world and ascertain if his plans for supply-trains were moving on
to success. He took the Dean, but Bishop was put in my place because
of his considerable experience in the Western country, for there was
no telling what they might encounter. On the morning of July 7th, at
daybreak, therefore, they were off, and speedily disappeared from
our sight within the rocks that arose below our camp. A number of the
remaining men climbed to the top of the left-hand side of the "gate,"
an altitude of about three thousand feet above camp, and from there were
able to see the Emma Dean for a long distance, working down through the
rapids. The view from that altitude over the surrounding country and
into the canyon was something wonderful to behold. A wild and
ragged wilderness stretched out in all directions, while down in the
canyon--more of a narrow valley than a canyon after the entrance was
passed--the river swept along, marked, here and there, by bars of white
we knew to be rapids. Crags and pinnacles shot up from every hand, and
from this circumstance it was at first uncertain whether to call the
canyon Craggy or Split-Mountain. The latter was decided on, as the river
has sawed in two a huge fold of the strata--a mountain split in twain.
When we entered it with our boats to again descend, we had gone but a
little distance before massive beds of solid rock came up straight out
of the water on both sides and we were instantly sailing in a deep,
narrow canyon, the beds at length arching over, down stream, high above
our heads. It was an extraordinary sight. While we were looking at the
section of the great fold, we discovered some mountain sheep far up
the rocks. Though we fired at them the circumstances were against our
hitting, and they scampered scornfully away from crag to crag, out of
our sight. Then the canyon widened at the top, and at the same time
rapids appeared. They came by dozens, but there were none that we
could not master with certainty by hard work. Wet from head to foot we
continued this labour for three days, and then the rocks, the "Ribbon
Beds," turned over and disappeared beneath the water just as they
had come out of it above. The low stage of the river made this canyon
difficult, so far as exertion was concerned, and the rapids would
perhaps be far easier during the spring flood.

We were now in Wonsits Valley, the longest expansion of the walls above
Black Canyon. Near our camp, which was on a soft, grassy