VOYAGE ON A RAFT DOWN A CANON. 65 



befallen some of the white hunters and trappers who 

 have attempted to explore the great cafion country of 

 North America, which according to Professor Hayden 

 is a region "above 200 miles in length, and 150 

 miles in width, the whole of which may be said to be 

 almost inaccessible; as in attempting to traverse it, 

 one would be obliged to cross gorge after gorge, with 

 nearly vertical walls, 3000 feet or more in depth." * 



Some of these daring adventurers, despairing of ever 

 finding their way out again, or being hunted by In- 

 dians, have in some cases been known to float down 

 the current through the canons, upon logs or rafts, 

 and after encountering numberless perils this has occa- 

 sionally been safely accomplished. We quote one such 

 case, on the authority of Mr. Bowles, editor of The 

 Springfield (Mass.) Republican, where a man named 

 White, about 1868, seems to have passed through the 

 Grand Canon of the Colorado in this way, and lived 

 to tell the tale. It seems that he was prospecting for 

 gold with a companion in Southern Colorado, when 

 being hunted by Indians, they made a raft and com- 

 mitted themselves to the waters at a point in Grand 

 River just before its junction with the Green. While 

 shooting the rapids and whirlpools the second man, 

 and the whole of the provisions, were swept off by 

 the tumultuous waters; but White, the surviving hero, 

 after a passage of fourteen days, seven of them with- 

 out food, upon these strange waters, furiously rushing 

 between frowning walls of rock, at length reached 

 Collville, in Arizona. "His entire journey on the river," 

 we are told, " must have exceeded 500 miles, and he 



* The Yellowstone National Park and the Mountain Regions of 

 Portions of Idaho, Nevada, Colorado and Utah, described by Pro- 

 fessor F. V. Hayden, Boston, 1876, p. 45. 



VOL. II. 5 



