284 
The Colorado River 
through here in 1890, said he did not think they were anywhere 
perpendicular to the top. The tongue of a bend we found 
always more or less broken, but in the curve the cliffs certainly 
had all the effect of absolute perpendicularity, and in one place 
I estimated that if a rock should fall from the brink it would 
have struck on or near our boat. This shows, at any rate, that 
the walls were very straight. The boats seemed mere wisps of 
straw by comparison, and once when I saw one which had 
preceded ours, lying at the end of a clear stretch, I was startled 
by the insignificance of the craft on which our lives depended. 
Beaman tried to take some photographs which should give 
this height in full, but the place was far beyond the power of 
any camera. In this locality there seemed to be no possibility 
of a man’s finding a way to the summit. I concluded that at 
high water this part of Cataract Canyon would probably anni¬ 
hilate any human being venturing into it, though it is possible 
high water would make it easier. Where there was driftwood 
it was in tremendous piles, wedged together in inextricable 
confusion; hundreds of tree-trunks, large and small, battered 
and cut and limbless, with the ends pounded into a spongy lot 
of splinters. The interstices between the large logs were filled 
with smaller stuff, like boughs, railroad-ties, and pieces of 
dressed timber which had been swept away from the region 
above the Union Pacific Railway. Picture this narrow canyon 
twenty-seven hundred feet deep, at high water, with a muddy 
booming torrent at its bottom, sweeping along logs and all kinds 
of floating debris, and then think of being in there with a boat! 
We proceeded as best we could with all caution. Every 
move was planned and carried out with the exactness of a 
battle; as if the falls were actual enemies striving to discover 
our weakness. One practice was to throw sticks in above 
them, and thus ascertain the trend of the chief currents, which 
enabled us to approach intelligently. The river here was not 
more than four hundred feet wide. As we continued, the can¬ 
yon finally widened, and at one place there was a broad, rocky 
beach on the left. The opposite wall was nearly three thou¬ 
sand feet high. Beaman, by setting his camera far back on 
the rocks, was able to get a view to the top, with us in it by the 
