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rly morning of that May day of 1869. During the first few days they had no serious mishap: they lost an oar, broke a barometer-tube and occasionally struck a bar. All around them abounded examples of that natural architecture which is seen from the passing train at the "City"--weird statuary, caverns, pinnacles and cliffs, dyed gray and buff, red and brown, blue and black--all drawn in horizontal strata like the lines of a painter's brush. Mooring the boats and ascending the cliffs after making camp, they saw the sun go down over a vast landscape of glittering rock. The shadows fell in the valleys and gulches, and at this hour the lights became higher and the depths deeper. The Uintah Mountains stretched out in the south, thrusting their peaks into the sky and shining as if ensheathed with silver. The distant pine forests had the bluish impenetrability of a clear night-sky, and pink clouds floated in motionless suspense until, with a final burst of splendor, the light expired. At the end of sixty-two miles they reached the mouth of Flaming Gorge, near which some hunters and Indians are settled. Flaming Gorge is a canon bounded by perpendicular bluffs, banded with red and yellow to a height of fifteen hundred feet, and the water flowing through it is a positive malachite in color, crossed and edged with bars of glistening white sand. It leads into Red Canon, and in 1869 it was the gateway to a region which was almost wholly unknown. An old Indian endeavored to deter Major Powell from his purpose. He held his hands above his head, with his arms vertical, and, looking between them to the sky, said, "Rocks h-e-a-p, h-e-a-p high; the water go h-oo-woogh; water-pony (boat) heap buck. Water catch 'em, no see 'em squaw any more, no see 'em Injin any more, no see 'em pappoose any more." The prophecy was not encouraging, and with some anxiety the explorers left the last vestige of civilization behind them. Below the gorge they ran through Horseshoe Canon, which describes an elongated letter U in the mountains, and several portages became necessary. The cliffs increased a thousand feet in height, and in many places the water completely filled the channel between them; but occasionally the canon opened into a little park, from the grassy carpet of which sprang crimson flowers on the stems of pear-shaped cactus-plants, patches of blue and yellow blossoms, and a fragrant _Spiraea_. As often as a rapid was approached Major Powell
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