ny hundreds of feet, perhaps thousands;
I can hardly tell.

In some places the stream has not excavated its channel down vertically
through the rocks, but has cut obliquely, so that one wall overhangs the
other. In other places it is cut vertically above and obliquely below,
or obliquely above and vertically below, so that it is impossible to see
out overhead. But I can go no farther. The time which I estimated it
would take to make the portage has almost expired, and I start back on a
round trot, wading in the creek where I must, and plunging through
basins, and find the men waiting for me, and away we go on the river.

Just after dinner we pass a stream on the right, which leaps into the
Colorado by a direct fall of more than a hundred feet, forming a
beautiful cascade. There is a bed of very hard rock above, thirty or
forty feet in thickness, and much softer beds below. The hard beds above
project many yards beyond the softer, which are washed out, forming a
deep cave behind the fall, and the stream pours through a crevice above
into a deep pool below. Around on the rocks, in the cave-like chamber,
are set beautiful ferns, with delicate fronds and enamelled stalks. The
little frondlets have their points turned down, to form spore cases. It
has very much the appearance of the maiden's hair fern, but is much
larger. This delicate foliage covers the rocks all about the fountain,
and gives the chamber great beauty. But we have little time to spend in
admiration, so on we go.

We make fine progress this afternoon, carried along by a swift river,
and shoot over the rapids, finding no serious obstructions.

The canon walls, for 2,500 or 3,000 feet, are very regular, rising
almost perpendicularly, but here and there set with narrow steps, and
occasionally we can see away above the broad terrace, to distant cliffs.

We camp to-night in a marble cave, and find, on looking at our
reckoning, we have run twenty-two miles.

_August 24._ The canon is wider to-day. The walls rise to a vertical
height of nearly 3,000 feet. In many places the river runs under a
cliff, in great curves, forming amphitheatres, half-dome shaped.

Though the river is rapid, we meet with no serious obstructions, and run
twenty miles. It is curious how anxious we are to make-up our reckoning
every time we stop, now that our diet is confined to plenty of coffee,
very little spoiled flour, and very few dried apples. It has come to be
a race for a dinner