I had made Jones a pair of crutches, by means of which he was able to hobble painfully around, and by the time the pack-train was ready to start for the settlement, about one hundred miles away, he could bear being lifted upon a horse. Steward, also, was able to ride, and with a number of us walking we left the Paria behind.
November’s sharp days were upon us. We had only the remains of our summer clothing and few blankets, so that when the thermometer registered 11 degrees F. above zero we did not dispute it.
CHAPTER XII.
Into the Jaws of the Dragon—A Useless Experiment—Wheeler Reaches Diamond Creek Going Up-stream—The Hurricane Ledge—Something about Names—A Trip from Kanab through Unknown Country to the Mouth of the Dirty Devil.
While our party, in September, was battling with the cataracts, another, as we afterwards learned, was starting from Camp Mohave on a perilous, impracticable, and needless expedition up the Colorado. How far this party originally expected to be able to proceed against the tremendous obstacles I have never understood, but the after-statement mentions Diamond Creek as the objective point. That such a wild, useless, and costly struggle should have been allowed by the War Department, which authorised it, seems singular, more particularly as little new was or could be, accomplished by it. The War Department must have known that Powell, two years before, had descended the river from Wyoming to the mouth of the Virgen, and that he was now more than half-way down the river on his second, more detailed exploration, authorised and paid for by the Government. Lieutenant Ives had also years before completely explored as high as the Vegas Wash, and there were therefore only the few miles, about twenty-five, between that Wash and the mouth of the Virgen, which might technically be considered unexplored, though only technically, for several parties had passed over it. Then why was this forlorn hope inaugurated? What credit could any one expect to obtain by bucking for miles up the deep, dangerous gorge filled with difficult rapids, which Powell had found hazardous and well-nigh impossible, coming down with the current? The leader of this superfluous endeavour was Lieutenant Wheeler, of the Topographical Engineers, who had been roaming the Western country for several years with a large escort. For some reason, Wheeler seems to have been disinclined to give Powell credit for his masterly achievement. On the map published in his Report, under the date 1879, ten years after Powell’s triumph, he omits his name entirely, and he also fails to give Ives credit on the river, though he records his land trail. In the text I fail to find any mention of Powell in the regular order, and only towards the end of the volume under a different heading. As the book gives an admirable and detailed review of explorations in the West, one is completely at a loss to understand the omission of credit to two of the most distinguished explorers of all. Wheeler accepted White’s story because one of his men who knew White at Camp Mohave, “corroborated” it. How could a man who knew nothing about the canyons give testimony worth consideration, for or against? Wheeler had also been informed by O. D. Gass, who, with three others, had worked his way up the Grand Canyon some few miles in 1864, that in his opinion it was impossible to go farther than he had gone. Yet White had reported this whole gorge as having only smooth water; his difficulties had all ended at the mouth of the Little Colorado. Gass’s experience was worth a good deal as a gauge of White’s story, and it proved the story false. But Wheeler did not so consider it, and therefore prepared to make the attempt to go beyond Gass. The latter was about right in considering it impossible to go above his highest point, but when Wheeler found himself trapped in the chasm, he was desperate, and, being at the time favoured by a low stage of water, he finally managed to get through.
The Grand Canyon.
Cliffs opposite the mouth of Diamond Creek. The highest point visible is about 3500 feet above the river.
Photograph by T.H. O’SULLIVAN, Wheeler Exp.