35 



be no further difficulty. The diytauce iVorn the i-iver to tlie emig'raut 

 road is about forty miles. 



TOPOORAPHICAL DESCRIPTTON OP THE REGION TRAVERSED. 



The navigable portion of the Colorado runs nearly north and south. 

 Near the Gulf the surface on either side is perfectly unbroken, the 

 view being limited towards the west by distant spurs from the moun- 

 tains of Lower California, and towards the east by the great Sonora 

 desert. Furth(*r north broad valleys alternate with wild and rugged 

 ranges of mountains, of volcanic origin, that cross the river in almost 

 parallel northwest and southeast lines. The canons formed by the 

 passage of the river through some of these mountain chains are 

 probably unequalled in beauty and grandeur by any similar forma- 

 tions. In the Elack Canon the deep and narrow current flows be- 

 tween massive walls of rock that rise sheer from the water for over a 

 thousand feet, seeming almost to meet in the dizzy height above. 

 The tortuous course of the river, as it winds through /nese sombre- 

 depths, where the rays of the sun rarely penetrate, gives infinite 

 variety to the majestic outlines of the overhanging masses, forming 

 combinations whose collossal proportions and fantastic sublimity it 

 would be impossible to figure or describe. 



Above the canon, in the vicinity of the mouth of the Virgen, is the 

 most rugged and sterile region that I have ever beheld. Barren 

 piles of rock, heaped together in chaotic disorder, and exhibiting on 

 their broad surfaces no trace of vegetation, extend for miles in almost 

 every direction. The volcanic upheavals, which have here their 

 northern limit, appear to have experienced also their most violent 

 action. Beyond, towards the north and east, the country is undis- 

 turbed, and a region is entered upon that presents totally new fea- 

 tures and peculiarities. This is a vast table land, hundreds of miles 

 in breadth, extending eastward to the mountains of the Sierra Madre, 

 and stretching far north into Utah. To the extreme limit of vision 

 immense plateaus rise, one above the other, in successive steps, the 

 floors of the most elevated being from seven to eight thousand feet 

 above the level of the sea. The Colorado and its tributaries, seeking: 

 the level of the low region to the southwest, have, by ages of wear 

 and abrasion, cut their wav through this huge formation, making 

 canons that are in some places more than a mile in depth. The 

 mighty avenues of the main water-courses are the thoroughfares into 

 which smaller but still giant chasms debouch, and these in turn have 

 their own subordinate tributaries, forming a maze of yawning abysses, 

 generally inaccessible, and whose intricacies it would be a hopeless 

 task to attempt to unravel. Twice only, after long and difficult clam- 

 bering down the sides of precipices and through walled approaches 

 that seemed to be leading into the bowels of the earth, were the 

 banks of the streams below finally attained. One place was on the 

 Colorado itself, and the other near the mouth of one of its larger 



