110 EXPLOKATION OF THE CANONS OF THE COLORADO. 
stream, and wade along the channel where the water is so swift as to almost 
carry us off our feet, and we are in danger every moment of being swept 
down, until night comes on. We estimate we have traveled eight miles to 
day. We find a little patch of flood-plain, on which there is a huge pile of 
driftwood and a clump of box-elders, and near by a great stream, which bursts 
from the rocks a mammoth spring. 
We soon have a huge fire, our clothes are spread to dry, we make a 
cup of coffee, take out our bread and cheese and dried beef, and enjoy a 
hearty supper. 
The canon here is about twelve hundred feet deep. It has been very 
narrow and winding all the way down to this point 
September 11. Wading again this morning; sinking in the quicksand, 
swimming the deep waters, and making slow and painful progress where the 
waters are swift, and the bed of the stream rocky. 
The canon is steadily becoming deeper, and, in many places, very nar 
row only twenty or thirty feet wide below, and in some places no wider, and 
even narrower, for hundreds of feet overhead. There are places where the 
river, in sweeping by curves, has cut far under the rocks, but still preserv 
ing its narrow channel, so that there is an overhanging wall on one side and 
an inclined wall on the other. In places a few hundred feet above, it 
becomes vertical again, and thus the view to the sky is entirely closed. 
Everywhere this deep passage is dark and gloomy, and resounds with the 
noise of rapid waters. At noon we are in a canon 2,500 feet deep, and we 
come to a fall where the walls are broken down, and huge rocks beset the 
channel, on which we obtain a foothold to reach a level two hundred feet 
below. Here the canon is again wider, and we find a flood-plain, along 
which we can walk, now on this, and now on that side of the stream. 
Gradually the canon widens ; steep rapids, cascades, and cataracts are found 
along the river, but we wade only when it is necessary to cross. We make 
progress with very great labor, having to climb over piles of broken rocks. 
Late in the afternoon, we come to a little clearing in the valley, and see 
other signs of civilization, and by sundown arrive at the Mormon town of 
Sclmnesburg; and here we meet the train, and feast on melons and 
grapes. 
