: 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 - Grand Canyon (Ariz.)

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Epilogue

Appendix

The Steamer "Undine." Wrecked while trying to ascend a rapid on Grand River above Moab. Photograph by R. G. Leonard. His experience on this river ran through a period of some 20 years from about 1892. He died in the autumn of 1913. Every year he built one or more boats trying to improve on each. The Stone model was the final outcome. The usual high-water mark at Bright Angel Trail is 45 feet higher than the usual low-water mark. Stanton measured the greatest declivity in Cataract Canyon and found it to be 55 feet in two miles. The total fall in Cataract Canyon he made 355 feet. With a fall per mile of 27 1/2 feet. Cataract holds the record for declivity, though this is only for two miles, while in the Granite Falls section of the Grand Canyon there is a fall of 21 feet per mile for ten miles.

THE ROMANCE OF THE COLORADO RIVER

The Secret of the Gulf--Ulloa, 1539, One of the Captains of Cortes, Almost Solves it, but Turns Back without Discovering--Alarcon, 1540, Conquers.

In every country the great, rivers have presented attractive pathways for interior exploration--gateways for settlement. Eventually they have grown to be highroads where the rich cargoes of development, profiting by favouring tides, floated to the outer world. Man, during all his wanderings in the struggle for subsistence, has universally found them his friends and allies. They have yielded to him as a conquering stranger; they have at last become for him foster-parents. Their verdant banks have sheltered and protected him; their skies have smiled upon his crops. With grateful memories, therefore, is clothed for us the sound of such river names as Thames, Danube, Hudson, Mississippi. Through the centuries their kindly waters have borne down ancestral argosies of profit without number, establishing thus the wealth and happiness of the people. Well have rivers been termed the "Arteries of Commerce"; well, also, may they be considered the binding links of civilisation.

This seems to have been the very first visit of Europeans to the mouth of the Colorado, but as Ulloa did not see the river, and only surmised that there might be one there, it cannot be considered in any way a discovery. It has been supposed by some that Friar Juan de la Asumpcion, in 1538, might have reached the Colorado in his deep river which he could not cross, but this river was more likely a branch of the Yaqui, for the friar was told that ten days beyond, to the north, there was another larger river settled by many people, whose houses had three stories, and whose villages were enclosed. This describes the Rio Grande and its southern settlements perfectly, so that, had he been on the Colorado, or even the Gila, the Rio Grande could not have been described as "ten days to the north." Ulloa took possession formally, according to Spanish custom, and then sailed southward again. Though he had not found the great river, he had determined one important geographical point: that Lower California was not, as had been supposed, an island, but was a peninsula; nevertheless for a full century thereafter it was considered an island. Had Ulloa followed up the rush of the current he would have been the discoverer of the Colorado River, but in spite of his marvelling at the fury of it he did not seem to consider an investigation worth while; or he may have been afraid of wrecking his ships. His inertia left it for a bolder man, who was soon in his wake. But the intrepid soul of Cortes must have been sorely disappointed at the meagre results of this, his last expedition, which had cost him a large sum, and compelled the pawning of his wife's jewels. The discovery of the mouth of a great river would have bestowed on this voyage a more romantic importance, and would consequently have been somewhat healing to his injured pride, if not to his depleted purse; but his sun was setting. This voyage of Ulloa was its last expiring ray. With an artistic adjustment to the situation that seems remarkable, Ulloa, after turning the end of the peninsula and sailing up the Lower Californian coast, sent home one solitary vessel, and vanished then forever. Financially wrecked, and exasperated to the last degree by the slights and indignities of his enemies and of the Mendoza government, Cortes left for Spain early in 1540 with the hope of retrieving his power by appearing in person before the monarch. As in the case of Columbus, scant satisfaction was his, and the end was that the gallant captain, whose romantic career in the New World seems like a fairy tale, never again saw the scene of his conquests.

Mendoza, the new viceroy of New Spain, a man of fine character but utterly without sympathy for Cortes, and who was instrumental in bringing about his downfall, now determined on an expedition of great magnitude: an expedition that should proceed by both land and water to the wonderful Seven Cities of Cibola, believed to be rich beyond computation. The negro Estevan had lately been sent back to the marvelous northland he so glowingly described, guiding Marcos, the Franciscan monk of Savoyard birth, who was to investigate carefully, as far as possible, the glories recounted and speedily report. They were in the north about the same time that Ulloa was sailing up the Sea of Cortes. The negro, who had by arrangement proceeded there some days in advance of Marcos, was killed at the first Pueblo village, and Marcos, afraid of his life, and before he had seen anything of the wonderful cities except a frightened glimpse from a distant hill, beat a precipitate retreat to New Galicia, the province just north of New Spain, and of which Francis Vasquez de Coronado had recently been made governor. Here he astonished Coronado with a description of the vast wealth and beauty of the Seven Cities of Cibola, a description that does credit to his powers of imagination. Coronado lost no time in accompanying Marcos to Mexico, where a conference with Mendoza resulted in the promotion of the monk, and the immediate organisation of the great expedition mentioned. Coronado was made general of the land forces, and Hernando de Alarcon was placed in charge of the ships. Having a land march to make Coronado, started in February, 1540, while Alarcon sailed in May. Coronado proceeded to San Miguel de Culiacan, the last settlement toward the north, near the coast, whence he took a direction slightly east of north.

Alarcon, with his ships the San Pedro and the Santa Catalina, laid a course for the haven of Sant Iago. They were caught in a severe storm which so greatly frightened the men on the Santa Catalina, "more afraid than was need," remarks Alarcon, that they cast overboard nine pieces of ordnance, two anchors, one cable, and "many other things as needful for the enterprise wherein we went as the ship itself." At Sant Iago he repaired his losses, took on stores and some members of his company, and sailed for Aguaiauall, the seaport of San Miguel de Culiacan, where Coronado was to turn his back on the outposts of civilisation. The general had already gone when Alarcon arrived, but they expected to hold communication with each other, if not actually to meet, farther on; and it seems from this that they must have felt confidence in finding a river by which Alarcon might sail into the interior. As early as 1531 there were vague reports of a large river, the mouth of which was closed by the Amerinds living there by means of a huge cable stretched across from side to side. There may also have been other rumours of a large river besides the surmises of the Ulloa party. At any rate, Alarcon and Coronado fully expected to be in touch much of the time. This expectation appears absurd to us now when we understand the geography, but there was nothing out of the way about the supposition at that time. As it happened, the two divisions never met, nor were they able to communicate even once. So far as rendering Coronado any assistance was concerned, Alarcon might as well have been on the coast of Africa. The farther they proceeded the farther apart they were, but Alarcon kept a constant and faithful lookout for the other party the whole time, never losing an opportunity to inquire its whereabouts.

Coronado had left a well-provisioned ship, the San Gabriel, at Aguaiauall, for Alarcon to bring along. These supplies were for the use of the army when the two parties should meet in the north from time to time. Alarcon added the vessel to his fleet and proceeded along up the coast, keeping as near the land as the water would permit, and constantly on the lookout for signals from the other party, or for Amerinds who might be able to give information concerning the position of the general. Thus, at last, he came to the very head of the gulf where Ulloa had wondered at the rush of waters and had turned away without investigation. "And when we were come," he says, "to the flats and shoals from whence the aforesaid fleet returned, it seemed to me, as to the rest, that we had the firm land before us, and that those shoals were so perilous and fearful that it was a thing to be considered whether with our skiffs we could enter in among them: and the pilots and the rest of the company would have had us do as Captain Ulloa did, and have returned back again." But Alarcon was not of a retreating disposition; the fierce Colorado had now met its first conqueror. It must be remembered, for Ulloa's sake, that there was not the same incentive for him to risk his ships and the lives of his men in an attempt to examine the shoals and currents of this dangerous place. Alarcon was looking for and expecting to meet Coronado at any time. He knew that Coronado was depending on the supplies carried by the San Gabriel, and it would have been rank cowardice on the part of Alarcon to have backed out at the first difficulty. But he had no intention of retiring from the contest, for he says:

"But because your Lordship commanded me that I should bring you the secret of that gulf, I resolved that although I had known I should have lost the ships, I would not have ceased for anything to have seen the head thereof, and therefore I commanded Nicolas Zamorano, Pilot Major, and Dominico del Castello that each of them should take a boat, and lead in their hands, and run in among those shoals, to see if they could find out a channel whereby the ships might enter in; to whom it seemed that the ships might sail up higher , and in this sort I and he began to follow our way which they had taken, and within a short while after we found ourselves fast on the sands with all our three ships, in such sort that one could not help another, neither could the boats succour us because the current was so great that it was impossible for one of us to come to another. Whereupon we were in such great jeopardy that the deck of the Admiral was oftentimes under water; and if a great surge of the sea had not come and driven our ship right up and gave her leave, as it were, to breathe awhile, we had there been drowned; and likewise the other two ships found themselves in very great hazard, yet because they were lesser and drew less water their danger was not so great as ours. Now it pleased God upon the return of the flood that the ships came on float, and so we went forward. And although the company would have returned back, yet for all this I determined to go forward and to pursue our attempted voyage. And we passed forward with much ado, turning our stems now this way, now that way, to seek and find the channel. And it pleased God that after this sort we came to the very bottom of the bay, where we found a very mighty river, which ran with so great fury of a stream, that we could hardly sail against it."

Here, then, began the acquaintance between the European and the river now known as the Colorado of the West. The experience of Alarcon was immediately typical of much that was to follow in the centuries of endeavour to arrive at an intimate knowledge of this savage torrent.

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