long with it like little wisps of straw
in the midst of a Niagara, the terraced walls around us sometimes
fantastically eroded into galleries, balconies, alcoves, and Gothic
caves that lent to them an additional weird and wonderful aspect, while
the reverberating turmoil of the ever-descending flood was like some
extravagant musical accompaniment to the extraordinary panorama flitting
past of rock sculpture and bounding cliffs.

The 22d was a day to be particularly remembered, for the walls, though
more broken at the water's edge, were now some thirty-five hundred feet
high and seemed to be increasing by leaps and bounds, for at one place,
through a side gorge on the right, we could discern cliffs so far above
our heads that tall pine trees looked no larger than lead pencils. It
was the end of the Kaibab, whose summit was more than five thousand feet
higher than the river at this point. Cataract followed rapid and rapid
followed cataract as we were hurled on down through the midst of the
sublimity, which, parting at our advance, closed again behind like some
wonderful phantasmagoria. At times in the headlong rush the boats
could barely be held in control. Once, a wild mass of breakers appeared
immediately in the path of our boat, from which it was impossible to
escape, even though we made a severe effort to do so. We thought we were
surely to be crushed, and I shall not forget the seconds that passed as
we waited for the collision which never came, for when the boat dashed
into the midst of the spray, there was no shock whatever; we glided
through as if on oil,--the rocks were too far beneath the surface to
harm us. So constant was the rush of the descending waters that our oars
were needed only for guidance.

Late in the day there came a long straight stretch, at the bottom of
which the river appeared to vanish. Had any one said the course was
now underground from that point onward, it would have seemed entirely
appropriate. In the outer world the sun was low, though it had long been
gone to us, and the blue haze of approaching night was drawing a veil
of strange uncertainty among the cliffs, while far above, the upper
portions of the mighty eastern walls, at all times of gorgeous hue, were
now beautifully enriched by the last hot radiance of the western sky.
Such a view as this was worth all the labour we had accomplished. When
the end of this marvellous piece of canyon was reached a small river was
found to enter on