86 EXPLORATION OF THE CANONS OF THE COLORADO. 
cloud roof overhead, its walls of black granite, and its river bright with 
the sheen of broken waters. Then, a gust of wind sweeps down a side 
gulch, and, making a rift in the clouds, reveals the blue heavens, and a 
stream of sunlight pours in. Then, the clouds drift away into the distance, 
and hang around crags, and peaks, and pinnacles, and towers, and walls, 
and cover them with a mantle, that lifts from time to time, and sets them 
all in sharp relief. Then, baby clouds creep out of side canons, glide 
around points, and creep back again, into more distant gorges. Then, 
clouds, set in strata, across the canon, with intervening vista views, to cliffs 
and rocks beyond. The clouds are children of the heavens, and when they 
play among the rocks, they lift them to the region above. 
It rains! Rapidly little rills are formed above, and these soon grow 
into brooks, and the brooks grow into creeks, and tumble over the walls in 
innumerable cascades, adding their wild music to the roar of the river. 
When the rain ceases, the rills, brooks, and creeks run dry. The waters 
that fall, during a rain, on these steep rocks, are gathered at once into the 
river ; they could scarcely be poured in more suddenly, if some vast spout 
ran from the clouds to the stream itself. When a storm bursts over the 
canon, a side gulch is dangerous, for a sudden flood may come, and the 
inpouring waters will raise the river, so as to hide the rocks before your eyes. 
Early in the afternoon, we discover a stream, entering from the north, 
a clear, beautiful creek, coming down through a gorgeous red canon. We 
land, and camp on a sand beach, above its mouth, under a great, overspread 
ing tree, with willow shaped leaves. 
August 16. We must dry our rations again to day, and make oars. 
The Colorado is never a clear stream, but for the past three or four days 
it has been raining much of the time, and the floods, which are poured over 
the walls, have brought down great quantities of mud, making it exceedingly 
turbid now. The little affluent, which we have discovered here, is a clear, 
beautiful creek, or river, as it would be termed in this western country, 
where streams are not abundant. We have named one stream, away above, 
in honor of the great chief of the "Bad Angels," and, as this is in beautiful 
contrast to that, we conclude to name it lt Bright Angel.'' 
Early in the morning, the whole party starts up to explore the Bright 
