible that the lava cooled faster in the sides against the walls, and that the center ran out, but of this we can only conjecture. There are other places where almost the whole of the lava is gone, only patches of it being seen, where it has caught on the walls. As we float down we can see that it ran out into side canyons. In some places this basalt has a fine columnar structure, often in concentric prisms, and masses of these concentric columns have coalesced. In some places when the flow occurred the canyon was probably about the same depth that it is now, for we can see where the basalt has rolled out onto the sands, and what seems curious to me the sands are not melted or metamorphosed to any appreciable extent. In places the bed of the river is of sandstone or limestone in other places of lava, showing that it has all been cut out again where the sandstones and limestones appear, but there is a little yet left where the bed is of lava. What a conflict of water and fire there must have been here. Can you imagine a river of molten rock running down into a river of melted snow? What a seething and boiling of the waters, what clouds of steam rolled into the heavens. Thirty-five miles to-day, hurrah! August 26. The canyon walls are steadily becoming higher as we advance. They are still bold and nearly vertical up to the terrace. We still see evidence of the eruption discovered yesterday, but the thickness of the basalt is decreasing as we go downstream. Yet it has been reinforced at points by streams that have come down from volcanoes standing on the terrace above, but which we cannot see from the river below. Since we left the Colorado Chiquito we have seen no evidences that the tribe of Indians inhabiting the plateaus on either side ever come down to the river. At about eleven o'clock today we discover an Indian garden at the foot of the wall on the right, just where a little stream with a narrow flood plain comes down through a side canyon. Along the valley the Indians have planted corn, using for irrigation the water which bursts out in springs at the foot of the cliff. The corn is looking quite well, but it is not sufficiently advanced to give us roasting years, but there are some nice green squashes. We carry ten or a dozen of these on board our boats and hurriedly leave, not willing to be caught in the robbery, yet excusing ourselves by pleading our great want. We run down a short distance, to where we feel certain no Indian can follow, and what a kettle of squash sauce we make. True we have no salt with which to season it, but it makes a fine addition to our unloved bread and coffee. Never was fruit so sweet as these stolen squashes. After dinner we push on again, and make fine time, finding many rapids, but none so bad that we cannot run them with safety, and when we stop, just at dusk, and foot up our reckoning, we find we have run thirty-five miles again, a few days like this, and we are out of prison. We have a royal supper, unleavened bread, green squash sauce, and strong coffee. We have been for a few days on half rations, but now have no stint of roast squash. August 27. This morning the river takes a more southerly direction. The dip of the rocks is to the north, and we are running rapidly into lower formations. Unless our course changes, we shall very soon run again into the granite. This gives some anxiety. Now and then the river turns to the west, and excites hopes that are soon destroyed by another turn to the south. About nine o'clock we come to the dreaded rock. It is with no little misgiving that we see the river enter these black hard walls. At its very entrance we have to make a portage, then let down with the lines past some ugly rocks. We run a mile or two farther, and then the rapids below can be seen. At eleven o'clock we come to a place in the river, which seems much worse than any we have yet met in all its course. A little creek comes down from the left. We land first on the right, and clamber up over the granite pinnacles for a mile or two, but can see no way by which to let down, and to run it would be sure destruction. After dinner we cross to examine on the left. High above the river we can walk along on the top of the granite, which is broken off at the edge, and set with crags and pinnacles, so that it is very difficult to get a view of the river at all. In my eagerness to reach a point where I can see the roaring fall below, I go too far on the wall, and can neither advance nor retreat. I stand with one foot on a little projecting rock, and cling with my hand fixed in a little crevice. Thinking I am caught here, suspended four hundred feet above the river, into which I must fall if my footing fails, I call for help. The men come and pass me a line, but I cannot let go of the rock long enough to take hold of it. Then they bring two or three of the largest oars. All this takes time which seems very precious to me, but at last they arrive. The blade of one of the oars is pushed into a little crevice in the rock beyond me, in such a manner that they can hold me pressed against the wall. Then another is fixed in such a way that I can step on it, and thus I am extricated. Still another hour is spent in examining the river from this side, but no good view of it is obtained, so now we return to the side that was first examined, and the afternoon is spent in clambering among the crags and pinnacles, and carefully scanning the river again. We find that the lateral streams have washed boulders into the river, so as to form a dam over which the water makes a broken fall of eighteen or twenty feet. Then there is a rapid, beset with rocks for two hundred or three hundred yards, while on the other side points of the wall project into the river. Below there is a second fall, how great we cannot tell. Then there is a rapid, filled with huge rocks for one hundred or two hundred yards. At the bottom of it, from the right wall, a great rock projects quite half way across the river. It has a sloping surface extending upstream, and the water, coming down with all the momentum gained in the falls and rapids above, rolls up this inclined plain many feet, and tumbles over to the left. I decide that it is possible to let down over the first fall, then run near the right cliff to a point just above the second, where we can pull out into a little chute, and, having run over that in safety, if we pull with all our power across the stream, we may avoid the great rock below. On my return to the boat, I announce to the men that we are to run it in the morning. Then we cross the river, and go into camp for the night on some rocks in the mouth of the little side canyon. After supper Captain Howland asks to have a talk with me. We walk up the little creek a short distance, and I soon find that his object is to remonstrate against my determination to proceed. He thinks that we had better abandon the river here. Talking with him, I learn that he, his brother, and William Dunn have determined to go no farther in the boats. So we return to camp. Nothing is said to the other men. For the last two days our course has not been plotted. I sit down and do this now, for the purpose of finding where we are by dead reckoning. It is a clear night, and I take out the sextant to make observation for latitude, and I find that the astronomical determination agrees very nearly with that of the plot, quite as closely as might be expected from a meridian observation on a planet. In a direct line we must be about forty-five miles from the mouth of the Rio Virgin. If we can reach that point we know that there are settlements up that river about twenty miles. This forty-five miles in a direct line will probably be eighty or ninety by the meandering line of the river. But then we know that there is comparatively open country for many miles above the mouth of the Virgin, which is our point of destination. As soon as I determine all this I spread my plot on the sand and wake Howland, who is sleeping down by the river, and show him where I suppose we are, and where several Mormon settlements are situated. We have another short talk about the morrow, and he lies down again, but for me there is no sleep. All night long I pace up and down a little path, on a few yards of sand-beach along by the river. Is it wise to go on? I go to the boats again to look at our rations. I feel satisfied that we can get over the danger immediately before us, what there may be below I know not. From our outlook yesterday on the cliffs the canyon seemed to make another great bend to the south, and this, from our experience here to four, means more and higher granite walls. I am not sure that we can climb out of the canyon here, and if at the top of the wall I know enough of the country to be certain that it is a desert of rock and sand between this and the nearest Mormon town, which on the most direct line must be seventy-five miles away. True the late rains have been favourable to us, should we go out, for the probabilities are that we shall find water still standing in holes, and at one time I almost conclude to leave the river. But for years I have been contemplating this trip. To leave the exploration unfinished, to say that there is a part of the canyon which I cannot explore, having already nearly accomplished it, is more than I am willing to acknowledge, and I determined to go on. I wake my brother and tell him of Howlin's determination, and he promises to stay with me. Then I call up Hawkins, the cook, and he makes a like-promness, then Sumner, and Bradley, and Hall, and they all agree to go on. August twenty-eighth At last daylight comes, and we have breakfast without a word being said about the future. The meal is as solemn as a funeral. After breakfast I ask the three men, if they still think it best, to leave us. The elder Howlin thinks it is, and Dunne agrees with him. The younger Howlin tries to persuade them to go on with the party, failing in which he decides to go with his brother. Then we cross the river. The small boat is very much disabled and unseeworthy. With the loss of hands, consequent on the departure of the three men, we shall not be able to run all of the boats, so I decide to leave my Emma Dean. Two rifles and a shotgun are given to the men who are going out. I ask them to help themselves to the rations, and take what they think to be a fair share. This they refuse to do, saying they have no fear but that they can get something to eat. But Billy the cook has a pan of biscuits prepared for dinner, and these he leaves on a rock. Before starting, we take from the boat our barometers, fossils, the minerals, and some ammunition, and leave them on the rocks. We are going over this place as light as possible. The three men help us lift our boats over a rock twenty-five or thirty feet high, and let them down again over the first fall, and now we are all ready to start. The last thing before leaving, I write a letter to my wife, and give it to Howlin. The winner gives him his watch, directing that it be sent to his sister, should he not be heard from again. The records of the expedition have been kept in duplicate. One set of these is given to Howlin, and now we are ready. For the last time they entreat us not to go on, and tell us that it is madness to set out in this place, that we can never get safely through it, and further that the river turns again to the south into the granite, and a few miles of such rapids and falls will exhaust our entire stock of rations, and then it will be too late to climb out. Some tears are shed. It is rather a solemn parting. Each party thinks the other is taking the dangerous course. My old boat left I go on board of the maid of the canyon. The three men climb a crag that overhangs the river to watch us off. The maid of the canyon pushes out. We glide rapidly along the foot of the wall, just grazing one great rock, then pull out a little into the chute of the second fall, and plunge over it. The open compartment is filled when we strike the first wave below, but we cut through it, and then the men pull with all their power toward the left wall, and swing clear of the dangerous rock below all right. We are scarcely a minute in running it, and find that, although it looked bad from above, we have passed many places that were worse. The other boat follows without more difficulty. We land at the first practicable point below and fire our guns as a signal to the men above that we have come over in safety. Here we remain a couple of hours, hoping that they will take the smaller boat and follow us. We are behind a curve in the canyon, and cannot see up to where we left them, and so we wait until their coming seems hopeless, and then push on. And now we have a succession of rapids and falls until noon, all of which we run in safety. Just after dinner we come to another bad place. A little stream comes in from the left, and below there is a fall, and still below another fall. Above the river tumbles down over and among the rocks, in whirlpools and great waves, and the waters are lashed into mad white foam. We run along the left above this, and soon see that we cannot get down on this side, but it seems possible to let down on the other. We pull upstream again for two hundred or three hundred yards and cross. Now there is a bed of basalt on this northern side of the canyon, with a bold escarpment that seems to be a hundred feet high. We can climb it and walk along its summit to a point where we are just at the head of the fall. Here the basalt is broken down again, so it seems to us, and I direct the men to take a line to the top of the cliff, and let the boats down along the wall. One man remains in the boat to keep her clear of the rocks, and to prevent her line from being caught on the projecting angles. I climb the cliff and pass along to a point just over the fall, and descend by broken rocks, and find that the break of the fall is above the break of the wall, so that we cannot land, and that still below the river is very bad, and that there is no possibility of a portage. Without waiting further to examine and determine what shall be done, I hasten back to the top of the cliff to stop the boat from coming down. When I arrive I find the men have let one of them down to the head of the fall. She is in swift water, and they are not able to pull her back, nor are they able to go on with the line, as it is not long enough to reach the higher part of the cliff, which is just before them, so they take a right around a crag. I send two men back for the other line. The boat is in very swift water, and Bradley is standing in the open compartment, holding out his oar to prevent her from striking against the foot of the cliff. Now she shoots out into the stream, and up as far as the line will permit, and then Wheeling drives headlong against the rock, and then out and back again, now straining on the line, now striking against the rock. As soon as the second line is brought, we pass it down to him, but his attention is all taken up with his own situation, and he does not see that we are passing him the line. I stand on a projecting rock, waving my hat to gain his attention, for my voice is drowned by the roaring of the falls. Just at this moment I see him take his knife from its sheath, and step forward to cut the line. He has evidently decided that it is better to go over with the boat, as it is, than to wait for her to be broken to pieces. As he leans over, the boat shears again into the stream. The stem post breaks away, and she is loose. With perfect composure, Bradley seizes the great skull oar, places it in the stern rollock, and pulls with all his power, and he is an athlete, to turn the bow of the boat downstream, for he wishes to go bow down, rather than to drift broadside on. One two strokes he makes, and a third just as she goes over, and the boat is fairly turned, and she goes down almost beyond our sight, though we are more than a hundred feet above the river. Then she comes up again on a great wave, and down and up, then around behind some great rocks, and is lost in the mad white foam below. We stand frozen with fear, for we see no boat. Bradley is gone, so it seems. But now, away below, we see something coming out of the waves. It is evidently a boat. A moment more, and we see Bradley standing on deck, swinging his hat, to show that he is all right, but he is in a whirlpool. We have the stem post of his boat attached to the line. How badly she may be disabled, we know not. I direct Sumner and Powell to pass along the cliff, and see if they can reach him from below. Hawkins, Hall, and myself run to the other boat, jump aboard, push out, and away we go over the falls. A wave rolls over us, and our boat is unmanageable. Another great wave strikes us, and the boat rolls over, and tumbles and tosses. I know not how. All I know is that Bradley is picking us up. We soon have all right again, and row to the cliff, and wait until Sumner and Powell can come. After a difficult climb, they reach us. We run two or three miles farther, and turn again to the northwest, continuing until night, when we have run out of the granite once more. August 29. We start very early this morning. The river still continues swift, but we have no serious difficulty, and at twelve o'clock emerge from the grand canyon of the Colorado. We are in a valley now, and low mountains are seen in the distance, coming to the river below. We recognize this as the Grand Wash. A few years ago a party of Mormons set out from St. George, Utah, taking with them a boat, and came down to the Grand Wash, where they divided, a portion of the party crossing the river to explore the San Francisco mountains. Three men, Hamlin, Miller, and Crosby, taking the boat, went on down the river to Calville, landing a few miles below the mouth of the Rio Virgin. We have their manuscript journal with us, and so the stream is comparatively well known. Tonight we camp on the left bank, in a mesquite thicket. The relief from danger and the joy of success are great, when he who has been chained by wounds to a hospital-cott, until his canvas-tent seems like a dungeon cell, until the groans of those who lie about, tortured with probe and knife, are piled up. A weight of horror on his ears that he cannot throw off, cannot forget, and until the stench of festering wounds and anesthetic drugs has filled the air with its loathsome burden, when he at last goes out into the open field, what a world he sees. How beautiful the sky, how bright the sunshine, what floods of delirious music, poor from the throats of birds, how sweet the fragrance of earth and tree and blossom. The first hour of convalescent freedom seems rich recompense for all pain and gloom and terror. Something like these are the feelings we experience tonight. Ever before us has been an unknown danger, heavier than immediate peril. Every waking hour past in the Grand Canyon has been one of toil. We have watched with deep solicitude the steady disappearance of our scant supply of rations, and from time to time we have seen the river snatch a portion of the little left while we were a-hungered. And danger and toil were endured in those gloomy depths, where off-times clouds hid the sky by day, and but a narrow zone of stars could be seen at night. Only during the few hours of deep sleep, consequent on hard labour, has the roar of the waters been hushed. Now the danger is over, now the toil has ceased, now the gloom has disappeared, now the firmament is bounded only by the horizon, and what a vast expanse of constellations can be seen. The river rolls by us in silent majesty, the quiet of the camp is sweet, our joy is almost ecstasy. We sit till long after midnight, talking of the Grand Canyon, talking of home, but talking chiefly of the three men who left us. Are they wandering in those depths, unable to find a way out? Are they searching over the desert lands above, for water? Or are they nearing the settlements? August 30. We run in two or three short, low canyons today, and on emerging from one we discover a band of Indians in the valley below. They see us and scamper away in eager haste to hide among the rocks. Although we land and call for them to return, not an Indian can be seen. Two or three miles farther down, interning a short bend of the river, we come upon another camp. So near are we before they can see us, that I can shout to them, and being able to speak a little of their language. I tell them we are friends, but they all flee to the rocks except a man, a woman, and two children. We land and talk with them. They are without lodges, but have built little shelters of boughs, under which they wallow in the sand. The man is dressed in a hat, the woman in a string of beads only. At first they are evidently much terrified, but when I talk to them in their own language and tell them we are friends, and inquire after people in the Mormon towns they are soon reassured and beg for tobacco. Of this precious article we have none to spare. Sumner looks around in the boat for something to give them, and finds a little piece of colored soap which they receive as a valuable present. Rather is the thing of beauty than is a useful commodity, however. They are either unwilling or unable to tell us anything about the Indians or white people, and so we push off, for we must lose no time. We camp at noon under the right bank, and now as we push out we are in great expectancy, for we hope every minute to discover the mouth of the Rio Virgin. Soon one of the men exclaims, yonder's an Indian in the river. Looking for a few minutes we certainly do see two or three persons. The men bend to their oars and pull toward them. During we see that there are three white men and an Indian hauling a sen, and then we discover that it is just at the mouth of the long salt river. As we come near the men seem far less surprised to see us than we do to see them. They evidently know who we are, and on talking with them they tell us that we have been reported lost long ago, and that some weeks before a messenger had been sent from Salt Lake City with instructions for them to watch for any fragments or relics of our party that might drift down the stream. Our new found friends, Mr. Asa and his two sons, tell us that they are pioneers of a town that is to be built on the bank. Eighteen or twenty miles up the valley of the Rio Virgin there are two Mormon towns, St. Joseph and St. Thomas. Tonight we dispatch an Indian to the last mentioned place to bring any letters that may be there for us. Our arrival here is very opportune. When we look over our store of supplies we find about ten pounds of flour, fifteen pounds of dried apples, but seventy or eighty pounds of coffee. August thirty-first. This afternoon the Indian returns with a letter informing us that Bishop Leithhead of St. Thomas and two or three other Mormons are coming down with a wagon, bringing us supplies. They arrive about sundown. Mr. Asa treats us with great kindness to the extent of his ability, but Bishop Leithhead brings in his wagon two or three dozen melons and many other little luxuries, and we are comfortable once more. September first. This morning Sumner, Bradley, Hawkins and Hall, taking on a small supply of rations, start down the Colorado with the boats. It is their intention to go to Fort Mojave, and perhaps from there overland to Los Angeles. Captain Powell and myself return with Bishop Leithhead to St. Thomas. From St. Thomas we go to Salt Lake City. End of Chapter eleven.