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Show "WEATHERING OUT" THE NIGHT. 75 attain 2,300 feet in height, we hurriedly build a platform of rocks, on which to place our instruments, and quietly wait for the eclipse; but clouds come on, and rain falls, and sun and moon are obscured. Much disappointed, we start on our return to camp, but it is late, and the clouds make the night very dark. Still we feel our way down among the rocks with great care, for two or three hours, though making slow progress indeed. At last we lose our way, and dare proceed no farther. The rain comes down in torrents, and we can find no shelter. We can neither climb up nor go down, and in the darkness dare not move about, but sit and "weather out" the night. August 8.-Daylight comes, after a long, oh! how long a night, and we soon reach camp. After breakfast we start again, and make two portages during the forenoon. The limestone of this canon is often polished, and makes a beautiful marble. Sometimes the rocks are of many colors-white, gray, pink, and purple, with saffron tints. It is with very great labor that we make progress, meeting with many obstructions, running rapids, letting down our boats with lines, from rock to rock, and sometimes carrying boats and cargoes around bad places. We camp at night, just after a hard portage, under an overhanging wall, glad to find shelter from the rain. We have to search for some time to find a few sticks of driftwood, just sufficient to. boil a cup of coffee. The water sweeps rapidly in this elbow of river, and has cut its way under the rock, excavating a vast half circular chamber, which, if utilized for a theater, would give sitting to fifty thousand people. Objections might be raised against it, from the fact that, at high water, the floor is covered with a raging flood. August 9.-And now, the scenery is on a grand scale. The walls of the canon, 2,500 feet high, are of marble, of many beautiful colors, and often polished below by the waves, or far up the sides, where showers have washed the sands over the cliffs. At one place I have a walk, for more than a mile, on a marble pavement, all polished and fretted with strange devices, and embossed in a thou- |
