ilight was settling into
the chasm, a strange, though agreeable silence, that seemed almost
oppressive, fell around us. The angry waters ceased their roaring. We
slid along on a smooth, even river, and suddenly emerged into a pretty
little park, a mile long, bounded by cliffs only some six hundred feet
high. Running our boats up into the mouth of a quiet river entering
from the left we tied them up and were quickly established in the most
comfortable camp since Brown's Park. We were at the mouth of Yampa
River. From a wonderful echo which repeated a sentence of ten words,
we called the place Echo Park. Such an echo in Europe would be worth a
fortune. The Echo Rock is shown on page 203.

Here a stop was made for several days, and one evening some of us took
a boat and went up the Yampa a little distance. The walls were vertical
and high, and the shadows thrown by the cliffs as we floated along their
base were fairly luminous, so bright was the moon. A song burst from the
rowers and was echoed from wall to wall till lost in the silence of the
night-enveloped wilderness. Nothing could have been more beautiful, and
the tranquillity was a joy to us after the days of turmoil in Lodore.

CHAPTER XI

An Island Park and a Split Mountain--The White River Runaways--Powell
Goes to Salt Lake--Failure to Get Rations to the Dirty Devil--On the
Rocks in Desolation--Natural Windows--An Ancient House--On the Back of
the Dragon at Last--Cataracts and Cataracts in the Wonderful Cataract
Canyon--A Lost Pack-Train--Naming the Echo Peaks.

With one of the boats from the camp in Echo Park Powell went up the
Yampa to see what might be there. Though this stream was tranquil at its
mouth, it proved to be rough farther up, and the party, in the four
days they were gone, were half worn out, coming back ragged, gaunt, and
ravenous, having run short of food. The Monday following their return,
our boats were again carefully packed, life-preservers were inflated,
and we went forth once more to the combat with the rapids. A few
minutes' rowing carried us to the end of Echo Rock, which is a narrow
tongue of sandstone, about half a mile long and five hundred or six
hundred yards thick, and turning the bend we entered Whirlpool Canyon;
the cliffs, as soon as the other side of Echo Rock was passed, shooting
up into the air and enfolding us again in a canyon embrace. The depth
was quickly a couple of thousand feet with walls very close together
till,