Vertical Walls 
283 
cessful, though the waves broke over my head till they almost 
took my breath away. The walls reached a height of twenty- 
five hundred feet, seeming to us almost perpendicular on both 
sides. It was the narrowest deep chasm we had yet seen, and 
beneath these majestic cliffs we ourselves appeared mere pig¬ 
mies, creeping about with our feeble strength to overcome the 
tremendous difficulties. The loud reverberation of the roaring 
Side Canyon of Cataract Canyon. 
See figures of men, centre foreground on brink of lower terrace. 
Photograph by E. O. Beaman, U. S. Colo. Riv. Exp. 
water, the rugged rocks, the toppling walls, the narrow sky,, 
all combined to make this a fearful place, which no pen can 
adequately describe. Another day the Major and I climbed 
out, reaching an altitude, some distance back from the brink, 
3135 feet above the river. The day after this climb the 
walls ran up to about twenty-seven hundred feet, appar¬ 
ently in places absolutely vertical, though Stanton, who came 
