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 canons, 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 canon 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; but we listen
for falls, and watch for rocks, or stop 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 strange-shaped rock, or some deep, narrow side
canon. 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 the shelf, landing
them again in the mouth of a side canon. 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 beach we camp for the night. We find a few sticks, which have
lodged in the rocks. It is raining hard, and we have no shelter, but
kindle a fire and have our 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 or four
hundred yards, and it is managed in this way: We pass along the 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
a line, while two men remain aboard, and prevent her from being dashed
against the rocks, and keep the line from getting caught in 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 a 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 bight of rope about a rock, to
prevent her 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 she
sinks. Where we wish to run her out a little way from 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 canon very narrow, and still obstructed, so that there is no
steady flow of the stream; but the waters wheel, 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 labouring
for its own preservation. In such a place we come to another rapid. Two
of the boats run it perforce. 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 water-logged, and drifts unmanageable. Breaker after
breaker roll 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, so a pair from the _Emma
Dean_ is spared. Then for two miles we find smooth water.
Clouds are playing in the canon to-day. Sometimes they roll down in
great masses, filling the gorge with gloom; sometimes they hang above,
from wall to wall, and cover the canon with a roof of impending storm;
and we can peer long distances up and down this canon 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
canons, glide around points, and creep back again into more distant
gorges. Then, clouds, set in strata across the canon, 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 rills 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 rills, brooks, and creeks run dry. The
waters that fall during a rain on these steep rocks are gathered at 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 canon a side gulch is dangerous, for a sudden flood may come,
and the inpouring water will raise the river, so as to hide the rocks
before your eyes.
Early in the afternoon we discover a stream, entering from the north, a
clear, beautiful creek, coming down through a gorgeous red canon. 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 to-day, 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, which are
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 honour 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 6,000 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 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 4,000 feet in the
first mile or two of its course; then runs through a deep, narrow canon,
until it reaches the river.
[Illustration: Fig. 30.--Mu-av Canon, a side gorge]
Late in the afternoon I return, and go up a little gulch, just above
this creek, and 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 mealing 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 Oraiby, one of
the towns in the "Province of Tusayan," in Northern Arizona, the
inhabitants have actually built little terraces along the face of the
cliff, where a spring gushes out, and thus made their sites 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 population as to demand the
utilization of so barren a region. The only solution of the problem
suggested is this: We know that, for a century or two after the
settlement of Mexico, many expeditions were sent into the country, now
comprised in 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 canons were these
unknown lands. Maybe 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 near by 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 panoply. The interpretation of the
picture-writing is this: "Be baptized, as this saved heathen; or be
hanged, as that damned heathen." Doubtless, some of these people
preferred a third alternative, and, rather than be baptized or hanged,
they chose to be imprisoned within these canon walls.
_August 17._ Our rations are still spoiling; the bacon is so badly
injured that we are compelled to throw it away. By accident, this
morning, the saleratus is lost overboard. We have now only musty flour
sufficient for ten days, a few dried apples, but plenty of coffee. We
must make all haste possible. If we meet with difficulties, as we have
done in the canon 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 passed, but our barometers are all so much injured
as to be useless, so we have lost our reckoning in altitude, and know
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, where we can see the river below. Although very
anxious to advance, we are determined to run with great caution, lest,
by another accident, we lose all our supplies. How precious that little
flour 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 115 deg., so that we
have rapid changes from great extremes, which are very disagreeable. It
is especially cold in the rain to-night. 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 is without
hats, and 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.
_August 18._ 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 away back over the rust-coloured 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 canon above
than below. All about me are interesting geological records. The book is
open, and I can read as I run. All about me are grand views, 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 is but half seen.
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 geological
change that will let us out of the granite; but, arriving at the point,
I can see below only a labyrinth of deep gorges.
_August 19._ Rain again this morning. Still we are in our granite
prison, and the time is occupied until noon 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 down stream 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, bailed out; the
oars, which fortunately have floated along in company with us, are
gathered up, and on we go, without even landing.
Soon after the accident 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 20._ The characteristics of the canon change 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 Canon.
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
mealing stones, and much broken pottery, and up in 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, as if this had been the home of an old arrow-maker.
_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.
There we toss about for a few seconds in these billows, and are carried
past the danger. Below, the river turns again to the right, the canon 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 earned, 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 to the gunwale, and the boat
glides rapidly, where the water is smooth, or, 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 its
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 cloud-covered canons,
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 come, and see the granite 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, to-day.
_August 22._ 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 2,500 feet, where I can obtain a good
view of a long stretch of canon below. Its course is to the southwest.
The walls seem to rise very abruptly, for 2,500 or 3,000 feet, and then
there is a gently sloping terrace, on each side, for two or three miles,
and again we find cliffs, 1,500 or 2,000 feet high. From the brink of
these the plateau stretches back to the north and south, for a long
distance. Away down the canon, on the right wall, I can see a group of
mountains, some of which appear to stand on the brink of the canon. 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 we have granite at the bottom or not; but, from
geological 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 to-day, and a part of our flour
has been soaked in the river again.
_August 23._ Our way to-day 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, wading it all the way, sometimes having to take a
plunge in to 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 a hundred and fifty feet, and climb
around it to the right, on the broken rocks. Still going up, I find the
canon narrowing 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 is 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, wading in the creek where I must, and plunging through
basins, and find the men 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 a hundred feet, forming a
beautiful cascade. There is a bed of very hard rock above, thirty or
forty feet in thickness, and 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 crevice above
into a deep pool below. Around on the rocks, in the cave-like chamber,
are set beautiful ferns, with delicate fronds and enamelled stalks. The
little frondlets have their points turned down, to form spore cases. It
has very much the appearance of the maiden's 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 a swift river,
and shoot over the rapids, finding no serious obstructions.
The canon walls, for 2,500 or 3,000 feet, are very regular, rising
almost perpendicularly, but here and there set with narrow steps, and
occasionally we can see away above the broad terrace, to distant cliffs.
We camp to-night in a marble cave, and find, on looking at our
reckoning, we have run twenty-two miles.
_August 24._ The canon is wider to-day. The walls rise to a vertical
height of nearly 3,000 feet. In many places the river runs under a
cliff, in great curves, forming amphitheatres, half-dome shaped.
Though the river is rapid, we meet with no serious obstructions, and run
twenty miles. It is curious how anxious we are to make-up our reckoning
every time we stop, now that our diet is confined to plenty of coffee,
very little spoiled flour, and very few dried apples. It has come to be
a race for a dinner. Still, we make such fine progress, all hands are in
good cheer, but not a moment of daylight is lost.