In the meantime we find such a gulch and start down, but soon come to the "jumping-off place," where we can throw a stone and faintly hear it strike, away below. We fear that we shall have to stay here, clinging to the rocks until daylight. Our little Indian gathers a few dry stems, ties them into a bundle, lights one end, and holds it up. The others do the same, and with these torches we find a way out of trouble. Helping each other, holding torches for each other, one clinging to another's hand until we can get footing, then supporting the other on his shoulders, thus we make our passage into the depths of the canyon.
And now Captain Bishop has kindled a huge fire of driftwood on the bank of the river. This and the fires in the gulch opposite and our own flaming torches light up little patches that make more manifest the awful darkness below. Still, on we go for an hour or two, and at last we see Captain Bishop coming up the gulch with a huge torchlight on his shoulders. He looks like a fiend, waving brands and lighting the fires of hell, and the men in the opposite gulch are imps, lighting delusive fires in inaccessible crevices, over yawning chasms; our own little Indian is surely the king of wizards, so I think, as I stop for a few moments on a rock to rest. At last we meet Captain Bishop, with his flaming torch, and as he has learned the way he soon pilots us to the side of the great Colorado. We are athirst and hungry, almost to starvation. Here we lie down on the rocks and drink, just a mouthful or so, as we dare; then we make a cup of coffee, and spreading our blankets on a sand beach the roaring Colorado lulls us to sleep.
September 18.--We are in the Grand Canyon, by the side of the Colorado, more than 6,000 feet below our camp on the mountain side, which is 18 miles away; but the miles of horizontal distance represent but
a small part of the day's labor before us. It is the mile of altitude we must gain that makes it a Herculean task. We are up early; a little bread and coffee, and we look about us. Our conclusion is that we can make this a depot of supplies, should it be necessary; that we can pack our rations to the point where we left our animals last night, and that we can employ Indians to bring them down to the water's edge.
On a broad shelf we find the ruins of an old stone house, the walls of which are broken down, and we can see where the ancient people who lived here--a race more highly civilized than the present--had made a garden and used a great spring that comes out of the rocks for irrigation. On some rocks near by we discover some curious etchings. Still searching about, we find an obscure trail up the canyon wall, marked here and there by steps which have been built in the loose rock, elsewhere hewn stairways, and we find a much easier way to go up than that by which we came down in the darkness last night. Coming to the top of the wall, we catch our horses and start. Up the canyon our jaded ponies toil and we reach the second cliff; up this we go, by easy stages, leading the animals. Now we reach the offensive water pocket; our ponies have had no water for thirty hours, and are eager even for this foul fluid. We carefully strain a kettleful for ourselves, then divide what is left between them--two or three gallons for each; but it does not satisfy them, and they rage around, refusing to eat the scanty grass. We boil our kettle of water, and skim it; straining, boiling, and skimming make it a little better, for it was full of loathsome, wriggling larvae, with huge black heads. But plenty of coffee takes away the bad smell, and so modifies the taste that most of us can drink, though our little Indian seems to prefer the original mixture. We reach camp about sunset, and are glad to rest.
September 19.--We are tired and sore, and must rest a day with our Indian neighbors. During the inclement season they live in shelters made of boughs or the bark of the cedar, which they strip off in long shreds. In this climate, most of the year is dry and warm, and during such time they do not care for shelter. Clearing a small, circular space of ground, they bank it around with brush and sand, and wallow in it during the day and huddle together in a heap at night--men, women,