Read Ebook: The Romance of the Colorado River The Story of its Discovery in 1840 with an Account of the Later Explorations and with Special Reference to the Voyages of Powell through the Line of the Great Canyons by Dellenbaugh Frederick Samuel

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Farther up they reached the "Shuenas," who had apparently never before heard the report of a gun, and on the 25th of March they arrived at what we now call Bill Williams Fork. A party was sent up this stream to trap. As they did not return next day according to the plan, scouts were dispatched, who found the bodies cut to pieces and spitted before a great fire.

The same month that Hardy sailed away from the mouth of the Colorado, August, 1826, Jedediah Smith started from Salt Lake , passed south by Ashley's or Utah Lake, and, keeping down the west side of the Wasatch and the High Plateaus, reached the Virgen River near the south-western corner of Utah. This he called Adams River in honour of the President of the United States. Following it south-west through the Pai Ute country for twelve days he came to its junction with what he called the Seedskeedee, knowing it to be the same stream so called in the north. This was the Colorado. Proceeding down the Colorado to the Mohaves he was kindly received by them and remained some time recuperating his stock. It may seem strange that the Mohaves should be so perverse, killing one set of trappers and treating another like old friends, but the secret of the difference on this occasion, perhaps, lay in the difference of approach. Jedediah Smith was a sort of reincarnation of the old padres, and of all the trappers the only one apparently who allowed piety or humanitarianism to sway his will. His piety was universally known. It was not an affectation, but a genuine religion which he carried about with him into the fastnesses of the mountains. Leaving the Mohaves he crossed the desert to the Californian coast, where he afterwards had trouble with the authorities, who seemed to bear a grudge against all American trappers, and who seized every opportunity to maltreat and rob them. This, however, did not prevent Smith from returning again after a visit to the northern rendezvous. But while crossing the Colorado, the Mohaves, who had meanwhile been instigated to harass Americans by the Spaniards , attacked the expedition, killing ten men and capturing everything. Smith escaped to be afterwards killed on the Cimarron by the Comanches.

Pattie and his father again entered the Gila country in the autumn of 1827, with permission from the governor of New Mexico to trap. After they had gone down the Gila a considerable distance the party split up, each band going in different directions, and after numerous adventures the Patties and their adherents arrived at the Colorado, where their horses were stampeded by the tribe living at the mouth of the Gila, the "Umeas." They were left without a single animal, a most serious predicament in a wild country. The elder Pattie counselled pursuit on foot to recapture the horses or die in the attempt. But the effort was fruitless. They then made their way back to their camp, devoured their last morsel of meat, placed their guns on a raft, and swam the river to annihilate the village they saw on the opposite bank. The Yumas, however, had anticipated this move, and the trappers found there only one poor old man, whom they spared. Setting fire to every hut in the village, except that of the old man, they had the small satisfaction of watching them burn. There was now no hope either of regaining the horses or of fighting the Yumas, so they devoted their attention, to building canoes for the purpose of escaping by descending the Colorado. For this they possessed tools, trappers often having occasion to use a canoe in the prosecution of their work. They soon had finished eight, dugouts undoubtedly, though Pattie does not say so, and they already had one which Pattie had made on the Gila. Uniting these by platforms in pairs they embarked upon them with all their furs and traps, leaving their saddles hidden on the bank.

The new year, 1828, came in and still they were going down the river, taking many beaver. As a New Year's greeting a shower of arrows from a new tribe, the Pipis, fell amongst them. The trappers killed six of them at one volley, and the rest ran away, leaving twenty-three beautiful longbows behind. The only clothing the dead men had on was snail-shells fastened to the ends of their long locks of hair. The trappers now began to seek more anxiously for the mythical settlements. "A great many times each day," says Pattie, "we bring our crafts to the shore and go out to see if we cannot discover the tracks of horses and cattle." On the 18th they thought some inundated river entering was the cause of a slackening of the current, and finally they began to rig oars, thinking they would now be obliged to work to get on down-stream, but presently, to their surprise, the current doubled its rate and they were going along at six miles an hour. None of them had ever had any experience with tides, and they therefore failed to fathom the real cause of these singular changes of speed. Suddenly, as they were descending, people of the same tribe they had fired on stood on the shore and shouted, making signs for them to land, that their boats would be capsized, but, thinking it a scheme for robbery and murder, they kept on, though they refrained from shooting. Late in the evening they landed, making their camp on a low point where the canoes with their rich cargoes were tied to some trees. Pattie's father took the first watch, and in the night, hearing a roaring noise that he thought indicated a sudden storm, he roused his companions, and all was prepared for a heavy rain, when, instead, to their great consternation, the camp was inundated by "a high ridge of water over which came the sea current combing down like water over a mill-dam." The canoes were almost capsized, but this catastrophe was averted by rapid and good management. Even in the darkness, in the face of a danger unexpected and unknown, the trappers never for an instant lost their coolness and quick judgment, which was so often their salvation. Paddling the canoes under the trees, they clung to the branches, but when the tide went out the boats were all high and dry. At last the day dawned bright and fair, enabling them to see what had happened, and when the tide once more returned, they got the canoes out of the trap. They now proceeded with the ebb tide, stopping with the beginning of the flood, constantly on the lookout for the Spanish settlements, and not till the 28th, when they saw before them such a commotion of waters that their small craft would be instantly engulfed, and wide sandy stretches, perfectly barren, all round, did they realise what a mistake they had made.

"The fierce billows," says Pattie, "shut us in from below, the river current from above, and murderous savages on either hand on the shore. We had a rich cargo of furs, a little independence for each one of us could we have disposed of them among the Spanish people whom we expected to have found here. There were no such settlements. Every side on which we looked offered an array of danger, famine, or death. In this predicament what were furs to us." In order to escape they worked their way back up the river as far as they could by rowing, poling, and towing, but on February 10th they met a great rise which put a stop to progress. They now abandoned the canoes, buried the furs in deep pits, and headed for the coast settlements of California. After many vicissitudes, which I am unable to relate here, they finally arrived, completely worn out, at the Spanish mission of St. Catherine. Now they believed their troubles were over, and that after recuperating they could go back, bring in their furs, dispose of them handsomely, and reap the reward of all their privation and toil. Not so, however. Indeed, the worst of their trials was now to come. Before they comprehended the intention the Spanish official had seized their rifles and the men were locked up with only the commonest fare to relieve their suffering. Cruelty followed cruelty, but they believed it was the mistake of the minor officers, and appealed to the general in charge at San Diego, expecting an order from him for release. Instead of this they were marched under guard to San Diego, where each was confined in a separate room, frustrating their plan to recapture their arms and fight their way out. Pattie's father presently became ill, and no amount of entreaty was sufficient to gain permission for the son to see him even for a moment. He died in his cell. After much argument and the intercession of some of the minor officers, Pattie was permitted liberty long enough to attend the funeral. At last the men were allowed to go back for the furs, which no doubt the wily general intended to confiscate, Pattie himself being retained as a hostage. But the furs had been ruined by a rise of the river. Smallpox then began to rage on the coast, and through this fact Pattie finally gained his freedom. Having with him a quantity of vaccine virus, he was able to barter skill in vaccinating the populace for liberty, though it was tardily and grudgingly granted. He was able, at length, to get away from California, and returned, broken in health and penniless, by way of the City of Mexico, to his old home near Cincinnati, after six years of extraordinary travel through the wildest portions of the Rocky Mountain region and the extreme Southwest.

It was in 1832 that Captain Bonneville entered Green River Valley, but as his exploits belong more properly to the valley of the Columbia, I shall not attempt to mention any of them here, referring the reader to the delightful account by Washington Irving.

"The Grand unites with the Seedskeedee or Green River to form the Colorado of the West. From the junction of these branches the Colorado has a general course from the north-east to the south-west of seven hundred miles to the head of the Gulf of California. Four hundred of this seven hundred miles is an almost unbroken chasm of kenyon, with perpendicular sides hundreds of feet in height, at the bottom of which the waters rush over continuous cascades. This kenyon terminates thirty miles above the gulf. To this point the river is navigable. The country on each side of its whole course is a rolling desert of loose brown earth, on which the rains and the dews never fall. A few years since, two Catholic missionaries and their servants on their way from the mountains to California, attempted to descend the Colorado. They have never been seen since the morning they commenced their fatal undertaking.

"A party of trappers and others made a strong boat and manned it well with the determination of floating down the river to take beaver that they supposed lived along its banks. But they found themselves in such danger after entering the kenyon that with might and main they thrust their trembling boat ashore and succeeded in leaping upon the crags and lightening it before it was swallowed in the dashing torrent."

They had a difficult time in getting out of the canyon, but finally, by means of ropes and by digging steps with their rifle barrels, they reached the open country and made their way back to the starting-point. This was, possibly, the expedition which was wrecked in Lodore, after Ashley's Red Canyon trip. I have not succeeded in finding any other account that would fit that place. Arriving at Fort Davy Crockett, in Brown's Park, he describes it as "a hollow square of one-storey log cabins, with roofs and floor of mud. Around these we found the conical skin lodges of the squaws of the white trappers who were away on their fall hunt, and also the lodges of a few Snake Indians who had preceded their tribe to this their winter haunt. Here also were the lodges of Mr. Robinson, a trader, who usually stations himself here to traffic with the Indians and white trappers. His skin lodge was his warehouse, and buffalo robes spread on the ground his counter, on which he displayed his butcher knives, hatchets, powder, lead, fish-hooks, and whiskey. In exchange for these articles he received beaver skins from trappers, money from travellers, and horses from the Indians. Thus, as one would believe, Mr. Robinson drives a very snug little business. And, indeed, when all the independent trappers are driven by the appearance of winter into this delightful retreat, and the whole Snake village, two thousand or three thousand strong, impelled by the same necessity, pitch their lodges around the fort and the dances and merrymakings of a long winter are thoroughly commenced, there is no want of customers."

With this happy picture of frontier luxury in the trapper period I will close the scene. Unwittingly, but no less thoroughly, the trappers had accomplished a mission: they had opened the gates of the wilderness. Two-thirds of these intrepid spirits had left their bones on the field, but theirs had been the privilege of seeing the priscan glory of the wilderness.

Note.--Near the emigrant crossing of Green River, in Wyoming, early in 1849, a party bound for California discovered an old scow ferry-boat, twelve feet long and about six feet wide, with two oars. Deciding to complete their journey by water they embarked. Later they built canoes. They were: William Lewis Manly ; M. S. McMahon; Charles and Joseph Hazelrig; Richard Field; Alfred Watson; and John Rogers. Manly's account appears entirely truthful. He tells of canyons, rapids, etc., till near the mouth of Uinta River they met the Ute chief Walker who explained by signs that the fury of the river below was worse than above, and all but two gave up. These two, McMahon and Field, stopped with the Utes, intending to continue. The others went to Salt Lake. Wakar repeated his warnings. Field lost courage, and finally McMahon also abandoned the desire. Manly's story is given in his book Death Valley in '49. The volume was edited by the late Henry L. Brainard, head of the San Jose, California, company which, in 1894, published it. It was Mr. Brainard who secured the story from Manly for the Weekly. Mrs. Brainard says of Manly: "He was one of the dearest old men; kind, loving, gentle, as one seldom meets in this world. It was a pleasure to meet and know him. His character was unblemished." At one place which I identify as lower Disaster Falls, Canyon of Lodore, they came to a deserted camp, "a skiff and some heavy cooking utensils, with a notice posted on an alder tree, saying that they had found the river route impracticable... and were about to start overland to Salt Lake." Manly took down the signed names of this party but his diary was later lost by fire. Apparently the cooking utensils, etc., were the same we saw twenty-two years later at that place and thought were wreckage . Manly died February 5, 1903, and is buried at Merced, California.

Fremont, the Pathfinder--Ownership of the Colorado--The Road of the Gold Seekers--First United States Military Post, 1849--Steam Navigation--Captain Johnson Goes to the Head of Black Canyon.

"of the Colorado is but little known, and that little derived from vague report. Three hundred miles of its lower part, as it approaches the Gulf of California, is reported to be smooth and tranquil; but its upper part is manifestly broken into many falls and rapids. From many descriptions of trappers it is probable that in its foaming course among its lofty precipices, it presents many scenes of wild grandeur; and though offering many temptations, and often discussed, no trappers have yet been found bold enough to undertake a voyage which has so certain a prospect of fatal termination."

He was mistaken about the trappers, not having ventured, for, as we have seen, there are traces of at least three parties: that of Ashley, that of the missionaries mentioned by Farnham, the trappers also mentioned by him, and the one indicated by the wreckage discovered in Lodore by Powell's expeditions, though the latter and that mentioned by Farnham are possibly the same.

The fur trade, which up to about 1835 was principally in beaver skins, had now somewhat changed, and buffalo robes were the chief article of traffic. But the buffalo were also beginning to diminish. They were no longer found on the western slope of the mountains, and no wonder, as the fur companies ANNUALLY gathered in about ninety thousand marketable skins during the ten years ending with 1842, yet it was only those animals killed in the cold months whose pelts were suitable for the fur business. The largest number of buffalo were killed in the summer months for other purposes; therefore one is not surprised that they were soon exterminated in the Colorado River Valley, where they never were as numerous as on the plains, and apparently never went west of the mouth of White River.

"The attack which wiped out this miserable band was planned by two young Mexicans, who had attempted to cross the ferry with their wives, and had them taken from them and detained by the Texans. The Mexicans went down the river and the desperadoes supposed they had gone their way and left their wives in their hands. But they only went far enough to find the chief of the tribe who had suffered so horribly at the hands of this gang, and arrange for an attack on their common enemy."

According to Hobbs, the first steamboat came up the river while he was there, frightening the Yumas so that they ran for their lives, exclaiming the devil was coming, blowing fire and smoke out of his nose, and kicking back with his feet in the water. It was the stern-wheel steamboat Yuma, and this is the only mention of it I can find. It had supplies for the troops, but what became of it afterward I do not know. This was evidently before the coming of the Uncle Sam, usually credited with being the first steamboat on the Colorado, which did not arrive till a year after the reconnaissance of the river mouth by Lieutenant Derby of the Topographical Engineers, for the War Department, seeking a route for the water transportation of supplies to Fort Yuma, now ordered to be a permanent military establishment. He came up the river a considerable distance, in the topsail schooner Invincible and made a further advance in his small boats. The only guide he had to the navigation of the river was Hardy's book, referred to in a previous chapter, which assisted him a good deal. He arrived at the mouth December 23, 1850. "The land," he says, "was plainly discernible on both coasts of the gulf, on the California side bold and mountainous, but on the Mexican low and sandy." There could, therefore, never, have been any doubt in the minds of any of those who had previously reached this point as to the character of Lower California. The Invincible sailed daily up the river with the flood tide, anchoring during the ebb, and they got on very well till the night of January 1, 1851, when the vessel grounded at the ebb,

The ebb tide ran at the rate of five and a half miles an hour, and the next day they saw, as it was running out, the "bore," or tidal wave, booming in to meet and overwhelm it.

"A bank of water some four feet in height, extending clear across the river, was seen approaching us with equal velocity; this huge comber wave came steadily onward, occasionally breaking as it rushed over shoals of Gull and Pelican islands; passing the vessel, which it swung around on its course, it continued up the river. The phenomenon was of daily occurrence until about the time of neap tides."

A little later this same year George A. Johnson came to the mouth of the river on the schooner Sierra Nevada with further supplies for the fort, including lumber for the construction of flatboats with which to go up to the post. Johnson afterwards ran steamers on the river for a number of years, but he was not the first to attempt steam-navigation here, that honour resting with Turnbull who built the Uncle Sam.

"we came upon the remains of an emigrant train, which a month previous had attempted to cross this desert in going from the United States to California. While passing over the desert they had been met by a sand-storm and lost the road by the sand blowing over it, and had wandered off into the hills. They had finally got back into the road; but by that time they were worn out, and they perished of fatigue and thirst."

They had passed the watering-place, a small pool, and as they had already been two or three days without water, the mistake was fatal. They had lightened their loads by casting off goods, but it was useless. A squad of soldiers was sent out from Fort Yuma to bury the bodies, of which eight were women and children and nine were men. The desert has no compassion on the human intruder, and he who ventures there must count only on his own resources.

The crossing of Green River was also difficult, except at low water, on account of the depth and force of the current. Sometimes the emigrants utilised a waggon-box as a boat, and the Mormons, who passed in 1847, established a ferry. Later others operated ferries, and the valley vied with Yuma in the matter of human activity. Fort Bridger was a place for rest and repairs, for there was a primitive blacksmith forge and carpenter shop. Here lived Bridger with his dark-skinned wife, chosen from a native tribe, and Vasquez, also a famous hunter. The fort was simply a few log cabins arranged in a hollow square protected by palisades, through which was a gateway closed by timber doors. Simple though it was, its value to the emigrant so far away from any settlement can hardly be appreciated by any who have never journeyed through such a wilderness as still existed beyond the Missouri. Could we pause here and observe the caravans bound toward the sunset, we could hardly find anywhere a more interesting study. There were the Californian emigrant, and the Mormon with his wives and their push-carts, there were the trapper and the trader, and there were the bands of natives sometimes friendly, sometimes hovering about a caravan like a pack of hungry wolves. There is now barely an echo of this hard period, and that echo smothered by the rush of the express train as it dashes in an hour or two so heedlessly across the stretches that occupied the forgotten emigrant days or weeks. In the search for a route for the railway much exploration was accomplished, and these expeditions, together with those in connection with the Mexican boundary survey, added greatly to the accumulating knowledge of the desolation enveloping the Colorado and its branches.

They were finally stopped altogether by a bayou and had to wait for a boat from the fort with which to cross it. When they came finally to the crossing of the river itself to the Arizona side they had a slow and difficult time of it. Sometimes the scow they used failed to reach the landing-place on the other side and the strong current would then sweep it two or three miles down the river before the men could get it to the shore. The next operation would be to tow it back to some low place, where the animals on it could be put ashore. This is a sample of the difficulties always encountered in crossing when the river was at flood. From Yuma looking northward the river can be traced for about fifteen miles before it is lost in the mountains. See cut on page 26. Bartlett desired to explore scientifically down to the mouth, but the government failed to grant him the privilege. He and Major Emory were not on good terms and there was a great deal of friction about all the boundary work, arising chiefly from the appointment of a civilian commissioner. Bartlett mentions Leroux's "late journey down the Colorado," on which occasion he met with some Cosninos, but just where he started from is not stated, though it was certainly no higher up than the mouth of the Grand Wash.

In 1852 the steamer Uncle Sam was brought out on a schooner from San Francisco and put together at the mouth of the river, but after a few months she most strangely went to the bottom, while her owner, Turnbull, was on the way from San Francisco with new machinery for her. Turnbull came in the schooner General Patterson, which was bearing stores for the fort. When the Patterson arrived at the mouth of the Colorado, she was able to sail easily up the river for thirty-three miles because Turnbull was met by some of his men who had been left here to take soundings, and for the first time a vessel was sailing with some knowledge of the channel. The river, however, was unusually high, which was an advantage. The wide flatlands on both sides were inundated to a distance of fifteen miles. The current ran at a seven- or eight-mile rate and was loaded with floating snags and tree-trunks to repel the invader. In proceeding in a small boat to the fort, Turnbull, in a distance of 120 miles, found but two dry spots on the bank where he could camp.

A new steamer was soon afloat on this fickle and impetuous tide, the General Jesup, owned by Captain Johnson, who had now had three or four years' experience in this navigation had been awarded the contract for transporting the supplies from the mouth, to the fort. His new boat, however, exploded seven months later, and it seemed as if the Fates had joined with the treacherous river to prevent successful steam navigation here. But Johnson would not give up. Before twelve months had passed he was stemming the turbulent flood with another steamer, the Colorado, a stern-wheeler, 120 feet long. As if propitiated by the compliment of having its name bestowed on this craft, the river treated it fairly well, and it seems to have survived to a good old age. The Jesup was soon repaired.

"During the excitement attending this misfortune, we were advised by an Indian messenger that another great chief was about to pay us a visit. Turning around, we beheld quite an interesting spectacle. Approaching was the dignitary referred to, lance in hand, and apparelled in official robes. The latter consisted of a blanket thrown gracefully around him, and a magnificent head-dress of black plumage covering his head and shoulders, and hanging down his back in a streamer, nearly to the ground. His pace was slow, his eyes cast downward, and his whole demeanour expressive of formal solemnity. Upon his right hand was the interpreter, upon his left a boy acting as page, and following was a long procession of his warriors, attended by a crowd of men, women, and children."

Johnson had been aware of his presence and intentions having been sent down from Fort Yuma with two steamboats to transport certain supplies from the vessel which brought Lieutenant Ives. He had reached the schooner December 17th. On January 2, 1858, he left Fort Yuma on his northward run knowing that Ives could not follow him until the steamboat brought in sections could be completed.

"in half an hour a great wave several feet in height, could be distinctly seen flashing and sparkling in the moonlight, extending from one bank to the other and advancing swiftly upon us. While it was only a few hundred yards distant, the ebb tide continued to flow by at the rate of three miles an hour. A point of land and an exposed bar close under our lee broke the wave into several long swells, and as these met the ebb the broad sheet around us boiled up and foamed like the surface of a cauldron, and then, with scarcely a moment of slack water, the whole went whirling by in the opposite direction. In a few moments the low rollers had passed the islands and united again in a single bank of water, which swept up the narrowing channel with the thunder of a cataract."

At Robinson's Landing, a mere mud flat, a camp was established and preparations made for the voyage to the extreme limit of navigation. The parts of the steamer were put ashore and a suitable spot selected whereon to set her up. The high tides were over for a month, and the mud began to dry, enabling the party to pitch their tents. It was an uncomfortable spot for expedition headquarters, but the best that could be had, as the Monterey was not permitted by her owners to venture farther up the river. But this delay, discomfort, and difficulty, to say nothing of expense, might have been avoided could a contract have been made with the existing steamboat company. As the bank on which the boat was to be reconstructed was not likely to be overflowed more than a foot by the next high tide, a month later, an excavation was made wherein to build the steamer that she might certainly come afloat at the desired time. Sixty holes had to be made in the iron plates so that the four stiffening timbers could be attached to the bottom to prevent the craft from breaking in two under the extra-heavy boiler. Inside, cross timbers were also added to resist the strain. On, December 17th, two steamers appeared from the fort, in command, respectively, of Johnson and Wilcox, to transport the army supplies to their destination. Robinson, after whom the landing was called because he had a cabin there, was with the steamboats, and, as he knew the river, especially as far as Yuma, Ives engaged him for pilot.

As they went on after this in daylight, some Cocopas they met grinned rather contemptuously, and called this the "chiquito steamboat." A considerable amount of stores was left on the bank in their care, to be picked up by Captain Wilcox, who, going down on one of the fort steamers, had passed the Explorer, and offered to take these extra stores to the fort on his return. They were placed with the Cocopas by his direction, an arrangement that better describes the relations of the steamboat people and the natives than anything that could be said about them. The fuel used was wood, of which there was great abundance along the shore, the hard, fine-grained mesquite making a particularly hot fire. The routine of advance was to place a man with a sounding-pole at the bow, while Robinson, the pilot, had his post on the deck of the cabin, but the sounding was more for record purposes than to assist Robinson, who was usually able to predict exactly when the water would shoal or deepen. Later, Ives says: "If the ascent of the river is accomplished, it will be due to his skill and good management." Besides the ordinary shifting of the sands by the restless, current, there was another factor occasionally to guard against. This was earthquakes. Sometimes they might change the depth of water on the lower river in the twinkling of an eye. On one occasion, a schooner lying in a deep part was found suddenly aground in three feet of water, with no other warning than a rumble and a shock. Heintzelman, in one of his reconnoissances, discovered the adjacent land full of cracks, through which oozed streams of sulphurous water, mud, and sand, and Diaz, in 1540, came to banks of "hot ashes" which it was impossible to cross, the whole ground trembling beneath his feet. At low water, even in the lower reaches of the river, a boat is liable to run aground often, and has to be backed off to try her fortune in another place. The bottom, however, is soft, the current strong, so no harm is done and the rush of water helps to cut the boat loose. One does not easily comprehend how sensitive a pilot becomes to every tremor of the hull in this sort of navigation. The quality of the boat's vibration speaks to his nerves in a distinct language, and the suck of the wheel emphasises the communication.

The Explorer at length arrived at Yuma. Here the remainder of the party, including Dr. Newberry, having come across country, joined the expedition, and further preparations were made for the more difficult task above. The craft was lightened as far as possible, but at the best she still drew two and one-half feet, while the timbers bolted to the bottom were a great detriment, catching on snags and ploughing into the mud of the shoals. There were twenty-four men to be carried, besides all the baggage that must be taken, even though a pack-train was to leave, after the departure of the boat, to transport extra supplies to the end of the voyage, wherever that might be. It is not easy to understand why so large a party was necessary. Some few miles above Yuma they came to the first range of mountains that closes in on the water, suddenly entering a narrow pass several hundred feet deep. Seven miles farther on, they went through a small canyon where another range is severed. This was called Purple Hill Pass, while the first one was named Explorer's Pass, after the steamer. The first approach to a real canyon was encountered a short distance above. Emerging from this, called Canebrake, from some canes growing along the sides, the Explorer ran aground, resting there for two hours. They had now passed through the Chocolate Mountains, the same range that Alarcon mentions, and as he records no other he probably went no farther up than the basin Ives is now entering, the Great Colorado Valley. Alarcon doubtless proceeded to the upper part of this valley, about to latitude thirty-four, where he raised the cross to mark the spot. Two miles above the head of the canyon, the power of the Explorer was matched against a stiff current that came swirling around the base of a perpendicular rock one hundred feet high. With the steam pressure then on, she was not equal to the encounter and made no advance, whereupon she was headed for a steep bank to allow the men to leap ashore with a line and tow her beyond the opposition. Above, the current was milder, but the river spread out to such an extent that progress was exceedingly difficult, and Ives expresses a fear that this might prove the head of navigation, yet he must then have been aware that Johnson at that very moment was far beyond this with a steamer larger than the one he was on. It was now January 17, 1858, and it was on January 23d, that Johnson was at the point where Beale intended to cross. The steamer was used as a ferry and then left the same day for Yuma. Captain Johnson with his steamboat had been to the head of navigation. Ives and Johnson must now pass each other before the end of this month of December, and the meeting of the two steamers took place somewhere in this Colorado Valley, for, under date of January 31st, Ives says: "Lieutenant Tipton took advantage of an opportunity afforded a few days ago, by our meeting Captain Johnson, with Lieutenant White and party returning to the fort, and went back with them in order to bring up the pack-train." He does not mention, however, that Johnson was piloting a steamboat larger than the Explorer. Indeed, I have been told that he failed to reply to Johnson's salute. Slowly they worked their way up, and on up, toward their final goal, though the water was exceptionally low. At last reaching Bill Williams Fork, Ives, who had seen it at the time he was with Whipple about four years earlier, could not at first find it, though, on the former occasion, in the same season, it had been a stream thirty feet wide. It was now a feeble rivulet, the old mouth being filled up and overgrown with willows. Approaching Mohave Canyon, a rapid was encountered, necessitating the carrying forward of an anchor, from which a line was brought to the bow, and this being kept taut, with the boat under full steam the obstruction was surmounted without damage. This was the common method of procedure at rapids. This canyon, Ives, says was a "scene of such imposing grandeur as he had never before witnessed," yet it is only a harbinger of the greater sublimity extending along the water above for a thousand miles. Mohave Canyon and The Needles soon were left behind, and they were steaming through the beautiful Mohave Valley, where the patient footsteps of the padres and the restless tramp of the trappers had so long ago passed and been forgotten. Probably not one of that party remembered that Pattie on horseback had covered this same field over thirty years before, or that rare old Garces guided his tired mule along these very banks a full half century ahead of Pattie. To-day, the comfortable traveller on the railway, crossing the river near The Needles, has also forgotten these things and Lieutenant Ives as well.

Many Cocopas, Yumas, Mohaves, and Chemehuevis were met with since the trip began, but there had been no trouble with any of them. Ives now began to inquire for a former guide of Whipple's, whom he pleasantly remembered and whose name was Ireteba. Fortunately, he soon came across him and engaged his services. Ireteba was a Mohave, but possessed one of those fine natures found in every clime and colour. He was always true and intelligent, and of great service to the expedition. The Explorer pushed on, encountering many difficulties, some due to the unfortunate timbers on the bottom, which often became wedged in rocks, besides increasing the draught by about six inches, a serious matter at this extremely low stage of water. "It is probable," says Ives, "that there is not one season in ten when even the Explorer would encounter one fourth of the difficulty that she has during the unprecedentedly low stage of water." At one rapid, after the boat by hard labour had been brought to the crest, the line broke and she at once fell back, bumping over the rocks and finally lodging amidst a mass so firmly that it required half the next day to pull her out. The second attempt to surmount the rapid was successful, and they were then rewarded by a fierce gale from the north, detaining them twenty-four hours, filling everything with sand, and dragging the steamboat from her moorings to cast her again upon the rocks. When, at last, they could go on they came after a short time to a canyon deeper and grander than any they had yet seen, called Black Canyon, because it is cut through the Black Mountains. Ives was uncertain, at the moment, whether this was the entrance to what was called Big Canyon or not. The Explorer by this time had passed through a number of rapids and the crew were growing expert at this sort of work, so that another rapid a hundred yards below the mouth of the canyon was easily conquered. The current becoming slack, the steamer went gaily on toward the narrow gateway, where, "flanked by walls many hundreds of feet in height, rising perpendicularly out of the water, the Colorado emerged from the bowels of the range." Suddenly the boat stopped with a crash. The bow had squarely met a sunken rock. The men forward were knocked completely overboard, those on the after-deck were thrown below, the boiler was jammed out of place, the steampipe was doubled up, the wheelhouse torn away, and numerous minor damages were sustained. The Explorer had discovered her head of navigation! They thought she was about to sink, but luckily she had struck in such a way that no hole was made and they were able by means of lines and the skiff to tow her to a sandbank for repairs. Here the engineer, Carroll, and Captain Robinson devoted themselves to making her again serviceable, while, with the skiff, Ives and two companions continued on up the deep gorge. Though this was the end of the upward journey, so far as the Explorer was concerned, Johnson with his steamboat had managed to go clear through this canyon.

The year following the Ives expedition, Captain Macomb was sent to examine the junction of the Green and Grand rivers. For a considerable distance he followed, from Santa Fe, almost the same trail that Escalante had travelled eighty-three years previously. Dr. Newberry, the eminent geologist who had been with Ives, was one of this party, and he has given an interesting account of the journey. The region lying immediately around the place they had set out for is one of the most formidable in all the valley of the Colorado. Looking about one there, from the summit of the canyon walls, it seems an impossibility for anything without the power of flight to approach the spot except by way of the river channels. Macomb and Newberry succeeded in forcing their way to within about six miles of the junction, there to be completely baffled and turned back. Arriving finally at the brink of the canyon of Grand River, Newberry says:

"On every side we were surrounded by columns, pinnacles, and castles of fantastic shapes, which limited our view, and by impassable canons, which restricted our movements. South of us, about a mile distant, rose one of the castle-like buttes, which I have mentioned, and to which, though with difficulty, we made our way. This butte was composed of alternate layers of chocolate-colored sandstone and shale about one thousand feet in height; its sides nearly perpendicular, but most curiously ornamented with columns and pilasters, porticos and colonnades, cornices and battlements, flanked here and there with tall outstanding towers, and crowned with spires so slender that it seemed as though a breath of air would suffice to topple them from their foundations. To accomplish the object for which we had come so far, it seemed necessary that we should ascend this butte. The day was perfectly clear and intensely hot, the mercury standing at 92 degrees in the shade, and the red sandstone, out of which the landscape was carved, glowed in the heat of the burning sunshine. Stripping off nearly all our clothing, we made the attempt, and, after two hours of most arduous labor, succeeded in reaching the summit. The view which there burst upon us was such as amply repaid us for all our toil. It baffles description."

He goes on to say that, while the great canyon, meaning the Grand Canyon, with its gigantic cliffs, presents grander scenes, they have less variety and beauty of detail than this. They were here able to see over an area of some fifty miles diameter, where, hemmed in by lines of lofty step-like mesas, a great basin lay before them as on a map. There was no vegetation, "nothing but bare and barren rocks of rich and varied colours shimmering in the sunlight. Scattered over the plain were thousands of the fantastically formed buttes to which I have referred... pyramids, domes, towers, columns, spires of every conceivable form and size." There were also multitudes of canyons, ramifying in every direction, "deep, dark, and ragged, impassable to everything but the winged bird." At the nearest point was the canyon of the Grand, while four miles to the south another great gorge was discerned joining it, which their Amerind guides pronounced to be that of Green River. Finding it utterly impossible for them to reach this place, they returned.

Some few prospectors for mineral veins began investigations in the neighbourhood of the lower part of the Grand Canyon, and the gorge was entered from below, about 1864, by O. D. Gass and three other men. I met Gass at his home at Las Vegas in 1875, but I did not then know he had been in the canyon and did not hear his story. It was not till 1866 that any one tried again to navigate the river above Mohave. In that year Captain Rodgers, who for four years had been on the lower Colorado, took the steamboat Esmeralda, ninety-seven feet long and drawing three and one-half feet of water, up as far as Callville, near the mouth of the Virgen, which was several miles beyond the highest point attained by Ives in his skiff, but little, if any, farther than Johnson had gone with his steamboat. He ascended the most difficult place, Roaring Rapids in Black Canyon, in seven minutes, and was of the opinion that it could as easily be surmounted at any stage of water, except perhaps during the spring rise. It does not matter much now, for it is not likely that any steam craft will soon again have occasion to traverse that canyon. The completion of the railways was a death blow to steam navigation on the Colorado, yet, in the future, when the fertile bottoms are brought under cultivation, small steamboats will probably be utilised for local transportation.

"They felt the raft agitated, then whirled along with frightful rapidity towards a wall that seemed to bar all further progress. As they approached the cliff the river made a sharp bend, around which the raft swept, disclosing to them, in a long vista, the water lashed into foam, as it poured through a narrow precipitous gorge, caused by huge masses of rock detached from the main walls. There was no time to think. The logs strained as if they would break their fastenings. The waves dashed around the men, and the raft was buried in the seething waters. White clung to the logs with the grip of death. His comrade stood up for an instant with the pole in his hands, as if to guide the raft from the rocks against which it was plunging; but he had scarcely straightened before the raft seemed to leap down a chasm and, amid the deafening roar of waters, White heard a shriek that thrilled him to the heart, and, looking around, saw, through the mist and spray, the form of his comrade tossed for an instant on the water, then sinking out of sight in a whirlpool."

On the fifth day White lashed himself to the raft. He then describes a succession of rapids, passing which with great difficulty he reached a stream that he afterward learned was the Little Colorado. He said the canyon was like that of the San Juan, but they are totally different. The current of this stream swept across that of the Colorado, "causing in a black chasm on the opposite bank a large and dangerous whirlpool." He could not avoid this and was swept by the cross current into this awful place, which, to relieve the reader's anxiety, I hasten to add, does not exist. There is no whirlpool whatever at the mouth of the Little Colorado, nor any other danger. But White now felt that further exertion was useless, and amidst the "gurgling" waters closed his eyes for some minutes, when, feeling a strange swinging sensation, he opened them and found that he was circling round the whirlpool, sometimes close to the terrible vortex, etc. He thought he fainted. He was nothing if not dramatic. When he recovered it was night. Then for the first time he thought of prayer. "I spoke as if from my very soul, and said: 'Oh, God, if there is a way out of this fearful place, show it to me, take me to it.'" His narrator says White's voice here became husky and his features quivered. "I was still looking up with my hands clasped when I felt a different movement of the raft and turning to look at the whirlpool it was some distance behind , and I was floating on the smoothest current I had yet seen in the canyon." The current was now very slow and he found that the rapids were past. The terrible mythical whirlpool at the innocent mouth of the Little Colorado was the end of the turmoil, though he said the canyon went on, the course of the river being exceedingly crooked, and shut in by precipices of white sand rock! There is no white "sand-rock" in the Grand Canyon. All through this terrific gorge wherein the river falls some eighteen hundred feet, White found a slow current and his troubles from rapids were over! For 217 miles of the worst piece of river in the world, he found no difficulty. The gloom and lack of food alone oppressed him, and he thought of plunging from the raft, but lacked the courage. Had he really entered the Grand Canyon his raft would have been speedily reduced to toothpicks and he would not have had the choice of remaining upon it. Finally, he reached a bank upon which some mesquite bushes grew, and he devoured the green pods. Then sailing on in a sort of stupor he was roused by voices and saw some Yampais, who gave him meat and roasted mesquite beans. Proceeding, he heard voices again and a dash of oars. It was Hardy and at last White was saved!

We have seen various actors passing before us in this drama, but I doubt if any of them have been more picturesque than this champion prevaricator. But he had related a splendid yarn. What it was intended to obscure would probably be quite as interesting as what he told. Just where he entered upon the river is of course impossible to decide, but that he never came through the Grand Canyon is as certain as anything can be. His story reveals an absolute ignorance of the river and its walls throughout the whole course he pretended to have traversed.

NOTE.--Mr. R. B. Stanton in 1907 discovered that White was alive in New Mexico. With a stenographer Mr. Stanton visited him and concludes that White was not responsible for the tale, and that Parry's imagination filled in the details. Mr. Stanton proves absolutely that White never went through the Grand Canyon and that his route was from the foot of the Grand Canyon to Callville.

The One-armed Knight--A Bold Attack on the Canyons--Powell and His Men--The Wonderful Voyage--Mighty Walls and Roaring Rapids--Capsizes and Catastrophes.

When the Civil War was finally over, the wilds of the Far West again called in seductive voice to the adventurous and the scientific. The fur-trade as an absorbing industry was dead, but mining, prospecting, ranching, and scientific exploring took its place. Among the naturalists who crossed the Rocky Mountains for purposes of investigation, fascinated by the broad, inviting field, was a one-armed soldier, a former officer of volunteers in the Union Army. His right forearm had remained on the battlefield of Shiloh, but when a strong head is on the shoulders a missing arm makes little difference, and so it was with Major Powell. In the summer of 1867, when he was examining Middle Park, Colorado, with a small party, he happened to explore a moderate canyon on Grand River just below what was known as Middle Park Hot Springs, and became enthused with a desire to fathom the Great Mystery. Consequently, he returned the next year, made his way to the banks of White River, about 120 miles above its mouth, and there erected cabins, with the intention of remaining through the snow season till the following spring should once again unlock the frost-gates of the range. There being now no bison trails hard-beaten into the snow, it was a more difficult undertaking to cross, except in summer. Mrs. Powell was with the party.

During this winter of 1868-69, Powell made several important journeys in connection with his purpose of exploring the great walled river; one was down toward the south as far as Grand River; a second followed White River to its junction with the Green, and a third went northward around the eastern base of the Uinta Mountains, skirting the gorges afterward named Lodore, Whirlpool, Red Canyon, etc. In these travels he formed his plans for an attempt to fully explore, by means of a boat voyage, the remarkable string of chasms which for more than three centuries had defied examination. He decided that the starting point must be where the Union Pacific Railway had just been thrown across Green River, and that the only chance for success was to continue on the torrential flood till either he should arrive at the end of the great canyons near the mouth of the Rio Virgen or should himself be vanquished in the endeavour. It was to be a match of human skill and muscle against rocks and cataracts, shut in from the outer world, always face to face with the Shadow of Death. It was to be a duel to the finish between the mysterious torrent on the one side and a little group of valiant men on the other. Never had plumed knight of old a more dreadful antagonist. Like the Sleeping Beauty, this strange Problem lay in the midst of an enchanted land guarded by the wizard Aridity and those wonderful water-gods Erosion and Corrasion, waiting for the knight-errant brave, who should break the spell and vanquish the demon in his lair. No ordinary man was equal to this difficult task, which demanded not alone courage of the highest order, but combined with this courage a master-mind and the strategic skill of a general. But there comes a time for everything. The moment for shattering this mystery had apparently arrived and the mortal who was to achieve this wonderful feat enters upon the scene with the quiet nerve and perfect confidence of a master. He realised the gravity of the proposition and therein rested his strength. He knew no ordinary boat could hope to live in the turmoil of waters that lashed themselves to fury among the rocks and against the towering and continuous cliffs; and he knew the party must be self-supporting in every sense of the term, depending on nothing but their own powers and what they could carry along.

The universal dread of the Colorado and its gorges had by this time considerably augmented. The public imagination pictured the roaring flood ploughing its dismal channel through dark subterranean galleries where human life would not be worth a single drop of tossing spray; or leaping at a bound over precipices beside which the seething plunge of Niagara was but a toy. No one could deny these weird tales. No one knew. But Powell was fortified by Science, and he surmised that nowhere would he encounter any obstruction which his ingenuity could not surmount.

I remember one morning, on the second voyage, when we had made an early start and the night-gloom still lingered in the depths of Marble Canyon as we bore down on a particularly narrow place where the river turned a sharp bend to disappear between walls vertical at the water, into a deep-blue haze, it seemed to me that ANYTHING might be found there, and looking up from my seat in the bow of our boat into the gallant explorer's face, I said: "Major, what would you have done on the first trip if just beyond that bend you had come upon a fall like Niagara?" He regarded me a moment with his penetrating gaze, and then answered: "I don't know." Perhaps he thought that what we now would find there was enough for the moment.

Captain Mansfield, reporting to the Secretary of War, wrote in his letter of December 10, 1867: "Above Callville for several hundred miles the river is entirely unknown." He recommended Callville as the starting-place for exploration, and a small steamer for the work, with skiffs and canvass boats for continuing beyond the steam-navigation limit; but Captain Rodgers, who had gone with the steamboat Esmeralda up through Black Canyon, thought the great canyon should be entered above Callville after the fall of water in the spring, and his was more nearly a correct idea. The War Department continued, however, to butt against the wrong end, even after the success of the other way had been demonstrated. Some Mormons, who did not know, reported the two hundred miles above Callville to be better than the one hundred below. The two hundred miles above contain some of the most dangerous portions of the river. Colonel Williamson stated in March, 1868, that he could obtain no information of importance with regard to the "Big" canyon except that contained in Dr. Parry's account of White's alleged journey, which journey, as I have pointed out, was a myth.

"If that report be reliable," he says, "it is evident that in the high or middle stage of the river a strongly built boat can come down the canon with safety. Before reading that report I had an idea that it would be a very dangerous experiment to attempt to go down this canon in a boat of any kind, because I feared there were falls, in going down, in which a boat might be upset or even dashed to pieces. As it is, now I believe there are no falls, and I am inclined to think the best way is to start above and descend."

During these efforts of the regular army officers to secure information as to the possibility of exploring the great canyons, Powell approached the problem from an entirely different direction, and his quick and accurate perception told him that to go down with the tide was the one and only way. He was not a rich man; and expeditions require funds, but this was no more of a bar to his purpose than the lack of an arm. His father was a Methodist clergyman of good old stock, vigorous of mind and body, clear-sighted, and never daunted. My immediate impression in meeting the father, even in his old age, was of immense mental and moral strength, resolution, and fortitude. These qualities he bequeathed to his children, and it was a fine inheritance. Major Powell, therefore, had his ancestry largely to thank for the intellect and the courage with which he approached this difficult problem.

Funds for the proposed expedition were furnished by the State Institutions of Illinois and the Chicago Academy of Science; none by the general Government, so that this was in no way a Government matter, except that Congress passed a joint-resolution authorising him to draw rations for twelve men from western army posts. Early in the spring of 1869, after returning from the rambles along Green River of the previous winter, Powell went to Chicago and engaged a competent builder to construct four strong boats after his suggestions. Three of these were of oak, twenty-one feet long, and one of light pine, sixteen feet long, the latter intended as an advance boat, to be quickly handled in the face of sudden danger. At the bow and stern of each was a water-tight compartment, in which supplies and instruments could be packed, and they would yet give buoyancy to the boats when they would be filled with water by the breaking waves of the rapids. Amidships the boats were open, and here also goods, guns, etc., were stowed away. Each had a long rope, to use in lowering past the most dangerous places. Unlike all the explorations on the lower course of the river, this expedition would require no lines for towing. These four little craft, which were to be the main reliance of the daring men composing the party, were transported free of charge, together with the men who were from the country east of the mountains, to Green River Station, Wyoming, by the courtesy of the officials of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy, and the Union Pacific railways, who took a deep interest in the proposed descent. The names given to the boats were, for the small one, Emma Dean, the pilot boat , Kitty Clyde's Sister, Maid of the Canyon, and No-Name. The members of the party, together with their disposition in the boats at starting, were as follows: John Wesley Powell, John C. Sumner, William H. Dunn--the Emma Dean; Walter H. Powell, G. Y. Bradley--Kitty Clyde's Sister; O. G. Howland, Seneca Howland, Frank Goodman--the No-Name; William R. Hawkins, Andrew Hall--Maid of the Canyon.

Powell, as noted, had been a volunteer officer in the Civil War. After that he was connected with the Wesleyan University at Bloomington, Illinois, and with the Normal University at Normal, in the same state. Sumner, generally known as Jack Sumner, had also been a soldier in the late war. He was fair-haired and delicate-looking, but with a strong constitution. Dunn had been a hunter and trapper. Walter Powell was Major Powell's youngest brother. He had been in the late war and had there suffered cruelly by capture and imprisonment. Bradley was an orderly sergeant of regulars, had served in the late war, and resigned from the army to join this party. O. G. Howland had been a printer. Seneca Howland was his younger brother. Goodman was a young Englishman. Hawkins had been a soldier in the late war, and Andrew Hall was a Scotch boy nineteen years old.

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