A Canyon Voyage Part 8

The afternoon was spent in repairing boats, working up notes, and taking observations. The cliffs were now some 2500 feet in height, ragged and broken on their faces, but close together, the narrowest deep chasm we had seen. It was truly a terrible place, with the fierce river, the giant walls, and the separation from any known path to the outer world.

I thought of the Major's first trip, when it was not known what kind of waters were here. Vertical and impa.s.sable falls might easily have barred his way and cataracts behind prevented return, so that here in a death trap they would have been compelled to plunge into the river or wait for starvation. Happly he had encountered no such conditions.

An interesting feature of this canyon was the manner in which huge ma.s.ses of rock lying in the river had been ground into each other by the force of the current. One block of sandstone, weighing not less than six hundred tons, being thirty or forty feet long by twenty feet square, had been oscillated till the limestone boulders on which it rested had ground into it at least two feet, fitting closely. Another enormous piece was slowly and regularly rocking as the furious current beat upon it, and one could feel the movement distinctly. A good night's sleep made all of us fresh again, and we began the Monday early. Some worked on the boats, while Beaman and Clem went up "Gypsum" Canyon, as Steward named it, for views, and the Major and I climbed out for topographic observations. We reached an alt.i.tude above camp of 3135 feet at a point seven or eight miles back from the brink. The view in all directions was beyond words to describe. Mountains and mountains, canyons, cliffs, pinnacles, b.u.t.tes surrounded us as far as we could see, and the range was extensive. The Sierra La Sal, the Sierra Abajo, and other short ranges lay blue in the distance, while comparatively near in the south-west rose the five beautiful peaks just beyond the mouth of the Dirty Devil, composing the unknown range before mentioned. At noon we made coffee, had lunch, and then went on. It was four o'clock by the time we concluded to start back, and darkness overtook us before we were fairly down the cliffs, but there was a bright moon, and by its aid we reached camp.

At half-past eight in the morning of September 26th we were again working our way down the torrential river. Anybody who tries to go through here in any haphazard fas.h.i.+on will surely come to grief. It is a pa.s.sage that can safely be made only with the most extreme caution. The walls grew straighter, and they grew higher till the gorge a.s.sumed proportions that seemed to me the acme of the stupendous and magnificent. The scenery may not have been beautiful in the sense that an Alpine lake is beautiful, but in the exhibition of the power and majesty of nature it was sublime. There was the same general barrenness: only a few hackberry trees, willows, and a cottonwood or two along the margin of the river made up the vegetation. Our first task was a difficult let-down, which we accomplished safely, to find that we could run two rapids following it and half of another, landing then to complete it by a let-down. Then came a very sharp drop that we ran, which put us before another easy one, that was followed by a difficult bit of navigation through a bad descent, after which we stopped for dinner on the right at the head of another rapid. The cliffs now on both sides were about 2800 feet, one quarter mile wide at top, and in places striking me as being perpendicular, especially in the outer curve of the bends. The boats seemed to be scarcely more than chips on the sweeping current and we not worth mentioning. During the afternoon we halted a number of times for Beaman to make photographs, but the proportions were almost too great for any camera. The foreground parts are always magnified, while the distances are diminished, till the view is not that which the eye perceives. Before stopping for the night we ran three more rapids, and camped on the right on a sandbank at the head of another forbidding place. The record for the whole day was six and three quarter miles, with ten runs and two let-downs. At one bad place the _Nell_ got too far over and laboured so heavily in the enormous billows that Cap., who pulled the bow oars, was completely lost to sight and the boat was filled with water. Only about thirty degrees of sky were visible as one looked directly up from our camp. A pretty canyon came in near camp, and some of us took a walk up its narrow way.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cataract Canyon.

Photograph by E. O. Beaman, 1871.]

In the morning Beaman made some pictures, and it was eleven o'clock before we resumed our navigation. Our first work was a let-down, which took an hour, and about a mile below we stopped for dinner on the left.

Then we continued, making eight miles more, in which distance we ran six rapids and made two line-portages. The last rapid was a bad one, and there we made one of the portages, camping at its foot on the left bank.

The walls began to diminish in height and the river was less precipitous, as is apparent from the progress we were able to make.

September 28th we began by running two rapids immediately below camp, and the _Nell_ remained at the foot of the second to signal Beaman in the _Canonita_, as he had stayed behind to take some views. Another mile brought us to a rather bad place, the right having a vertical cliff about 2700 feet high, but the left was composed of boulders spread over a wide stretch, so that an excellent footing was offered. The Major and Prof. concluded to climb out here, instead of a point farther down called Millecrag Bend, and, appointing Steward master of the let-down which was necessary, they left us. It was dinner-time when we got the boats below to a safe cove, and we were quite ready for the meal which Andy meanwhile had been cooking. A beautiful little brook came down a narrow canyon on the left, and it was up this stream that the Major went for a mile and a half and then climbed on the side. They were obliged to give it up and come back to the bottom. By this time it was too late to make another attempt, so they turned their backs on "Failure Creek,"

and, returning to us, said we would go on as soon as we had eaten the supper which Andy was preparing. They would climb out at Millecrag Bend.

Andy had cooked a mess of beans, about the last we had, and what we did not eat we put on board in the kettle, which had a tight cover. The Major's manner for a day or two had been rather moody, and when Prof.

intimated to me that we would have a lively time before we saw another camp, I knew some difficult pa.s.sage ahead was on his mind; some place which had given him trouble on the first trip.

About five o'clock we were ready; everything was made snug and tight on the boats, nothing being left out of the cabins but a camp kettle in each standing-room for bailing, and we cast off. Each man had his life-preserver where he could get it quickly, and the Major put his on, for with only one arm he could not do this readily in case of necessity.

The current was swift. We were carried rapidly down to where the gorge narrowed up with walls vertical on each side for a height of fifty to one hundred feet. We soon dashed through a small rough rapid. A splash of water over our bow dampened my clothes and made the air feel chilly.

The canyon was growing dim with the evening light. High above our heads some lazy clouds were flecked with the sunset glow. Not far below the small rapid we saw before us a complicated situation at the prevailing stage of water, and immediately landed on the left, where there was footing to reconnoitre. A considerable fall was divided by a rocky island, a low ma.s.s that would be submerged with two or three feet more water, and the river plunging down on each side boiled against the cliffs. Between us and the island the stream was studded by immense boulders which had dropped from the cliffs and almost like pinnacles stood above the surface. One view was enough to show that on this stage of water we could not safely run either side of the cataract; indeed destruction would surely have rewarded any attempt. The right-hand channel from the foot of the island swept powerfully across to meet the left-hand one and together they boomed along the base of the left-hand cliffs before swinging sharply to the right with the trend of the chasm in that direction. There was no choice of a course. The only way was to manoeuvre between the great boulders and keep in the dividing line of the current till a landing could be effected on the head of the island between the two falls. The difficulty was to avoid being drawn to either side. Our boat went first and we succeeded, under the Major's quick eye and fine judgment, in easily following the proposed course till the _Dean_ began to b.u.mp on the rocks some twenty yards above the exposed part of the island. I tested the depth of water here with an oar as Jack pulled slowly along, the current being quite slack in the dividing line, and as soon as practicable we jumped overboard and guided our craft safely to the island. Prof. in the _Nell_ was equally precise, and as he came in we waded out to catch his boat; but the _Canonita_ pa.s.sed on the wrong side of one of the pinnacles and, caught in the left current, came near making a run of it down that side, which would have resulted disastrously. Luckily they were able to extricate themselves and Beaman steered in to us. Had the water been only high enough to prevent landing on this island we would have been in a bad trap, but had it been so high as to make navigation down the centre possible the rapid might perhaps have been run safely.

We were now on the island, with darkness falling, and the problem was to get off. While Prof. and the Major went down to the foot to make a plan we sat in the diminis.h.i.+ng light and waited. It was decided to pull the boats down the right-hand side of the island as far as the foot of the worst part of the right-hand rapid, and from there cut out into the tail of waves, pulling through as quickly as we could to avoid contact with the base of the left wall along which the current dashed. We must pull fast enough to get across in the very short time it would take the river to sweep us down to the crucial point. The gorge by this time was quite sombre; even the clouds above were losing their evening colour. We must act quickly. Our boat as usual made the first trial. As we shot out, Jack and I bent to our oars with every muscle we possessed, the boat headed slightly upstream, and in a few seconds we were flying along the base of the cliffs, and so close that our starboard oars had to be quickly uns.h.i.+pped to prevent their being broken. In a few seconds more we were able to get out into the middle, and then we halted in an eddy to wait for the other boats. They came on successfully and in the gloaming we continued down the canyon looking for a place to camp, our hearts much lightened with our triumph over the difficult rapid. Before long night was full upon us and our wet clothes made us s.h.i.+ver. About a mile below a warning roar dead ahead told us to make land at once, for it would be far from prudent to attack a rapid in the dark. Fortunately there was here room to camp on some rocks and sand on the right.

Scarcely had we become settled than a tornado broke over the canyon and we were enveloped in a blinding whirl of rain and sand. Each man clung to his blankets to prevent their departure and waited for the wind to pa.s.s, which it did in less than ten minutes. The storm-clouds were shattered and up the gorge, directly east from our position, from behind a thousand needle-like spires that serrated the top of the cliffs, the moon like a globe of dazzling silver rolled up with serene majesty, flooding the canyon with a bright radiance. No moon-rise could have been more dramatic. The storm-clouds were edged with light and the wet cliffs sparkled and glittered as if set with jewels. Even the rapid below was resplendent and silvery, the leaping waves and the spray scintillating under the l.u.s.trous glare.

Morning brought a continuation of the rain, which fell in a deluge, driving us to the shelter of a projecting ledge, from which comparatively dry retreat we watched the rain cascades that soon began their display. Everywhere they came plunging over the walls, all sizes, and varying their volume with every variation in the downpour. Some dropped a thousand feet to vanish in spray; others were broken into many falls. By half-past eight we were able to proceed, running the rapid without any trouble, but a wave drenched me so that all my efforts to keep out of the rain went for nothing. By ten o'clock we had run four more rapids, and arrived at the place the Major had named Millecrag Bend, from the mult.i.tude of ragged pinnacles into which the cliffs broke. On the left we camped to permit the Major and Prof. to make their prospective climb to the top. A large canyon entered from the left, terminating Cataract Canyon, which we credited with forty-one miles, and in which I counted sixty-two rapids and cataracts, enough to give any set of boatmen all the work they could desire. The Major and Prof.

reached the summit at an alt.i.tude of fifteen hundred feet. They had a wide view over the unknown country, and saw mountains to the west with snow on their summits. Snow in the canyons would not have surprised us now, for the nights were cold and we had warmth only in the middle of the day. Near our camp some caves were discovered, twenty feet deep and nearly six feet in height, which had once been occupied by natives.

Walls had been laid across the entrances, and inside were corncobs and other evidences usual in this region, now so well known. Pottery fragments were also abundant. Another thing we found in the caves and also in other places was a species of small scorpion. These venomous creatures were always ready to strike, and somehow one got into Andy's shoe, and when he put on the shoe he was bitten. No serious result seemed to follow, but his general health was not so good after this for a long time. He put tobacco on the wound and let it go. This was the second accident to a member of the party, which now had been out four months.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Narrow Canyon.

Photograph by Best Expedition, 1891.]

The last day of September found us up before daylight, and as soon as breakfast was eaten, a small matter these days both in preparation and consumption, we pulled away, intending to reach the mouth of the Dirty Devil as soon as possible. The morning was decidedly autumnal, and when we arrived at a small rapid, where we had to get overboard to help the boats, nothing ever came harder than this cold bath, though it was confined to our legs. Presently we saw a clear little rivulet coming in on the left, and we ran up to that sh.o.r.e to examine it, hoping it was drinkable. Like the first party, we were on the lookout for better water to drink than the muddy Colorado. The rivulet proved to be sulphurous and also hot, the temperature being about 91 F. We could not drink it, but we warmed our feet by standing in the water. The walls of this new canyon at their highest were about thirteen hundred feet, and so close together and straight that the Major named it Narrow Canyon. Its length is about nine miles. Through half of the next rapid we made a let-down, running the remainder, and then, running two more below which were easy, we could see through to the end of the canyon, and the picture framed by the precipices was beautiful. The world seemed suddenly to open out before us, and in the middle of it, clear and strong against a sky of azure, accented by the daylight moon, stood the Unknown Mountains, weird and silent in their untrodden mystery. By this token we knew that the river of the Satanic name was near, and we had scarcely emerged from Narrow Canyon, and noted the low bluffs of h.o.m.ogeneous red sandstone which took the place of the high cliffs, when we perceived a sluggish stream about 150 feet wide flowing through the barren sandstone on our right. Landing on its west bank, we instantly agreed with Jack Sumner when on the first trip he had proclaimed it a "Dirty Devil." Muddy, alkaline, undrinkable, it slipped along between the low walls of smooth sandstone to add its volume to that of the Colorado. Near us were the remains of the Major's camp-fire of the other voyage, and there Steward found a jack-knife lost at that time. At the Major's request he gave it to him as a souvenir.

Our rising had been so early and our progress from Millecrag Bend so easy that when our camp was established the hour was only nine o'clock, giving us still a whole day. The Major and Prof. started off on an old Indian trail to see if there was a way in to this place for horses, Cap.

took observations for time, and the others occupied themselves in various ways, Andy counting the rations still left in our larder.

That night around our camp-fire we felt especially contented, for Cataract and Narrow canyons were behind, and never would we be called upon to battle with their rapids again. The descent from the mouth of Grand River was 430 feet, most of it in the middle stretch of Cataract Canyon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Mouth of Fremont River (The Dirty Devil River)

Photograph by the Brown Expedition, 1889]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 16: The pencil sketches I made on this trip were taken to Was.h.i.+ngton, but I do not know what became of them.]

[Footnote 17: As mentioned in a previous footnote, the name D.

Julien--1836, was later found near this point and in two other places.

All these inscriptions appear to be on the same side of the river, the east, and at accessible places.]

[Footnote 18: The next party to pa.s.s through this canyon was the Brown Expedition, conducting a survey for the Denver, Colorado Canyon, and Pacific Railway in 1889. At the first rapid they lost a raft, with almost all their provisions, and they had much trouble. See _The Romance of the Colorado River_, Chapter xiv. Another expedition in 1891--the Best Expedition--was wrecked here.]

CHAPTER X

The _Canonita_ Left Behind--s.h.i.+numo Ruins--Troublesome Ledges in the River--Alcoves and Amphitheatres--The Mouth of the San Juan--Starvation Days and a Lookout for Rations--El Vado de Los Padres--White Men Again--Given up for Lost--Navajo Visitors--Peaks with a Great Echo--At the Mouth of the Paria.

Having now accomplished a distance down this turbulent river of nearly six hundred miles, with a descent toward sea-level of 2645 feet, without a serious accident, we were all in a happy frame of mind, notwithstanding the exceedingly diminutive food supply that remained. We felt that we could overcome almost anything in the line of rapids the world might afford, and Steward declared our party was so efficient he would be willing to "run the Gates of h.e.l.l" with them! Barring an absence of heat Cataract Canyon had been quite a near approach to that unwelcome entrance, and the locality of the mouth of the Dirty Devil certainly resembled some of the more favoured portions of Satan's notorious realm. Circ.u.mstances would prohibit our lingering here, for our long stretch on short rations made the small amount we could allow ourselves at each meal seem almost like nothing at all, and we were desirous of reaching as soon as possible El Vado, something over a hundred miles below, where our pack-train was doubtless now waiting.

The plan of leaving a boat at this place for a party to bring down, which should penetrate the unknown country the next year and then complete what we might now be compelled to slight, was carried out.

The _Canonita_ was chosen and the day after our arrival, Sunday, October 1st, we ran her down a short distance on the right, and there carried her back about two hundred feet to a low cliff and up thirty or forty feet above the prevailing stage of water, where we hid her under an enormous ma.s.s of rock which had so fallen from the top as to lodge against the wall, forming a perfect shelter somewhat longer than the boat. All of her cargo had been left at camp and we filled her cabins and standing-rooms with sand, also piling sand and stones all about her to prevent high water from carrying her off. When we were satisfied that we had done our best we turned away feeling as one might on leaving a friend, and hoping that she would be found intact the following year. As nine o'clock only had arrived, the Major and Jones then climbed out from this place, while Prof. with the _Nell_ ran down about a mile and a half to the mouth of a gulch on the right where he and the Major had traced the old trail. The rest of us returned to camp. Prof. and Cap. climbed out, after following the trail up the gulch six miles, and they saw that it went toward the Unknown Mountains, which now lay very near us on the west. Steward got out by an attempt not so far up the canyon and reached an alt.i.tude of 1950 feet, where he had a clear, full view of the mountains. With his gla.s.s he was able to study their formation and determined that lava from below had spread out between the sedimentary strata, forming what he called "blisters." He could see where one side of a blister had been eroded, showing the surrounding stratification.[19]

When the Major and Jones came back we put the cargo of the _Canonita_ on the _Dean_, and all of us embarked, seven in number, and ran down to where the _Nell_ was moored. Here we camped for the night. The crews were then rearranged, Beaman being a.s.signed to my bow oars, Clem and Andy going in the _Nell_, while I was to sit on the middle cabin of the _Dean_ in front of the Major, where I could carry on my sketching. We were now a s.h.a.ggy-looking lot, for our clothes had been almost worn off our bodies in the rapids. Our shoes, notwithstanding that the Major had brought us a fresh supply at Gunnison Crossing, were about gone, and we were tanned till we could hardly have been distinguished from the old s.h.i.+numos themselves; but we were clean. Steward was a great lover of Burns and could quote him by the page, though what he most liked to repeat just now was:

"O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us!"

I think the _Address to the Deil_ would have been appropriate for this particular environment, but I do not remember that Steward quoted:

"Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee, An' let poor d.a.m.ned bodies be; I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie, E'en to the deil, To skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me, An' hear us squeel!"

The cargo of the _Canonita_ was distributed among the cabins of the _Dean_ and the _Nell_, and Cap. was somewhat disturbed by having an addition to the bow compartment in the _Nell_. Each man had charge of a cabin and this was Cap.'s special pride. He daily packed it so methodically that it became a standing joke with us, and we often asked him whether he always placed that thermometer back of the fifth rib or in front of the third, or some such nonsensical question, which of course Cap. took in good part and only arranged his cabin still more carefully.

The next morning, the 2d of October, at eight o'clock, we continued our voyage, now entering a new canyon, then called Mound, but it was afterwards consolidated with the portion below called Monument, and together they now stand as Glen Canyon. In about three and one half miles we ran several sharp little rapids, but they were not of much consequence, and we stopped to examine a house ruin we saw standing up boldly on a cliff on the left. It could be seen for a long distance in both directions, and correspondingly its inmates in the old days could see every approach. Doubtless the trail we had seen on the right had its exit on the other side near it. The walls, neatly built of thin sandstone slabs, still stood about fifteen feet high and fifteen inches thick. The dimensions on the ground were 12 22 feet outside. It had been of two or three stories, and exhibited considerable skill on the part of the builders, the corners being plumb and square. Under the brink of the cliff was a sort of gallery formed by the erosion of a soft shale between heavy sandstone beds, forming a floor and roof about eight or ten feet wide, separated by six or seven feet in vertical height. A wall had been carried along the outer edge, and the s.p.a.ce thus made was divided by cross walls into a number of rooms. Potsherds and arrow-heads, mostly broken ones, were strewn everywhere. There were also numerous picture-writings, of which I made copies.

As we pulled on and on the Major frequently recited selections from the poets, and one that he seemed to like very much, and said sometimes half in reverie, was Longfellow's:

"Often I think of the beautiful town That is seated by the sea; Often in thought go up and down The pleasant streets of that dear old town, And my youth comes back to me.

And a verse of a Lapland song Is haunting my memory still: 'A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'"

He would repeat several times, with much feeling:

"A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

Another thing he enjoyed repeating was Whittier's _Skipper Ireson's Ride_:

"Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead!"

Towards evening we came to another s.h.i.+numo ruin, where we made camp, having run altogether sixteen miles, with ten rapids, all small, between walls of red, h.o.m.ogeneous sandstone, averaging about one thousand feet in height. The river, some three hundred and fifty feet wide, was low, causing many shoals, which formed the small rapids. We often had to wade alongside to lighten the boats, but otherwise these places were easy. A trifle more water would have done away with them, or at least would have enabled us to ignore them completely. The house ruin at our camp was very old and broken down and had dimensions of about 20 30 feet. Prof.

climbed out to a point 1215 feet above the river, where he saw plainly the Unknown Mountains, Navajo Mountain, and a wide sweep of country formed largely of barren sandstone. Steward felt considerably under the weather and remained as quiet as possible.

In the morning we were quickly on the water, pus.h.i.+ng along under conditions similar to those of the previous day, making twenty-seven miles and pa.s.sing eleven very small rapids, with a river four hundred feet wide and the same walls of h.o.m.ogeneous red sandstone about one thousand feet high. The cliffs in the bends were often slightly overhanging, that is, the brink was outside of a perpendicular line, but the opposite side would then generally be very much cut down, usually to irregular, rounded slopes of smooth rock. The vertical portions were unbroken by cracks or crevices or ledges, being extensive flat surfaces, beautifully stained by iron, till one could imagine all manner of tapestry effects. Along the river there were large patches of alluvial soil which might easily be irrigated, though it is probable that at certain periods they would be rapidly cut to pieces by high water.

Prof. again climbed out at our noon camp, and saw little but naked orange sandstone in rounded hills, except the usual mountains. In the barren sandstone he found many pockets or pot-holes, a feature of this formation, often thirty or forty feet deep, and frequently containing water. Wherever we climbed out in this region we saw in the depressions flat beds of sand, surrounded by hundreds of small round b.a.l.l.s of stone an inch or so in diameter, like marbles--concretions and hard fragments which had been driven round and round by the winds till they were quite true spheres.[20]