The Colorado River 
130 
here, referring the reader to the delightful account by Washing¬ 
ton Irving. 
In May, 1839, ^ traveller who was a careful observer, 
Thomas J. Farnham, went from New Mexico across the mount¬ 
ains to Brown’s Hole en route for Oregon, and a portion of 
his narrative ’ is of deep interest in this connection, because his 
guide, Kelly, gave him some account of the Green and Col¬ 
orado, which reflects the amount of real knowledge then pos¬ 
sessed concerning the canyon-river. 
The Grand unites with the Seedskeedee or Green River to form 
the Colorado of the West. From the junction of these branches the 
Colorado has a general course from the north-east to the south-west 
of seven hundred miles to the head of the Gulf of California. Four 
hundred of this seven hundred miles is an almost unbroken chasm 
of kenyon, with perpendicular sides hundreds of feet in height, at 
the bottom of which the waters rush over continuous cascades. This 
kenyon terminates thirty [should be three hundred] miles above the 
gulf. To this point the river is navigable. The country on each 
side of its whole course is a rolling desert of loose brown earth, on 
which the rains and the dews never fall. A few years since, two 
Catholic missionaries and their servants on their way from the mount¬ 
ains to California, attempted to descend the Colorado. They have 
never been seen since the morning they commenced their fatal un¬ 
dertaking. 
“A party of trappers and others made a strong boat and manned 
it well with the determination of floating down the river to take 
beaver that they supposed lived along its banks. But they found 
themselves in such danger after entering the kenyon that with might 
and main they thrust their trembling boat ashore and succeeded in 
leaping upon the crags and lightening it before it was swallowed in 
the dashing torrent.” 
They had a difficult time in getting out of the canyon, but 
finally, by means of ropes and by digging steps with their rifle 
barrels, they reached the open country and made their way back 
^ Travels in the Great Western Prairies, the Anahuac and Rocky Mountains, 
and in the Oregon Territory, by Thomas J. Farnham. There is a copy in the 
library of Columbia University, New York. 
