THE HEART OF CATARACT CAÑON.
Down these gloomy depths the expedition constantly glided, ever listening and ever peering ahead, for the cañon is winding and they could not see more than a few hundred yards in advance. The view changed every minute as some new crag or pinnacle or glen or peak became visible; but the men were fully engaged listening for rapids and looking for rocks. Navigation was exceedingly difficult, and it was often necessary to hold the boats from ledges in the cliffs as the falls were passed. The river was very deep and the cañon very narrow. The waters boiled and rushed in treacherous currents, which sometimes whirled the boats into the stream or hurried them against the walls. The oars were useless, and each crew labored for its own preservation as its frail vessel was spun round like a top or borne with the speed of a locomotive this way and that.
MARY'S VEIL, A SIDE CAÑON.
While they were thus uncontrollable the boats entered a rapid, and one of them was driven in shore, but as there was no foothold for a portage the men pushed into the stream again. The next minute a reflex wave filled the open compartment and water-logged her: breaker after breaker rolled over her, and one capsized her. The men were thrown out, but they managed to cling to her, and as they were swept down the other boats rescued them.
Heavy clouds rolled in the cañon, filling it with gloom. Sometimes they hung above from wall to wall and formed a roof: then a gust of wind from a side-cañon made a rift in them and the blue heavens were revealed, or they dispersed in patches which settled on the crags, while puffs of vapor issued out of the smaller gulches, and occasionally formed bars across the cañon, one above another, each opening a different vista. When they discharged their rains little rills first trickled down the cliff, and these soon became brooks: the brooks grew into creeks and tumbled down through innumerable cascades, which added their music to the roar of the river. As soon as the rain ceased rills, brooks, creeks and cascades disappeared, their birth and death being equally sudden.
LIGHTHOUSE ROCK IN THE CAÑON OF DESOLATION.
Desolate and inaccessible as the cañon is, many ruins of buildings are found perched upon ledges in the stupendous cliffs. In some instances the mouths of caves have been walled in, and the evidences all point to a race for ever dreading and fortifying itself against an invader. Why did these people chose their embattlements so far away from all tillable land and sources of subsistence? Major Powell suggests this solution of the problem: For a century or two after the settlement of Mexico many expeditions were sent into the country now comprised in Arizona and New Mexico for the purpose of bringing the town-building people under the dominion of the Spanish government. Many of their villages were destroyed, and the inhabitants fled to regions at that time unexplored; and there are traditions among the existing Pueblos that the cañons were these lands. The Spanish conquerors had a monstrous greed for gold and a lust for saving souls. "Treasure they must have—if not on earth why, then, in heaven—and when they failed to find heathen temples bedecked with silver they propitiated Heaven by seizing the heathen themselves. There is yet extant a copy of a record made by a heathen artist to express his conception of the demands of the conquerors. In one part of the picture we have a lake, and near by stands a priest pouring water on the head of a native. On the other side a poor Indian has a cord around his throat. Lines run from these two groups to a central figure, a man with a beard and full Spanish panoply. The interpretation of the picture-writing is this: 'Be baptized as this saved heathen, or be hanged as this damned heathen.' Doubtless some of the people preferred a third alternative, and rather than be baptized or hanged they chose to be imprisoned within these cañon-walls."
The rains and the accidents in the rapids had seriously reduced the commissary by this time, and the provisions left were more or less injured. The bacon was uneatable, and had to be thrown away: the flour was musty, and the saleratus was lost overboard. On August 17th the party had only enough food remaining for ten days' use, and though they hoped that the worst places had been passed, the barometers were broken, and they did not know what descent they had yet to make. The canvas which they had brought with them for covering from Green River City was rotten, there was not one blanket apiece for the men, and more than half the party were hatless. Despite their hopes that the greatest obstacles had been overcome, however, on the morning of August 27th they reached a place which appeared more perilous than any they had so far passed. They landed on one side of the river, and clambered over the granite pinnacles for a mile or two without seeing any way by which they could lower the boats. Then they crossed to the other side and walked along the top of a crag. In his eagerness to reach a point where he could see the roaring fall below, Major Powell went too far, and was caught at a point where he could neither advance nor retreat: the river was four hundred feet below, and he was suspended in front of the cliff with one foot on a small projecting rock and one hand fixed in a little crevice. He called for help, and the men passed him a line, but he could not let go of the rock long enough to seize it. While he felt his hold becoming weaker and expected momentarily to drop into the cañon, the men went to the boats and obtained three of the largest oars. The blade of one of them was pushed into the crevice of a rock beyond him in such a manner that it bound him across the body to the wall, and another oar was fixed so that he could stand upon it and walk out of the difficulty. He breathed again, but had felt that cold air which seems to fan one when death is near.