e abysses. Knowing how suddenly darkness would fall,
and not daring to attempt the unknown without light, the travellers looked
for a mooring spot. There was a grim abutment at least eighteen hundred
feet high; at its base two rocks, which had tumbled ages ago from the
summit, formed a rude breakwater; and on this barrier had collected a bed
of coarse pebbles, strewn with driftwood. Here they stopped their flight,
unloaded the boat and beached it. The drift-wood furnished them a softer
bed than usual, and materials for a fire.

Night supervened with the suddenness of a death which has been looked for,
but which is at last a surprise. Shadow after shadow crept down the walls
of the chasm, blurred its projections, darkened its faces, and crowded its
recesses. The line of sky, seen through the jagged and sinuous opening
above, changed slowly to gloom and then to blackness. There was no light
in this rocky intestine of the earth except the red flicker of the
camp-fire. It fought feebly with the powers of darkness; it sent tremulous
despairing flashes athwart the swift ebony river; it reached out with
momentary gleams to the nearer facades of precipice; it reeled, drooped,
and shuddered as if in hopeless horror. Probably, since the world began,
no other fire lighted by man had struggled against the gloom of this
tremendous amphitheatre. The darknesses were astonished at it, but they
were also uncomprehending and hostile. They refused to be dissipated, and
they were victorious.

After two hours a change came upon the scene. The moon rose, filled the
upper air with its radiance, and bathed in silver the slopes of the
mountains. The narrow belt of visible sky resembled a milky way. The light
continued to descend and work miracles. Isolated turrets, domes, and
pinnacles came out in gleaming relief against the dark-blue background of
the heavens. The opposite crest of the canon shone with a broad
illumination. All the uncouth demons and monsters of the rocks awoke,
glaring and blinking, to menace the voyagers in the depths below. The
contrast between this supereminent brilliancy and the sullen obscurity of
the subterranean river made the latter seem more than ever like Styx or
Acheron.

The travellers were awakened in the morning by the trumpetings of the
cataract. They embarked and dropped down the stream, hugging the northern
rampart and watching anxiously. Presently there was a clear sweep of a
mile; the clamor now came stra