White’s Blunders 
179 
tween walls of about one thousand feet. He says he could not 
escape here because the waters of the San Juan were so vio¬ 
lent they filled its canyon from bank to bank. In reality, he 
could have made his way out of the canyon (Glen Canyon) in 
a great many places in the long distance between the foot of 
Narrow Canyon and the San Juan. There is nothing difficult 
about it. But not knowing this, and nobody else knowing it 
at that time, the yarn went very well. Also, below the San 
Juan, as far as Lee’s Ferry, there are numerous opportunities 
to leave the canyon; and there are a great many attractive 
bottoms all the way through sunny Glen Canyon, where land¬ 
ings could have been made in a bona fide journey, and birds 
snared ; anything rather than to go drifting along day after day 
toward dangers unknown. “At every bend of the river it 
seemed as if they were descending deeper into the earth, and 
that the walls were coming closer together above them, shut¬ 
ting out the narrow belt of sky, thickening the black shadows, 
and redoubling the echoes that went up from the foaming 
waters,” all of which is nonsense. They were not yet, even 
taking their own, or rather his own, calculations, near the 
Grand Canyon, and the whole one hundred and forty-nine 
miles of Glen Canyon are simply charming; altogether delight¬ 
ful. One can paddle along in any sort of craft, can leave the 
river in many places, and in general enjoy himself. I have 
been over the stretch twice, once at low water and again at 
high, so I speak from abundant experience. Naively he re¬ 
marks, “as yet they had seen no natural bridge spanning the 
chasm above them, nor had fall or cataract prevented their safe 
advance!” Yet they are supposed to have passed through 
the forty-one miles of Cataract Canyon’s turmoil, which I ven¬ 
ture to say no man could ever forget. They had been only 
four days getting to a point below the San Juan, simply drift¬ 
ing; that is about two hundred miles, or some fifty miles a 
daylight day. Around three o’clock on the fourth day they 
heard the deep roar as of a waterfall in front of them. 
“ They felt the raft agitated, then whirled along with frightful 
rapidity towards a wall that seemed to bar all further progress. As 
