possible to float in the rough river without shipping water. A mile or
two below town we run on a sandbar. The men jump into the stream and
thus lighten the vessels, so that they drift over, and on we go.

In trying to avoid a rock an oar is broken on one of the boats, and,
thus crippled, she strikes. The current is swift and she is sent reeling
and rocking into the eddy. In the confusion two other oars are lost
overboard, and the men seem quite discomfited, much to the amusement of
the other members of the party. Catching the oars and starting again,
the boats are once more borne down the stream, until we land at a small
cottonwood grove on the bank and camp for noon.

During the afternoon we run down to a point where the river sweeps the
foot of an overhanging cliff, and here we camp for the night. The sun is
yet two hours high, so I climb the cliffs and walk back among the
strangely carved rocks of the Green River bad lands. These are
sandstones and shales, gray and buff, red and brown, blue and black
strata in many alternations, lying nearly horizontal, and almost without
soil and vegetation. They are very friable, and the rain and streams
have carved them into quaint shapes. Barren desolation is stretched
before me; and yet there is a beauty in the scene. The fantastic
carvings, imitating architectural forms and suggesting rude but weird
statuary, with the bright and varied colors of the rocks, conspire to
make a scene such as the dweller in verdure-clad hills can scarcely
appreciate.

Standing on a high point, I can look off in every direction over a vast
landscape, with salient rocks and cliffs glittering in the evening sun.
Dark shadows are settling in the valleys and gulches, and the heights
are made higher and the depths deeper by the glamour and witchery of
light and shade. Away to the south the Uinta Mountains stretch in a long
line,--high peaks thrust into the sky, and snow fields glittering like
lakes of molten silver, and pine forests in somber green, and rosy
clouds playing around the borders of huge, black masses; and heights and
clouds and mountains and snow fields and forests and rock-lands are
blended into one grand view. Now the sun goes down, and I return to
camp.

_May 25._--We start early this morning and run along at a good rate
until about nine o'clock, when we are brought up on a gravelly bar. All
jump out and help the boats over by main strength. Then a rain comes on,
and river and cloud