206 NEW TRACKS IN NORTH AMERICA. 
the day they had no difficulty in avoiding the rocks = 
whirlpools that met them at every bend of the river. 
In the afternoon, and after having floated over a distance 
estimated at thirty miles from the point of starting, they 
reached the mouth of Green River, or rather where the Green 
and the Grand unite to form the Colorado proper. Here th 
cafions of both streams form one of but little greater width, 
but far surpassing either in the height and grandeur of its 
walls. At the junction, the walls were estimated at 4,00 
feet in height. Detached pinnacles appeared to rise, one ce 
the other, for 1,000 feet higher, from amidst huge masses. of 
rock, confusedly piled, like grand monuments to commemorate 
this “meeting of the waters.” The fugitives felt the 
sublimity of the scene, and in contemplating its stupendous 
and unearthly grandeur, they forgot for the time their own 
sorrows. 
The night of the day upon which they entered the ca 
Caiion, and indeed on nearly all the subsequent nights of th 
voyage, the raft was fastened to a loose rock, or hauled up on 
some strip of bottom-land, where they rested till _— 
next morning. 
As they floated down the cajion the grey sandstone walls 
creased in height; the lower portion was smooth from the 
action of floods, but the perpendicular wall-rock above becamé 
more and more rugged, until the far-off sky appeared to rest 
upon a fringe of pinnacles on either side. Here and there a 
stunted cedar clung to the cliff-side 2,000 feet overhead, or @ 
prickly cactus tried to suck sustenance from the bare rock. 
No living thing in sight beyond the raft, for even the wing 
of bird which could pass the chasms in the upper world never 
fanned the dark air in those subterranean depths. Nought 
_ to gaze on but their own pale faces and the cold grey walls 
om 
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