Cataract Canyon Rapid at Low Water.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
On the fifth day White lashed himself to the raft. He then describes a succession of rapids, passing which with great difficulty he reached a stream that he afterward learned was the Little Colorado. He said the canyon was like that of the San Juan, but they are totally different. The current of this stream swept across that of the Colorado, “causing in a black chasm on the opposite bank a large and dangerous whirlpool.” He could not avoid this and was swept by the cross current into this awful place, which, to relieve the reader’s anxiety, I hasten to add, does not exist. There is no whirlpool whatever at the mouth of the Little Colorado, nor any other danger. But White now felt that further exertion was useless, and amidst the “gurgling” waters closed his eyes for some minutes, when, feeling a strange swinging sensation, he opened them and found that he was circling round the whirlpool, sometimes close to the terrible vortex, etc. He thought he fainted. He was nothing if not dramatic. When he recovered it was night. Then for the first time he thought of prayer. “I spoke as if from my very soul, and said: ‘Oh, God, if there is a way out of this fearful place, show it to me, take me to it.’” His narrator says White’s voice here became husky and his features quivered. “I was still looking up with my hands clasped when I felt a different movement of the raft and turning to look at the whirlpool it was some distance behind (he could see it in the night!), and I was floating on the smoothest current I had yet seen in the canyon.” The current was now very slow and he found that the rapids were past. The terrible mythical whirlpool at the innocent mouth of the Little Colorado was the end of the turmoil, though he said the canyon went on, the course of the river being exceedingly crooked, and shut in by precipices of white sand rock! There is no white “sand-rock” in the Grand Canyon. All through this terrific gorge wherein the river falls some eighteen hundred feet, White found a slow current and his troubles from rapids were over! For 217 miles of the worst piece of river in the world, he found no difficulty. The gloom and lack of food alone oppressed him, and he thought of plunging from the raft, but lacked the courage. Had he really entered the Grand Canyon his raft would have been speedily reduced to toothpicks and he would not have had the choice of remaining upon it. Finally, he reached a bank upon which some mesquite bushes grew, and he devoured the green pods. Then sailing on in a sort of stupor he was roused by voices and saw some Yampais, who gave him meat and roasted mesquite beans. Proceeding, he heard voices again and a dash of oars. It was Hardy and at last White was saved!
Looking up the Grand Canyon from Mouth of Kanab Canyon.
Pencil sketch by F.S. DELLENBAUGH.
We have seen various actors passing before us in this drama, but I doubt if any of them have been more picturesque than this champion prevaricator. But he had related a splendid yarn. What it was intended to obscure would probably be quite as interesting as what he told. Just where he entered upon the river is of course impossible to decide, but that he never came through the Grand Canyon is as certain as anything can be. His story reveals an absolute ignorance of the river and its walls throughout the whole course he pretended to have traversed.
NOTE.—Mr. R. B. Stanton in 1907 discovered that White was alive in New Mexico. With a stenographer Mr. Stanton visited him and concludes that White was not responsible for the tale, and that Parry’s imagination filled in the details. Mr. Stanton proves absolutely that White never went through the Grand Canyon and that his route was from the foot of the Grand Canyon to Callville.
