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Show AT THE SIDE OF THE COLOBADO. 125 into the depths of the cinon. And now Captain Bishop has kindled a huge fire of driftwood, on the bank of the river. This, and the fires in the gulch opposite, and our own flaming torches, light up little patches, that make more manifest the awful darkness below. Still, on we go, for an hour or two, and at last we see Captain Bishop coming up the gulch, with a huge torch-light on his shoulders. He looks like a fiend, waving brands and lighting the fires ;of hell, and the men in the opposite gulch are imps, lighting delusive fires in inaccessible crevices, over yawning chasms; our own little Indian is surely the king of wizards, so I think, as I stop for a few moments on a rock to rest. At last we meet Captain Bishop, with his flaming torch, and, as he has learned the way, he soon pilots us to the side of the great Colorado. We are hungry and athirst, almost to starvation. Here we lie down on the rocks and drink, just a mouthful or so, as we dare; then we make a cup of coffee, and, spreading our blankets on a sand beach, the roaring Colorado lulls us to sleep. September 18.-We are in the Grand Canon, by the side of the Colorado, more than six thousand feet below our camp on the mountain side, which is eighteen miles away; but the miles of horizontal distance represent but a small part of the days' labor before us. It is the mile of altitude we must gain that makes it a herculean task. We are up early; a little bread and coffee, and we look about us. Our conclusion is, that we can make this a d^pot of supplies, should it be necessary; that we can pack our rations to the point where we left our animals last night, and that we can employ Indians to bring tHem down to the water's edge. On a broad shelf, we find the ruins of an old stone house, the walls of which are broken down, and we can see where the ancient people who lived here-a race more highly civilized than the present-had made a garden, and used a great spring, that comes out of the rocks, for irrigation. On some rocks near by we discover some curious etchings. Still, searching about, we find an obscure trail up the canon wall, marked, here and there, by steps which have been built in the loose rock, elsewhere hewn stairways, and we find a much easier way to go up than that by which we came down in the darkness last night. Coming to the top of the wall, we catch our horses, and start. Up the canon our jaded ponies toil, and we reach the |
