24 EXPLORATION OF THE CANONS OF THE COLORADO. 
denly narro tved by rocks which have been tumbled from the cliffs or have 
been washed in by lateral streams. Immediately above the narrow, rocky 
channel, on one or both sides, there is often a bay of quiet water, in which 
we can land with ease. Sometimes the water descends with a smooth, 
unruffled surface, from the broad, quiet spread above, into the narrow, 
angry channel below, by a semicircular sag. Great care must be taken not 
to pass over the brink into this deceptive pit, but above it we can row with 
safety. I walk along the bank to examine the ground, leaving one of my 
men with a flag to guide the other boats to the landing-place. I soon see 
one of the boats make shore all right and feel no more concern ; but a 
minute after, I hear a shout, and looking around, see one of the boats 
shooting down the center of the sag. It is the "No Name," with Captain 
Rowland, his brother, and Goodman. I feel that its going over is inevitable, 
and run to save the third boat. A minute more, and she turns the point and 
heads for the shore. Then I turn down stream again, and scramble along 
to look for the boat that has gone over. The first fall is not great, only ten 
or twelve feet, and we often run such; but below, the river tumbles down 
again for forty or fifty feet, in a channel filled with dangerous rocks that 
break the waves into whirlpools and beat them into foam. I pass around a 
great crag just in time to see the boat strike a rock, and, rebounding from 
the shock, careen and fill the open compartment with water. Two of the 
men lose their oars ; she swings around, and is earned down at a rapid rate, 
broadside on, for a few yards, and strikes amidships on another rock with 
great force, is broken quite in two, and the men are thrown into the river ; 
the larger part of the boat floating buoyantly, they soon seize it, and 
down the river they drift, past the rocks for a few hundred yards to a second 
rapid, filled with huge boulders, where the boat strikes again, and is dashed 
to pieces, and the men and fragments are soon carried beyond my sight. 
Running along, I turn a bend, and see a man's head above the water, washed 
about in a whirlpool below a great rock. 
It is Frank Goodman, clinging to it with a grip upon which life depends. 
Coming opposite, I see Howland trying to go to his aid from an island on 
which he has been washed. Soon, he comes near enough to reach Frank 
with a pole, which he extends toward him. The latter lets go the rock, 
