The journey of the Esmeralda added nothing to what was already known. The following year, 1867, a man was picked up at Callville, in an exhausted and famishing condition, by a frontiersman named Hardy. When he had been revived he told his story. It was that he had come on a raft through the Grand Canyon above, and all the canyons antecedent to that back to a point on Grand River. The story was apparently straightforward, and it was fully accepted. At last, it was thought, a human being has passed through this Valley of the Shadow of Death and lived to tell of its terrors. Hardy took him down to Fort Mohave, where he met Dr. Parry,[[5]] who recorded his whole story, drawn out by many questions, and believed it. This was not surprising; for, no man ever yet having accomplished what White claimed to have done, there was no way of checking the points, of his tale. “Now, at last,” remarks Dr. Parry, “we have a perfectly authentic account, from an intelligent source, from a man who actually traversed its formidable depths, and who, fortunately for science, still lives to detail his trustworthy observations of this remarkable voyage.” The doctor was too confiding. Had I the space I would give here the whole of White’s story, for it is one of the best bits of fiction I have ever read. He had obtained somehow a general smattering of the character of the river, but as there were trappers still living, Kit Carson, for example, who possessed a great deal of information about it, this was not a difficult matter. But that he had no exact knowledge of any part of the river above the lower end of the Grand Canyon, is apparent to one who is familiar with the ground, and the many discrepancies brand the whole story as a fabrication. In the language of the frontier, he “pitched a yarn,” and it took beautifully. Hardy, whom I met in Arizona a good many years ago, told me he believed the man told the truth, but his belief was apparently based only on the condition White was in when rescued. That he was nearly dead is true, but that is about all of his yarn that is. White was thirty-two years old, and from Kenosha, Wisconsin. He said that, with two others, he was prospecting in Southwestern Colorado in the summer of that year, 1867, when, on Grand River, they were attacked by the Utes. Baker, the leader, fell mortally wounded. Of course, White and the other man, Strole, stood by their leader, in the teeth of the enemy’s fire, till he expired. What would the story have been without this example of devotion and fortitude? Then, holding the pursuers in check, they slowly retreated down the side canyon they were in to the main gorge, where they discovered an abundance of driftwood, and decided to make a raft with which to escape. This raft consisted of three sticks of cottonwood about ten feet long and eight inches diameter, tied together with lariats. They had abandoned their horses above, bringing only their arms, ammunition, and some food. Waiting for midnight to come so that their pursuers might not discover their intention, they seized their poles and, under the waning moon, cast off, and were soon on the tempestuous tide, rushing through the yawning chasm. “Through the long night they clung to the raft as it dashed against half-concealed rocks, or whirled about like a plaything in some eddy.” When daylight came they landed; as they had a smoother current and less rugged banks, though the canyon walls appeared to have increased in height. They strengthened their raft and went on. In the afternoon, after having floated about thirty miles from the starting point they reached the junction of the Grand and Green. So far all is well, but here he makes his first break, as he had no conception of the actual character of the rivers at the junction. He says the canyon now far surpassed that of either of the forming streams, which is not so. For five or six miles below the junction there is little change, yet he describes the walls as being four thousand feet high, an altitude never attained in Cataract Canyon at all, the highest being somewhat under three thousand, while at the junction they are only thirteen hundred. Then he goes on to say that detached pinnacles appeared to rise “one above the other,” for one thousand feet more, giving an altitude here of five thousand feet, clearly an impression in his mind of the lower end of the Grand Canyon, which he had doubtless become somewhat familiar with in some prospecting trip. He fancied the “Great Canyon” began at the junction of the Grand and Green, and he did not appreciate the distance that intervened between Callville and that point. They tied up at night and travelled in the day. No mention is made of the terrific rapids which roar in Cataract Canyon, but he speaks of the “grey sandstone walls” the lower portion smooth from the action of floods. There exist some greyish walls; but most are red except in the granite gorges of the Grand Canyon, where, for a thousand feet, they are black. Below the junction, forty miles, they came to the mouth of the San Juan! Yet Cataract Canyon and Narrow together, the first canyons of the Colorado proper, are fifty miles long and the San Juan comes in at least seventy-five miles below their end. The walls of the San Juan he describes as being as high as those of the Colorado, which he has just been talking about, that is, five thousand feet, yet for these seventy-five miles he would have actually been passing between walls of about one thousand feet. He says he could not escape here because the waters of the San Juan were so violent 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 landings 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, shutting 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 delightful. 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 remarks, “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 venture to say no man could ever forget. They had been only four days getting to a point below the San Juan, simply drifting; 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.
[5] Parry’s first record of White’s story is in Report of Surveys for a Railway across the Continent by Wm. J. Palmer, 1868. Dr. C. C. Parry was assistant geologist of the Survey.
Canyon of San Juan River Looking West at Honiket Trail, Utah.
2000 feet deep.
Photograph by CHARLES GOODMAN.
A Glen of Glen Canyon.
These are numerous, hence the name.
“They felt the raft agitated, then whirled along with frightful rapidity towards a wall that seemed to bar all further progress. As they approached the cliff the river made a sharp bend, around which the raft swept, disclosing to them, in a long vista, the water lashed into foam, as it poured through a narrow precipitous gorge, caused by huge masses of rock detached from the main walls. There was no time to think. The logs strained as if they would break their fastenings. The waves dashed around the men, and the raft was buried in the seething waters. White clung to the logs with the grip of death. His comrade stood up for an instant with the pole in his hands, as if to guide the raft from the rocks against which it was plunging; but he had scarcely straightened before the raft seemed to leap down a chasm and, amid the deafening roar of waters, White heard a shriek that thrilled him to the heart, and, looking around, saw, through the mist and spray, the form of his comrade tossed for an instant on the water, then sinking out of sight in a whirlpool.”