ce and consequently the boats were always more
controllable. Yet when the water falls below a certain point the danger
of striking rocks is so much increased that a rapid which, at a little
higher stage would be easy to run must be avoided entirely by a portage
or a let-down. The waves at low water are also smaller and hence less
likely to upset a boat.

In many places we would lower a boat by lines near the shore, with two
men in her, and when a rock appeared they fended her off, or jumped into
the water and eased the craft along, touching bottom where they could.
This worked very well for this place and the stage of water, though
on this river one must ever be ready to adapt himself to differing
conditions. Rapids were very numerous, but we succeeded in passing them
in one way or another without seriously injuring the boats. The walls
grew to magnificent proportions. At one camp we could see, on the very
top of the cliff opposite, an object that from our position was the
counterpart of a log cabin. Tall pines grew around it and the deception
was complete. The cliff being twenty-four hundred feet high, the
"cabin" must, in reality have been of huge size; but we applied the name
"Log-Cabin Cliff" to the place. At a heavy descent, where the Emma
Dean of the first expedition was swamped, we took no chances and made a
careful let-down; a little farther on we did the same thing again. This
method of passing a rapid is not romantic, but our object was not
to perform spectacular feats but to accomplish the work in hand; so
wherever there was any doubt as to the safety of running a rapid we
adopted the prudent course. It was difficult to decide sometimes just
where to draw the line; in one rapid we tried to go through, the Nell
struck a rock, knocking Thompson out and nearly capsizing, but no real
harm was done. The walls increased to nearly three thousand feet, and
the rapids followed each other in quick succession every day. At one
point we saw, a couple of thousand feet above on the right a gigantic
example of the natural arches. Beyond this the walls began to grow
somewhat lower. Our life through this gorge, as well as through some
others, might be described by the monotonous phrase, "Got up, ran
rapids, went to bed." There was no time to do anything else. At night we
were always sleepy and tired. Fortunately there were here fine places to
camp--plenty of room, with smooth sand to sleep on. As soon as we halted
for the nig