98 EXPLORATION OF THE CANONS OF THE COLORADO. 
run it in the morning. Then we cross the river, and go into camp for the 
night on some rocks, in the mouth of the little side canon. 
After supper Captain Howlaud asks to have a talk with me. We walk 
up the little creek a short distance, and I soon find that his object is to 
remonstrate against my determination to proceed. He thinks that we had 
better abandon the river here. Talking with him, I learn that his brother, 
William Dunn, and himself have determined to go no farther in the boats. 
So we return to camp. Nothing is said to the other men. 
For the last two days, our course has not been plotted. I sit down and 
do this now, for the purpose of finding where we are by dead reckoning. 
It is a clear night, and I take out the sextant to make observation for lati 
tude, and find that the astronomic determination agrees very nearly with 
that of the plot quite as closely as might be expected, from a meridian 
observation on a planet. In a direct line, we must be about forty five miles 
from the mouth of the Rio Virgen. If we can reach that point, we know 
that there are settlements up that river about twenty miles. This forty five 
miles, in a direct line, will probably be eighty or ninety in the meandering 
line of the river. But then we know that there is comparatively open 
country for many miles above the mouth of the Virgen, which is our point 
of destination. 
As soon as I determine all this, I spread my plot on the sand, and wake 
Rowland, who is sleeping down by the river, and show him where I sup 
pose we are, and where several Mormon settlements are situated. 
We have another short talk about the morrow, and he lies down again; 
but for me there is no sleep. All night long, I pace up and down a little 
path, on a few yards of sand beach, along by the river. Is it wise to go on? 
I go to the boats again, to look at our rations. I feel satisfied that we can 
get over the danger immediately before us; what there may be below I 
know not. From our outlook yesterday, on the cliffs, the canon seemed to 
make another great bend to the south, and this, from our experience hereto 
fore, means more and higher granite walls. I am not sure that we can climb 
out of the canon here, and, when at the top of the wall, I know enough of 
the country to be certain that it is a desert of rock and sand, between this 
and the nearest Mormon town, which, on the most direct line, must be sev- 
