By eight o'clock the next morning, Thursday, September 21st, we were on the way again, with the boats "close reefed," as it were, for trouble, but one, two, three and one half miles slid easily behind. Then, as if to make up for this bit of leniency, six rapids came in close succession, though they were of a kind that we could safely run, and all the boats went flying through them without a mishap of any kind. The next was a plunger so mixed up with rocks that we made a let-down and again proceeded a short distance before we were halted by one more of the same sort, though we were able to run the lower portion of it. A little below this we met a friendly drop, and whizzed through its rush and roar in triumph. But there was nothing triumphant about the one which followed, so far as our work was concerned. We manœuvred past it with much difficulty only to find ourselves upon two more bad ones. Bad as they were, they were nevertheless runable, and away we dashed with breakneck speed, certainly not less than twenty miles an hour, down both of them, to land on the left immediately at the beginning of a great and forbidding descent. These let-downs were difficult, often requiring all hands to each boat, except the Major, whose one-armed condition made it too hard for him to assist in the midst of rocks and rushing water, where one had to be very nimble and leap and balance with exactness. Two good arms were barely sufficient. Sometimes, in order to pass the gigantic boulders that stretched far off from the shore, the boat had to be shot around and hauled in below, an operation requiring skill, strength, and celerity.
The walls, very craggy at the top, increased in altitude till they were now about sixteen hundred feet, separated from each other by one third of a mile. The flaring character of the upper miles of the canyon began to change to a narrower gorge, the cliffs showing a nearer approach to verticality. At the head of the forbidding plunge we had our slice of bacon, with bread and coffee, and then we fought our way down alongside amongst immense boulders and roaring water. It was an exceedingly hard place to vanquish, and required two and a half hours of the most violent exertion to accomplish it. All were necessary to handle each boat. Hardly had we passed beyond the turmoil of its fierce opposition than we fell upon another scarcely less antagonistic, but yet apparently so free from rocks that the Major concluded it could be run. At the outset our boat struck on a concealed rock, and for a moment it seemed that we might capsize, but luckily she righted, swung free, and swept down with no further trouble. The Nell struck the same rock and so did the Cañonita, but neither was injured or even halted. These boats were somewhat lighter than ours, having one man less in each, and therefore did not hit the rock so hard. The boats were now heavy from being water-soaked, for the paint was gone from the bottoms. This would have made no difference in any ordinary waters, but it did here, where we were obliged to lift them so constantly.
This was an extremely rough and wet day's work, and the moment the great cliffs cut off the warmth of the direct sun we were thrown suddenly from summer to winter, and our saturated clothing, uncomfortably cool in sunlight, became icy with the evaporation and the cold shadow-air. We turned blue, and no matter how firmly I tried to shut my teeth they rattled like a pair of castanets. Though it was only half-past three, the Major decided to camp as soon as he saw this effect, much as we had need to push on. We landed on the right, and were soon revived by dry clothes and a big fire of driftwood. We had made during the day a total distance of a trifle less than seven miles, one and three quarters since dinner. There were fourteen rapids and cataracts, nine of which we ran, on a river about two hundred feet wide. We had sand to sleep on, but all around us were rocks, rocks, rocks, with the mighty bounding cliffs lifting up to the sky. Our books for the time being were not disturbed, but Whittier's lines, read further up, seemed here exactly appropriate to the Colorado:
"Hurrying down to its grave, the sea,
And slow through the rock its pathway hewing!
Far down, through the mist of the falling river,
Which rises up like an incense ever,
The splintered points of the crags are seen,
With water howling and vexed between,
While the scooping whirl of the pool beneath
Seems an open throat, with its granite teeth!"
It was not long before the blankets were taken from the rubber bags and spread on the sand, and the rapids, the rocks, and all our troubles were forgotten.
The next day was almost a repetition of the preceding one. We began by running a graceful little rapid, just beyond which we came to a very bad place. The river was narrow and deep, with a high velocity, and the channel was filled with enormous rocks. Two hours of the hardest kind of work in and out of the water, climbing over gigantic boulders along the bank, lifting the boats and sliding them on driftwood skids, tugging, pulling, shoving every minute with might and main put us at the bottom. No sooner were we past this one than we engaged in a similar battle with another of the same nature, and below it we stopped for dinner, amidst some huge boulders under a hackberry tree, near another roarer. One of these cataracts had a fall of not less than twenty feet in six hundred, which gave the water terrific force and violence. The canyon walls closed in more and more and ran up to two thousand feet, apparently nearly vertical as one looked up at them, but there was always plenty of space for landings and camps. Opposite the noon camp we could see to a height beyond of at least three thousand feet. We were in the heart of another great plateau. After noon we attacked the very bad rapid beside whose head we had eaten, and it was half-past three when we had finished it. The boats had been considerably pounded and there was a hole in the Dean, and a plank sprung in the Nell so that her middle cabin was half full of water. The iron strip on the Dean's keel was breaking off. Repairs were imperative, and on the right, near the beginning of one of the worst falls we had yet seen, we went into camp for the rest of the day. With false ribs made from oars we strengthened the boats and put them in condition for another day's hammering. It seemed as if we must have gone this day quite a long distance, but on footing up it was found to be no more than a mile and a quarter. Darkness now fell early and big driftwood fires made the evenings cheerful. There was a vast amount of driftwood in tremendous piles, trees, limbs, boughs, railroad ties; a great mixture of all kinds, some of it lying full fifty feet above the present level of the river. There were large and small tree-trunks battered and limbless, the ends pounded to a spongy mass of splinters. Our bright fires enabled us to read, or to write up notes and diaries. I think each one but the Major and Andy kept a diary and faithfully wrote it up. Jack occasionally gave us a song or two from the repertory already described, and Steward did not forget the mouth-organ, but through the hardest part of Cataract Canyon we were usually tired enough to take to our blankets early.
In the morning we began the day by running a little rapid between our camp and the big one that we saw from there, and then we had to exert some careful engineering to pass below by means of the lines. This accomplished we found a repetition of the same kind of work necessary almost immediately, at the next rapid. In places we had to lift the boats out and slide them along on driftwood skids. These rapids were largely formed by enormous rocks which had fallen from the cliffs, and over, around, and between these it was necessary to manœuvre the boats by lines to avoid the furious waters of the outer river. After dinner we arrived at a descent which at first glance seemed as bad as anything we had met in the morning but an examination showed a prospect of a successful run through it. The fall was nearly twenty feet in about as many yards. The Major and Prof. examined it long and carefully. A successful run would take two minutes, while a let-down would occupy us for at least two hours and it had some difficult points. They hesitated about running the place, for they would not take a risk that was not necessary, but finally they concluded it could be safely accomplished, and we pulled the Dean as quickly as possible into the middle of the river and swung down into it. On both sides the water was hammered to foam amidst great boulders and the roar as usual was deafening. Just through the centre was a clean, clear chute followed by a long tail of waves breaking and snapping like some demon's jaws. As we struck into them they swept over us like combers on the beach in a great storm. It seemed to me here and at other similar places that we went through some of the waves like a needle and jumped to the top of others, to balance half-length out of water for an instant before diving to another trough. Being in the very bow the waves, it appeared to me, sometimes completely submerged me and almost took my breath away with the sudden impact. At any rate it was lively work, with a current of fifteen or eighteen miles an hour. Beaman had stationed himself where he could get a negative of us ploughing through these breakers, but his wet-plates were too slow and he had no success. After this came a place which permitted no such jaunty treatment. It was in fact three or four rapids following each other so closely that, though some might be successfully run, the last was not safe, and no landing could be made at its head, so a very long let-down was obligatory; but it was an easy one, for each crew could take its own boat down without help from the others. Then, tired, wet, and cold as usual, we landed on the left in a little cove where there was a sandy beach for our Camp 67. We had made less than four miles, in which distance there were six rapids, only two of which we ran. At another stage of water the number and character of these rapids would be changed; some would be easier at higher water, some harder, and the same would be true of lower water. Rapids also change their character from time to time as rocks are shifted along the bottom and more rocks fall from the cliffs or are brought in by side floods. The walls were now about two thousand feet, of limestone, with a reddish stain, and they were so near together that the sun shone to the bottom only during the middle hours of the day in September.
It was now September 24th; a bright and beautiful Sunday broke, the sky above clear and tranquil, the river below foaming and fuming between the ragged walls in one continuous rapid with merely variations of descent. In three quarters of a mile we arrived before the greatest portion of the declivity, where, though there seemed to be a clear chute, we did not consider it advisable to make the run because of conditions following; neither could we make a regular let-down or a portage. The least risky method was to carry a line down and when all was ready start the boat in at the top alone. In this way when she had gone through, the men on the line below were able to bring her up and haul her in before reaching the next bad plunge. There was no quiet river anywhere; nothing but rushing, swirling, plunging water and rocks. We got past the bad spot successfully and went on making one let-down after another for about four miles, when we halted at noon for the rest of the day, well satisfied with our progress though in distance it appeared so slight. 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 impassable 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 masses 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 altitude 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, buttes 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 fashion will surely come to grief. It is a passage that can safely be made only with the most extreme caution. The walls grew straighter, and they grew higher till the gorge assumed 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.