74 
The Colorado River 
four years had been on the lower Colorado, took the steam¬ 
boat Esmeralda^ ninety-seven feet long and drawing three and 
one-half feet of water, up as far as Callville, near the mouth 
of the Virgen, which was several miles beyond the highest 
point attained by Ives in his skiff, but little, if any, farther 
than Johnson had gone with his steamboat. He ascended the 
most difficult place. Roaring Rapids in Black Canyon, in seven 
minutes, and was of the opinion that it could as easily be sur¬ 
mounted at any stage of water, except perhaps during the 
spring rise. It does 
not matter much now, 
for it is not likely that 
any steam craft will 
soon again have occa¬ 
sion to traverse that 
canyon. The comple¬ 
tion of the railways 
was a death blow to 
steam navigation on the 
Colorado, yet, in the 
future, when the fertile 
bottoms are brought 
under cultivation, small 
steamboats will proba¬ 
bly be utilised for local 
transportation. 
The journey of the 
Esmeralda added noth¬ 
ing to what was al¬ 
ready known. The 
following year, 1867, a man was picked up at Callville, in 
an exhausted and famishing condition, by a frontiersman 
named Hardy. When he had been revived he told his 
story. It was that he had come on a raft through the 
Grand Canyon above, and all the canyons antecedent to that 
back to a point on Grand River. The story was apparently 
straightforward, and it was fully accepted. At last, it was 
thought, a human being has passed through this Valley of the 
The Barrel Cactus Compared with the Height 
of a Man. 
Photograph by C. R. Savage. 
