CHAPTER VI. 
FROM THE MOUTH OF THE UINTAx RIVER TO THE JUNCTION OF THE GRAND 
AND GREEN. 
July 6. Start early this morning. A short distance below the month of 
the Uinta, we come to the head of a long island. Last winter, a man named 
Johnson, -a hunter and Indian trader, visited us at our camp in White River 
Valley. This man has an Indian wife, and, having no fixed, home, usually 
travels with one of the Ute bands. He informed me it was his intention to 
plant some corn, potatoes, and other vegetables on this island in the spring, 
and, knowing that we would pass it, invited us to stop and help ourselves, 
even if he should not be there ; so we land and go out on the island. 
Looking about, we soon discover his garden, but it is in a sad condition, 
having received no care since it was planted. It is yet too early in the 
season for corn, but Hall suggests that potato tops are good greens, and, 
anxious for some change from our salt meat fare, we gather a quantity and 
take them aboard. At noon we stop and cook our greens for dinner; but 
soon, one after another of the party is taken sick ; nausea first, and then 
severe vomiting, and we tumble around under the trees, groaning with pain, 
and I feel a little alarmed, lest our poisoning be severe. Emetics are ad 
ministered to those who are willing to take them, and about the middle of 
the afternoon we are all rid of the pain. Jack Sumner records in his diary 
that " Potato tops are not good greens on the sixth day of July." 
This evening we enter another canon, almost imperceptibly, as the 
walls rise very gently. 
July 1. We find quiet water to day, the river sweeping in great and 
beautiful curves, the canon walls steadily increasing in altitude. The 
escarpment formed by the cut edges of the rock are often vertical, some 
times terraced, and hi some places the treads of the terraces are sloping. In 
these quiet curves vast amphitheaters are formed, now in vertical rocks, now 
in steps. 
