let-down. Then camp was established for
the night with the record of ten and three-eighths miles for our day's
work. At one place we passed a rock in the water so large that it almost
blocked the entire stream, which had averaged about two hundred feet in
width, though narrowing at many places to no more than seventy-five. The
current was always extremely swift, while many whirlpools added their
demands, though they gave us no serious trouble. It is exasperating,
however, to be turned around against one's will. The canyon at the top
for a considerable distance was not over three-quarters of a mile wide.
The depth was now from fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred feet. There
were always rapids following quickly one after another, but so often
they were free from rocks, the dangerous part of most rapids, that we
were able to sail through them in triumph. On the 20th, out of thirteen
sharp descents, we easily ran twelve, all in a distance of less
than seven miles. The average width of the river was one hundred and
twenty-five feet, while the walls rose to over two thousand feet, and at
the top the canyon was about a mile and a quarter from brink to brink.
This brought us to Vasey's Paradise, so named after a botanist friend of
his, by Powell on the first descent. It was only a lot of ferns, mosses,
and similar plants growing around two springs that issued from the
cliffs on the right about seventy-five feet above the river, and rippled
in silver threads to the bottom, but as it was the first green spot
since leaving the Paria its appearance was striking and attractive
to the eye that had been baffled in all directions except above, in a
search for something besides red. Now the narrow, terraced canyon, often
vertical on both sides for several hundred feet above the water,
grew ever deeper and deeper, two thousand, twenty-five hundred, three
thousand feet and more, as the impetuous torrent slashed its way down,
till it finally seemed to me as if we were actually sailing into the
inner heart of the world. The sensation on the first expedition, when
each dark new bend was a dark new mystery, must have been something to
quite overpower the imagination, for then it was not known that, by
good management, a boat could pass through this Valley of the Shadow of
Death, and survive. Down, and down, and ever down, roaring and leaping
and throwing its spiteful spray against the hampering rocks the terrible
river ran, carrying our boats a