EAPIDS AND FALLS. 97 
the granite pinnacles for a mile or two, but can see no way by which we 
can let down, and to run it would be sure destruction. After dinner we 
cross to examine it on the left. High above the river we can walk along on 
the top of the granite, which is broken off at the edge, and set with crags 
and pinnacles, so that it is very difficult to get a view of the river at all. 
In my eagerness to reach a point where I can see the roaring fall below, I 
go too far on the wall, and can neither advance nor retreat. I stand with 
one foot on a little projecting rock, and cling with my hand fixed in a little 
crevice. Finding I am caught here, suspended 400 feet above the river, 
into which I should fall if my footing fails, I call for help. The men come, 
and pass me a line, but I cannot let go of the rock long enough to take hold 
of it. Then they bring two or three of the largest oars. All this takes 
time which seems very precious to me; but at last they arrive. The blade of 
one of the oars is pushed into a little crevice in the rock beyond me., in such 
a manner that they can hold me pressed against the wall. Then another is 
fixed in such a way that I can step on it, and thus I am extricated. 
Still another hour is spent in examining the river from this side, but no 
good view of it is obtained, so now we return to the side that was first exam 
ined, and the afternoon is spent in clambering among the crags and pinna 
cles, and carefully scanning the river again. We find that the lateral streams 
have washed boulders into the river, so as to form a dam, over which the 
water makes a broken fall of eighteen or twenty feet; then there is a rapid, 
beset with rocks, for two or three hundred yards, while, on the other side, 
points of the wall project into the river. Then there is a second fall below; 
how great, we cannot tell. Then there is a rapid, filled with huge rocks, for 
one or two hundred yards. At the bottom of it, from the right wall, a great 
rock projects quite half way across the river. It has a sloping surface 
extending up stream, and the water, coming down with all the momentum 
gained in the falls and rapids above, rolls up this inclined plane many feet, 
and tumbles over to the left. I decide that it is possible to let down over 
the first fall, then run near the right cliff to a point just above the second, 
where we can pull out into a little chute, and, having run over that in safety, 
we must pull with all our power across the stream, to avoid the great rock 
below. On my return to the boat, I announce to the men that we are to 
13 COL 
