Having now accomplished a distance down this turbulent river of nearly six hundred miles, with a descent toward sea-level of 2645 feet, without a serious accident, we were all in a happy frame of mind, notwithstanding the exceedingly diminutive food supply that remained. We felt that we could overcome almost anything in the line of rapids the world might afford, and Steward declared our party was so efficient he would be willing to "run the Gates of Hell" with them! Barring an absence of heat Cataract Canyon had been quite a near approach to that unwelcome entrance, and the locality of the mouth of the Dirty Devil certainly resembled some of the more favoured portions of Satan's notorious realm. Circumstances would prohibit our lingering here, for our long stretch on short rations made the small amount we could allow ourselves at each meal seem almost like nothing at all, and we were desirous of reaching as soon as possible El Vado, something over a hundred miles below, where our pack-train was doubtless now waiting.

The plan of leaving a boat at this place for a party to bring down, which should penetrate the unknown country the next year and then complete what we might now be compelled to slight, was carried out. The CaÑonita was chosen and the day after our arrival, Sunday, October 1st, we ran her down a short distance on the right, and there carried her back about two hundred feet to a low cliff and up thirty or forty feet above the prevailing stage of water, where we hid her under an enormous mass of rock which had so fallen from the top as to lodge against the wall, forming a perfect shelter somewhat longer than the boat. All of her cargo had been left at camp and we filled her cabins and standing-rooms with sand, also piling sand and stones all about her to prevent high water from carrying her off. When we were satisfied that we had done our best we turned away feeling as one might on leaving a friend, and hoping that she would be found intact the following year. As nine o'clock only had arrived, the Major and Jones then climbed out from this place, while Prof. with the Nell ran down about a mile and a half to the mouth of a gulch on the right where he and the Major had traced the old trail. The rest of us returned to camp. Prof. and Cap. climbed out, after following the trail up the gulch six miles, and they saw that it went toward the Unknown Mountains, which now lay very near us on the west. Steward got out by an attempt not so far up the canyon and reached an altitude of 1950 feet, where he had a clear, full view of the mountains. With his glass he was able to study their formation and determined that lava from below had spread out between the sedimentary strata, forming what he called "blisters." He could see where one side of a blister had been eroded, showing the surrounding stratification.[19]

When the Major and Jones came back we put the cargo of the CaÑonita on the Dean, and all of us embarked, seven in number, and ran down to where the Nell was moored. Here we camped for the night. The crews were then rearranged, Beaman being assigned to my bow oars, Clem and Andy going in the Nell, while I was to sit on the middle cabin of the Dean in front of the Major, where I could carry on my sketching. We were now a shaggy-looking lot, for our clothes had been almost worn off our bodies in the rapids. Our shoes, notwithstanding that the Major had brought us a fresh supply at Gunnison Crossing, were about gone, and we were tanned till we could hardly have been distinguished from the old Shinumos themselves; but we were clean. Steward was a great lover of Burns and could quote him by the page, though what he most liked to repeat just now was:

I think the Address to the Deil would have been appropriate for this particular environment, but I do not remember that Steward quoted:

The cargo of the CaÑonita was distributed among the cabins of the Dean and the Nell, and Cap. was somewhat disturbed by having an addition to the bow compartment in the Nell. Each man had charge of a cabin and this was Cap.'s special pride. He daily packed it so methodically that it became a standing joke with us, and we often asked him whether he always placed that thermometer back of the fifth rib or in front of the third, or some such nonsensical question, which of course Cap. took in good part and only arranged his cabin still more carefully.

The next morning, the 2d of October, at eight o'clock, we continued our voyage, now entering a new canyon, then called Mound, but it was afterwards consolidated with the portion below called Monument, and together they now stand as Glen Canyon. In about three and one half miles we ran several sharp little rapids, but they were not of much consequence, and we stopped to examine a house ruin we saw standing up boldly on a cliff on the left. It could be seen for a long distance in both directions, and correspondingly its inmates in the old days could see every approach. Doubtless the trail we had seen on the right had its exit on the other side near it. The walls, neatly built of thin sandstone slabs, still stood about fifteen feet high and fifteen inches thick. The dimensions on the ground were 12 × 22 feet outside. It had been of two or three stories, and exhibited considerable skill on the part of the builders, the corners being plumb and square. Under the brink of the cliff was a sort of gallery formed by the erosion of a soft shale between heavy sandstone beds, forming a floor and roof about eight or ten feet wide, separated by six or seven feet in vertical height. A wall had been carried along the outer edge, and the space thus made was divided by cross walls into a number of rooms. Potsherds and arrow-heads, mostly broken ones, were strewn everywhere. There were also numerous picture-writings, of which I made copies.

As we pulled on and on the Major frequently recited selections from the poets, and one that he seemed to like very much, and said sometimes half in reverie, was Longfellow's:

He would repeat several times, with much feeling:

Another thing he enjoyed repeating was Whittier's Skipper Ireson's Ride:

Towards evening we came to another Shinumo ruin, where we made camp, having run altogether sixteen miles, with ten rapids, all small, between walls of red, homogeneous sandstone, averaging about one thousand feet in height. The river, some three hundred and fifty feet wide, was low, causing many shoals, which formed the small rapids. We often had to wade alongside to lighten the boats, but otherwise these places were easy. A trifle more water would have done away with them, or at least would have enabled us to ignore them completely. The house ruin at our camp was very old and broken down and had dimensions of about 20 × 30 feet. Prof. climbed out to a point 1215 feet above the river, where he saw plainly the Unknown Mountains, Navajo Mountain, and a wide sweep of country formed largely of barren sandstone. Steward felt considerably under the weather and remained as quiet as possible.

In the morning we were quickly on the water, pushing along under conditions similar to those of the previous day, making twenty-seven miles and passing eleven very small rapids, with a river four hundred feet wide and the same walls of homogeneous red sandstone about one thousand feet high. The cliffs in the bends were often slightly overhanging, that is, the brink was outside of a perpendicular line, but the opposite side would then generally be very much cut down, usually to irregular, rounded slopes of smooth rock. The vertical portions were unbroken by cracks or crevices or ledges, being extensive flat surfaces, beautifully stained by iron, till one could imagine all manner of tapestry effects. Along the river there were large patches of alluvial soil which might easily be irrigated, though it is probable that at certain periods they would be rapidly cut to pieces by high water.

Prof. again climbed out at our noon camp, and saw little but naked orange sandstone in rounded hills, except the usual mountains. In the barren sandstone he found many pockets or pot-holes, a feature of this formation, often thirty or forty feet deep, and frequently containing water. Wherever we climbed out in this region we saw in the depressions flat beds of sand, surrounded by hundreds of small round balls of stone an inch or so in diameter, like marbles—concretions and hard fragments which had been driven round and round by the winds till they were quite true spheres.[20]

The next day, October 4th, we ran into a stratum of sandstone shale, which at this low stage of water for about five miles gave us some trouble. Ledge after ledge stretched across the swift river, which at the same time spread to at least six hundred feet, sometimes one thousand. We were obliged to walk in the water alongside for great distances to lighten the boats and ease them over the ridges. Occasionally the rock bottom was as smooth as a ballroom floor; again it would be carved in the direction of the current into thousands of narrow, sharp, polished ridges, from three to twelve inches apart, upon which the boats pounded badly in spite of all exertions to prevent it. The water was alternately shallow and ten feet deep, giving us all we could do to protect the boats and at the same time avoid sudden duckings in deep water. With all our care the Nell got a bad knock, and leaked so fast that one man continually bailing could barely keep the water out. We repaired her at dinner-time, and, the shales running up above the river, we escaped further annoyance from this cause. Even with this interference our progress was fairly good, and by camping-time we had made twenty-one miles.

We had a rapid shallow river again the following day, October 5th, but the water was not so widely spread out and there were fewer delays. The walls were of orange sandstone, strangely cut up by narrow side canyons some not more than twenty feet wide and twisting back for a quarter of a mile where they expanded into huge amphitheatres, domed and cave-like. Alcoves filled with trees and shrubs also opened from the river, and numerous springs were noted along the cliffs. Twelve miles below our camp we passed a stream coming in on the left through a canyon about one thousand feet deep, similar to that of the Colorado. This was the San Juan, now shallow and some eight rods wide. We did not stop till noon when we were two miles below it near one of the amphitheatres or grottoes to which the first party had given the name of "Music Temple." The entrance was by a narrow gorge which after some distance widened at the bottom to about five hundred feet in diameter leaving the upper walls arching over till they formed a dome-shaped cavern about two hundred feet high with a narrow belt of sky visible above. In the farther end was a pool of clear water, while five or six green cottonwoods and some bushes marked the point of expansion. One side was covered with bright ferns, mosses, and honeysuckle. Every whisper or cough resounded. This was only one of a hundred such places but we had no time to examine them. On a smooth space of rock we found carved by themselves the names of Seneca Howland, O. G. Howland, and William Dunn, the three men of the first party who were killed by the Shewits in 1869. Prof. climbed up eight hundred feet and had a fine view of Navajo Mountain which was now very near. We then chiefly called it Mount Seneca Howland, applied by the Major in memory of that unfortunate person but later, the peak already having to some extent been known as Navajo Mountain, that name was finally adopted. No one had ever been to it, so far as we knew, and the Major was desirous of reaching the summit.

photo, canyon

Leaving the Music Temple, which seemed to us a sort of mausoleum to the three men who had marked it with their names, we soon arrived at a pretty rapid with a clear chute. It was not large but it was the only real one we had seen in this canyon and we dashed through it with pleasure. Just below we halted to look admiringly up at Navajo Mountain which now loomed beside us on the left to an altitude of 10,416 feet above sea level or more than 7100 feet above our position, as was later determined. The Major contemplated stopping long enough for a climb to the top but on appealing to Andy for information as to the state of the supplies he found we were near the last crust and he decided that we had better pull on as steadily as possible towards El Vado. We ran down a considerable distance through some shallows and camped on the left having accomplished about twenty miles in the day towards our goal. Here the remaining food was divided into two portions, one for supper, the other for breakfast in the morning. Though we were running so close to the starvation line we felt no great concern about it. We always had confidence in our ability somehow to get through with success. Andy, particularly, never failed in his optimism. Generally he took no interest in the nature of a rapid, lying half asleep while the others examined the place, and entirely willing to run anything or make a portage or even swim; he cared not. "Nothing ever happens to any outfit I belong to," he would declare shifting to an easier position, "Let her go!" and now so far as Andy's attitude was concerned we might have possessed unlimited rations. Jack lightened the situation yet more with his jolly songs and humorous expressions and no one viewing that camp would have thought the ten men had before them a possibility of several days without food, except what they might kill in the barren country, and perhaps a walk from El Vado over an unknown trail about one hundred miles out to Kanab. In the morning, Friday, October 6th, we got away as quickly as we could and pulled down the river hoping that El Vado was not far ahead and feeling somewhat as Escalante must have felt a century before when he was trying to find it. He had the advantage of having horses which could be eaten from time to time. Of course we knew from the position of the San Juan and of Navajo Mountain, that we could reach El Vado in at most two days, but the question was, "would we find any one there with rations?" The Major apparently was unconcerned. He told me a story about a farmer's son in his neighbourhood when himself a boy who had no shoes, no good clothes, no decent hat, but who went to the father and declared he wanted a "buzzum pin," and nothing but a buzzum pin would he have, though his parent called his attention to his lack of other necessaries, one after the other. "No Pa," the boy would repeat "I want a buzzum pin."

photo, canyon

As we rowed along the Major sang softly another of his favourites:

The almost vertical walls ran from two hundred to one thousand feet in height, cut by many very narrow side canyons opening into large glens or alcoves. On and on we steadily pulled till noon, making 13-1/2 miles when we stopped on the right on a sandstone ledge against a high cliff. Andy had a few scraps left, among them a bit of bacon which Jack enterprisingly used for baiting a hook and soon drew out several small fish, so that after all we had quite a dinner. The walls became more broken as we went on apparently with numerous opportunities for entrance from the back country, though the sandstone even where not very steep was so smooth that descent over it would be difficult. We had gone about three miles after dinner when we saw a burned place in the brush on the right where there was quite a large piece of bottom land. We thought this might be some signal for us but we found there only the tracks of two men and horses all well shod proving that they were not natives. About three miles farther down we caught a glimpse of a stick with a white rag dangling from it stuck out from the right bank, and at the same moment heard a shot. On landing and mounting the bank we found Captain Pardyn Dodds and two prospectors, George Riley and John Bonnemort, encamped beside a large pile of rations. Dodds was one of the men with Old Jacob who had tried desperately to reach the mouth of the Dirty Devil with our supplies. He thought he had arrived at a point where he could see it and went back to inform Jacob when they received an order from the Major to come to this place, El Vado de los Padres, by September 25th, and here he was. Jacob had come with him but had gone on to Fort Defiance, the Navajo Agency, to settle some Indian business, leaving him to guard the rations. Having left Kanab early in September they had no late news. They had become discouraged by our non-appearance and concluded that we would never be heard from again. Consequently they had planned to cache the rations and leave for the settlement on Sunday. That night Andy was able to summon us to "go fur" the first "square" meal we had eaten for nearly a month. There was among the supplies some plug tobacco which we cut up, all but Steward, Prof., and Cap. who did not smoke, and rolled in cigarettes with thick yellow paper, the only kind we had, having learned to make them Spanish fashion from the Hamblins, and we smoked around the fire talking to Dodds and the prospectors over the general news. They told us they had found small quantities of gold along the river. A great many papers, magazines, and letters for everybody were in the packs supplying us with reading matter enough for weeks. Though the papers were of ancient dates they were new to us.

The whole next day was consumed in preparing maps, notes, specimens, fossils, etc., to be sent by pack-train to the settlement of Kanab one hundred miles off whither the Major himself had decided to start with the outfit the next morning and go from there to Salt Lake City about 400 miles north. None of us had a chance to write even a line to expectant relatives far away and we were naturally disappointed till Prof. persuaded the Major to hold over till Tuesday which he willingly did when he realised the situation. We wrote late by the light of a diminutive fire, wood being scarce. He then left us on October 10th with Jack, Captain Dodds, and the miners who had waited only to learn something about the river above as a place for prospecting. The trail up over the barren sandstone was so steep and smooth that two of the pack-animals lost their footing and rolled back to the bottom but received no injury except scraping the skin off their knees.

Not the least welcome articles among the supplies were a pair of good heavy shoes and a pair of strong overalls, which the foresight of the Major had secured for each one of us, our clothing, as before mentioned, having been completely worn out. My watch, which I had carried all the way in a little rubber pocket sewed to my shirt near the neck, where it seldom got wet enough to stop it, though occasionally it refused to go till I punched it up with a large pin kept for the purpose, which my wicked companions called my "starting bar," at last had stopped permanently, and I sent it out by Jack for repairs. After they had gone we settled down again to our accustomed labours. We were to run down thirty-five miles farther to the mouth of the Paria, whence there was another known trail to the settlement, and cache the boats. The pack-train was to come back to us there with additional supplies and horses and take us out to Kanab, where we were to make headquarters for our winter explorations in the practically unknown Grand Canyon region as well as in that to the eastward. During this interval we expected to discover some point between the Paria and Diamond Creek where rations could be brought in to us while working through the Grand Canyon the next season. We did not then know that the winter is the safest and best time for making the passage through that wonderful gorge.[21]

Our appetites were now enormous, and as we could eat all we wanted, the supplies diminished in an astonishing way, but as we were soon to receive more we did not care. Every man braced up; all but Steward, who felt quite sick. Jones began to feel trouble brewing in the leg which he had hurt at the Junction; Andy showed the effects of the scorpion bite by becoming thin and pale, thinner than our previous lack of rations justified; Cap., who had been shot in the Civil War through and through near the heart, now felt the effects of the long exposure; and neither Clem nor Beaman considered their health perfect. Altogether, however, we had come through very well. Our worst work was over for this year, and the maladies portending seemed not dangerous. Prof., desiring to get some notes from up the river, went on the 11th, with Cap., Beaman, and Clem, back six miles in the Dean to the foot of some rapid water they could not pass. Arriving there about half-past twelve, they spent all afternoon going up numerous gulches, trying to find a way out. As there was a large area of bottom land, with old camp-fires and much broken pottery, they were sure there was a path, but it was late before they discovered a place where modern natives had piled brush and stones to make a horse trail, and another where the old Shinumos for fifty feet had cut steps in the smooth rock. The party followed the Shinumo trail, finding the steps in places almost worn out by time, in others still quite good and large enough to get the toe of a shoe in. By the time they came to the top it was too late for observations, and they returned to the river for camp, making the same climb by the steps the next day and securing the observations. They got back to our Camp 79 late in the afternoon. Meanwhile Steward's illness had increased, and I spent much of the night trying to relieve his pain. The air was cold and he was most uncomfortable, the only shelter being a wickiup of boughs we had built to protect him from the sun. We had opium pills in our medicine chest, and I had the little flask of brandy referred to. With several of the pills and my brandy, which I at last persuaded him to take as medicine (he despised alcoholic drinks), his suffering was somewhat relieved, and he was able to lie still on his bed of willows. During the next day his condition was no better, and Prof. returning, was much distressed by it. By drawing further on the medicine chest, which contained numerous remedies, he was able to relieve him a little more. The exposure had brought on a trouble of the back which had originally developed during the campaigns of the Civil War.

photo, Navajo man

Before leaving this point Prof. wanted some observations from the heights, and he and Cap. tried to climb the near-by cliffs, but failed. They then took a hammer and chisel, and by cutting "holds" in the sandstone after the manner of the old Shinumos, they got up 850 feet and secured the bearings Prof. desired. The following day they went out on the trail toward Kanab five miles, trying to find another point of exit to the summit, but did not succeed. While they were gone we heard a sudden shout, and saw an Indian standing on the rocks not far away. We beckoned for him to come, and thereupon he fell back to another, and together they approached. We saw by their dress, so different from the Ute (red turbans, loose unbleached cotton shirts, native woven sashes at the waist, wide unbleached cotton trousers reaching to a little below the knee and there slashed up on the outer side for seven or eight inches, bright woven garters twisted around their red buckskin leggins below the knee, and red moccasins with turned up soles and silver buttons), that they were Navajos.[22] They indicated that they were father and son, the father announcing himself in a lordly way as "Agua Grande." He was over six feet tall and apparently sixty or seventy years old. The son was a fine young lad of about fifteen. Their bearing was cordial, yet proud and dignified. They had not long been with us when Prof. came in, and during the next hour seven more Navajos arrived, all dressed very much as the first ones were. They expressed great friendliness by embracing us after their custom and delivering long speeches, of which we understood not a word. One had a short black mustache which came straight out sidewise and then turned at right angles down past the corners of his mouth. I never had heard of an Indian with a mustache before. They had no visible firearms, being armed with strong bows and cougar-skin quivers full of iron-headed arrows.[23] Old Agua Grande became much interested in our sick man, and made signs by placing two spread fingers of one hand inverted upon one finger held horizontally of the other hand, and moving them north-westerly to indicate that he ought to ride out to the Mormon settlement, whither they were bound, and that they would take him along. As the chief had exhibited a document, signed by the agent at Fort Defiance, to the effect that he and his band were peaceable and going on a trading expedition to the Mormon settlements, we felt certain they would take good care of the invalid, but Steward said he preferred to remain with us.

We now had no further work for this immediate locality, and concluded to run down a mile or so to separate ourselves from the Navajos, one having disclosed a tendency to surreptitiously appropriate small articles belonging to us. A bed was made on the middle deck of one of the boats for Steward, and when all was ready we carried him down to it. The Navajos ranged themselves along the bank to see us off, and Clem, with his customary urbanity, went down the line all smiles, shaking each one cordially by the hand, and requesting him to "Give my love to all the folks at home," and "Remember me, please, to Eliza Jane," and similar expressions. The Navajos did not understand the words, but being themselves great jokers they saw that it was fun, and they all laughed, making remarks which doubtless were of the same kind. Just below was El Vado de los Padres by which these Navajos had now come across. It was also sometimes called the Ute Ford. The necessary route was indicated by a line of small piles of stones showing above water. It was not an easy crossing, feasible only at low water, and quite impossible for waggons, even had there been a road to it. A shoal was followed up the middle of the river half a mile with deep channels cutting through it, reached from the south over a steep slope of bare sandstone and from the north through a very narrow, small canyon, not over ten feet wide. Escalante in 1776, after the failure of his attempt to reach California, had great difficulty in finding the place, which for centuries has been known to all the tribes of the region. About three miles below our last camp we landed on the left on a very pretty piece of bottom land, inaccessible except by river, being bounded behind by a high, vertical, unscalable wall. Here we made Camp 80, with plenty of food, water, and wood, and all were comfortable by a fine fire; all but Steward, who, feeling very sick, was lying on the bed we had prepared for him. He had another bad night, but after this his condition seemed gradually to improve.

photo, rock spire

Prof.'s favourite quotation now was Charles Fenno Hoffman's poem:

In the morning he went with Jones across the river and climbed out while the rest of us did nothing but lie around camp doing what was possible to make Steward comfortable. It was Sunday as well and whenever practicable we rested the whole or part of that day. Monday we started late and ran only a short distance before dinner which we ate on the right. Steward still was unable to sit up and he was carried on the middle deck of the Nell where he had a rope to cling to so that he should not roll off into the water when the boat lurched. Toward evening we camped at the head of a small rapid near a fine little stream coming in from the left which we named Navajo Creek. The river was about four hundred feet wide with walls on each side of four hundred feet in height. The next morning Prof., Cap. and I climbed out for bearings reaching an altitude a mile or so back from the river of 875 feet. Everywhere we discovered broken pottery, fragments of arrow-heads, and other evidences of former Shinumo occupancy. Even granting only a few persons at each possible locality, the canyons of the Colorado and Green must have been the former home of a rather large population. In the afternoon we ran the little rapid and kept on for about six miles making twenty in all from El Vado, when we camped on a heavy talus on the left. The following morning, October 18th, we had not gone more than a mile when we came to a singular freak of erosion, a lone sandstone pinnacle on the right, three hundred or four hundred feet high, the river running on one side and a beautiful creek eight feet wide on the other. We named these Sentinel Rock and Sentinel Creek and camped there for Beaman to get some photographs. Prof. and I went up the creek and tried to climb out for observations, but though we made three separate attempts we had to give it up. Steward grew so much better that he was able to walk a little, but now Jones began to feel more pain in his injured leg. On Thursday, the 19th, we made nearly seven miles between walls about eight hundred feet high and one quarter of a mile apart, so nearly vertical that we could not get out.

The next day we ran six miles more with walls one thousand feet high, camping at a place where there was a wide bottom with many signs of old native camps, probably Navajo. In the morning Prof., Cap., and I climbed a steep slope of bright orange sand a little below our camp, a rather hard task as the sand was loose, causing us to slip backward at every step. After twelve hundred or fifteen hundred feet of this kind of climbing we reached the base of three rocky peaks several hundred feet higher. We had considerable difficulty in surmounting one of these, being forced around to the opposite side, where there was a sheer descent from our position of some fifteen hundred feet, with sharp black rocks at the bottom where any one slipping would fall. There were some narrow transverse crevices in the rock by means of which we got up. One man, having been pushed aloft from the solid ledge by the two below, would lie back against the slope, brace himself with one heel in a transverse fissure, and lower the free foot as a handhold for the others to mount by. The next trouble was a crevice wide enough for us to pass through to the top, but holding exactly midway a large rock lodged in such a manner that we could not crawl under and yet seeming in danger of rolling down if we went over it. It was precarious not only for the man ahead who tried to pass but for those below waiting for results, but it was more firmly wedged than it appeared to be and each one in turn climbed over it. Emerging from this crack we were on the summit 2190 feet above the river and 5360 above the sea, with standing room no more than six or eight feet square. The view was superb. The peaks formed the northern end of a long line of cliffs running back to the south at the end of Glen Canyon, and we looked out across a wonderful region, part of that on the south being the "Painted Desert," so called by Ives. Mountains solid and solitary rose up here and there and line upon line of strangely coloured cliffs broke across the wide area, while from our feet stretching off to the south-west like a great dark dragon extending miles into the blue was the deep gorge of Marble Canyon, its tributary chasms appearing like mighty sprawling legs. Far away west were the San Francisco Mountains, and the Kaibab, while behind we saw Navajo Mountain and others.

This peak, or cluster of peaks, of course had never been named, had never been climbed before, but they soon named themselves. For amusement I tried to shoot into the river with Cap.'s 44 Remington revolver. As I pulled the trigger the noise was absolutely staggering. The violent report was followed by dead silence. While we were remarking the intensity of the crash, from far away on some distant cliffs northward the sound waves were hurled back to us with a rattle like that of musketry. We tried again with the same result, the interval between the great roar and the echo being twenty-four seconds by the watch. We could call the place nothing but Echo Peaks, and since then the name has been applied also to the line of cliffs breaking to the south. Our descent was easy and we reached camp without any incident except the loss of my sheath knife.

Nobody did anything the next day, for it was Sunday, so when Monday morning came we were eager to be off for the mouth of the Paria, which we had seen from the top of Echo Peaks. Two or three miles down we reached it; a small river coming through a great canyon on the right. The cliffs of Glen Canyon broke back south-westerly and south-easterly in a V form with the point at the foot of Glen Canyon, leaving a wide platform of different rock rising gently from under them and mounting steadily toward the south. Into the middle of this the river immediately slashed a narrow gorge very much as a staircase might be cut through a floor, beginning the next canyon of the series, called Marble, through which we would not descend till the following year. We went into camp on the left bank of the Paria and the right of the Colorado, Camp 86, in the tall willows. A rough scow lay there, which the Major had built the year before when on his way from Kanab to the Moki Towns, for there is no ford.

We were to wait here for our pack-train which the Major, on arriving at Kanab, was to start back with rations and some extra horses. Our altitude was 3170 feet, showing a total descent for the season of 2905 feet, 913 feet from Gunnison Crossing. Our work on the water for the present was now over; we would pursue it with mule and pack instead of with boats. As the 23d of October had arrived we were glad to avoid daily saturation.

line drawing, camp