Till now the trappers and fur companies had been the chief travellers through this strange, weird land, but as the fourth decade of the century fairly opens, a new kind of pioneer appears suddenly on the field; a pioneer with motives totally different from those of the preceding explorers. Proselyting or profit had been heretofore the main spurs to ambition, but the commanding figure which we now observe scanning, from the majestic heights of the Wind River range, the labyrinthian maze of unlocated, unrecorded mountains, valleys, rivers, and canyons, rolling far and away to the surf of the Pacific, is imbued with a broader purpose. His mission is to know. The immediately previous elements drifted across the scene like rifle-smoke on the morning breeze, making no more impression on the world's knowledge. They recorded little, and, so far as information was concerned, they might almost as well never have set foot in the wilderness. But the new man records everything: the wind, the cold, the clouds, the trees, the grass, the mice, the men, the worms, the birds, etc., to the end of his time and his ability. He is the real explorer, the advance guard of those many expeditions which followed and whose labours form the fourth division of our subject. Fremont is the name, since that time called "Pathfinder," though, of course, the paths he followed had often before been travelled by the redoubtable trapper, whose knowledge, like that of the native, was personal only. Indeed, he was guided in his journeys by several men now quite as famous as himself—Kit Carson, Fitzpatrick, Walker, and Godey. But the field was still new to the world and to science. Quite appropriately, one of the highest peaks from which the Colorado draws its first waters, is now distinguished by the name of the earliest scientific observer to enter its basin. Fremont came up the North Platte and the Sweetwater branch, crossing (1842) from that stream by the South Pass thirty-four years after Andrew Henry had first traversed it, over to the headwaters of the Colorado. The ascent to South Pass is very gradual, and there is no gorge or defile. The total width is about twenty miles. A day or two later Fremont climbed out of the valley on the flank of the Wind River Mountains. "We had reached a very elevated point," he says; "and in the valley below and among the hills were a number of lakes at different levels; some two or three hundred feet above others, with which they communicated by foaming torrents. Even to our great height the roar of the cataracts came up, and we could see them leaping down in lines of snowy foam." Thus are the rills and the rivulets from the summits collected in these beautiful alpine lakes to give birth to the Colorado in white cascades, typical, at the very fountainhead, of the turbulence of the waters which have rent for themselves a trough of rock to the gulf.* Springing from these clear pools and seething falls, shadowed by sombre pines and granite crags, its course is run through plunging rapids to the final assault on the sea, where wide sand-barrens and desolation prevail. Fremont understood this from his guides and says: "Lower down, from Brown's Hole to the southward, the river runs through lofty chasms, walled in by precipices of red rock." The descent

"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."

* These mountains, as the glacial accumulations began to permanently diminish, must have annually sent a long-continued huge flood of water down the rivers heading there.

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.

Fremont went over to the California region, returning through Nevada by way of the Spanish Trail, past Las Vegas (see cut, page 137), and up the Virgen, which he called the most dreary river he had ever seen, till he reached the point where Escalante had turned east. From here he followed Escalante's trail back to Utah Lake, passing through Mountain Meadows (1844), afterward the scene of the terrible massacre of emigrants by a body of Mormons under John D. Lee.* His route was full of interesting adventures, but it is not possible to give details here.** Passing over the Wasatch by way of Spanish Fork, he again entered the valley of the Colorado on the head-waters of the Uinta, pausing briefly at Roubidoux's Fort on Uinta River. Soon after he left, the fort and its occupants were annihilated by the Utes. Crossing Ashley Fork he climbed on the trail high up the mountain, where he had "a view of the river below shut up amongst rugged mountains;" Whirlpool Canyon and the Canyon of Lodore. Descending then to Brown's Hole, he crossed the river in a skin boat, and camped just above Vermilion Creek, opposite the remains of an "old fort," which was doubtless Fort Davy Crockett. "Here the river enters between lofty precipices of red rock" (now the Gate of Lodore), "and the country below is said to assume a very rugged character; the river and its affluents passing through canons which forbid all access to the water." After journeying to the head of the Platte, and south through the Parks, he went east by the Arkansas, and came again in 1845 to cross the Green a little farther south on his way to California.

* For an account of this unfortunate affair see The Rocky Mountain Saints, chapter xliii., by T. B. H. Stenhouse. I knew Lee. Personally he was an agreeable man, and to me he disclaimed responsibility in this matter.

** See Fremont and '49 by F. S. Dellenbaugh.

By this time the relations between the United States and Mexico were at the point of rupture, and in 1846 Kearny's forces moved on New Mexico and California, the Mormon Battalion marking out a waggon-road down the Gila. Fremont, being in California, took an active part (1846) in the capture of the region, but the story of that episode does not belong here, and may be found in any history of California. The same year in which the formal treaty of peace was signed (1848) another event occurred which was destined to have a vast influence on the whole country and lead streams of emigrants to the new Dorado across the broad wastes of the Colorado Valley; gold in enormous quantities was discovered on Sutler's California ranch. There were three chief routes from the "States" across the wilderness of the Colorado River basin: one down the Gila to the Yuma country, another by South Pass and so on around Salt Lake and down the Humboldt, and the third also by South Pass and Salt Lake and thence south, by Mountain Meadows and west by the Old Spanish Trail. On the northern road Jim Bridger had, in 1843, established a trading post on Ham's Fork of Black's Fork of Green River, and this now was a welcome stopping-place for many of the emigrants,* while on the southern trail a temporary ferry was established at the mouth of the Gila by Lieut. Cave J. Coutts, who had arrived in September, 1849, commanding an escort for some boundary surveyors under Lieutenant Whipple. For a couple of months he rendered great assistance to the stream of weary emigrants, who had reached this point on their long journey to the Golden Country of their dreams. A flatboat, built on the shore of Lake Michigan, and there fitted with wheels so that it could be used as a waggon on land, was launched on the Gila at the Pima villages and came safely down to the Colorado, bearing its owners. Coutts is said to have purchased this boat and used it till he left, which was not long after. The junction now began to be a busy place. The United States troops came and went, occupying the site of Coutt's Camp Calhoun, which Major Heintzelman, November, 1850, called Camp Independence. In March, 1851, he re-established his command on the spot where the futile Spanish mission of Garces's time had stood, and this was named Fort Yuma. It was abandoned again in the autumn of the year, as had been done with the camps of the previous seasons, but when Heintzelman returned in the spring of 1852 he made it a permanent military post.

* Brigham Young and his followers crossed to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.

Meanwhile a gang of freebooters, who left Texas in 1849, found their way to this point and acquired or established a ferry two or three miles below the old mission site. Their settlement was called Fort Defiance in contempt for the Yumas. They were led by one Doctor Craig. They robbed the Yumas of their wives and dominated the region as they pleased. Captain Hobbs,* a mountaineer who was at Yuma in 1851, says:

"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."

* Wild Life in the Far West, by Captain James Hobbs.

By this plan twenty-three out of the twenty-five whites, including the master scoundrel himself. Dr. Craig, were destroyed with little loss to the attacking party. Hobbs calls this the best thing the Yumas ever did. It took place only a month before Hobbs reached the ferry, and only two or three days before one of the periodical returns of United States troops, this time a company of dragoons under Captain Hooper, probably belonging to Heintzelman's command. To him the two escaped desperadoes came with a complaint against the Yumas, but the captain was posted and he put the men in irons to be transported to California for trial. The Yumas now established a ferry by using an old army-waggon box which they made water-tight, as the Craig Ferry had suffered the fate of its owners. Hobbs employed the Yumas to take his party over, the horses swimming, and the arrangement seems to have worked very well.

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,

"swung round on her heel, and, thumping violently, was carried by the tide (dragging her anchor) some two or three miles, grounding finally upon the shoal of Gull Island. At flood tide sail was made on her as soon as she floated, and we succeeded in getting her back into the channel. As the vessel grounded at every ebb tide and on the return of the water was violently swung around, thumping on her bottom and swinging on her anchor, I began to see that it would be neither prudent, or in fact possible, to ascend the river much higher, and we accordingly commenced making preparations for a boating expedition."*

* Reconnaissance of the Gulf of California and the Colorado River made in 1850-51, by Lieut. G. H. Derby. Ex. Doc, 81, 32nd Congress, 1st Session, Senate.

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."

At Howard's Point the vessel was anchored while the party continued the exploration in the small boat. The Cocopas whom they met were entirely friendly. These people wore no clothing beyond the breechcloth, and were plastered from head to foot with mud. The width of the river varied from two hundred yards to half a mile. At one place they passed a Cocopa village, near which lay an old scow made from waggon-boxes which had floated down from the ferry at Yuma. On the 13th they met Major Heintzelman coming down-stream, and as he had taken field notes Derby considered it unnecessary for him to proceed, and they went back in company to the ship, arriving there the same afternoon. The vessel was then worked three miles farther up, where her cargo was discharged to be taken by teams to the fort. Heintzelman was accompanied by a Dr. Ogden and a Mr. Henchelwood, "proprietors of the ferry." The Craig gang had been destroyed earlier this year, and these men had probably established a new ferry. While lying at this berth, the vessel was roughly tumbled about by the tidal wave, till she broke from her anchor and drifted rapidly up-stream. This was the highest and most powerful spring tide, and the situation was full of peril. The captain, Wilcox, calmly took the helm himself, steered toward the bank and ordered his men to leap to the ground from the jib-boom, carrying the kedge anchor. By this means the mad rush of the vessel was stopped, and by the use of logs and cables she was kept a safe distance from the bank. When the stores were finally landed they turned gratefully but apprehensively toward the sea, which they happily reached again without serious mishap.

A little later this same year (1851) 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.

Many of the emigrants, dreaming of ease and prosperity as they trudged their long course across the desolation of the South-west, never lived to touch the golden sands of wonderful California, but expired by the way, often at the hands of the Apache or of some other cutthroat tribe. One of the saddest cases was that of Royse Oatman, who, en route with his large family, was massacred (1851) on the spot now known as Oatman's Flat, not far below the great bend of the Gila. His son, left for dead, revived and escaped. Two daughters were carried off and afterwards sold to the Mohaves, among whom one died and the other was restored by purchase to freedom (1856) by Henry Grinnell, and was sent to her brother's home in Los Angeles.* Another characteristic example is related by Hobbs, lit the desert beyond Yuma,

"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."

* For the full story see Capture of the Oatman Girls, by R. B. Stratton.

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.

The treaty of 1848 made the Gila the southern boundary, but the Gadsden Purchase placed it farther south, as now marked. A number of expeditions concerned in this and railway surveys traversed Arizona in the early fifties under Whipple, Sitgreaves, Emory, and others, and the country began to be scientifically known outside of the canyons and their surroundings. John R. Bartlett was appointed Boundary Commissioner, and he spent considerable time along the Gila and southwards and on the lower Colorado in 1852 to 1854.* A few weeks before he arrived at Fort Yuma eight of the soldiers there had a battle with the Yumas and the eight were all killed. After this Heintzelman fought them with so much vigour that they finally came in, begging for peace. Bartlett's first view of the Colorado was in the early morning at a point twelve miles below the fort. "It was much swollen, and rushed by with great velocity, washing away the banks and carrying with it numberless snags and trees." Never is the Colorado tranquil. As they followed up the stream they suddenly found the road washed away, and were obliged to cut a new path through the underbrush. This proved a long task, so with the pack-mules he pushed on, leaving the waggons to come later. Antoine Leroux was the guide. When they reached the place he had selected for a camp and had unpacked the mules, it was found that the water could not be approached because of the abruptness of the washed-out bank, so they were compelled to saddle again and go on toward the fort, though they had been riding since one o'clock in the morning.

* Personal Narrative of Exploration, by John Russell Bartlett.

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.

The northern part of Arizona was crossed by Captain Sitgreaves, in 1851, about on the trail of Garces, reaching the Colorado in the Mohave Valley, and following the river down to Fort Yuma. In 1854, another government expedition under Lieutenant Whipple, with Lieutenant Ives as chief assistant, explored along the 35th parallel for a railway route, and when they arrived on the Colorado at the mouth of Bill Williams Fork, they followed up the river, through the beautiful Mohave Valley to a point some eight miles above the present railway (A. & P.) bridge, where they crossed. Their experience was interesting. Lieutenant Ives directed the operations, using for a ferry-boat a singular combination: an old rubber pontoon, with the box from a spring waggon attached to the top of it for a receptacle for the goods. This was arranged at night. In the morning the pontoon was found in a state of collapse and the waggon-box filled with water, but the concern was resuscitated by the skill of Ives, and soon all was ready for crossing. Swimmers carried a long rope to an island midway, while another was retained on the shore. By means of these the boat was pulled back and forth. The first trip was entirely successful, but on the second attempt the affair was, by the weight of the ropes, upset in midstream.

"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."

Compliments and presents were exchanged and all was well. Meanwhile the men who had been capsized with the boat were struggling to disentangle themselves from the waggon-box, and when freed they gained support on the rope till the entire combination was pulled back to the shore. The whole party were finally on the island and then used the same tactics in crossing the other deeper channel. Here they upset the ferry three times and two persons came near being drowned. The Mohaves, who are good swimmers, rendered prompt and efficient assistance in saving the floating wreckage. They were also supplied with their kind of raft, made of bundles of rushes tied together with willow twigs (see cut on page 30), which they handled dexterously. Such rafts were and are in use all the way from here to the gulf. By night the expedition was safe on the western bank, the mules having swum over, and the flock of sheep, being ferried in the boat. Several sheep were drowned, and these, with two live ones and a couple of blankets, were conferred on those Mohaves who had helped in the crossing. The landing-place was a field of young wheat, which was much damaged. The lieutenant willingly paid the moderate charge the owner made for this, and there was no trouble; all the intercourse was perfectly amicable. But had he been imbued with the trapper spirit he would probably have answered the request for payment with a fatal bullet, and then would have followed a stampede of the stock, ambush, and all the rest which embroiders the history of the trappers with such violently romantic colour.

Two or three years after the Whipple expedition, a waggon-road was surveyed (1837) along the 35th parallel by E. F. Beale. He returned to the Colorado January 23, 1858, about twelve miles north of Whipple's Crossing. He had camped, several miles back from the Colorado, and starting early met his clerk F. E. Kerlin returning from the river whither he had been sent to prepare the boat. The clerk had a "joyful surprise" in news that the steamboat General Jesup, Captain George A. Johnson, was at the crossing and waiting to convey the party across. Soon after the arrival of Beale's party the steamboat came up to the bank, and taking on the men, baggage, and camels landed them on the opposite or eastern side.* The mules were compelled to swim over. Then the General Jesup continued down stream "towards Fort Yuma, 350 miles below." Johnson had with him Lieut. James White, 3d U. S. Artillery, fifteen soldiers and "as many rugged mountain men" as escort. He had succeeded in navigating with the General Jesup as far up the river as El Dorado Canyon, about sixty-eight miles below the mouth of the Virgin—that is, he had gone clear through Black Canyon and thus holds the record for the first ascent of the Colorado with a steamboat to the limit of steamboat navigation. This feat he executed with the avowed purpose of "getting ahead" of Lieutenant Ives who had arrived December 1, 1857, at Robinson's Landing at the mouth of the river, bringing an iron steamboat (as described in the next chapter) under orders from the War Department to explore the Colorado as far as possible.

* Beale used camels on this expedition and considered them a success.

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.

Ives had entirely ignored Johnson, as well as Johnson's skill in navigating this river, and also his powerful steamboats. The appropriation under which Ives was working was one which had originally been made for Johnson, after a visit of his to Washington, but from several causes it had been switched over to the War Department. Captain Johnson, therefore, was determined to rob Ives of the glory of being the first to take a steamboat to the head of navigation, and he did it with a steamboat much larger than that of Ives which failed to pass Black Canyon. The General Jesup, named after the quarter-master general of the Army, was 108 feet long, 28 feet beam, and drew 2 feet, 6 inches of water. She had exploded in August, 1854, but had been thoroughly repaired. On this down trip from the head of steamboat navigation she met with another accident, running on "a large rolling stone and sinking just above Chimney Peak" some eighteen miles from Yuma. She was raised by the Colorado and towed down to the Fort.*

* See Wagon Road from Fort Defiance to the Colorado River—Edward F. Beale, 35th Congress, 2d Session, House of Representatives, Document, 124, Washington, 1858. Also Handbook to Arizona, pp. 247-48, R. J. Hinton, 1878. The information as to Johnson's application for an appropriation to explore the Colorado was given me by Mr. Robert Brewster Stanton. Johnson also related the story of his "getting ahead" of Ives, to Mr. Stanton, who now has the written statement as well. I communicated with Johnson in 1904, requesting some data, but he declined to give it on the ground that he intended himself to publish the story of his exploits. Since then unfortunately he has died.



CHAPTER VII

Lieutenant Ives Explores to Fortification Rock—By Trail to Diamond Creek, Havasupai Canyon, and the Moki Towns—Macomb Fails in an Attempt to Reach the Mouth of Grand River—James White's Masterful Fabrication.

Steam navigation on the Colorado was now successfully established, and when Lieutenant Ives was planning the exploration of the river there were already upon it two powerful steamers exactly adapted, through experience of previous disasters, to the peculiar dangers of these waters, while Johnson, the chief owner and pilot, had become an expert in handling a steamboat amid the unusual conditions. He had succeeded in making a truce with the dragon. And he had secured the friendship of the tribes of Amerinds living along the banks; his men and his property were safe anywhere; his steamers often carried jolly bands of Cocopas or of Yumas from place to place. In arranging a government expedition to explore to the farthest point practicable for steamboats, the sensible course would have been to advise with Johnson and to charter his staunch steamer Colorado, together with himself, thus gaining at the very outset an immense double advantage: a boat perfectly modelled for the demands to be made upon it, and a guide entirely familiar with the tricks of the perfidious waters. Especially important would this have been because Lieutenant Ives, who was instructed to direct this work, was ordered to accomplish it at the lowest and worst stage of the stream. Ives had been Whipple's chief assistant in 1853-54, and therefore well understood the situation. But he states that the company was "unable to spare a boat except for a compensation beyond the limits of the appropriation." As a boat was spared, however, for the less important matter of going far up the river to ferry Beale across, it would appear that either the negotiations were not conducted in a proper spirit, or that Ives rather preferred a boat of his own. The cost of building in Philadelphia the boat he used, and sending her in sections to San Francisco, and thence to the Colorado, must have been very great. The steamer was ordered June 1, 1857, and had to be at the mouth of the Colorado by December 1st of the same year. After a trial on the Delaware, a mill-pond compared with the Colorado, she was hastily shipped, with all her defects, by way of Panama, there being no time to make any changes. The chief trouble discovered was radical, being a structural weakness of the hull. To, in a measure, offset this, timbers and bolts were obtained in San Francisco, the timbers to be attached to the OUTSIDE of the hull on putting the sections together, there being no room within. It requires little understanding of naval architecture to perceive that a great handicap was thus imposed on the little vessel. Yet Lieutenant Ives says, on the trial trip she was "found satisfactory"! By November 1st, the party was on board the schooner Monterey, bound for the head of the Gulf. Though the vessel was loaded down with supplies for Fort Yuma, room was made for the Ives expedition and they arrived, passing through a heavy gale in the gulf, at Robinson's Landing on November 30th. The schooner was anchored over a shoal, and was soon aground, as the fierce tide ran out, a circumstance that enabled her to stay there and stem the torrent. A deep booming sound was presently heard, growing louder and nearer, and

"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."

This was the great tidal bore once more, which, at the occurrence of the spring tides, makes the entrance of the river extremely dangerous. It is due to the narrowing of the Gulf of California forcing the tides into close quarters, and its violence is augmented by collision with the equally furious current of the Colorado. The battle between this tidal wave and the Colorado continues for many miles, till at last the sea tide gradually loses its power and succumbs to the flood of the river.* The latter falls at the mouth, according to Ives, about thirty feet in a few hours after the ebb begins. The shallower the water as the tide rushes in against the ebb, the angrier the wave becomes, sometimes reaching a height of ten or twelve feet.

* The tide ascends thirty-seven miles. Lowest stage of water about three feet, average six feet, and highest about twenty feet.

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.

By the end of the month, the Explorer, as the Ives boat was named, was ready for the expected high tide. She was fifty-four feet long over all, not quite half the length of Johnson's Colorado. Amidships she was open, but the bow was decked, and at the stern was a cabin, seven by eight feet, the top of which formed an outlook. For armament, she was supplied on the bow with a four-pound howitzer, though this weapon was not likely to be of much service. When the anticipated flood arrived on the night of December 30th, steam was turned on at the critical moment, the engines worked the stern-wheel, and Lieutenant Ives had the satisfaction of seeing the Explorer, under the bright moonlight, slowly back out of the pit which had been her cradle into the swirling, seething current. As the tide continued to rise, Ives feared the whole flat would soon be inundated, so everything belonging to the expedition was stowed on board till the Explorer's gunwales were no more than six inches above the surface. Through this circumstance, the expedition came near a disastrous end the next night, when the steamer proceeded up the river on the flood tide. A squall was met and the boat shipped water alarmingly, but fortunately the wind died away as quickly as it had come up. The Explorer was saved, and the journey was continued over the swiftly gliding torrent.

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 (and certainly was when he published his report) 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 (Grand 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.

Rations were at a low stage, consisting entirely, for the past three weeks, of corn and beans, purchased from the natives, but even on this diet without salt the skiff party, worked its way steadily upward over many rapids through the superb chasm. "No description," says Ives, "can convey an idea of the varied and majestic grandeur of this peerless waterway. Wherever the river makes a turn, the entire panorama changes, and one startling novelty after another appears and disappears with bewildering rapidity." I commend these pages of Lieutenant Ives, and, in fact, his whole report, to all who delight in word-painting of natural scenery, for the lieutenant certainly handled his pen as well as he did his sword.* Emerging from the solemn depths of Black Canyon (twenty-five miles long) he and his small party passed Fortification Rock and continued on two miles up the river to an insignificant little stream coming in from the north, which he surmised might be the Virgen, though he hardly thought it could be, and it was not. It was Vegas Wash. This was his highest point. Turning about, he descended to the steamboat camp and called that place the head of navigation, not that he did not believe a steamer might ascend, light, through Black Canyon, but he considered it impracticable. Running now down-stream in the Explorer, the expected pack-train was encountered at the foot of Pyramid Canyon, and a welcome addition was made to the supplies.

* It may be of interest to state that Lieutenant Ives became an officer in the Confederate Army, and was killed in one of the battles of the Civil War.

The steamboat was now sent back to the fort and Ives prepared for a land journey, which led him eastward over much the same route that Garces had traversed so long ago on his march to Oraibi. Ireteba was his guide. They went to the mouth of Diamond Creek, where they had their first view of the Grand Canyon, or Big Canyon, as they called it, of which Ireteba had before given them some description. The illustrations given in Ives's report of both Black and Grand Canyons are a libel on these magnificent wonder-places, and in no way compare with the lieutenant's admirable pen-pictures. Crossing the Colorado Plateau (which another explorer ten or twelve years later claims the honour of naming, forgetting that Ives uses the name in his report), they visited the Havasupai in their deep canyon home, just as Garces had done, and then proceeded to the towns of the Moki. Ives was deeply impressed by the repellant nature of the great canyon and the surroundings, and remarks: "It seems intended by nature that the Colorado River, along the greater portion of its lonely and majestic way, shall be forever unvisited and undisturbed." Late in the same year that Lieutenant Ives made his interesting and valuable exploration, another military post was established on the Colorado, and called Fort Mohave, just about where the California line intersects the stream. Lower down, Colorado City had been laid out several years before (1854) under amusing circumstances. The Yuma ferry at that time was operated by a German, thrifty after his kind, and on the lookout for a "good thing." A party of indigent prospectors, returning from the survey of a mine in Mexico, reached the Arizona bank with no money to pay for the crossing, and hit upon the ingenious plan of surveying a town site here and trading lots to the German for a passage. Boldly commencing operations, the sight of the work going on soon brought the ferryman over to investigate, and when he saw the map under construction he fell headlong into the scheme, which would, as they assured him, necessitate a steam ferry.* The result was the immediate sale of a portion of the town to him and the exchange of a lot for the necessary transportation to the opposite bank. Afterwards, these parties did what they could to establish the reality of the project, but up to date it has not been noted as a metropolis, and the floods of 1861-2 undermined its feeble strength. Another name for it was Arizona City.

* Across America and Asia, by Raphael Pumpelly, p. 60. The portion of this admirable work relating to the vicinity of the Colorado River will be found of great interest in this connection.

The year following the Ives expedition, Captain Macomb (1859) 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.

Thus, after all these years of endeavour, the mighty Colorado foamed away amidst this terrible environment as if no human element yet existed in the world. And as it continued to baffle all attempts to probe its deeper mysteries, the dread of it and the fear of it grew and grew, till he who suggested that a man might pass through the bewildering chasms and live, was regarded as light-headed. Then came the awful war of the Rebellion, and for several years little thought was bestowed on the problem.*

* The troops that were so foolishly and feebly sent against the Mormons in 1857 had some experience in Green River Valley, but it was not directly connected with this story and I will not introduce an account of it here.

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 (see cut, page 137) 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.

The journey of the Esmeralda added nothing to what was already known. The following year, 1867, a man was picked up at Callville, in an exhausted and famishing condition, by a frontiersman named Hardy. When he had been revived he told his story. It was that he had come on a raft through the Grand Canyon above, and all the canyons antecedent to that back to a point on Grand River. The story was apparently straightforward, and it was fully accepted. At last, it was thought, a human being has passed through this Valley of the Shadow of Death and lived to tell of its terrors. Hardy took him down to Fort Mohave, where he met Dr. Parry,* who recorded his whole story, drawn out by many questions, and believed it. This was not surprising; for, no man ever yet having accomplished what White claimed to have done, there was no way of checking the points, of his tale. "Now, at last," remarks Dr. Parry, "we have a perfectly authentic account, from an intelligent source, from a man who actually traversed its formidable depths, and who, fortunately for science, still lives to detail his trustworthy observations of this remarkable voyage." The doctor was too confiding. Had I the space I would give here the whole of White's story, for it is one of the best bits of fiction I have ever read. He had obtained somehow a general smattering of the character of the river, but as there were trappers still living, Kit Carson, for example, who possessed a great deal of information about it, this was not a difficult matter. But that he had no exact knowledge of any part of the river above the lower end of the Grand Canyon, is apparent to one who is familiar with the ground, and the many discrepancies brand the whole story as a fabrication. In the language of the frontier, he "pitched a yarn," and it took beautifully. Hardy, whom I met in Arizona a good many years ago, told me he believed the man told the truth, but his belief was apparently based only on the condition White was in when rescued. That he was nearly dead is true, but that is about all of his yarn that is. White was thirty-two years old, and from Kenosha, Wisconsin. He said that, with two others, he was prospecting in Southwestern Colorado in the summer of that year, 1867, when, on Grand River, they were attacked by the Utes. Baker, the leader, fell mortally wounded. Of course, White and the other man, Strole, stood by their leader, in the teeth of the enemy's fire, till he expired. What would the story have been without this example of devotion and fortitude? Then, holding the pursuers in check, they slowly retreated down the side canyon they were in to the main gorge, where they discovered an abundance of driftwood, and decided to make a raft with which to escape. This raft consisted of three sticks of cottonwood about ten feet long and eight inches diameter, tied together with lariats. They had abandoned their horses above, bringing only their arms, ammunition, and some food. Waiting for midnight to come so that their pursuers might not discover their intention, they seized their poles and, under the waning moon, cast off, and were soon on the tempestuous tide, rushing through the yawning chasm. "Through the long night they clung to the raft as it dashed against half-concealed rocks, or whirled about like a plaything in some eddy." When daylight came they landed; as they had a smoother current and less rugged banks, though the canyon walls appeared to have increased in height. They strengthened their raft and went on. In the afternoon, after having floated about thirty miles from the starting point they reached the junction of the Grand and Green. So far all is well, but here he makes his first break, as he had no conception of the actual character of the rivers at the junction. He says the canyon now far surpassed that of either of the forming streams, which is not so. For five or six miles below the junction there is little change, yet he describes the walls as being four thousand feet high, an altitude never attained in Cataract Canyon at all, the highest being somewhat under three thousand, while at the junction they are only thirteen hundred. Then he goes on to say that detached pinnacles appeared to rise "one above the other," for one thousand feet more, giving an altitude here of five thousand feet, clearly an impression in his mind of the lower end of the Grand Canyon, which he had doubtless become somewhat familiar with in some prospecting trip. He fancied the "Great Canyon" began at the junction of the Grand and Green, and he did not appreciate the distance that intervened between Callville and that point. They tied up at night and travelled in the day. No mention is made of the terrific rapids which roar in Cataract Canyon, but he speaks of the "grey sandstone walls" the lower portion smooth from the action of floods. There exist some greyish walls; but most are red except in the granite gorges of the Grand Canyon, where, for a thousand feet, they are black. Below the junction, forty miles, they came to the mouth of the San Juan! Yet Cataract Canyon and Narrow together, the first canyons of the Colorado proper, are fifty miles long and the San Juan comes in at least seventy-five miles below their end. The walls of the San Juan he describes as being as high as those of the Colorado, which he has just been talking about, that is, five thousand feet, yet for these seventy-five miles he would have actually been passing between walls of about one thousand feet. He says he could not escape here because the waters of the San Juan were so violent they filled its canyon from bank to bank. In reality, he could have made his way out of the canyon (Glen Canyon) in a great many places in the long distance between the foot of Narrow Canyon and the San Juan. There is nothing difficult about it. But not knowing this, and nobody else knowing it at that time, the yarn went very well. Also, below the San Juan, as far as Lee's Ferry, there are numerous opportunities to leave the canyon; and there, are a great many attractive bottoms all the way through sunny Glen Canyon, where landings could have been made in a bona fide journey, and birds snared; anything rather than to go drifting along day after day toward dangers unknown. "At every bend of the river it seemed as if they were descending deeper into the earth, and that the walls were coming closer together above them, shutting out the narrow belt of sky, thickening the black shadows, and redoubling the echoes that went up from the foaming waters," all of which is nonsense. They were not yet, even taking their own, or rather his own, calculations, near the Grand Canyon, and the whole one hundred and forty-nine miles of Glen Canyon are simply charming; altogether delightful. One can paddle along in any sort of craft, can leave the river in many places, and in general enjoy himself. I have been over the stretch twice, once at low water and again at high, so I speak from abundant experience. Naively he remarks, "as yet they had seen no natural bridge spanning the chasm above them, nor had fall or cataract prevented their safe advance!" Yet they are supposed to have passed through the forty-one miles of Cataract Canyon's turmoil, which I venture to say no man could ever forget. They had been only four days getting to a point below the San Juan, simply drifting; that is about two hundred miles, or some fifty miles a daylight day. Around three o'clock on the fourth day they heard the deep roar as of a waterfall in front of them.

* Parry's first record of White's story is in Report of Surveys for a Railway across the Continent by Wm. J. Palmer, 1868. Dr. C. C. Parry was assistant geologist of the Survey.

"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 (he could see it in the night!), 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.



CHAPTER VIII

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 (after Mrs. Powell), 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.

The spring was chosen for the beginning of the voyage because the Green then is at flood and there would be less trouble about floating the boats through the shoal places and amongst the rocks. The river in some respects is safer at a lower stage of water, but the work is harder. This, however, was not known then, and Powell had to take his chances at the flood. On May 24, 1869, the boats were manned and soon were carried out of sight of the haphazard group of houses which at that time constituted this frontier settlement of Green River. They were heavily laden, for ten months' rations were carried, as Powell expected when winter came to be obliged to halt and make a permanent camp till spring. He calculated the river might be filled with ice. It has since been ascertained, however, that the Colorado proper rarely has any ice in it. I remember once hearing that a great many years ago it was frozen over in the neighbourhood of Lee's Ferry, where for a little distance the current is not rapid. Powell was providing for every contingency he could think of, and trouble with ice was a possible one. But even without ice the water in winter is so cold that, as men who make the descent must continually be saturated by the breaking waves and by the necessity of frequently jumping overboard in avoiding rocks, the danger of pneumonia is really greater than that from wreck. They had an abundance of warm clothing for winter, plenty of ammunition, two or three dozen traps, tools of various kinds, nails, screws; etc. In the line of scientific instruments there were two sextants, four chronometers, a number of barometers, thermometers, compasses, etc. With the exception of the Emma Dean, which had on board only instruments and clothing, the boats were loaded in such a way that if one should be lost the expedition would still possess a variety of articles and food.