62 CROSSING PLACES IN CANONS. 



but lay wrapped in the mystery of the unknown 

 wilderness, which it was as much as a man's life was 

 worth to attempt to penetrate; for it lay in the heart 

 of one of the most dangerous Indian countries upon 

 the American continent ; indeed the only guides who 

 knew anything of the intricate geography of this 

 region were the Indians or half-breeds belonging to 

 some of the wild tribes whose fastnesses lay in these 

 lonely wastes. They alone knew of the places where 

 it was possible to effect a crossing, which at the best 

 of times was generally a work of both difficulty and 

 danger ; for we need hardly say that, except at a few 

 widely separated points, it was impossible for anything 

 but a bird to pass. Travelling through such a country 

 therefore presented almost insuperable difficulties for 

 strangers, who may have had to wander for immense 

 distances along the dry and barren table lands which 

 skirt the borders of these mighty chasms, before a 

 practicable pass could be found, or even before they 

 could reach water. 



For instance, in the report upon the United States 

 Government surveys of the great canon country of 

 Colorado, up to May 1874, Professor Powell states 

 that "between ' Gunisson's Crossing' on Green River, 

 and the foot of the Grand Canon of the Colorado, a 

 distance of 587^- miles, it was not known that the river 

 could be reached at more than two points; and these 

 were so near together that only one of them could be 

 used as a deposit for supplies." * Both these places, 

 it seems however, were ancient passes, used by the 



* Report to the United States House of Representatives on the 

 Survey of the Colorado River of the West, May 1874, by Professor 

 J. W. Powell (Smithsonian Institute, Washington), p. 4. 



