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The Romance of the Colorado River

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Title: 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

Author: Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh


        
Release date: August 1, 2003 [eBook #4316]
                Most recently updated: April 26, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4316

Credits: Dianne Bean and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANCE OF THE COLORADO RIVER ***

[Illustration]




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 Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

Member of the United States Colorado River Expedition of 1871 and 1872

“No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms:
This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath
For the fiend’s glowing hoof——”
                    Browning

To my friends and comrades
of the Colorado River Expedition of 1871 and 1872
in grateful remembrance.

Looking up the Bright Angel Trail. Looking up the Bright Angel Trail.
This is one of the modern trails into the Grand Canyon, which at this
point is some 6000 feet deep. From water-color sketch by Thomas Moran,
N.A.




DETAILED CONTENTS

PREFACE

NOTE ON THE AUTHOR’S ITINERARY

CHAPTER I. The Secret of the Gulf—Ulloa, 1539, One of the Captains of
Cortes, Almost Solves it, but Turns Back without Discovering—Alarçon,
1540, Conquers

CHAPTER II. The Unknown River—Alarçon Ascends it Eighty-five Leagues
and Names it the Rio de Buena Guia—Melchior Diaz Arrives at its Banks
Later and Calls it the Rio del Tizon—Cardenas Discovers the Grand
Canyon.

CHAPTER III. The Grand Canyon—Character of the Colorado River—The
Water-Gods; Erosion and Corrasion—The Natives and their Highways—The
"Green River Valley" of the Old Trappers—The Strange Vegetation and
Some Singular Animals

CHAPTER IV. Oñate, 1604, Crosses Arizona to the Colorado—A Remarkable
Ancient Ruin Discovered by Padre Kino, 1694—Padre Garces Sees the Grand
Canyon and Visits Oraibi, 1776—The Great Entrada of Padre Escalante
across Green River to Utah Lake, 1776—Death of Garces Ends the Entrada
Period, 1781.

CHAPTER V. Breaking the Wilderness—Wanderings of the Trappers and Fur
Traders—General Ashley in Green River Valley, 1824—Pattie along the
Grand Canyon, 1826—Lieutenant Hardy, R.N., in a Schooner on the Lower
Colorado, 1826—Jedediah Smith, Salt Lake to San Gabriel, 1826—Pattie on
the Lower Colorado in Canoes, 1827-28

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

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

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

CHAPTER IX. A Canyon of Cataracts—The Imperial Chasm—Short Rations—A
Split in the Party—Separation—Fate of the Howlands and Dunn—The Monster
Vanquished

CHAPTER X. Powell’s Second Attack on the Colorado—Green River City—Red
Canyon and a Capsize—The Grave of Hook—The Gate of Lodore—Cliff of the
Harp—Triplet Falls and Hell’s Half-Mile—A Rest in Echo Park

CHAPTER XI. An Island Park and a Split Mountain—The White River
Runaways—Powell Goes to Salt Lake—Failure to Get Rations to the Dirty
Devil—On the Rocks in Desolation—Natural Windows—An Ancient House—On
the Back of the Dragon at Last—Cataracts and Cataracts in the Wonderful
Cataract Canyon—A Lost Pack-Train—Naming the Echo Peaks

CHAPTER XII. Into the Jaws of the Dragon—A Useless Experiment—Wheeler
Reaches Diamond Creek Going Up-stream—The Hurricane Ledge—Something
about Names—A Trip from Kanab through Unknown Country to the Mouth of
the Dirty Devil

CHAPTER XIII. A Canyon through Marble-Multitudinous Rapids—Running the
Sockdologer—A Difficult Portage, Rising Water, and a Trap—The Dean
Upside Down—A Close Shave—Whirlpools and Fountains—The Kanab Canyon and
the End of the Voyage

CHAPTER XIV. A Railway Proposed through the Canyons—The Brown Party,
1889, Undertakes the Survey—Frail Boats and Disasters—The Dragon Claims
Three—Collapse of the Expedition—Stanton Tries the Feat Again,
1889-90—A Fall and a Broken Leg—Success of Stanton—The Dragon Still
Untrammelled

EPILOGUE

APPENDIX




PREFACE


Early in 1871, when Major Powell[1] was preparing for his second
descent through the canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers, he was
besieged by men eager to accompany him; some even offered to pay well
for the privilege. It was for me, therefore, a piece of great good
fortune when, after an interview in Chicago with the eminent explorer,
he decided to add me to his small party. I was very young at the time,
but muscular and healthy, and familiar with the handling of small
boats. The Major remarked that in the business before us it was not so
much age and strength that were needed as “nerve,” and he evidently
believed I had enough of this to carry me through. Certainly in the
two-years, continuous work on the river and in the adjacent country I
had some opportunity to develop this desirable quality. I shall never
cease to feel grateful to him for the confidence reposed in me. It gave
me one of the unique experiences of my life,—an experience which, on
exactly the same lines, can never be repeated within our borders. Now,
these thirty years after, I review that experience with satisfaction
and pleasure, recalling, with deep affection, the kind and generous
companions of that wild and memorable journey. No party of men thrown
together, without external contact for months at a time, could have
been more harmonious; and never once did any member of that party show
the white feather. I desire to acknowledge here, also, my indebtedness
to Prof. A. H. Thompson, Major Powell’s associate in his second
expedition, for many kindnesses.

 [1] I use the title Major for the reason that he was so widely known
 for so long a period by it. He was a volunteer officer during the
 Civil War, holding the rank of Colonel at the end. The title Major,
 then, has no military significance in this connection.


When his report to Congress was published, Major Powell, perhaps for
the sake of dramatic unity, concluded to omit mention of the personnel
of the second expedition, awarding credit, for all that was
accomplished, to the men of his first wonderful voyage of 1869. And
these men surely deserved all that could be bestowed on them. They had,
under the Major’s clear-sighted guidance and cool judgment, performed
one of the distinguished feats of history. They had faced unknown
dangers. They had determined that the forbidding torrent could be
mastered. But it has always seemed to me that the men of the second
party, who made the same journey, who mapped and explored the river and
much of the country roundabout, doing a large amount of difficult work
in the scientific line, should have been accorded some recognition. The
absence of this has sometimes been embarrassing for the reason that
when statements of members of the second party were referred to the
official report, their names were found missing from the list. This
inclined to produce an unfavourable impression concerning these
individuals. In order to provide in my own case against any unpleasant
circumstance owing to this omission, I wrote to Major Powell on the
subject and received the following highly satisfactory answer:

Washington, D. C., January 18, 1888.

My Dear Dellenbaugh:
Replying to your note of the 14th instant, it gives me great pleasure
to state that you were a member of my second party of exploration down
the Colorado, during the years 1871 and 1872, that you occupied a place
in my own boat and rendered valuable services to the expedition, and
that it was with regret on my part that your connection with the Survey
ceased.
Yours cordially, J. W. Powell.


Recently, when I informed him of my intention to publish this volume,
he very kindly wrote as follows:

Washington, January 6, 1902.

Dear Dellenbaugh:
I am pleased to hear that you are engaged in writing a book on the
Colorado Canyon. I hope that you will put on record the second trip and
the gentlemen who were members of that expedition. No other trip has
been made since that time, though many have tried to follow us. One
party, that headed by Mr. Stanton, went through the Grand Canyon on its
second attempt, but many persons have lost their lives in attempting to
follow us through the whole length of the canyons. I shall be very glad
to write a short introduction to your book.
Yours cordially, J. W. Powell.


In complying with this request to put on record the second expedition
and the gentlemen who composed it, I feel all the greater pleasure,
because, at the same time, I seem to be fulfilling a duty towards my
old comrades. The reader is referred to Chapter XIV., and to pages
368-9 for later data on descents. Notwithstanding these the canyons
remain almost terra incognita for each new navigator. There have been
some who appear to be inclined to withhold from Major Powell the full
credit which is his for solving the great problem of the Southwest, and
who, therefore, make much of the flimsy story of White, and even assume
on faint evidence that others fathomed the mystery even before White.
There is, in my opinion, no ground for such assumptions. Several
trappers, like Pattie and Carson, had gained a considerable knowledge
of the general course and character of the river as early as 1830, but
to Major Powell and his two parties undoubtedly belongs the high honour
of being the first to explore and explain the truth about it and its
extraordinary canyon environment. If danger, difficulty, and disaster
mean romance, then assuredly the Colorado of the West is entitled to
first rank, for seldom has any human being touched its borderland even,
without some bitter or fatal experience. Never is the Colorado twice
alike, and each new experience is different from the last. Once
acknowledge this and the dangers, however, and approach it in a humble
and reverent spirit, albeit firmly, and death need seldom be the
penalty of a voyage on its restless waters.

I have endeavoured to present the history of the river, and immediate
environment, so far as I have been able to learn it, but within the
limits of a single volume of this size much must necessarily be
omitted. Reference to the admirable works of Powell, Gilbert, and
Button will give the reader full information concerning the geology and
topography; _Garces_, by Elliott Coues, gives the story of the friars;
and the excellent memoir of Chittenden, _The American Fur Trade of the
Far West_, will give a complete understanding of the travels and
exploits of the real pioneers of the Rocky Mountain country. I differ
with this author, however, as to the wise and commendable nature of the
early trappers’ dealings with the natives, and this will be explained
in the pages on that subject. He also says in his preface that “no
feature of western geography was ever discovered by government
explorers after 1840.” While this is correct in the main, it gives an
erroneous impression so far as the canyons of the Colorado are
concerned. These canyons were “discovered,” as mentioned above, by some
of the trappers, but their interior character was not known, except in
the vaguest way, so that the discovery was much like discovering a
range of mountains on the horizon and not entering beyond the
foothills.

For the titles of works of reference, of the narratives of trappers,
etc., I refer to the works of H. H. Bancroft; to Warren’s _Memoirs_,
vol. i. Pacific Railroad reports; and to the first volume of Lieut.
Geo. M. Wheeler’s report on Explorations West of the 100th Meridian.
The trappers and prospectors who had some experience on the Green and
the Colorado have left either no records or very incomplete ones. It
seems tolerably certain, however, that no experience of importance has
escaped notice. So far as attempts at descent are concerned, they
invariably met with speedy disaster and were given up.

In writing the Spanish and other foreign proper names I have in no case
translated, because such translations result in needless confusion. To
translate “Rio del Tizon” as Firebrand River is making another name of
it. Few would recognise the Colorado River under the title of Red
River, as used, for example, in Pattie’s narrative. While Colorado
means red, it is quite another matter as a _name_. Nor do I approve of
hyphenating native words, as is so frequently done. It is no easier to
understand Mis-sis-sip-pi than Mississippi. My thanks are due to Mr.
Thomas Moran, the distinguished painter, for the admirable sketch from
nature he has so kindly permitted a reproduction of for a frontispiece.
Mr. Moran has been identified as a painter of the Grand Canyon ever
since 1873, when he went there with one of Powell’s parties and made
sketches from the end of the Kaibab Plateau which afterwards resulted
in the splendid picture of the Grand Canyon now owned by the
Government.

I am indebted to Prof. A. H. Thompson for the use of his river diary as
a check upon my own, and also for many photographs now difficult to
obtain; and to Dr. G. K. Gilbert, Mr. E. E. Howell, Dr. T. Mitchell
Prudden, and Mr. Delancy Gill for the use of special photographs. Other
debts in this line I acknowledge in each instance and hence will not
repeat here. I had hoped to have an opportunity of again reading over
the diary which “Jack” Sumner kept on the first Powell expedition, and
which I have not seen since the time of the second expedition, but the
serious illness of Major Powell prevented my requesting the use of it.

 F. S. Dellenbaugh.


New York, October, 1902.



 NOTE.—Since the last edition of this work was published, the inquiries
 of Mr. Robert Brewster Stanton have brought to light among some
 forgotten papers of Major Powell’s at the Bureau of Ethnology in
 Washington the diary of Jack Sumner and also that of Major Powell
 himself. Both begin at the mouth of the Uinta River.

Major Powell, because of his one-armed condition, had the only
life-preserver. The preserver was rubber of the inflating type and is
in the Smithsonian Institution, presented by Mr. Stanton who obtained
it from one of the survivors in 1907.





NOTE ON THE AUTHOR’S ITINERARY IN THE BASIN OF THE COLORADO RIVER AND
ADJACENT TERRITORY

 (Except where otherwise stated journeys were on horseback.)


1871—By boat from the Union Pacific Railway crossing of Green River,
down the Green and Colorado to the mouth of the Paria, Lee’s Ferry.
Numerous side trips on foot. Lee’s Ferry to House Rock Valley, and
across north end of the Kaibab Plateau to the village of Kanab.

1872—Kanab to House Rock Valley and Paria Plateau. To Kanab. To
southern part of Kaibab Plateau. To Kanab _via_ Shinumo Canyon and
Kanab Canyon. To Pipe Spring. To the Uinkaret Mountains and the Grand
Canyon at the foot of the Toroweap Valley. To Berry Spring near St.
George, along the edge of the Hurricane Ledge. To the Uinkaret
Mountains _via_ Diamond Butte. To the bottom of the Grand Canyon at the
foot of the Toroweap. To Berry Spring _via_ Diamond Butte and along the
foot of the Hurricane Ledge. To St. George. To the Virgen Mountains and
summit of Mt. Bangs. To Kanab _via_ St. George. To the Aquarius Plateau
_via_ Potato Valley. To and across the Henry Mountains. To the Colorado
at the mouth of Frémont River. By boat to the mouth of the Paria. To
Kanab and return across the Kaibab. By boat down the Colorado to the
mouth of the Kanab. To Kanab _via_ the Kanab Canyon. To the Uinkaret
Mountains. To Kanab _via_ Pipe Spring.

1873—To Salt Lake City, _via_ Long Valley and the Sevier River.

1875—To terminus of Utah Southern Railway, about at Spanish Forks, by
rail. To Kanab _via_ Sevier River and Upper Kanab. To the Kaibab
Plateau, De Motte Park, and the rim of the Grand Canyon. To the bottom
of the Grand Canyon _via_ Shinumo and Kanab Canyons. To Kanab _via_
Kanab Canyon. To the Uinkaret Mountains _via_ Pipe Spring and the Wild
Band Pockets. To the Grand Canyon at the foot of the Toroweap.

1876—To St. George across the Uinkaret Plateau. To Las Vegas, Nevada,
_via_ Beaver Dam, Virgen River, the Muddy, and the desert. To St.
George, by the desert and the old “St. Joe” road across the Beaver Dam
Mountains. To the rim of the Grand Canyon, _via_ Hidden Spring, the
Copper Mine, and Mt. Dellenbaugh. To a red paint cave on the side of
the canyon, about twenty-five hundred feet down. To St. George _via_
same route. To Ivanpah, California, _via_ the old desert road, the
Muddy, Las Vegas, and Good Spring. To St. George _via_ same route. To
Kanab _via_ Short Creek and Pipe Spring. To the Uinkaret Mountains
_via_ Pipe Spring and Antelope Valley. Across to the Shewits Plateau
and to Ambush Waterpocket south of Mt. Dellenbaugh.[2] To the bottom of
the Grand Canyon on the east side of the Shewits Plateau. To St. George
_via_ Mt. Dellenbaugh and Hidden Spring. To Kanab _via_ Berry Spring
and Pipe Spring. To Salt Lake City _via_ Upper Kanab and the Sevier
Valley.

 [2] This waterpocket, which is a very large one, has, so far as I am
 aware, never had an English name and I do not know the Amerind one. I
 have called it “Ambush” because it was the place where three of
 Powell’s men were shot by the Shewits in 1869.


1884-5—By rail to Ft. Wingate, New Mexico. By rail to Flagstaff. To
Flagstaff _via_ circuit of, and summit of, San Francisco Mountain and
the Turkey Tanks. By rail to the Needles, California. By rail to
Manuelito, New Mexico. To Ft. Defiance. By buckboard to Keam’s Canyon.
To the East Mesa of the Moki. To Keam’s Canyon. By buckboard _via_
Pueblo, Colorado, to Ft. Defiance. To the San Juan River at the “Four
Corners,” _via_ Lukachukai Pass and the summit of the Carisso
Mountains. To Ft. Defiance _via_ the crest of the Tunicha Plateau. By
buckboard to Keam’s and to the East Mesa of the Moki. To Mishongnuvi
and back. By waggon to Keam’s. To Oraibe _via_ Tewa. To Keam’s _via_
Shimopavi and Tewa. To Holbrook by buckboard.

1899—By rail west across Green River Valley. By rail down Price River,
east across Gunnison Valley, up Grand River, and over the Continental
Divide.

1903—By rail to Salt Lake. By rail to Modena. By horse up the Virgen
River to the narrows of Mukoontuweap. Thence _via_ Rockville and Short
Creek to Pipe Springs and Kanab. Thence to De Motte Park, Bright Angel
Spring, and Greenland Point at the Grand Canyon on the Kaibab Plateau.
Thence to Kanab, Panquitch, and Marysvale. Thence by rail to Salt Lake.

1907—By rail to Grand Canyon, Arizona. By horse to Bass Camp, to the
bottom of the Grand Canyon, opposite Shinumo Creek, to Habasu Canyon,
to Grand Canyon Station, and to Grand View. By rail to the Needles.




 THE ROMANCE OF THE COLORADO RIVER




CHAPTER I.


The Secret of the Gulf—Ulloa, 1539, One of the Captains of Cortes,
Almost Solves it, but Turns Back without Discovering—Alarçon, 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.


In Glen Canyon. In Glen Canyon.
Walls of homogeneous sandstone 1000 feet high.
Photograph by J. FENNEMORE, U.S. Colorado River Expedition.


Then, by contrast, it is all the more remarkable to meet with one great
river which is none of these helpful things, but which, on the
contrary, is a veritable dragon, loud in its dangerous lair, defiant,
fierce, opposing utility everywhere, refusing absolutely to be bridled
by Commerce, perpetuating a wilderness, prohibiting mankind’s
encroachments, and in its immediate tide presenting a formidable host
of snarling waters whose angry roar, reverberating wildly league after
league between giant rock-walls carved through the bowels of the earth,
heralds the impossibility of human conquest and smothers hope. From the
tiny rivulets of its snowy birth to the ferocious tidal bore where it
dies in the sea, it wages a ceaseless battle as sublime as it is
terrible and unique. Such is the great Colorado River of the West,
rising amidst the fountains of the beautiful Wind River Mountains of
Wyoming, where also are brought forth the gentler Columbia and the
mighty, far-reaching Missouri. Whirling down ten thousand feet in some
two thousand miles, it meets the hot level of the Red Sea, once the Sea
of Cortes, now the Gulf of California, in tumult and turmoil. In this
long run it is cliff bound nine-tenths of the way, and the whole
country drained by it and its tributaries has been wrought by the
waters and winds of ages into multitudinous plateaus and canyons. The
canyons of its tributaries often rival in grandeur those of the main
stream itself, and the tributaries receive other canyons equally
magnificent, so that we see here a stupendous system of gorges and
tributary gorges, which, even now bewildering, were to the early
pioneer practically prohibitory. Water is the master sculptor in this
weird, wonderful land, yet one could there die easily of thirst.
Notwithstanding the gigantic work accomplished, water, except on the
river, is scarce. Often for months the soil of the valleys and plains
never feels rain; even dew is unknown. In this arid region much of the
vegetation is set with thorns, and some of the animals are made to
match the vegetation. A knowledge of this forbidding area, now robbed
of some of its old terrors by the facilities in transportation, has
been finally gained only by a long series of persistent efforts,
attended by dangers, privations, reverses, discouragements, and
disasters innumerable. The Amerind,[1] the red man, roamed its wild
valleys. Some tribes built stone houses whose ruins are now found
overlooking its waters, even in the depths of the Grand Canyon itself,
or in the cliffs along the more accessible tributaries, cultivating in
the bottoms their crops. Lands were also tilled along the extreme lower
reaches, where the great rock-walls fall back and alluvial soils border
the stream. Here and there the Amerind also crossed it, when occasion
required, on the great intertribal highways which are found in all
districts, but it was neither one thing nor another to him.

 [1] This name is a substitute for the misnomer “Indian.” Its use
 avoids confusion.


Looking into the First Granite Gorge, Grand Canyon foot of Bright Angel
Trail. Looking into the First Granite Gorge, Grand Canyon foot of
Bright Angel Trail.
Canyon 300 miles long. River 1000 feet below point of view. Total depth
between 5000 and 6000 feet.
Photograph by HALL.


So the river rolled on through its solemn canyons in primeval freedom,
unvexed by the tampering and meddling of man. The Spaniards, after the
picturesque conquest of the luckless Aztecs, were eagerly searching for
new fields of profitable battle, and then they dreamed of finding among
the mysteries of the alluring northland, stretching so far away into
the Unknown, a repetition of towns as populous, as wealthy in pure
gold, as those of the valley of Mexico whose despoiled treasures had
fired the cupidity of Europe and had crammed the strong boxes of the
Spanish king. And there might be towns even richer! Who could say? An
Amerind named Tejo, who belonged to Guzman when he was president of New
Spain, that is, about 1530, told of journeys he had made with his
father, when a boy, to trade in the far north where he saw very large
villages like Mexico, especially seven large towns full of
silver-workers, forty days’ journey through the wilderness. This
welcome story was fuel to the fire. Guzman organised a party and
started for these wonderful seven cities, but numerous difficulties
prevented the fulfilment of his plans, and caused a halt after
traversing but a small portion of the distance. Cortes had now also
returned from a visit to Spain, and he and Guzman were at the point of
the sword. Then shortly arrived from the north (1536), after incredible
wanderings between the Mississippi and the Rio Grande, that man of
wonderful endurance, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca,[2] with his surviving
companions, Dorantes, Maldonado, and Estevan. The latter, a negro, was
afterwards very prominent by his connection with the fatal expedition
sent out under the Friar Marcos to investigate the north country. The
negro, if not the other men, gave a highly colored account of the lands
they had traversed, and especially of what they had heard, so that more
fuel was added to the fire, and the desire to explore the mysteries
burned into execution. Cortes, harassed by his numerous enemies in
Mexico and Spain, determined on a new effort to carry out his cherished
plan of reaping further glories in the fascinating regions of the north
so full of possibilities. There consequently sailed from Acapulco, July
8, 1539, a fleet of three vessels under Francisco de Ulloa. Cortes was
prevented by circumstances from going with this expedition. After many
difficulties Ulloa at length found himself at the very head of the Sea
of Cortes in shallow water.

 [2] For a full account of the experiences of Alvar Nuñez, see the
 translation of Buckingham Smith. Also Bandolier, _Contributions to the
 History of the Southwestern Portions of the United States_.


The Inner Gorge of the Grand Canyon at the foot of Toroweap. The Inner
Gorge of the Grand Canyon at the foot of Toroweap.
Depth from point of view about 3000 feet. Total depth about 4500 feet.
Width about 3500 feet from brink to brink.
Negative 20x24 by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Survey.



House Ruins on Cliff of Glen Canyon. House Ruins on Cliff of Glen
Canyon.
There were habitations also under the heavy top ledge.
Photograph by J. FENNEMORE, U.S. Geol. Survey.


“And thus sailing [he writes] we always found more shallow water, and
the sea thick, black, and very muddy, and came at length into five
fathom water; and seeing this we determined to pass over to the land
which we had seen on the other side, and here likewise we found as
little depth or less, whereupon we rode all night in five fathom water,
and we perceived the sea to run with so great a rage into the land that
it was a thing much to be marveled at; and with the like fury it
returned back again with the ebb, during which time we found eleven
fathom water, and the flood and ebb continued from five to six hours.
The next day the captain and the pilot went up to the ship’s top and
saw all the land full of sand in a great round compass and joining
itself with the other shore; and it was so low that whereas we were a
league from the same we could not discern it, and it seemed there was
an inlet of the mouths of certain lakes, whereby the sea went in and
out. There were divers opinions amongst us, and some thought that that
current entered into these lakes, and also that some great river there
might be the cause thereof.”[3]

 [3] From Hakluyt’s _Voyages_. The spelling has been modernised.


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.


Wytfliet-Ptolemy Map of 1597. Wytfliet-Ptolemy Map of 1597.
From BANCROFT’S _History of Arizona and New Mexico_.


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 (summer of 1539) 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 Alarçon was placed in
charge of the ships. Having a land march to make Coronado, started in
February, 1540, while Alarçon 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.


The Ancient Ruin on the Cliff. The Ancient Ruin on the Cliff.
Glen Canyon.
Photograph by J. FENNEMORE, U.S. Geol. Survey.


Alarçon, 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 Alarçon, 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 Alarçon 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 Alarçon 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, Alarçon 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, Alarçon might as well have been
on the coast of Africa. The farther they proceeded the farther apart
they were, but Alarçon kept a constant and faithful lookout for the
other party the whole time, never losing an opportunity to inquire its
whereabouts.


Western Part United States. Western Part United States.
Relief map by E.E. HOWELL.



Gulf of Calfornia at the Mouth of the Colorado. Gulf of Calfornia at
the Mouth of the Colorado.
Photograph by DELANCY GILL.


Coronado had left a well-provisioned ship, the _San Gabriel_, at
Aguaiauall, for Alarçon 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. Alarçon 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 Alarçon 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. Alarçon 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
Alarçon 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 (although with great travail
and danger), 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.”


Alarçon’s Ships Struggling With the Great Bore of the Colorado—1540.
Alarçon’s Ships Struggling With the Great Bore of the Colorado—1540.
Drawing by  F.S. DELLENBAUGH.


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








CHAPTER II.


The Unknown River—Alarçon Ascends it Eighty-five Leagues and Names it
the Rio de Buena Guia—Melchior Diaz Arrives at its Banks Later and
Calls it the Rio del Tizon—Cardenas Discovers the Grand Canyon.


Having triumphed over the fierce tidal bore which renders the mouth of
the Colorado dangerous, Alarçon secured a safe anchorage for his
vessels and began immediate preparations for following up the river
into the distant interior, both to gain a knowledge of it and to seek
for information of the position of Coronado. Leaving one of his small
boats for the use of those who remained in charge of the ships, he took
the other two, and, placing in them some light cannon, prepared them as
well as he could for any emergency that might be encountered. His party
consisted of twenty soldiers, sailors, and helpers, besides his
treasurer, Rodrigo Maldonado, and Gaspar de Castilleia, comptroller.
Alarçon possessed the qualities of a successful explorer. He was bold
yet cautious, determined but not reckless, with safe judgment and quick
adaptability. His first command was that, no matter what happened in
case of meeting with natives, all his company were to remain silent and
inactive. With this wise provision, which kept the control in his own
hands, the party left the ships behind on Thursday, August 26th[1]
(1540), apparently the same day as the arrival. The current was so
strong that the men were obliged to tow the boats from the bank,
rendering progress slow and difficult, but nevertheless they were able,
before night and fatigue compelled a halt, to advance about six
leagues. Though constantly on the lookout for natives in the wide
barren stretches of lowland on each side of the river, none were seen
till early next morning, when, soon after starting, a number of huts
were discovered near the river bank. The occupants rushed forth in
great excitement at the sudden appearance of these singular-looking
people in their equally singular boats, and no wonder! Years and the
ages had slipped away and never yet had any people but their own kind
appeared on their horizon. Opposition was the natural impulse, and they
signed for the Spaniards to go back, threatening attack. The effect of
this on Alarçon was a command to anchor the boats out of reach in the
middle of the river, though the rapidly augmenting numbers of the
people on the shore soon inspired the others of the expedition with a
desire to beat a retreat towards the ships. Alarçon, however, was not
of this mind. The natives were, of course, armed only with the
bow-and-arrow and similar primitive weapons, while the Spaniards,
though few in number, possessed the advantage of firearms, of which the
natives had no comprehension whatever. The interpreter, being a native
from down the coast, understood not a word of this language, but the
presence among the strangers of one of their own kind somewhat pacified
the natives, and Alarçon did all he could by signs to express his
peaceful intentions, throwing his arms to the bottom of the boat and
putting his foot on them, at the same time ordering the boats to be
placed nearer shore. After much manoeuvring they finally brought about
some trifling intercourse and then proceeded up the river, the natives
following along the shore. Repeatedly they signalled for the Spaniards
to land, but Alarçon, fearful of treachery, declined, and spent the
night in the middle of the stream. Nor was the appearance of the
natives reassuring, for they had their faces hideously painted, some
all over and others only half, while still others carried painted masks
before them. In their nostrils they wore pendants, and their ears were
pierced with holes wherein they hung bones and shells. Their only
clothing was a sort of girdle around the waist.

 [1] Hakluyt gives “25th,” but it is a misprint, as this Thursday in
 1540 was the 26th.


Native Ladies of the Colorado. Native Ladies of the Colorado.



Freaks of Erosion. Freaks of Erosion.


Gradually, intercourse increased, and presents of trinkets seemed to
incline all the natives in Alarçon’s favour. At length he discovered
that they reverenced the sun, and without compunction he proclaimed
that he came from that orb. This deception served him well. Henceforth
no service was too great for the natives to perform for these sacred
beings. Everything was placed at their disposal. Alarçon’s word was
their law. They relieved the men entirely of the wearisome task of
towing the boats, striving with each other for the privilege. Without
this help it would have been impossible for Alarçon to have proceeded
far up the river, and he fully appreciated this, though the chief
reward bestowed on the helpers and all the natives was crosses made of
sticks and of paper. These, he informed them by signs, were precious,
and he distributed them in large numbers. The morning after he
proclaimed himself as coming from the sun, many swam out to where the
boat was anchored, contending for the privilege of securing the rope
with which the boat was towed. “And we gave it to them,” says Alarçon,
“with a good will, thanking God for the good provision which He gave us
to go up the river.”


One of the Cocopa Giants. One of the Cocopa Giants. Height, 6 feet, 4
inches.
The costume in early days was “nothing.”
Photograph by DELANCY GILL.


The interpreter frequently addressed the natives as he went forward,
and at last, on Tuesday night, a man was discovered who understood him.
This man was taken into the boat, and Alarçon, always true his trust,
asked him whether he had seen or heard of any people in the country
like himself, hoping to secure some clue to Coronado. “He answered me
no, saying that he had some time heard of old men that very far from
that country, there were other white men, and with beards like us, and
that he knew nothing else. I asked him also whether he knew a place
called Cibola and a river called Totonteac, and he answered me no.”


Komohoats. Komohoats.
A Pay Ute Boy—S.W. Nevada.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Sur.


Coronado meanwhile had arrived at Cibola on July 7th (or 10th) and had
therefore been among the villages of the Rio Grande del Norte nearly
two months. The route to these towns from the lower Colorado, that is,
by the great intertribal highway of southern Arizona, followed the Gila
River, destined afterwards to be traversed by the wandering trappers,
by the weary gold-seeker bound for California, and finally, for a
considerable distance, by the steam locomotive. But it was an unknown
quantity at the time of Alarçon’s visit, so far as white men were
concerned. Farther up, Alarçon met with another man who understood his
interpreter, and this man said he had been to Cibola, or Cevola,[2] as
Alarçon writes it, and that it was a month’s journey, “by a path that
went along that river.” Alarçon must now have been about at the mouth
of the Gila, and the river referred to was, of course, the Gila. This
man described the towns of Cibola as all who had seen them described
them; that is, large towns of three- or four-storey houses, with
windows on the sides,[3] and encompassed by walls some seven or eight
feet in height. The pueblos of the Rio Grande valley were well known in
every direction and for long distances. The Apaches, harassing the
villagers on every side, and having themselves a wide range, alone
carried the knowledge of them to the four winds. In every tribe, too,
there are born travellers who constantly visit distant regions,
bringing back detailed descriptions of their adventures and the sights
beheld, with which to regale an admiring crowd during the winter
evenings. Their descriptions are usually fairly accurate from the
standpoint of their own understanding. In this case the native gave a
good description of the Cibola towns, and the Tusayan people had
meanwhile given Cardenas a description of these very natives on the
lower Colorado. A day or two later Alarçon received further information
of Cibola, and this informant told about a chief who had four green
earthen plates like Alarçon’s, except in color, and also a dog like
Alarçon’s, as well as other things, which a black man had brought into
the country. This black man was Estevan, who had been killed about a
year before. The news of this man and his execution had travelled
rapidly, showing frequent intercourse with the pueblos beyond the
mountains. Still farther on he met another man who had been at Cibola,
and who also told him of a great river in which there were crocodiles.
This was the Mississippi, of course, and the crocodiles were
alligators. As Alarçon had never seen an alligator he took the
description to mean crocodile. A little farther and he heard of the
negro Estevan again and the reason why the Cibolans had killed him,
which was to prevent the Spaniards, whom he described, from finding
their way into the Cibola country. This man also described the bison
and a people who lived in painted tents in summer and in winter in
houses of wood two or three storeys high. And thus the expedition
continued up the river, inquiring as they went on all subjects. On
September 6th the old man who had been a particular friend and
interpreter was called on shore by the natives, and there was
immediately an animated discussion which Alarçon discovered related to
himself. Information had come from Cibola that there were there men
like these Spaniards who said they were Christians. These had been
warlike, and it was proposed to kill all of Alarçon’s party to prevent
the others from gaining a knowledge of this country. But the old man
declared Alarçon to be the son of the sun and took his part. Finally it
was decided to ask him whether he were a Christian or the son of the
sun. Alarçon pretended great wonder at men like himself being at
Cibola, but they assured him it was true, as two men who had come from
there reported that they had beards and guns and swords just the same.
Alarçon still insisted that he was the son of the sun. They said the
men at Cibola said the same, to which Alarçon replied that it might
well be, and if so they need have no fear, for the sons of the sun
would be his brothers and would treat them as he had done. This seemed
to pacify them. He inquired now how far it was to Cibola, and they
answered ten days through an uninhabited country, with no account of
the rest of the way because it was inhabited.

 [2] The old Spaniards used “v” and “b” interchangeably, so that Cibola
 and Cevola would be pronounced the same. Other letters were used in
 the same loose way.


 [3] Windows on the sides of the houses, _not_ of the _walls_, as one
 writer has put it. The villages of the lower part of New Mexico had
 these walls of circumvallation, but to the northward such walls appear
 to have been rare.


Professor McGee and a Group of Cocopas. Professor McGee and a Group of
Cocopas.
Originally the Cocopas wore no clothing.
Photograph by DELANCY GILL.


Alarçon was now more than ever desirous of informing Coronado of his
whereabouts, and tried to persuade some of his men to go to Cibola with
a message, promising fine rewards. Only one, a negro slave, and he with
reluctance, offered to attempt the journey. Alarçon tried to get the
old man to give him guides and provisions, but without success, as the
old man seemed to desire to induce Alarçon to help them fight their
battles with the Cumanas, saying, if he would end this war, he could
have their company to Cibola. Alarçon was determined to go, and sent a
man back to the ships to inform those there of his purpose, but he
changed his mind soon after, concluding to go to the ships himself and
return, leaving there his sick, and rearranging his company. The man
who had been sent to the ships overland was overtaken and brought back
by the natives, but was obliged to remain with them till Alarçon came
up again. The descent from here was made in two and a half days, though
it had taken fifteen to come up. Arriving at the ships all was found to
have gone well except a few minor accidents, and, directing repairs to
be made, Alarçon turned about and started up-river once more, first
calling the whole company together, telling them what he had learned of
Cibola, and that, as Coronado might now have been informed by natives
of his presence, he hoped to find means of reaching him. There was much
objection to this plan, but he proceeded to carry it out, taking all
three boats this time, loaded with “wares of exchange, with corn and
other seeds, with hens and cocks of Castile.” This region he called the
Province of Campanna de la Cruz, and he left orders for the building of
an oratory or chapel to be named the Chapel of Our Lady de la Buena
Guia. The river he called the Rio de Buena Guia (good guidance) from
the motto on the viceroy Mendoza’s coat of arms. It was Tuesday, the
14th of September, when he started, taking with him Nicolas Zamorano,
chief pilot, to record the latitudes. He soon arrived again among the
Quicomas,[4] and then among the Coamas, where he found his man who had
been left behind on the first trip. This man had been so well treated
that he was entirely content to remain till the party should come back
down the river. This was the highest point reached on the first visit.
Everywhere the people were treasuring the crosses which had been given
them, kneeling before them at sunrise. Alarçon kept on up the river
till he “entered between certain very high mountains, through which
this river passeth with a straight channel, and the boats went up
against the stream very hardly for want of men to draw the same.” From
this it may be inferred that the Coamas did not strive with each other
for the privilege of towing the boats of these children of the sun as
those below had done. Now an enchanter from the Cumanas tried to
destroy the party by setting magic reeds in the water on both sides,
but the spell failed and the explorers went on to the home of the old
man who had been so good a friend and guide to them. At this, Alarçon’s
farthest point, he caused a very high cross to be erected, on which
words were carved to the effect that he had reached the place, so that
if Coronado’s men chanced to come that way they might see it. Nothing
is said about burying letters, yet Diaz later mentions finding letters
buried at the foot of a tree, apparently nearer the sea. Deciding that
he could not at this time accomplish his purpose of opening
communication with the army, Alarçon concluded to return to the ships,
but with the intention of trying once more. The second day after
starting down he arrived at the place where the Spaniard had remained.
He told him that he had gone “above thirty leagues into the country”
beyond. It had taken him, before, two and a half days to reach the
river mouth from here, so that it seems he was about four days going
down from his farthest point. Roughly estimating his progress at six
miles an hour for twelve hours a day, in four days the distance covered
would be about 288 miles. He says he went up eighty-five leagues (this
would be fifty-five the first time and thirty more the second), which,
counting in Mexican leagues of two and three quarter miles each, gives
a distance of 233¾ miles, or about one hundred miles above the mouth of
the Gila. This stream he does not mention. He may have taken it for a
mere bayou, but it appears to be certain that he passed beyond it. He
says Ulloa was mistaken by two degrees as to his northernmost point,
and that he sailed four degrees beyond him. The meaning of this may be
that he went four degrees beyond Ulloa’s false reckoning, or actually
two degrees above the shoals where Ulloa turned back. This would take
him to the 34th parallel, and would coincide with his eighty-five
leagues, and also with the position of the first mountains met with in
going up the river, the Chocolate range. Alarçon was not so
inexperienced that he would have represented eighty-five leagues on the
course of the river as equalling four degrees of latitude. Had he gone
to the 36th degree he would have passed through Black Canyon, and this
is so extraordinary a feature that he could not have failed to note it
specially. When Alarçon arrived at the ships again, he evidently had
strong reason for abandoning his intention of returning for another
attempt to communicate with Coronado, and he set sail for home. Another
document says the torredo was destroying the ships, and this is very
probable. He coasted down the gulf, landing frequently, and going long
distances into the interior searching for news of Coronado, but he
learned nothing beyond what he heard on the river.

 [4] The tribes and bands spoken of by Alarçon cannot be identified,
 but these Quicomas, or Quicamas, were doubtless the same as the
 Quiquimas mentioned by Kino, 1701, and Garces, 1775. They were
 probably of Yuman stock. The Cumanas were possibly Mohaves.


The Colorado at the Junction of the Gila. The Colorado at the Junction
of the Gila.
Looking up stream, Gila right hand lower corner. Colorado about 500
yards wide.
Photograph by DELANCY GILL.


While he was striving to find a way of reaching the main body of the
expedition, which during this time was complacently robbing the
Puebloans on the Rio Grande, two officers of that expedition were
marching through the wilderness endeavouring to find him, and a third
was travelling toward the Grand Canyon. One of these was Don Rodrigo
Maldonado, thus bearing exactly the same name as one of Alarçon’s
officers; another was Captain Melchior Diaz, and the third Don Lopez de
Cardenas, who distinguished himself on the Rio Grande by particular
brutality toward the villagers. Don Rodrigo went in search of the ships
down the river to the coast from the valley of Corazones, but obtained
no information of them, though he met with giant natives and brought
back with him one very tall man as a specimen. The main army of
Coronado had not yet gone from this valley of Corazones, where the
settlement called San Hieronimo had been established, and the best man
in it reached only to the chest of this native giant.


An Arizona Landscape. An Arizona Landscape.
There are Navajo Gardens at the bottom of this canyon.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN.


The army moved on to another valley, where a halt was made to await
orders from the general. At length, about the middle of September,
Melchior Diaz came back from Cibola, with dispatches, accompanied by
Juan Gallegos, who bore a message for the viceroy. In their company
also was the miserable Friar Marcos, pursuing his dismal return to New
Spain by direction of the general, who considered it unsafe for him to
remain with the army now that the glorious bubble of his imagination
had been exploded. Melchior Diaz was an excellent officer, and already
had an experience in this northern region extending over some four
years. It was he, also, who had been sent, the previous November, as
far as the place called Chichilticalli, in an attempt to verify the
friar’s tale, and had reported that the natives were good for nothing
except to make into Christians. The main army, which was in command of
Don Tristan de Arellano, in accordance with the orders received from
Coronado, now advanced toward Cibola. Maldonado, who had been to the
coast, went with it. Diaz retained eighty men, part of whom were to
defend the settlement of San Hieronimo, and twenty-five were to
accompany him on his expedition in search of Alarçon. He started north
and then went west, following native guides for 150 leagues (412½
miles) in all, and at length reached a country inhabited by giant
natives who, in order to keep warm in the chill autumn air, carried
about with them a firebrand. From this circumstance, Diaz called the
large river he found here the Rio del Tizon. This was the Buena Guia of
Alarçon. The natives were prodigiously strong, one man being able to
lift and carry with ease on his head a heavy log which six of the
soldiers could not transport to the camp. Here Diaz heard that boats
had come up the river to a point three days’ journey below, and he went
there to find out about it, doubtless expecting to get on the track of
Alarçon. But the latter had departed from the mouth of the river at
least two or three weeks before; one writer says two months.[5] The
same writer states that Diaz reached the river thirty leagues above the
mouth, and that Alarçon went as far again above. This coincides very
well with Alarçon’s estimate of eighty-five leagues, for Diaz did not
follow the windings of the stream as Alarçon was forced to do with his
boats. At the place down the river, Diaz found a tree bearing an
inscription: “Alarçon reached this point; there are letters at the foot
of this tree.” Alarçon does not, as before noted, mention burying
letters, and these were found at the foot of a tree, so that Diaz
evidently failed to reach the cross erected at Alarçon’s highest point.

 [5] _Relacion del Suceso_. Alarçon must have reached his highest point
 about October 5th or 6th, and the ships on the return about the 10th.
 Diaz probably arrived at the river about November 1st.


Cocopa Tule Raft. Cocopa Tule Raft.
Photograph by DELANCY GILL.


Diaz now proceeded up the river again, looking for a place where he
could safely cross to explore the country on the opposite side. After
ascending from the spot where he found the letters for five or six
days, he concluded they could cross by means of rafts. In the
construction of these rafts he invited the help of the natives of the
neighbourhood. He was probably up near the Chocolate Mountains and the
Cumanas, who were hostile to Alarçon, and whose sorcerer had attempted
to destroy him by means of the magic reeds. They had been merely
waiting for an opportunity to attack Diaz, and they perceived their
chance in this assistance in crossing the river. They readily agreed to
help make the rafts, and even to assist in the crossing. But while the
work was in progress a soldier who had gone out from the camp was
surprised to observe a large number of them stealing off to a mountain
on the other side. When he reported this, Diaz caused one of the
natives to be secured, without the others being aware of it. He was
tortured till he confessed that the plan was to begin the attack when
some of the Spaniards were across the river, some in the water, and the
others on the near bank. Thus separated they believed they could easily
be destroyed. The native, as a reward for this valuable confession, was
secretly killed, and that night, with a heavy weight tied to him, was
cast into the deep water. But the others evidently suspected the trick,
for the next day they showered arrows upon the camp. The Spaniards
pursued them and by means of their superior arms soon drove them into
the mountains. Diaz was then able to cross without molestation, his
faithful Amerind allies of another tribe assisting.

Alarçon had conveyed in his letters the nature of the gulf and coast,
so Diaz struck westward to see what he could find in that direction.
The country was desolate and forbidding, in places the sand being like
hot ashes and the earth trembling. Four days of this satisfied them,
and the captain concluded to return to San Hieronimo. The subsequent
fate of Diaz is another illustration of how a man may go the world
round, escaping many great dangers, and then be annihilated by a simple
accident that would seem impossible. A dog belonging to the camp
pursued the little flock of sheep that had been driven along to supply
the men with meat, and Diaz on his horse dashed toward it, at the same
time hurling a spear. The spear stuck up in the ground instead of
striking the dog, and the butt penetrated the captain’s abdomen,
inflicting, under the conditions, a mortal wound. The men could do
nothing for him except to carry him along, which for twenty days they
did, fighting hostile natives all the time. Then he died. On the 18th
of January they arrived without their leader at the settlement from
which they had started some three months before.

Cardenas with twelve men had meanwhile gone from Cibola to a place
called Tusayan, or Tucano, situated some twenty or twenty-five leagues
north-westerly from Cibola, from whence he was to strike out toward the
great river these natives had described to Don Pedro de Tobar, who
recently had paid them a visit, and incidentally shot a few of them to
invite submission. Cardenas was kindly received by the people of
Tusayan, who readily supplied him with guides. Having lived in the
country for centuries, they of course knew it and the many trails very
well. They knew the highway down the Gila to the Colorado, and they
told Cardenas about the tall natives living in the lower part of it,
the same whom Alarçon and Diaz had met. In the direction in which
Cardenas was to go they said it was twenty days’ journey through an
unpopulated country, when people would again be met with. After the
party had travelled for twenty days they arrived at a great canyon of
the Colorado River, apparently not having met with the people
mentioned. If Cardenas started from the Moki towns, as has generally
been believed, where would he have arrived by a journey of twenty days,
when an able-bodied man can easily walk to the brink of Marble Canyon
from there in three or four days? Why did the guides, if they belonged
in the Moki towns, conduct Cardenas so far to show him a river which
was so near? The solution seems to be that he started from some
locality other than the present Moki towns. That is to say, there has
been an error, and these Moki towns are not Tusayan. Where Cardenas
reached the great canyon the river came from the _north-east_ and
turned to the _south-south-west_. There are but two places where the
canyoned river in Arizona conforms to this course, one at Lee’s Ferry,
and the other the stretch from Diamond Creek to the Kanab Canyon. The
walls being low at Lee’s Ferry, that locality may be excluded, for
where Cardenas first looked into the canyon it was so deep that the
river appeared like a brook, though the natives declared it to be half
a league wide. Three of the most agile men, after the party had
followed along the rim for three days hunting for a favourable place,
tried to descend to the water, but were unable to go more than
one-third of the way. Yet from the place they reached, the stream
looked very large, and buttes that from above seemed no higher than a
man were found to be taller than the great tower of Seville. There can
be no doubt that this was the gorge we now call the Grand Canyon. No
other answers the description. Cardenas said the width at the top, that
is, the “outer” gorge with its broken edge, was three or four leagues
or more in an air line.[6] This is the case at both great bends of the
river. The point he reached has usually been put, without definite
reason, at about opposite Bright Angel River, say near the letter “L”
of the word “Colorado” on the relief map, page 41 _op_., but here the
river comes from the _south-east_ and turns to the _north-west_,
directly the reverse of what Cardenas observed. The actual place then
must have been about midway of the stretch referred to, that is, near
the letter “A” of the word “Cañon” on the relief map. Where he started
from to arrive at this part of the canyon cannot be discussed here for
want of space, but the writer believes the place was some three hundred
miles south-east, say near Four Peaks on the new Mexican line.[7]
Cardenas was, therefore, guided along the southerly edge of the great
Colorado Plateau, through the superb Coconino Forest, where he had
wood, water, and grass in abundance. The locality he reached was very
dry, and they were obliged to go each night a long distance back from
the brink to procure water. For this reason, Cardenas gave up trying to
follow the canyon, and returned again, by way of Tusayan, to Cibola,
passing on the way a waterfall, which possibly was in the Havasupai
(Cataract) Canyon. Castañeda, the chief chronicler of the Coronado
expedition, says the river Cardenas found was the Tizon, “much nearer
its source than where Melchior Diaz crossed it,” thus showing that its
identity was well surmised, if not understood, at that time. Nothing,
however, was known of its upper course; at least there is no evidence
of any such knowledge, though the natives had doubtless given the
Spaniards some information regarding it. The special record of the
Cardenas expedition was kept by one Pedro de Sotomayor, but it has
apparently never been seen in modern times. It is probably in the
archives of Spain or Mexico, and its discovery would throw needed light
on the location of Tusayan and the course Cardenas followed.[8] The
distance of this whole region from a convenient base of supplies, and
its repellent character, prevented further operations at this period,
and when these explorers traced their disappointed way homeward, the
Colorado was not seen again by white men for over half a century; and
it was more than two hundred years before European eyes again looked
upon the Grand Canyon.

 [6] “A las barrancas del rio que puestos a el bado [lado?] de ellas
 parecia al otro bordo que auia mas de tres o quatro leguas por el
 ayre.”—Castañeda, in Winship’s monograph. Fourteenth Ann. Rep. Bureau
 of Ethnology, p. 429.


 [7] For the author’s views on Coronado’s route see the Bulletin of the
 American Geographical Society, December, 1897. Those views have been
 confirmed by later study, the only change being the shifting of Cibola
 from the Florida Mountains north-westerly to the region of the Gila.
 See map p. 115, Breaking the Wilderness.


 [8] It may be noted here with reference to the location of Cibola,
 Tiguex, Tusayan, etc., that too much heretofore has been _assumed_.
 The explanations presented are often very lame and unsatisfactory when
 critically examined. So many writers are now committed to the errors,
 on this subject that it will be a hard matter to arrive at the truth.


The Grand Canyon from Bright Angel Hotel. The Grand Canyon from Bright
Angel Hotel.
12 miles to opposite rim.
Total depth here between 5000 and 6000 feet.
Photograph by HALL.


Coronado proceeded eastward to about the western line of Missouri, and,
finding colonisation anywhere in the regions visited out of the
question, he returned in 1542 to Mexico, with his entire army excepting
a couple of padres.






CHAPTER III.


The Grand Canyon—Character of the Colorado River—The Water-Gods;
Erosion and Corrosion—The Natives and their Highways—The “Green River
Valley” of the Old Trappers—The Strange Vegetation and Some Singular
Animals.


The stupendous chasm known as the Grand Canyon, discovered by Cardenas
in the autumn of 1540, is the most remarkable feature of this
extraordinary river, and at the same time is one of the marvels of the
world. Though discovered so long ago that we make friends with the
conquistadores when we approach its history, it remained, with the
other canyons of the river, a problem for 329 years thereafter, that
is, till 1869. Discovery does not mean knowledge, and knowledge does
not mean publicity. In the case of this gorge, with its immense length
and countless tributary chasms, the view Cardenas obtained was akin to
a dog’s discovery of the moon. It has practically been several times
re-discovered. Indeed, each person who first looks into the abyss has a
sensation of being a discoverer, for the scene is so weird and lonely
and so incomprehensible in its novelty that one feels that it could
never have been viewed before. And it _is_ rather a discovery for each
individual, because no amount of verbal or pictorial description can
ever fully prepare the spectator for, the sublime reality. Even when
one becomes familiar with the incomparable spectacle it never ceases to
astonish. A recent writer has well said: “The sublimity of the Pyramids
is endurable, but at the rim of the Grand Canyon we feel outdone.”[1]
Outdone is exactly the right word. Nowhere else can man’s
insignificance be so burned into his soul as here, where his ingenuity
and power count for naught.

 [1] Harriet Monroe, _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1902.


The Grand-Marble Canyon Region. The Grand-Marble Canyon Region.
Scale about 30 miles to the inch.
This is not as accurate as the map opposite page 41, but is given as an
aid to the understanding of that. Compare also map on page 12.


Cardenas, after all, was only one of the discoverers. He was merely the
first _white_ man who saw it. When was it that the first _man_ recoiled
from the edge of that then actually unknown masterpiece of the
Water-gods, who so persistently plied their tools in the forgotten
ages? He was the real discoverer and he will never be known. As applied
to new countries—new to our race—the term “unknown” is relative. Each
fresh explorer considers his the deed that shall permanently be
recorded, no matter who has gone before, and the Patties and the
Jedediah Smiths are forgotten. In these later years some who have dared
the terrors of the merciless river in the Grand Canyon spoke of it as
the “Great Unknown,” forgetting the deed of Powell; and when Lieutenant
Wheeler laboriously succeeded in dragging his boats up to the mouth of
Diamond Creek, he said: “_Now_ the exploration is completed.” _He_
forgot the deed of Powell. A recent writer mentions the north-western
corner of Arizona as a “mysterious wilderness.”[2] He forgot that it
was thoroughly explored years ago. Wilderness it may be, if that means
sparsely settled, but mysterious?—no. It is all known and on record.

 [2] Ray Stannard Baker, _Century Magazine_, May, 1902.


The Work of Erosion. The Work of Erosion.
The Witch of Endor and Cerberus.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Survey.



The Work of Corrasion. The Work of Corrasion.
Paranuweap Canyon of the Virgen River, Southern Utah. 20 to 30 feet
wide and 1500 feet deep and 18 miles long.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Survey.


The Grand Canyon may be likened to an inverted mountain range. Imagine
a great mountain chain cast upside down in plaster. Then all the former
ridges and spurs of the range become tributary canyons and gulches
running back twenty or thirty miles into the surrounding country,
growing shallower and shallower as the distance increases from the
central core, just as the great spurs and ridges of a mountain range,
descending, melt finally into the plain. Often there are parts where
the central gorge is narrow and precipitous, just as a mountain range
frequently possesses mighty precipices. But it is an error to think of
great canyons as mere slits in the ground, dark and gloomy, like a deep
well from whose depths stars may be sighted at midday. Minor canyons
sometimes approach this character, as, for example, the canyon of the
upper Virgen, called Parunuweap, fifteen hundred feet deep and no more
than twenty to thirty feet wide, with vertical walls, but I have never
been in a canyon from which stars were visible in daylight, nor have I
ever known anyone who had. The light is about the same as that at the
bottom of a narrow street flanked by very high buildings. The walls may
sometimes be gloomy from their colour, or may seem so from the
circumstances under which one views them, but aside from the fact that
any deep, shut-in valley or canyon may become oppressive, there is
nothing specially gloomy about a deep canyon. The sun usually falls
more or less in every canyon, no matter how narrow or deep. It may fall
to the very bottom most of the day, or only for an hour or two,
depending on the trend of the canyon with reference to the sun’s
course. At the bottom of the Kanab where it joins the Grand, the
sunlight in November remains in the bottom just two hours, but outside
in the main gorge the time is very much longer.


The Grand Canyon and Terrace Plateau Region. The Grand Canyon and
Terrace Plateau Region.
This covers an area in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona 144 miles
square, containing more marvels than any other part of the globe of
equal extent. In the lower right-hand comer are the Yosemite Valley and
the Gorge of Niagara on the same scale. The scale of this reduction is
about 14 miles to one inch. The vertical and horizontal scales are the
same. The black ribbon on the left at Virgen and Beaver Dam Mountains
is to represent Archæan formation. The Shiwits Plateau and Uinkaret
Mts. are basaltic. The Kaibab and the Colorado Plateau are
Carboniferous. Paria Plateau and Vermilion Cliffs are Triassic. The
Markagunt and Paunsagunt Plateaus are Tertiary. Cardenas reached the
canyon about at letter “A” of the word “Cañon.” Tourists now come to
the river about half way between the letters “L” and “O” of the word
“Colorado.” The largest settlement is the charming little Mormon city
of St. George, on the Virgen, north of the letter “A” of the word
“Arizona.” Grand and Marble Canyons form a continuous gorge about 300
miles long, a complete barrier to travel for this distance as its walls
are precipitous and reach a height of between 5000 and 6000 feet—4000
being about the average. The lowest portion is toward Lee’s Ferry,
upper right-hand side of the map, where the walls begin at a couple of
hundred feet and rise very rapidly, the river cutting down also. The
relief map from which this photograph was made was modelled by E.E.
HOWELL for the U.S. Geological Survey and is 6 x 6 feet.


The walls of a great canyon, and usually a small one, are terraced;
seldom are they wholly vertical for their entire height, though
occasionally they may approach this condition on one side or the other,
and more rarely on both sides at once, depending on the geological
formations of the locality. Owing to the immense height of the walls of
such canyons as those on the Colorado, the cliffs frequently appear
perpendicular when they are far from it, just as a mountain peak often
seems to tower over one’s head when in reality it may be a considerable
distance off. In the nature of the formation and development of
canyons, they could not long retain continuous vertical walls. What
Powell calls the “recession of cliffs” comes into play. The erosive and
corrasive power of water being the chief land sculptors, it is evident
that there will be a continual wearing down of the faces of the
bounding cliffs. The softer beds will be cut away faster than the
harder, and where these underlie the harder the latter will be
undermined and fall. Every canyon is always widening at its top and
sides, through the action of rain, frost, and wind, as well as
deepening through the action of its flowing stream. _Erosion_ is this
power which carves away the cliffs, and _corrasion_ the one which saws
at the bottom, the latter term, in geological nomenclature, meaning the
cutting power of running water.[3] This cutting power varies according
to the declivity and the amount of sediment carried in suspension. It
is plain that a stream having great declivity will be able to carry
more sediment than one having little, and in a barren country would
always be highly charged with sand, which would cut and scour the bed
of the channel like a grindstone. As Dutton says, a river cuts,
however, only its own width, the rest of a canyon being the “work of
the forces of erosion, the wind, frost, and rain.” That is why we have
canyons. The powers of erosion are far slower than those of corrasion,
especially in an arid region, because they are intermittent. Where
rocks take a polish, as in Marble Canyon, the scouring and polishing
work of corrasion is seen in the shining bright surface as far as the
water rises. This all belongs to the romance of the Water-gods, those
marvellous land sculptors.

 [3] The introduction of this subject may seem unnecessary to the
 general reader, but no just comprehension of this river can be reached
 without some knowledge of the forces creating its chasms.


The “Hole in the Wall,” near Ft. Defiance, Arizona. The “Hole in the
Wall,” near Ft. Defiance, Arizona.
This kind of sandstone has the peculiarity of weathering in this way,
sometimes producing larger arches, alcoves, etc.
Photograph by BEN WITTICK.


To produce canyons like those of the Colorado, peculiar and unusual
conditions are necessary. There must exist a vast region lying high
above sea-level. This region must be arid. Out of it must rise
separated mountain masses to such heights that they shall be well
watered. These most elevated regions alone having abundant rain and
snowfall, torrential streams are generated and poured down upon the
arid wastes, where they persistently scour their beds, ploughing deep
channels below the level of their surroundings. The perpendicularity of
the walls of these channels, or canyons as they are called, depends on
the volume and continuity of the flowing stream, on the aridity of the
country through which they are cut, and on the rock-formation. A fierce
and continuous torrent, where the rainfall is at the minimum, will so
speedily outrival the forces of erosion that the canyon will have
vertical walls. An example is seen in those frequent “mud” canyons
found in arid regions, where some brook, having its source in
highlands, cuts a channel through clay or dry earth with vertical
sides, that stand for years. As long as the surface of the adjacent
lands is undisturbed, it acts like a roof, throwing off the water that
falls upon it into the main stream.[4] Thus the foundations of these
walls are not assailed from _behind_, which is their weakest point. If
the land surface is broken up, permitting the rains to soak in and
saturate the clay or earth, the whole mass becomes softened and will
speedily fall and slide out into the canyon.[5] The sides of all
canyons in an arid region are more or less protected in the same way.
That is, the rains fall suddenly, rarely continuously for any length of
time, and are collected and conducted away immediately, not having a
chance to enter the ground. Homogeneous sandstone preserves its
perpendicularity better than other rocks, one reason being that it does
not invite percolation, and usually offers, for a considerable distance
on each side of the canyon, barren and impervious surfaces to the
rains. Where strata rest on exposed softer beds, these are undermined
from the front, and in this way recession is brought about.

 [4] Just as wheat flour getting wet on the surface protects the
 portion below from dampness. The rainfall is often so slight, also,
 that a surface is unchanged for years. I once saw some wagon tracks
 that were made by our party _three_ years before. From peculiar
 circumstances I was able to identify them.


 [5] Robert Brewster Stanton explained this very clearly in his
 investigations for the Canadian Pacific Railway into the causes of
 land-slides on that line.


Looking down upon Glen Canyon. Looking down upon Glen Canyon.
Cut through homogeneous sandstone.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.


In the basin of the Colorado are found in perfection all the
extraordinary conditions that are needed to bring forth mammoth
canyons. The headwaters of all the important tributaries are
_invariably in the highest regions_ and at a long distance from their
mouths, so that the flood waters have many miles of opportunity to run
a race with the comparatively feeble erosive forces of desert lands.
The main stream-courses are thus in the lower arid regions and in
sedimentary formations, while their water-supply comes from far away.
The deepest gorges, therefore, will be found where the rainfall is
least, unless diminishing altitude interferes. Thus the greatest gorge
of the whole basin, the Grand Canyon, is the one farthest from the
sources of supply, and in the driest area, but one, of the whole
drainage system. It ends abruptly with the termination of the high arid
plateau which made it possible, but had this plateau extended farther,
the Grand Canyon would also have extended a similar distance. It is
plain then that the cutting of these canyons depends on the amount of
water (snow is included) which may fall in the high mountains, the
canyons themselves being in the drier districts. It is also clear that
if, by some chance, the precipitation of the high sources should
increase, the corrasion of the stream-beds in the canyons would
likewise increase and outrun with still greater ease the erosion of
their immediate surroundings. On the other hand, if the precipitation
in the arid surroundings should increase, the wearing down of the side
walls would for a time—till covered by débris and vegetation—go on more
rapidly till, instead of Canyons of the Colorado River type, there
would be deep, sharp valleys, or wide valleys, according to the amount
of difference between the precipitation of the low lands and the high.
Where the two were nearly the same, that is, a balance of
precipitation,[6] the slopes might be rounded and verdure-clad, though
this would depend on the _amount_ of precipitation. On lower Snake
River a change seems to be going on. The former canyon-cliffs are
covered by débris and vegetation, but in places the old dry cliff-lines
can be discerned beneath like a skeleton. The precipitation there has
not been great enough to destroy the old lines—only enough to mask
them.

 [6] There could be a balance of precipitation and still very little
 snow- or rainfall, or they might be very great.


Pinnacle in the Canyon the Chelly. Pinnacle in the Canyon the Chelly.
About 1500 feet high. It is much wider from the side.
Photograph by BEN WITTICK.



Bad Lands on Black’s Fork of Green River. Bad Lands on Black’s Fork of
Green River.
Photograph by U.S. Geol. Survey.


The “inner gorge” of the Grand Canyon appears to have been cut far more
rapidly than the outer one, and at a much later period; were this not
the case there would be no inner gorge. It is a singular fact that some
side canyons, the Kanab, for example, while now possessing no running
water, or at best a puny rivulet, and depending for their corrasion on
intermittent floods, meet on equal terms the great Colorado, the giant
that never for a second ceases its ferocious attack. Admitting that the
sharper declivity of the Kanab would enhance its power of corrasion,
nevertheless we should expect to see it approach the Grand Canyon by
leaps and bounds, like the Havasupai farther down, but, on the
contrary, there are parts that appear to be at a standstill in
corrasion, or even filling up, and its floor is a regular descent,
except for the last three or four miles where the canyon is clogged by
huge rocks that seem to have fallen from above. The maximum height of
its present flood-waters is about six feet, proved by a fern-covered
calcareous deposit, projecting some fifteen feet, caused by a spring
(Shower-Bath Spring) on the side of the wall, seven or eight miles
above the mouth, which is never permitted by the floods to build nearer
the floor of the canyon. A suspicion arises, on contemplating some of
these apparent discrepancies, that the prevailing conditions of
corrasion are not what they were at some earlier period, when they were
such that it was rendered more rapid and violent; that there was
perhaps an epoch when these deep-cut tributary canyons carried
perennial streams, and when the volume of the Colorado itself was many
times greater, possessing a multiplied corrasive power, while the
adjacent areas were about as arid as now. At such a time, perhaps, the
Colorado performed the main work of the inner gorge, the Kanab, and
similar affluents, their deep now rather evenly graded canyons. Such an
increase of volume, if we suppose the aridity to remain as now, could
have come about only by an increase of precipitation on the mountain
summits. During the Glacial Epoch, the Rocky Mountain summits were
considerably glaciated, the amount varying according to altitude and
latitude. The general topography of the Colorado River was about as it
is to-day, and the rainfall in the valleys probably nearly the same, or
at least only a little greater. In other words, the conditions were
those of to-day intensified. In summer, then, the amount of water
seeking outlet by these drainage channels to the sea was enormously
multiplied, and the corrasive power was correspondingly augmented. When
the ice caps finally began to permanently diminish, the summer floods
were doubtless terrific. The waters of the Colorado now rise in the
Grand Canyon, on the melting of the snows in the distant mountains,
from forty to one hundred feet; the rise must then have amounted to
from one hundred to four hundred or more. The Kanab heads in two very
high regions—the Pink Cliffs and the Kaibab. Though probably not high
enough to be heavily glaciated they were high enough to receive an
increased snowfall and to hold it, or a portion of it, over from one
year to another. Thus the canyons having their origin on these high
regions would be given perennial streams, with torrential floods each
summer, compared with which anything that now comes down the Kanab
would be a mere rivulet. The summit of the Kaibab is covered with
peculiar pocket-like basins having no apparent outlets. These were
possibly glacial sinks, conducting away some of the surplus water from
the melting snow and ice by subterranean channels. It seems probable,
therefore, that glacial flood-waters were an important factor in the
formation of the canyons of the Colorado. If this supposition is
correct it would account, at least in a measure, for that distinct
impression of arrested activity one receives from the present
conditions obtaining there.[7]

 [7] Some canyon floors, where there is no permanent large stream,
 appear to have altogether ceased descending. Dutton says of those
 which drain the Terrace Plateaus: “Many of them are actually filling
 up, the floods being unable to carry away all the sand and clay which
 the infrequent rains wash into them.”—_Tertiary History_, p. 50. See
 also pp. 196 and 228 _Ib_.


In Lower Kanab Canyon. In Lower Kanab Canyon.
Width about 75 feet, depth 2500 to 3000 feet.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN.



The Pink Cliffs. The Pink Cliffs.
Southern end of High Plateaus.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Survey.


The drainage at the edges of most canyons is back and away from the
gorge itself. The reason is that the rains cannot flow evenly over a
canyon brink, owing to irregularities of surface, and once an irregular
drainage is established, the water seeks the easiest road. A side
canyon is formed, draining a certain area. Another is formed elsewhere,
and another, and so on till all drainage is through these tributaries
and _away_ from the brink, by more or less circuitous channels to the
main stream. This backward drainage leaves the immediate brink, or
“rim,” till the last, in its work of erosion and corrasion, and the rim
consequently is left higher than the region away from it. This effect
of a backward drainage is very plain on both sides of the Grand Canyon,
though it is somewhat assisted, on the north at least, by the backward
dip of the strata. It may be modified by other conditions, so that it
would not always be the case.


Towers at Short Creek. Southern Utah. Towers at Short Creek. Southern
Utah.
This is a part of the great line of the Vermillion Cliffs. The region
here represented possesses some of the most magnificent scenery of the
whole West.
Outline drawing by W.H. HOLMES.





The basin of the Colorado, excepting that part below the mouth of the
Virgen and a portion among the “parks” of the western slope of the
Rocky Mountain range, is almost entirely a plateau region. Some of the
plateaus are very dry; others rise above the arid zone and are well
watered. The latter are called the “High Plateaus.” They reach an
altitude of eleven thousand feet above the sea. They are east of the
Great Basin, and with the other plateaus form an area called by Powell
“The Plateau Province.” Eastward still the plateaus merge into the
“parks.” The High Plateaus, as a topographical feature, are a southern
continuation of the Wasatch Mountains. They terminate on the south in
the Markagunt, the Paunsagunt, and the Aquarius Plateaus. The extreme
southern extremities of the two former are composed of mighty
precipices of columnarly eroded limestone called the Pink Cliffs. Here
is the beginning of the Terrace Plateaus, likewise bounded by vertical,
barren cliffs. Between the High Plateaus and the parks, the plateaus
may be called, for convenience, Mesa Plateaus, as they are generally
outlined by vertical cliffs. This is the case also south of the end of
the High Plateaus where, stepping down the great terraces, we arrive at
the region immediately adjacent to the Grand Canyon, composed of four
plateaus, three of them of mesa character, the Shewits, Uinkaret,
Kanab, and Kaibab; and up at the head of Marble Canyon a fifth, the
Paria, while still farther to the north-eastward is the Kaiparowitz.
The edges of these Mesa Plateaus, precipitous cliffs, stretch for many
miles across the arid land like mountain ranges split asunder. This
region, lying between the High Plateaus, the Grand Wash, the Henry
Mountains, and the Colorado, is perhaps the most fascinating of all the
basin. The relief map at page 41 gives the larger part of it. In the
basin there are also great mountain masses, the fountainheads of the
waters which have carved the canyons. These are Uinta, Zuñi, San
Francisco, Henry, Pine Valley, Uinkaret, Beaver Dam, Virgen, Navajo, La
Sal, and others, some reaching an altitude of more than twelve thousand
feet. The highest peaks of these, and of course those of the
Continental Divide on the east, which furnish a large proportion of the
water of the Colorado, and the Wind River Mountains on the extreme
north, have snow-banks throughout the summer. To show how dependent the
Colorado is on the high peaks for its flood-waters, I will mention that
it is not till the snows of these high altitudes are fiercely attacked
by the sun in May and June that the river has its annual great rise. It
would take only a slight lowering of the mean annual temperature now to
furnish these peaks with ice caps. The rainfall in the lower arid
regions is from three to ten inches, increasing northward to fifteen
and twenty-five. On the peaks, of course, it is much greater. Almost
any climate can be had, from the hot arid to the wet frigid. On the
lower stretches, from Mohave down, the thermometer in summer stands
around 112 degrees F. a great deal of the time, and reaches 118 degrees
F. Yet Dr. Coues said he felt it no more than he did the summer heat of
New York or Washington.[8] In winter the temperature at the bottom of
the Grand Canyon is very mild, and flowers bloom most of the time. One
November I descended from the snow-covered top of the Kaibab to the
Grand Canyon at the mouth of the Kanab, where I was able to bathe in
the open air with entire comfort.

 [8] I was at the Needles one summer for a brief time, and the air
 seemed very oppressive to me.


Gray’s Peak, 14,341 feet. Torrey’s Peak, 14,336 feet. Gray’s Peak,
14,341 feet. Torrey’s Peak, 14,336 feet.
Tip-top of the Continental Divide whence the Colorado derives flood
waters.
Photograph by U.S. Geol. Survey.



Balanced Rock. Balanced Rock.
On Trail from House Rock Valley to Lee’s Ferry.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN.



Outline Sketch of the Grand Canyon from Point Sublime. Outline Sketch
of the Grand Canyon from Point Sublime.
Drawn by W.H. HOLMES.


There are six chief topographical features, canyons, cliffs, valleys,
mesa plateaus, high plateaus, mountains. There are two grand divisions:
the lowland or desert, below the Virgen, and the plateau, but the
topography of the immediate river course separates itself into four
parts, the Green River Valley, the canyon, the valley-canyon, and the
alluvial. The canyon part is the longest, occupying about two-thirds of
the whole, or about 1200 miles. It is cut mainly through the plateaus.
The last of these southward is the Colorado, a vast upheaval reaching
from the lower end of the Grand Canyon south-east to about where the
34th parallel crosses the western line of New Mexico. Lieutenant
Wheeler several times claims the honour of naming it (1868-71), but the
name occurs on Lieutenant Ives’s map of 1858. This plateau breaks
sharply along its south-west line to the lowland district, and on its
north-westerly edge slopes to the Little Colorado. It bears a noble
pine forest, and from its summit rise to over 12,000 feet the volcanic
peaks of the San Francisco Mountains. Its northern edge is the Grand
Canyon, which separates it from its kindred on the other side. These
and the Colorado Plateau rise to from 6000 to 8000 feet above
sea-level, and it is through this huge mass that the river has ground
out the Grand Canyon, by corrading its bed down tremendously, the
bottom at the end being only 840 feet above the sea, whereas the start
at the mouth of the Little Colorado is 2690. Yet here it is already
3500 feet below the surface at the end of Marble Canyon, which,
separated only by the deep canyon of the Little Colorado, is
practically a northward continuation of the Grand Canyon itself. As the
river runs, the Grand Canyon is 217½ miles long. To this may be added
the 65½ miles of Marble, giving a continuous chasm of 283 miles, the
longest, deepest, and most difficult of passage in every direction of
any canyon in the world. The depth begins with a couple of hundred feet
at Lee’s Ferry (mouth of the Paria), the head of Marble Canyon, and
steadily deepens to some 3500 feet near the Little Colorado, where the
sudden uplift of the Kaibab lends about 2000 feet more to the already
magnificent gorge. Along the end of the Kaibab the walls, for a long
distance, reach their greatest height, about 6000 feet, but the other
side is considerably lower than the north all the way through. At the
mouth of the Kanab the altitude of the river-bed is 1800 feet above the
sea, showing a fall in the interval of 890 feet. The greatest declivity
is about 210 feet in 10 miles, in what is termed the Kaibab division,
extending from a point 10 miles below the Little Colorado to a point 58
miles farther down. Here the smooth stretches of river are long, the
rapids short and violent. Here, also, is the “granite,” making the
walls sombre, as the colour is slaty to black. At the mouth of Diamond
Creek the river is still 1300 feet higher than the sea, giving a fall
of 500 feet from the Kanab. There is another descent of 460 feet to the
Grand Wash, and then 149 to the mouth of the Virgen. Next to the Kaibab
division of the Grand Canyon, the greatest declivity occurs in the
Uinta region, in the Canyon of Lodore. The profile of the river in
these two districts is approximately given on page 57. The average
depth of the Grand Canyon is about 4000 feet. Its width at the top
varies from 4½ to 12 miles. This is the extreme outer cliff-line. The
inner gorge is much narrower, at the Toroweap being only about 3500
feet. The river varies in width from 500 or 600 feet to 75 or 100. In
this canyon is water-power enough to run the machinery of the world,
and there is as much more in the canyons above.


Character of the Mountains and High Plateau Regions of the Basin of the
Colorado. Character of the Mountains and High Plateau Regions of the
Basin of the Colorado.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS.



Profile of the Colorado through the Grand Canyon. Profile of the
Colorado through the Grand Canyon.
Horizontal Scale: One Inch = 40 miles—Vertical: One Inch = 2000 feet.
The altitude of Grand Wash is given about 60 feet too high.



Looking across the Grand Canyon (Inner Gorge) near the Foot of the
Toroweap. Looking across the Grand Canyon (Inner Gorge) near the Foot
of the Toroweap.
Depth 3000 feet.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Survey.


Joining Marble Canyon on the north is Glen, 149 miles long, from the
Paria to Frémont River. It has but one rapid of consequence. At high
water, with the exception of this rapid, the tide sweeps smoothly and
swiftly down with a majestic flow. The walls are homogeneous sandstone,
in places absolutely perpendicular for about a thousand feet. I have
stood on the brink and _dropped_ a stone into the river. The highest
walls are 1600 feet. Next is Narrow Canyon, about 9 miles long, 1300
feet deep, and no rapids. It is hardly more than the finish of
Cataract, a superb gorge about 40 miles long with a depth of 2700 feet,
often nearly vertical. The rapids here are many and violent, the total
fall being about 450 feet. At its head is the mouth of the Grand River.
The altitude of the junction is 3860 feet.[9] Following up the Green,
we have first Stillwater, then Labyrinth Canyon, much alike, the first
42¾ and the second 62½ miles in length. The walls of sandstone are 1300
feet. Their names well describe them, though the stillwater of the
first is very swift and straight. There are no rapids in either. All
these canyon names, from Green River Valley to the Grand Wash, were
applied by Powell. Between Labyrinth and the next canyon, Gray, so
called from the colour of its walls, 2000 feet high, is Gunnison
Valley, where the river may first be easily crossed. Here the
unfortunate Captain Gunnison, in 1853, passed over on his way to his
doom, and here, too, the Old Spanish Trail led the traveller in former
days toward Los Angeles. The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railway has
taken advantage of the same place to cross. The 36 miles of Gray are
hardly more than a continuation of the Canyon of Desolation’s 97 miles.
Desolation is a fine chasm, whose walls are 2400 feet. The view on page
206 gives an excellent idea of their average character. The mouth of
the Uinta River, not far above its head, is 4670 feet above the sea,
while Gunnison Valley is 4083, showing a descent for the river, in
Desolation and Gray, together of 587 feet. Desolation is full of
rapids, some of them bad. Wonsits Valley, which succeeds Desolation, is
the longest of the few valleys, being about 87 miles, with a width of 6
or 8 miles. There is a considerable amount of arable land, and along
the river bank large groves of cottonwood trees. The river course is
winding, the current sluggish, the width being 600 to 800 feet. At the
head of this valley is Split-Mountain Canyon, 8 miles long, with
ragged, craggy walls 2700 feet high. It contains a number of medium
rapids. Island Park separates it from Whirlpool Canyon. It is a
charming little valley, full of islands, a mere expansion of the walls,
9 miles long,—9 miles of rainbow, for the surrounding rocks and marls
are of every hue. Whirlpool, 2400 feet deep, is about 14 miles in
length and contains a number of rapids, but the whirlpools depend on
the stage of water. Then comes the beautiful little Echo Park, really
only the head of Whirlpool. Its name is derived from a wonderful echo
of ten words returned from the smooth wall seen in the cut on page 203.
It is only a mile long with walls of 600 feet. At its head enter the
Yampa River and Canyon, which mark the foot of Lodore, the most
striking gorge, next to the Grand Canyon, on the whole river. Lodore is
only 20 miles long, but it is 20 miles of concentrated water-power
energy and grandeur, the fall being about 400 feet, the walls 2700.
Never for a moment does it relax its assault, and the voyager on its
restless, relentless tide, especially at high water, is kept on the
alert. The waters indeed come rushing down with fearful impetuosity,
recalling to Powell the poem of Southey, on the Lodore _he_ knew, hence
the name. The beginning of the gorge is at the foot of Brown’s Park
through what is called the Gate of Lodore, an abrupt gash in the Uinta
Mountains 2000 feet deep. In viewing this entrance the ordinary
spectator is at a loss to comprehend how the stream could have begun
its attack upon this precipitous ridge. The theory that the river was
there before the upheaval formed the mountain does not entirely
satisfy, for it would seem in that case that the canyon walls would
long ago have become much more broken down than they are. But the walls
have a strikingly fresh look, as if formed recently, compared with the
time of the original upheaval. It seems possible that there may have
been in this region some great lake which lifted the waters up to the
top of the ridge to begin their work of corrasion. Such lakes did
exist; but lack of space forbids the further pursuit of this discussion
here.

 [9] The character of the Grand River is similar to that of the Green,
 but the canyons above the mouth of the Dolores are not so long nor so
 deep. The river also carries less water.


Pinnacles in Split Mountain Canyon. Pinnacles in Split Mountain Canyon.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.



Head of the Canyon of Lodore just inside the “Gate”. Head of the Canyon
of Lodore just inside the “Gate”.
Walls 2500 feet high; river 300 feet wide.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.



Pot-hole in Intermittent Water Course, Glen Canyon. Pot-hole in
Intermittent Water Course, Glen Canyon.
Homogeneous sandstone. These holes are often 10 to 15 feet deep, with
the stones which ground them lying in the bottom.
Photograph by J. FENNEMORE, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.


Brown’s Park, originally called Brown’s Hole, after one of the early
trappers, is a fine valley about 35 miles long and 5 or 6 miles wide.
It is, like the few other valleys, an expansion of the canyon walls.
There is considerable arable land, and the place possesses a remarkable
climate. Though its general level is so high, around 5500 feet, it
receives hardly any snow, and for this reason was long a favourite
place for wintering cattle on the drive from Texas to California. It
was a great rendezvous, also, for the early trappers and traders, and
here stood Fort Davy Crockett, in those days famous. It was one of
those necessary places of refuge and meeting, established when the
trappers were pursuing their extermination of the beaver, which once
were so numerous in all the Western country. The river enters this park
from the solitudes of Red Canyon, a splendid chasm, 25 miles long, 2500
feet deep, and abounding in plunging waters. The name is from the
colour of the sandstone walls. Above it are three short canyons,
Kingfisher, Horseshoe, and Flaming Gorge, aggregating about 10 miles.
There are there no rapids worth mentioning, but the scenic beauty is
entrancing. The walls are from 1200 to 1600 feet, in places extremely
precipitous. Flaming Gorge, with walls 1300 feet, is particularly
distinguished by being the beginning of the long series of close
canyons. The river enters suddenly from Green River Valley, repeating
on a smaller scale the conditions at the entrance to Lodore. From here
on up to the Wind River Range the stream is flanked by occasional
cliffs and buttes, but the country is comparatively open, and the many
tributaries often have fine grassy bottoms. This was the locality of
the great rendezvous of the period from 1825 to 1835, and even later.


Looking up Green River Valley from below Union Pacific Railway Bridge.
Looking up Green River Valley from below Union Pacific Railway Bridge.
Photograph by C.R. SAVAGE.



Specimen of a Navajo. Specimen of a Navajo.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Survey.



Young Warriors of the North. Young Warriors of the North.
Photograph by C.R. SAVAGE.


Green River Valley is an elevated region, from six thousand to seven
thousand feet above sea. It stretches from the Wind River Mountains on
the north to the Uintas on the south, and is bounded westwardly by the
Wyoming Range, and on the east merges into the Laramie Plains. The
drainage exit is through the Uintas, as noted, by means of the canyons
heading at Flaming Gorge. There are here opportunities for extensive
farming by irrigation. The only other chance for agriculture on the
river, except Wonsits Valley, Brown’s Park, and a few minor places, is
below Black Canyon, in the stretches I have called the alluvial and the
canyon-valley divisions. In the latter short canyons separate extensive
valleys with wide alluvial bottoms capable of high cultivation, though
often subject to overflow. Almost anything will grow there. Vast groves
of cottonwood and mesquite exist. In the alluvial division, the last
stretch of the river, from the Gila down, cotton and sugar cane would
probably grow. This is the only division where the water of the river
can be extensively diverted. At the mouth of the Gila an old emigrant
road to California crossed, and another here in this Green River
Valley. A third route of travel was by way of Gunnison’s Crossing; and
a fourth, though this was seldom traversed, was by the Crossing of the
Fathers, some thirty-five miles above the present Lee’s Ferry. In Green
River Valley, Bonneville built his Fort Nonsense, and the region was
for many years the best known of any place beyond the mountains. The
routes of trappers and prospectors frequently followed aid native
trails, which crossed and recrossed the country in every direction,
except where the canyons of the Green and Colorado were approached,
when few lines of traverse were open across, and none along the course
of the water.


The Joshua Tree. The Joshua Tree.
Clistoyucca Arborescens. Southern Nevada.
Photograph by C.R. SAVAGE.


On the headwaters of Green River lived the Crows, who called it the
Seedskedee Agie or Prairie Hen River. The Snakes and Utes living
farther down called it the Bitter-root. Frémont called it the Rio Verde
of the Spaniards, but apparently without good authority. It was also
spoken of as Spanish River, from the report that Spaniards occupied its
lower valleys. Colorado was also one of its names, and this is what it
should have remained. The commonest appellation was Green, supposed to
have been derived from a trapper of that name. Just when the term
“Colorado” was first applied to the lower river is not now known. It
bore several names, but finally Colorado took first place because of
its appropriateness. Both the walls and the water are usually red,
though the name is undoubtedly derived from the colour of the water.
Green River is frequently as red as any river could be. After a storm
in the headwaters of Vermilion Creek I have seen the Green a positively
bright vermilion.


A Pai Ute Family at Home. A Pai Ute Family at Home.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.


The Arapahos were said to range into Brown’s Park; the Utes were all
along the Wonsits Valley and below it on both sides of the river. Then
came the Navajos, ranging up to the San Juan and above.[10] On the
north side, below the San Juan, were the various bands of Pai Utes,
while on the south were the Puebloan tribes, with the Apaches, Suppais,
Wallapais, etc., while still below came the Mohaves, Cocopas, and
Yumas, with, on the Gila, the Pimas, Papagos, and Maricopas. The
250,000 square miles of the basin were variously apportioned amongst
these tribes, but their territorial claims were usually well defined.

 [10] For notes on the distribution of tribes see the _Seventh Ann.
 Rep, Bu. Ethnology; Wheeler’s Report_, vol. i.; _Report of Lieut.
 Ives, Works of H. H. Bancroft_, and _Garces_, by Elliott Coues.


The Barrel Cactus. The Barrel Cactus.
Pencil sketch by F.S. DELLENBAUGH.


The vegetation of the area, especially that of the lower half,
possesses singular characteristics quite in keeping with the
extraordinary topography. Here flourishes the cactus, that rose of the
desert, its lovely blossoms red, yellow, and white, illuminating in
spring the arid wastes. The soft green of its stems and the
multiplicity of its forms and species, are a constant delight. It
writhes and struggles across the hot earth, or spreads out
silver-spined branches into a tree-like bush, or, in the great
pitahaya, rises in fierce dignity like a monitor against the deep blue
sky. And the yuccas are quite as beautiful, with their tall central
rods so richly crowned with bell-like blossoms, the fantastic
_Clistoyucca arborescens_, or Joshua tree, being more in harmony with
the archaic landscape than any other plant there. As the traveller
crosses one of the open forests of this tree, which is often
twenty-five feet high, the more distant ones appear to beckon like some
uncanny desert octopus yearning to draw him within reach of those
scrawny arms. The blossom of this monstrous growth is a revelation, so
unexpected is it. A group as large as one’s head, pure white, on the
extremity of a dagger-covered bough, it is like an angel amidst
bayonets. The pitahaya, often more than thirty feet high and twelve to
twenty-four inches diameter, is a fit companion for the Joshua, with an
equally startling blossom.


Vegetation of the Southwest. Vegetation of the Southwest.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN.


“To go out on the desert... and meet these cacti is like whispering
into the ear of the Sphinx, and listening at her locked lips,... and to
go out in April and see them suddenly abloom is as though the lips of
the Sphinx should part and utter solemn words. A bunch of white flowers
at the tip of the obelisk, flowers springing white and wonderful out of
this dead, gaunt, prickly thing—is not that Nature’s consummate
miracle, a symbol of resurrection more profound than the lily of the
fields.”[11]

 [11] Harriet Monroe, _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1902.


Then there is the glorious ocotillo, waving its long, slender wands
from the ground-centre, each green with its myriad little lance-shaped
leaves, and bursting at the end into a scarlet flame of blossoms
dazzling in the burning sunlight. Near by springs up the Barrel cactus,
a forbidding column no one dares touch. A little farther is the “yant”
of the Pai Ute, with leaves fringed with teeth like its kind, the
Agaves. This is a source of food for the native, who roasts the
asparagus-like tip starting up in the spring, and he also takes the
whole head, and, trimming off the outer leaves, bakes it in pits,
whereby it is full of sweetness like thick molasses. The inner pulp is
dried in sheets and laid away. Near by, the Pinyon tree in the autumn
sheds its delicious nuts by the bushel, and meanwhile there are many
full, nutritious grass seeds, the kind called “ak” by the Pai Utes
almost equalling wheat in the size of its kernel. In the lowlands grows
the stolid mesquite tree, more underground than above, whose roots
furnish excellent firewood,—albeit they must be broken up with a sledge
hammer, for no axe will stand the impact. Near it may be seen huge
bunches of grass (or perhaps straw would describe it better), which the
white man gathers for hay with a huge hoe. Then there is the
ever-present, friendly sage-brush, miniature oak trees, with branch and
trunk, so beautiful. It grows, as a rule, about two feet high, but I
have seen it higher than my head; that is, at least six feet. Beneath
its spreading shade in the south lurks the Gila Monster, terrible in
name at any rate, a fearful object to look upon, a remnant of
antediluvian times, a huge, clumsy, two-foot lizard. The horned toad is
quite as forbidding in appearance, but he is a harmless little thing.


A Kaibab Pai Ute. A Kaibab Pai Ute.
Posed by THOMAS MORAN.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Survey.


Here we are in the rattlesnake’s paradise. Nine species are found along
the Mexican border; and no wonder. The country seems made for them,—the
rocks, cliffs, canyons, pitahayas, Joshuas, and all the rest of it.
Notwithstanding their venom they have beauty, and when one is seen at
the bottom of some lonely, unfrequented canyon, tail buzzing, head
erect, and defiant, glistening eyes, a man feels like apologising for
the intrusion. Above in the limpid sunlight floats the great eagle,
deadly enemy of the rattlesnake; from a near-by bush the exquisite song
of the mocking-bird trills out, and far up the rocks the hoof-strokes
of the mountain sheep strike with a rattle of stones that seems music
in the crystal air. Yonder the wild turkey calls from the pine trees,
or we hark to the whir of the grouse or the pine-hen. Noisy magpies
startle the silence of the northern districts, and the sage-hen and the
rabbit everywhere break the solitude of your walk. Turn up a stone and
sometimes you see a revengeful scorpion: anon the huge tarantula comes
forth to look at the camp-fire. As one sits resting on a barren ledge,
the little swifts come out to make his acquaintance. Whistle softly and
a bright-coated fellow will run up even upon your shoulder to show his
appreciation of the Swan Song. Antelope dart scornfully away across the
open plains, and the little coyote halts in his course to turn the
inquisitive gaze of his pretty bright eyes upon this new animal
crossing his path. The timber wolf, not satisfied with staring,
follows, perhaps, as if enjoying company, at the same time occasionally
licking his chaps. When the sun goes down his long-drawn bark rolls out
into the clear winter sky like a song to the evening star, rendering
the blaze of the camp-fire all the more comfortable. Under the
moonlight the sharper bark of the coyote swells a chorus from the
cliffs, and the rich note of the night-storm is accentuated by the long
screech of the puma prowling on the heights. In daylight his brother,
the wild-cat, reminds one of Tabby at home by the fireside. There is
the lynx, too, among the rocks; and on the higher planes the deer, elk,
and bear have their homes. In Green River Valley once roamed thousands
of bison. The more arid districts have the fewest large animals, and
conversely the more humid the most, though in the latter districts the
fauna and flora approach that of the eastern part of the continent,
while as the former are approached the difference grows wider and
wider, till in the southern lowlands there is no resemblance to eastern
types at all. Once the streams everywhere had thousands of happy
beaver, with their homes in the river banks, or in waters deepened by
their clever dams. Otter, too, were there. The larger rivers are not
favourable for fish on account of the vast amount of sediment, but in
the smaller, especially in the mountain streams, trout were abundant.
In Green River occurs a salmon-trout attaining a length of at least
four feet. This is also found in the Colorado proper, where another
fish, with a humpback, is to be caught. I do not know the name of this,
but imagine it the same as has in latter days been called “squaw-fish.”


Side Canyon of Glen Canyon. Side Canyon of Glen Canyon.
Homogeneous Sandstone.
Photograph by J. FENNEMORE, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.



All over the region the rocks are seamed by mineral veins. Some of
these have already poured forth millions of dollars, while others await
a discoverer. On the river itself gold is found in the sands; and the
small alluvial bottoms that occur in Glen Canyon, and a few gravel bars
in the Grand, have been somewhat profitably worked, though necessarily
on a small scale. The granite walls of the Grand Canyon bear
innumerable veins, but as prospecting is there so difficult it will be
many a long year before the best are found. The search for mineral
veins has done much to make the farther parts known, just as the
earlier search for beaver took white men for the first time into the
fastnesses of the great mountains, and earlier the effort to save the
souls of the natives marked their main trails into the wilderness.

This sketch of the Basin of the Colorado is most inadequate, but the
scope of this volume prevents amplification in this direction. These
few pages, however, will better enable the reader to comprehend the
labours of the padres, the trappers, and the explorers, some account of
whose doings is presented in the following chapters.[12]

 [12] In connection with the subject of erosion and corrasion the
 reader is advised to study the following works, which are the
 standards: _The Exploration of the Colorado of the West_, and the
 _Geology of the Uinta Mountains_, by J. W. Powell; _The Henry
 Mountains_, by G. K. Gilbert; _The Geology of the High Plateaus of
 Utah_, and _The Tertiary History of the Grand Canyon District_, by C.
 E. Dutton.






CHAPTER IV.




Oñate, 1604, Crosses Arizona to the Colorado—A Remarkable Ancient Ruin
Discovered by Padre Kino, 1694—Padre Garces Sees the Grand Canyon and
Visits Oraibi, 1776—The Great Entrada of Padre Escalante across Green
River to Utah Lake, 1776—Death of Garces Ends the Entrada Period, 1781.


In the historical development of the Basin of the Colorado four, chief
epochs are apparent. The discovery of the river, as already outlined in
previous chapters, is the first; second, the entradas of the padres;
third, the wanderings of the trappers; and fourth, the expeditions of
the explorers. These epochs are replete with interesting and romantic
incidents, new discoveries; starvations; battles; massacres; lonely,
dangerous journeys, etc., which can only be touched upon in a volume of
the present size. Dr. Coues placed the diary of Garces, one of the
chief actors of this great four-act life-drama, in accessible shape,
and had not his lamented death interfered he would have put students
under further obligation to him.


Entrance to Acoma, N.M. Entrance to Acoma, N.M.
The town is on top of a mesa, and was a prominent point on the highway
from the Rio Grande to Zuñi.
Photograph by BEN WITTICK.


Preliminary to the entradas of the padres, Don Antonio de Espejo, in
1583, went from the Rio Grande to Moki and westward to a mountain,
probably one of the San Francisco group, but he did not see the
Colorado. Twenty-one years elapsed before a white man again ventured
into this region. In 1604, Don Juan de Oñate, the wealthy governor of
New Mexico, determined to cross from his headquarters at the village of
San Juan on the Rio Grande, by this route to the South Sea, and,
accompanied by thirty soldiers and two padres, he set forth, passing
west by way of the pueblo of Zuñi, and probably not seeing at that time
the celebrated Inscription Rock,[1] for, though his name is said to be
first of European marks, the date is 1606. From Zuñi he went to the
Moki towns, then five in number, and possibly somewhat south of the
present place. Beyond Moki ten leagues, they crossed a stream flowing
north-westerly, which was called Colorado from the colour of its
water,—the first use of the name so far traced. This was what we now
call the Little Colorado. They understood it to discharge into the
South Sea (Pacific), and probably Oñate took it for the very headwaters
of the Buena Guia which Alarçon had discovered over sixty years before.
As yet no white man had been north of Moki in the Basin of the
Colorado, and the only source of information concerning the far
northern region was the natives, who were not always understood,
however honestly they might try to convey a knowledge of the country.

 [1] This is a quadrangular mass of sandstone about a mile long,
 thirty-five miles east of Zuñi. On its base at the eastern end are a
 number of native and European inscriptions, the oldest, of the
 European dates according to Simpson, being 1606, recording a visit by
 Oñate. The rock, or, more properly, mesa, is also called the Morro.
 Chas. F. Lummis has also written on this subject.


Skirting the southern edge of the beautiful San Francisco Mountain
region, through the superb forest of pine trees, Oñate finally
descended from the Colorado Plateau to the headwaters of the Verde,
where he met a tribe called Cruzados, because they wore little crosses
from the hair of the forehead, a relic, no doubt, of the time when
Alarçon had so freely distributed these emblems among the tribes he
encountered on the Colorado, friends probably of these Cruzados. The
latter reported the sea twenty days distant by way of a small river
running into a greater, which flowed to the salt water. The small river
was Bill Williams Fork, and on striking it Oñate began to see the
remarkable pitahaya adorning the landscape with its tall, stately
columns; and all the strange lowland vegetation followed. The San
Andreas, as he called this stream, later named Santa Maria by Garces,
he followed down to the large river into which it emptied, the
Colorado, which he called the Rio Grande de Buena Esperanza, or River
of Good Hope, evidently deciding that it merited a more distinguished
title than had been awarded it at the supposed headwaters. He appears
to have well understood what river this was, and we wonder why he gave
it a new name when it had already received two. Sometimes in new lands
explorers like to have their own way. They went down the Colorado,
after a party had examined the river a little above the mouth of the
Bill Williams Fork, meeting with various bands of friendly natives,
among whom we recognise the Mohaves and the Cocopas. Not far below
where Oñate reached the Esperanza he entered the Great Colorado Valley
and soon crossed the highest point attained by Alarçon in 1340,
probably near the upper end of the valley. He now doubled Alarçon’s and
presently also Melchior Diaz’s paths, and arrived at the mouth of the
river on the 25th of January, 1605, the first white man in over sixty
years. A large harbour which struck his fancy was named in honour of
the saint’s day, Puerto de la Conversion de San Pablo, for the sun
seldom went down without a Spaniard of those days thus propitiating a
saint. We are more prone to honour the devil in these matters. The Gila
they called Rio del Nombre de Jesus, a name never used again. So it
often happens with names bestowed by explorers. The ones they regard
most highly vanish, while some they apply thoughtlessly adhere forever.


Across the House Tops of Zuñi. Across the House Tops of Zuñi.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS.


All the tribes of this region, being familiar with the Californian
coast, described it in a way that caused Oñate to believe that the gulf
was the South Sea, extending indefinitely beyond the mouth of the
Colorado northwards, and thus the persistent error that Lower
California was an island received further confirmation. Without going
across to the sea beyond the mountains, which would have dispelled the
error, Oñate returned to the Rio Grande by the outward route, suffering
so greatly for food that the party were forced to eat some of their
horses, a source of relief often resorted to in future days in this
arid country. A few years after Oñate’s expedition Zalvidar (1618),
with Padre Jiminez and forty-seven soldiers, went out to Moki, and from
there fifteen leagues to the Rio de Buena Esperanza, but they evidently
encountered Marble Canyon, and soon returned.


Ruin called Casa Grande, Arizona. Ruin called Casa Grande, Arizona.
From a photograph by COSMOS MINDELEFF, U.S. Bu. Eth.


Another name closely linked with the early history of the Colorado is
that of Padre Eusibio Francisco Kino,[2] an Austrian by birth and a
member of the Jesuit order. This indefatigable enthusiast travelled
back and forth, time and again, over the whole of northern Sonora and
the southern half of Arizona, then comprised in Pimeria Alta, the upper
land of the Pimas, and Papagueria, the land of the Papagos. His base of
operations was a mission he established in Sonora; the mission of
Dolores, founded in 1687. For some thirty years Kino laboured in this
field with tireless energy, flinching before no danger or difficulty.
He was the first white man to see the extraordinary ruin called Casa
Grande, near the present town of Florence, and on the occasion of his
first visit he took advantage of the structure to say mass within its
thick adobe walls. This is probably the most remarkable ancient
building within the limits of the United States, For a long time it was
called the House of Montezuma, though, of course, Montezuma never heard
of it. A similar ruin, called Casas Grandes, exists in Sonora. The
construction is what is called cajon, that is, adobe clay rammed into a
box or frame, which is lifted for each successive course as the work
advances. In the dry air of that region such walls become extremely
hard, and will endure for ages if the foundations are not sapped.[3]
Kino paid a second visit to the ruin of Casa Grande in 1697, this time
accompanied by Captain Juan Mateo Mange, an officer detailed with his
command to escort the padres on their perilous journeys.

 [2] The name is written Kühn, Kühne, Quino, and in several other ways.
 Humboldt used Kühn, and either this or Kühne is probably the correct
 form, but long usage gives preference to Kino.


 [3] See _The North Americans of Yesterday_, by F. S. Dellenbaugh, p.
 234; and for complete details see papers by Cosmos Mindeleff,
 _Thirteenth An. Rep, Bu. Eth._ and _Fifteenth An. Rep. Bu, Eth.;_ also
 Font’s description in Coues’s _Garces_, p. 93.


Padre Kino’s Map of 1701. Padre Kino’s Map of 1701.
The first map giving the head of the Gulf correctly.
From BANCROFT’S _History of Arizona and New Mexico_.



A Lateral Canyon of Escalante River. A Lateral Canyon of Escalante
River.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.


The method of the authorities was to establish a military post, called
a presidio, at some convenient point, from which protection would be
extended to several missions. The soldiers in the field wore a sort of
buckskin armour, with a double-visored helmet and a leathern buckler on
the left arm. Kino was as often without as with the guardianship of
these warriors, and seems to have had very little trouble with the
natives. The Apaches, then and always, were the worst of all, In his
numerous entradas he explored the region of his labours pretty
thoroughly, reaching, in 1698, a hill from which he saw how the gulf
ended at the mouth of the Colorado; and the following year he was again
down the Gila, which he called Rio de los Apostoles, to the Colorado,
now blessed with a fourth name, the Rio de los Martires. “Buena Guia”
“del Tizon,” “Esperanza,” and “los Martires,” all in about a century
and a half, and still the great Dragon of Waters was not only untamed
hut unknown. Kino kept up his endeavours to inaugurate somewhere a
religious centre, but without success. The San Dionisio marked on his
map at the mouth of the Gila was only the name he gave a Yuma village
at that point, and was never anything more. On November 21, 1701, Kino
reached a point only one day’s journey above the sea, where he crossed
the river on a raft, but he made no attempt to go to the mouth. At
last, however, on March 7, 1702, he actually set foot on the barren
sands where the waters, gathered from a hundred mountain peaks of the
far interior, are hurled against the sea-tide, the first white visitor
since Oñate, ninety-eight years before. Visits of Europeans to this
region were then counted by centuries and half-centuries, yet on the
far Atlantic shore of the continent they were swarming in the cradle of
the giant that should ultimately rule from sea to sea, annihilating the
desert. But even the desert has its charms. One seems to inhale fresh
vitality from its unpeopled immensity. I never could understand why a
desert is not generally considered beautiful; the kind, at least, we
have in the South-west, with all the cacti, the yucca, and the other
flowering plants unfamiliar to European or Eastern eyes, and the lines
of coloured cliffs and the deep canyons. There is far more beauty and
variety of colour than in the summer meadow-stretches and hills of the
Atlantic States. So the good Padre Kino, after all, was perhaps to be
congratulated on having those thirty years, interesting years, before
the wilds could be made commonplace.


The Moki Town of Wolpi, Arizona. The Moki Town of Wolpi, Arizona.
700 feet above the valley.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Survey.


Arizona did not seem to yield kindly to the civilisers; indeed, it was
like the Colorado River, repellent and unbreakable. The padres crossed
it and recrossed it on the southwestern corner, but they made no
impression. After Kino’s death in 1711 there was a lull in the entradas
to the Colorado, though Ugarte, coming up along the eastern coast of
Lower California, sailed to the mouth of the river in July, 1721.
Twenty-four years later (1744) Padre Jacobo Sedelmair went down the
Gila from Casa Grande to the great bend, and from there cut across to
the Colorado at about the mouth of Bill Williams Fork, but his journey
was no more fruitful than those of his predecessors in the last two
centuries. It seems extraordinary in these days that men could traverse
a country, even so infrequently, during two whole centuries and yet
know almost nothing about it. Two years after Sedelmair touched the
Colorado, Fernando Consag, looking for mission sites, came up the gulf
to its mouth, and when he had sailed away there was another long
interval before the river was again visited by Europeans. This time it
was over a quarter of a century, but the activity then begun was far
greater than ever before, and the two padres who now became the
foremost characters in the drama that so slowly moved upon the mighty
and diversified stage of the South-west, were quite the equals in
tireless energy of the Jesuit Kino. These two padres were Garces and
Escalante, more closely associated with the history of the Basin of the
Colorado than any one who had gone before. Francisco Garces, as well as
Escalante, was of the Franciscan order, and this order, superseding the
Jesuit, was making settlements, 1769-70, at San Diego and Monterey, as
well as taking a prominent part in those already long established on
the Rio Grande. There was no overland connection between the California
missions and those of Sonora and the Rio Grande, and the desire to
explore routes for such communication was one of the incentives of both
Garces and Escalante, in their long entradas. But it seemed to be the
habit of those days, either never to seek information as to what had
previously been accomplished, or to forget it, for the expedition of
Oñate might as well never have been made so far as its effect on
succeeding travels was concerned. He had crossed Arizona by the very
best route, yet Escalante, 172 years afterward, goes searching for one
by way of Utah Lake! Coming from the west, the Moki Towns were ever the
objective point, for they were well known and offered a refuge in the
midst of the general desolation. Garces had his headquarters at the
mission of San Xavier del Bac, or Bac, as it was commonly called, nine
miles south of the present town of Tucson. Here Kino had begun a church
in 1699, and at a later period another better one was started near by.
This was finished in 1797 and to-day stands the finest monument in the
South-west of the epoch of the padres. It is a really beautiful
specimen of the Mexico-Spanish church architecture of that time. No
better testimony could there be of the indefatigable spiritual energy
of the padres than this artistic structure standing now amidst a few
adobe houses, and once completely abandoned to the elements. Such a
building should never be permitted to perish, and it well merits
government protection. Its striking contrast to Casa Grande, the
massive relic of an unknown time, standing but a few leagues distant,
will always render this region of exceptional interest to the artist,
the archaeologist, and the general traveller.


Church of San Xavier del Bac, near Tucson. Church of San Xavier del
Bac, near Tucson.
Drawing by F.S. DELLENBAUGH, after a photograph.


From Bac, under the protection of the presidio of Tubac, some thirty
miles farther south, later transferred (1776) to the present Tucson,
Garces carried on his work. He made five great entradas from the time
of his arrival in June, 1768. The first was in that same year, the
second in 1770, but in these he did not reach the Colorado, and we will
pass them by. In the third, 1771, he went down the Gila to the Colorado
and descended the latter stream along its banks perhaps to the mouth.
On the fourth, 1774, he went with Captain Anza to the Colorado and
farther on to the mission of San Gabriel in California, near Los
Angeles, and in his fifth, and most important one, 1775-76, he again
accompanied Captain Anza, who was bound for the present site of San
Francisco, there to establish a mission. Padre Font was Anza’s
chaplain, and with Garces’s aid later made a map of the country.[4] At
Yuma Garces left the Anza party, went down to the mouth of the
Colorado, and then up along the river to Mohave, and after another trip
out to San Gabriel, he started on the most important part of all his
journeys, from Mohave to the Moki Towns, the objective point of all
entradas eastward from the Colorado. The importance attached at that
time to the towns of the Moki probably seems absurd to the reader, but
it must not be forgotten that the Moki were cultivators of the soil and
always held a store of food-stuffs in reserve. They were also builders
of very comfortable houses, as I can testify from personal experience.
Thus they assumed a prominence, amidst the desolation of the early
centuries, of which the railway in the nineteenth speedily robbed them.

 [4] Font says of Garces: “He seems just like an Indian himself... and
 though the food of the Indians is as nasty and disgusting as their
 dirty selves the padre eats it with great gusto.” Dr. Coues had
 planned to publish a translation of Font’s important diary. See
 _Garces_, by Elliot Coues, p. 172, Font meant his remark as praise.


Cocopa Woman Grinding Corn. Cocopa Woman Grinding Corn.
Photograph by DELANCY GILL.


Garces, like most of his kind, was an enthusiast on the subject of
saving the souls of the natives. “It made him sick at heart,” says
Coues, “to see so many of them going to hell for lack of the three
drops of water he would sprinkle over them if only they would let him
do it.” With this idea ever in mind he toiled up and down the lower
Colorado, and received assistance from a Yuma chief called Captain
Palma. Once when he came up the river to Yuma, where he had left Padre
Eisarc, the report the latter gave was so encouraging that Garces
exclaims: “I gave a thousand thanks to God to hear them sing psalms
divine that the padre had taught them.” He further declared that
Captain Palma would put to the blush for observing the forms of piety,
“many veteran Christians, by the reverence and humility with which he
assisted at the holy sacrifice.” But alas for the padre’s fond hopes!

The Yumas called the Colorado Javill or Hahweel according to Garces;
and he also says the name Colorado was given because, as the whole
country is coloured, its waters are tinged in the month of April, when
the snows are melting, but that they are not always red, which is
exactly the case. The name is also said to be a translation of the
Piman title “buqui aquimuti.”

Leaving Mohave June 4, 1776, Garces struck eastward across Arizona,
guided by some Wallapais, but with no white companion. These people had
told him about the distance to Moki and the nature of the intervening
region. Heading Diamond Creek[5] on his mule, Garces made for the
romantic retreat of the Havasupais in the canyon of Cataract Creek, a
tributary from the south of the Grand Canyon. He was the first white
man, so far as known, to visit this place, and in reaching it he passed
near the rim of the great gorge, though he did not then see it. This
was the region of the Aubrey cliffs and the place in all probability
where Cardenas approached the Grand Canyon, 236 years before. Garces
arrived among the Havasupai or Jabesua, as he called them, by following
a trail down their canyon that made his head swim, and was impassable
to his mule, which was taken in by another route. At one place a ladder
was even necessary to complete the 2000 feet of descent to the
settlement, where a clear creek suddenly breaks from the rocks, and,
rapid and blue, sweeps away down 2000 or more feet to the Colorado,
falling in its course at one point over a precipice in three cataracts
aggregating 250 feet, from which it takes its name. Here are about 400
acres of arable land along the creek, on which the natives raise corn,
beans, squashes, peaches, apricots, sunflowers, etc. There are now
about 200 of these people, and they are of Yuman stock. Garces was well
treated and rested here five days.

 [5] This name, by the way, has no connection with the notorious
 “Arizona” diamond swindle of more recent years. It bore this name in
 Ives’s time and the swindle was much later—1872. The alleged diamond
 field also was not in Arizona at all, but in north-western Colorado.


The Grand Canyon from Bright Angel Trail. The Grand Canyon from Bright
Angel Trail.
Painting by THOMAS MORAN.


Soon after leaving this retreat he “halted at the sight of the most
profound canones which ever onward continue, and within these flows the
Rio Colorado.”

“There is seen [he continues] a very great Sierra which in the distance
looks blue, and there runs from the southeast to the north-west a pass
open to the very base, as if the sierra were cut artificially to give
entrance to the Rio Colorado into these lands. I named this singular
pass Puerto de Bucareli,[6] and though to all appearances would not
seem to be great the difficulty of reaching thereunto, I considered
this to be impossible in consequence of the difficult canones which
intervened. From this position said pass bore east northeast.”

 [6] After the viceroy.


The padre is standing in admiration before the long line of the Kaibab
seen as a great sierra from this position on the south-east, and as the
land on the south rises toward the rim it probably appeared to him as
if the sierra were really a continuation of the San Francisco Mountains
on his right, and was cut in twain by the great gorge of the river.
From his standpoint he looked up Marble Canyon, and all the directions
he mentions are exactly correct. They saw smokes on the north, which
his guides said were made by the Payuches (Pai Utes) living on the
other side. The Kaivavitz band of Pai Utes in summer occupy their lands
on the summit of the Kaibab, hunting deer and camping in the lovely
open glades surrounded by splendid forest. This same day his guides
pointed out some tracks of Yabipai Tejua, who go this way to see and
trade with their friends, “those who live, as already said, on the
other side of the Rio Colorado.” It was one of the intertribal
highways. Just where it crossed the canyon is hard to say. There were
several old trails, and one came down from the north, reaching the
river a few miles below the Little Colorado, but where it came out on
the south side I do not know. There was once another trail which came
from the north down the canyon of Kanab Creek and found a way across to
the Coconinos or Havasupai; at least Jacob Hamblin[7] told me he was so
informed by the Pai Utes. The “Hance” trail, I believe, was built on
the line of an old native one, and probably this was the one the
Yabipais were heading for.

 [7] Jacob Hamblin, whom I knew very well, was the “Leather-stocking”
 of Utah—a man who knew the Amerinds of Utah and northern Arizona
 better than any one who ever lived.


The Moki Town of Mishongnuvi, Arizona. The Moki Town of Mishongnuvi,
Arizona.
The hill surmounted by the town lies itself on top of a mesa.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN.


Garces had a good understanding of the topography, for he says when he
reached the Rio Jaquesila de San Pedro, as he called the Little
Colorado, that it joined the main stream just above his Puerto de
Bucareli. Coues thought it probable that Cardenas on his way to the
Grand Canyon, followed from Moki the same trail Garces is now taking to
reach that place, and that therefore the first view Cardenas had of the
canyon was from near the same place as that of Garces—that is, he saw
the Puerto de Bucareli. This is hardly probable, as Garces was only
five days reaching Moki from here, and Cardenas travelled twenty from
Tusayan to the canyon. As I pointed out on a previous page, so far as
the data go, Cardenas reached the Grand Canyon opposite the east side
of the Shewits plateau.

Of the Little Colorado Garces said: “The bed of this river as far as
the confluence is a trough of solid rock, very profound, and wide about
a stone’s throw.” That this was an accurate statement the view on page
95 amply proves. Indeed, the accuracy of most of these early Spaniards,
as to topography, direction, etc., is extraordinary. As a rule where
they are apparently wrong it is ourselves who are mistaken, and if we
fully understand their meaning we find them to be correct. Garces found
his way down to the Little Colorado by means of a side canyon and got
out again on the other side in the same way. Finally, on July 2nd, he
arrived at the pueblo of Oraibi, his objective point, and when he and
his tired mule had climbed up on the mesa which bears the town, the
women and children lined the housetops to get a glimpse of the singular
stranger.

Spaniards were something of a novelty, though by no means unheard of,
just as even I was something of a novelty when I visited Oraibi one
hundred years after the Padre Garces, because the Oraibis never
encouraged white visitors.[8] The first missions were established among
the Moki in 1629, when Benavides was custodian of the Rio Grande
district, and included Zuñi and Moki in his field. Three padres were
then installed at Awatuwi, one of the towns, on the mesa east of what
is now called the “East” Mesa. Four were at work amongst the various
towns at the time of the Pueblo uprising in 1680, and as one began his
labours at Oraibi as early as 1650, a priest was not an unknown object
to the older people. All the missionaries having been killed in 1680,
and Awatuwi, where a fresh installation was made, having been
annihilated in 1700 by the Moki, for three-quarters of a century they
had seen few if any Spaniards. Therefore the women and children were
full of curiosity. Padre Escalante had been here from Zuñi the year
before, looking over the situation with a view to bringing all the Moki
once more within the fold. At that time Escalante also tried to go on
to what he called the Rio de los Cosninos, the Colorado, but he was
unable to accomplish his purpose. Had he once had a view of the Grand
Canyon it would undoubtedly have saved him a good many miles of weary
travel in his northern entrada of this same year that Garces reached
Oraibi.

 [8] A year or two after my visit, James Stevenson, of the Bureau of
 Ethnology, was driven away from Oraibi. Thomas Keam and he then went
 there with a force of Navajos and compelled the surrender of the
 chiefs who had been most obnoxious. They took them to Ream’s Canyon
 and confined them on bread and water till they apologised.


The Canyon of the Little Colorado. The Canyon of the Little Colorado.
Photograph by C. BARTHELMESS.


Garces was not permitted to enter the house where his Yabipai guide
intended to stop, and he therefore made his way to a corner formed by a
jutting wall, and there unsaddled his faithful mule, which the Yabipai
took to a sheep corral. The padre remained in his corner, gathering a
few scattered corn-stalks from the street, with which he made a fire
and cooked a little atole. All day long the people came in succession
to stare at him. I can testify to the sullen unfriendliness of the
Oraibi, and I have seen few places I have left with greater pleasure
than that I felt when, in 1885, I rode away from this town. Garces was
not able to make a favourable impression, and after, considering the
feasibility of going on to Zuñi, and deciding against it, he thought he
would visit the other towns with a hope of being better received, but a
few yells from some herders sent him back to his Yabipai guide and
several friendly Zuñis at Oraibi, where he occupied his corner again.
In the morning he perceived a multitude approaching, some bedecked with
paint and feathers, and when four of these came forward and ordered him
to leave he held up his crucifix and assured them of his desire to do
good to them. They made wry faces and cried “No, no,” so that he called
for his mule and departed, smiling upon them as he went. He returned by
the same route. It was the 4th of July when Garces was expelled by the
Oraibis, a declaration of independence on their part which they have
maintained down to the present day. That other Declaration of
Independence was made on this same day on the far Atlantic coast. The
Colonies were engaged in their battle for freedom, but no sound of that
strife then reached New Mexico, yet its portent was great for that
region where, three-quarters of a century later, the flag of the Great
Republic should float triumphant over all, Garces reached the Colorado
once more on July 25th, his arduous journey absolutely fruitless so far
as missionary work was concerned. He arrived at his mission of Bac
September 17, 1776.


A Court in Wolpi, Arizona. A Court in Wolpi, Arizona.
Drawing by F.S. DELLENBAUGH.


On July 29, 1776, another even greater entrada was begun at Santa Fé by
the Fray Padre Francisco Silvestre Velez Escalante,[9] in his search
for a route to Monterey, unaware that Garces had just traversed, next
to that of Oñate, the most practicable short route to be found. Garces
had written to Escalante, ministro doctrinero of Zuñi, a letter from
Oraibi, but as the ministro had already departed for Santa Fé, leaving
Fray Mariano Rosate in charge at Zuñi, the letter probably did not
reach him till his return. The northern country, notwithstanding
several small entradas and the considerable one of Juan Maria Ribera in
1761, who went as far as Gunnison River, was still a terra incognita,
and the distance to the Pacific was also an uncertain quantity.
Escalante believed a better road existed to Monterey by way of the
north than by the middle route, and a further incentive to journey that
way was probably the rumours of large towns in that direction, the same
will-o’-the-wisp the Spaniards for nearly three centuries had been
vainly pursuing. The authorities had urged two expeditions to Alta
California, to establish communication; Garces and Captain Anza had
carried out one, and now Escalante was to execute the other.

 [9] H. H. Bancroft gives a map of the route as he understands it,
 _History of the Pacific States_, p. 35, vol. xxv., also a condensation
 of the diary. Philip Harry gives a condensation in Simpson’s _Report_,
 Appendix R., p. 489. Some river names have been shifted since Harry
 wrote. What we call the Grand, upper part, was then the Blue.


A Zuñi Home. A Zuñi Home.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Survey.



The Governors of Zuñi. The Governors of Zuñi.
Shows well the genreal type of the Puebloans of the Basin of the
Colorado.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS.



Upper Waters of Rio Virgin. Upper Waters of Rio Virgin.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Survey.


Besides the ministro Escalante, there were in the party eight persons,
Padre Francisco Dominguez, Juan Pedro Cisneros, alcalde of Zuñi,
Bernardo Miera y Pacheco, capitain miliciano of Sante Fé, Don Juan
Lain, and four other soldiers. Lain had been with Ribera and was
therefore official guide. They went from Sante Fé by way of Abiquiu and
the Chama River to the San Juan about where it first meets the north
line of New Mexico, and thence across the several tributaries to the
head of the Dolores River, which they descended for eleven days. I am
at a loss to exactly follow the route, not having been able to consult
either the copy or the original of Escalante’s diary. The party made
its way across Grand River, the Book Plateau, White River, and finally
to the Green, called the San Buenaventura, which was forded, apparently
near the foot of Split-Mountain Canyon. Here they killed one of the
bisons which were numerous in the valley. Following the course of the
river down some ten leagues, they went up the Uinta and finally crossed
the Wasatch, coming down the western side evidently by way of what is
now known as Spanish Fork, to Utah Lake, then called by the natives
Timpanogos. Here they heard of a greater lake to the north, but instead
of seeking it they turned their course south-westerly in what they
considered the direction of Monterey through the Sevier River Valley,
the Sevier being called the Santa Isabel, and kept down along the
western edge of the High Plateaus. It being by this time the 7th of
October, Escalante concludes that it will be impossible to reach
Monterey before winter sets in and persuades his companions that the
best thing to do is to strike for the Moki towns. They cast lots to
determine this, and the decision is for Moki. Evidently he thought this
would be an easy road. When he was at Moki the year before, had he not
failed to go to the Colorado he would have better understood the nature
of the undertaking he now set for his expedition.


Pai Ute Girls, Southern Utah, Carrying Water. Pai Ute Girls, Southern
Utah, Carrying Water.
The jugs are wicker made tight with pitch.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.


Going on southward past what is now Parowan, they came to the
headwaters of a branch of the Virgen, in Cedar Valley, and this they
followed down to the main stream which they left flowing
south-westerly. The place where they turned from it was probably about
at Toquerville.[10] They were now trying to make their general course
south-east. Could I but see the original I certainly could identify the
route from here on, having been over the region so often. As Escalante
was obtaining what information he could from the natives, it seems to
me that his first course “south-east” was to Pipe Spring along the foot
of the Vermilion Cliffs, then his “north-east” was up toward Kanab and
through Nine-Mile Valley to the head of the Kaibab, where a trail led
him over to House Rock Valley, on his “south-east” tack, skirting the
Vermilion Cliffs again. But they lost it and struck the river at Marble
Canyon, through a misunderstanding of the course of the trail, which
bore easterly and then northerly around the base of the cliffs to what
is now Lee’s Ferry, where there was an ancient crossing. Another trail
goes (or did go) across the north end of the Paria Plateau and divides,
one branch coming down the high cliffs about three miles up the Paria
from the mouth, by a dizzy and zig-zag path, and the other keeping on
to the south-east and striking the river at the very point for which
Escalante was evidently now searching. Perhaps the Pai Utes had told
him of this trail as well as the one he tried to follow, which would
have taken him to the Lee’s Ferry crossing about thirty-five miles
below. He seems to have reached the brink of Marble Canyon, perhaps
half-way between the Paria and the Little Colorado,[11] and followed
up-stream first north and then (beyond Paria) north-east, hunting for a
ford. Twice he succeeded in descending to the water, but both times was
unable to cross. They had now become so reduced in food that they were
obliged to eat some of their horses. With great difficulty they climbed
over the cliffs, and at the end of twelve days from their first arrival
at the river they found the ford, which ever since has been called El
Vado de los Padres. This was the 8th of November, 1776. The entrance to
the river from the west, the side of their approach, is through a small
canyon in the homogeneous sandstone, no more than ten feet wide. The
course is then about half a mile down the middle of the river over a
long bar or shoal to the opposite side, where the exit is made upon a
rocky slope. It is a most difficult ford. The trail through the water
at the low stage, when, only, fording is possible, is marked by piles
of large stones. There is no ford at the Lee’s Ferry crossing.

 [10] From here to the California mission of San Gabriel would hardly
 have been as difficult as the route taken, excepting perhaps the
 matter of water, and little if any further than the distance to Santa
 Fé, but the Pai Utes could give him no information of the distance to
 the sea.


 [11] There was an old crossing near there, also.


Ashtishkel, a Navajo Chief. Ashtishkel, a Navajo Chief.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.


From this Crossing-of-the-Fathers, just above where the river enters
Arizona, to the Moki Towns Escalante had a plain trail, and a much
simpler topography, and had no difficulty in arriving there. The
remainder of his road, from Moki to Zuñi and around to Santa Fé, was
one he had travelled before, and the party soon completed the circuit
of more than 1500 miles mainly through unknown country, one of the most
remarkable explorations ever carried out in the West. It is sometimes
stated that Escalante crossed the Grand Canyon, but, as is perfectly
plain from the data, he did not; in fact, he could not have done it
with horses.

Garces was not yet finished with his labours on the lower Colorado, and
we will return to him. The authorities had decided to establish there
two nondescript settlements, a sort of cross between mission, pueblo,
and presidio. Captain Palma, the Yuma chief, whose devotions and piety
had so delighted the good Father, was eager to have missions started,
and constantly importuned the government to grant them. Garces,
therefore, went to Yuma again in 1779 to prepare the way, and in 1780
two of the hybrid affairs were inaugurated, one at what is now Fort
Yuma, called Puerto de la Purisima Concepcion, after the little canyon
hard by, so named by Garces previously, a canyon fifty feet deep and a
thousand feet long; the other, about eight miles down, called San Pedro
y San Pablo de Bicuner. There were four padres; Garces and Barraneche
at the upper station, and Diaz and Moreno at the lower. Each place had
eight or ten soldiers, a few colonists, and a few labourers. The
Spaniards were obliged to appropriate some of the best lands to till
for the support of the missions, and this, together with the general
poverty of the establishments when he had expected something fine,
disgusted Palma and exasperated him and the other Yumas. In June, 1781,
Captain Moncada, lieutenant-governor of Lower California, arrived with
soldiers and recruits en route for California settlements, and encamped
opposite Yuma. After some of these people had been sent forward or back
as the plans demanded, Moncada remained at the camp with a few of his
soldiers. No one suspected the tornado which was brewing. All the life
of the camp, of the missions, and of the Yumas went on with the same
apparent smoothness, but it was only a delusion suddenly and horribly
dispelled on the fateful 17th of July. Without a sign preliminary to
the execution of their wrath, Captain Palma and all his band threw
piety to the winds, and annihilated with clubs Moncada’s camp and most
of the men in the two missions. Garces and his assistant, Barraneche,
were at first spared. Even the conscience of Talma hesitated to murder
the good and amiable Garces, who had never been to him and his people
anything but a kind and generous friend, but the rabble declared these
two were the worst of all, and under this pressure Palma yielded. It
was the last terrible scene of this act in the life-drama we are
following. The lights were out, the curtain down. Military expeditions
were sent to avenge the massacre, but they might as well have chased
the stars. The missions on the Colorado were ended. Never again was an
attempt made to found one. The desert relapsed into its former complete
subjection to the native tribes, and the indifferent Colorado swept on
to the conflict with the sea-waves as if neither white man nor Amerind
had ever touched its waters. Nearly half a century passed before the
face of a white man was again seen at the mouth of the river, and all
the toil of Kino, Garces, and the rest was apparently as completely
wasted as if they had tried to stop the flow of the Colorado with a
broom.






CHAPTER V.




Breaking the Wilderness—Wanderings of the Trappers and Fur
Traders—General Ashley in Green River Valley, 1824—Pattie along the
Grand Canyon, 1826—Lieut. Hardy, R.N., in a Schooner on the Lower
Colorado, 1826—Jedediah Smith, Salt Lake to San Gabriel, 1826—Pattie on
the Lower Colorado in Canoes, 1827-28.


As the “sweet Afton” of old gently flowing among its green braes
compares with the fierce Colorado, so do those earnest padres who so
faithfully tried to plant their cross in the waste places, as sketched
in the chapter just closed with the martyrdom of Garces, compare with
the new set of actors that now appear, as the development of this drama
of the wilderness continues. The former fitted well into the strange
scenery; they became apart of it; they fraternised with the various
tribes native to the land, and all things together went forward with
pictorial harmony. They were like a few mellow figures blended
skilfully into the deep tones of an ancient canvas. But now the
turbulent spirit of the raging river itself pervades the new-comers who
march imperiously upon the mighty stage with the heavy tread of the
conqueror, out of tune with the soft old melody; temporising with
nothing; with a heedless stroke, like the remorseless hand of Fate,
obliterating all obstacles to their progress. Not theirs the desire to
save natives from perdition; rather to annihilate them speedily as
useless relics of a bygone time. They are savages among savages; quite
as interesting and delightful in their way as the older occupants of
the soil. It became in reality the conflict of the old and the new, and
then was set the standard by which the native tribes have ever since
been measured and dealt with.

The inevitable was simply coming to pass: one more act in the
world-play of continental subjugation to the European. The United
States, born in privation and blood, were growing into a nation eager
for expansion, and by 1815 they had already ventured beyond the
Mississippi, having purchased from France all territory north of Red
River, the Arkansas, and the 42nd parallel, as far as the unsettled
British boundary and the disputed region of Oregon. Naturally, then,
Americans wanted to know what was to be found in this vast tract
unknown to them, and when a few bold spirits pushed out to the great
mountains it was discovered that fur-bearing animals existed in
multitude. In the trapping of these and the trading in their pelts a
huge industry sprang up. In this trade future millionaires laid their
foundations.

The beaver were then the most profitable of all, and they were the most
abundant. The pelts were estimated by “packs,” each of which consisted
of about eighty skins, weighing one hundred pounds, and worth in the
mountains from three hundred to five hundred dollars. The profits were
thus speedy and very great. In the search for the richest rewards the
trapper continually pushed farther and farther away from the “States,”
encroaching at length on the territory claimed by Spain, a claim to be
soon (1821) adopted by the new-born Mexican Republic. Trespassing on
the tribal rights of Blackfoot, Sioux, Ute, or any other did not enter
into any one’s mind as something to be considered. Thus, rough-shod the
trapper broke the wilderness, fathomed its secret places, traversed its
trails and passes, marking them with his own blood and more vividly
with that of the natives. Incidentally, by right of their discoveries
and occupation of the wilderness, much of it became by the law of
nations a part of the lands of the United States, though still
nominally claimed by Mexico. Two years after the return of the famous
Lewis-and-Clark expedition, Andrew Henry “discovered” South Pass
(1808), and led his party through it into the Green River[1] Valley.
His discovery consisted, like many others of the time, in following up
the bison trails and the highways of the natives. The latter, of
course, knew every foot of the whole country; each tribe its own
special lands and more or less into and across those of its neighbours.

 [1] The name Green River was used as early as 1824, and was probably
 derived from the name of the early trapper. Till about 1835 it was
 usually called by the Crow name, Seedskeedee.


Map of Green River through the Uinta Mountains. Scale of this reduction
about 8 miles to 1 inch.



>Flaming Gorge, Green
River. Beginning of the Canyons. Flaming Gorge, Green River. Beginning
of the Canyons.
Picture just taken inside the entrance. Walls 1300 feet.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.



Red Canyon at Low Water. Red Canyon at Low Water.
Length 25 miles. Walls 1800 to 2500 feet high. Average width of river,
250 feet.


By the time the third decade of the nineteenth century was fairly begun
the trappers were crossing in considerable numbers from the headwaters
of the Missouri and the Platte into the valley of the Colorado and the
Columbia, and as early as 1824 one of the most brilliant figures of
this epoch, General Ashley,[2] having previously organised a
fur-trading company in St. Louis, then the centre of all Western
commerce, had established himself in Green River Valley with a large
band of expert trappers which included now famous names like Henry,
Bridger, Fitzpatrick, Green, Sublet, and Beckwourth. Provo (or Provost)
was already encamped in Brown’s Hole. One of Ashley’s principal camps
was what they called the “rendezvous” (there were a great many
French-Canadians engaged in the fur business, and hence numerous French
words were in common use among the trappers of the period), just above
“The Suck,” on Green River. This Suck was at the entrance to Flaming
Gorge, as it has since been named. Beckwourth says of this: “The
current, at a small distance from our camp, became exceedingly rapid,
and drew toward the centre from each shore.” The river here narrows
suddenly and attacks a high ridge. Doubling around a point to the left
and then as suddenly to the right, the swift water or “Suck” slackens
up in the quieter reach of Flaming Gorge. In their journeys after
beaver the Ashley party had been able to go into this gorge and the two
following ones, Horseshoe and Kingfisher, and had doubtless trapped in
them. Here were many beaver, and Ashley drew the inference that as many
existed below in the deeper canyon. Though he had discovered the
dangerous character of the river he decided to build boats and set
forth on the current in order to trap the canyon, the length of which
he did not know and underestimated. A purpose of reaching St. Louis by
this route has been attributed to Ashley, but as Hunt and others some
years before understood this to be a stream on whose lower waters
Spaniards lived, Ashley doubtless had the same information, and from
that he would have known that it was no practicable route to St. Louis.
Beckwourth, who relates the story of the trip,[3] makes no suggestion
of any far-off destination, nor does he say they took their packs
along, as they would have done if going to a commercial centre. It
seems to have been purely a trapping expedition, and was probably the
very first attempt to navigate Green River. They took along few
provisions, expecting to find beaver plentiful to the end of the
canyon, but after a few miles the beaver were absent, and, having
preserved none of the meat, the party began to suffer for food. They
were six days without eating, and, the high precipitous walls running
ever on and on, they became disheartened, or, in Western phrase,
“demoralised,” and proposed to cast lots to find which should make food
for the others, a proposition which horrified Ashley, and he begged
them to hold out longer, assuring them that the walls must soon break
and enable them to escape. They had not expected so long a gorge. Red
Canyon is twenty-five miles and, with the three above, the unbroken
canyon is about thirty-five miles. Under the circumstances the canyon
seemed interminable and the cliffs insurmountable. The latter grow more
precipitous toward the lower end, and scaling would be a difficult feat
for a man well fed and strong, though well-nigh hopeless for any
weakened by lack of proper food. At last, however, an opening appeared.
Here they discovered Provo encamped with an abundance of provisions, so
their troubles were quickly over. The opening they had arrived at was
probably Brown’s Hole. There is only one other place that might be
called an opening, and this is a small park-like break on the right
side of the river, not far above Brown’s Hole, formerly called Little
Brown’s Hole and also Ashley Park. The Ashley men would have had a hard
climb to get out of this place, and it is not probable that Provo would
have climbed into it, as no beaver existed there. It seems positive,
then, that Ashley came to Provo in Brown’s Hole. Thus he did not “make
his perillous way through Brown’s Hole,” as one author says, because he
ended his journey with the beginning of that peaceful park. They lost
two of their boats and several guns in Red Canyon, and Ashley left
there a mark to identify the time of his passage. He wrote his name and
the date, 1825, on a large rock above a sharp fall, which was (later,
1869,) named in his honour. I saw this inscription in 1871 and made a
careful copy of it, which is given here. See also the illustration of
Ashley Falls on page 113. The location of it is just west of C in the
words “Red Cañon” on the map, page 109. In the canyon of Lodore, at the
foot of Disaster Falls, we found some wreckage in the sand, a
bake-oven, tin plates, knives, etc., which Powell first saw in 1869,
but these could not have belonged to Ashley’s party, for plainly Ashley
did not enter Lodore at all. It was evidently from some later
expedition which probably started from Brown’s Park, in the days of
Fort Davy Crockett.

 [2] Wm. Henry Ashley, born in Virginia, 1778; went to Missouri 1802;
 general of militia; elected first governor 1820; went into fur trade
 1822 with Andrew Henry; elected to Congress 1831; twice re-elected;
 continued in office till March 4, 1837.—Chittenden.


 [3] _Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth_, edited by T. D.
 Bonner. Beckwourth was always called “Beckwith” in the mountains, but
 this was probably only a perversion of the original, though Chittenden
 seems to think he only assumed the former spelling on publishing his
 book.




Provo had plenty of horses, and Ashley and his men joined him going out
to Salt Lake, where Provo had come from.


Ashley Falls, Red Canyon, Green River. Ashley Falls, Red Canyon, Green
River.
General Ashley wrote his name on a rock about half way up the picture,
on the right, in 1825.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.


The year following Ashley’s attempt to trap Green River was a most
eventful one in the history of the Colorado. Time appeared to be ripe
for great journeys. The Mexicans outside of California were more
amiably inclined, and granted privileges to trappers in New Mexico. Two
men who were among the first to push their way into New Mexico were
James O. Pattie and his father, and the narrative of their experiences
as told by the younger Pattie is one of the most thrilling and
interesting books of Western adventure ever published.[4] They had
trapped on the Gila, or “Helay,” as they called it in 1825, and the
next year they went back there with a party, trapping the Gila and its
tributaries with gratifying success.[5] Working their way down the
Gila, they eventually reached its junction with what they called Red
River, the Great Colorado. Following up the Colorado, probably the
first white men to travel here since the time of Garces, they rode
through a camp of Coco-Maricopas, who ran frightened away, and the
Pattie party, passing them by as if they were mere chaff, camped four
miles farther on, where they were visited by about one hundred, “all
painted red in token of amity.” Farther up they entered the Mohave
country. When they met some of the inhabitants they “marched directly
through their village, the women and children screaming and hiding
themselves in their huts.” Three miles above, the Patties camped, and a
number of the Mohaves soon came to see them. They did not like the
looks of the chief, who made signs that he wanted a horse as payment
for the privilege of trapping in his domain. As the trappers recognised
no rights on the part of the natives, they peremptorily refused,
whereat the chief drew himself erect with a stern and fierce air and
sent an arrow into a tree, at the same time “raising his hand to his
mouth and making their peculiar yell.” The captain of the Pattie band
replied by taking his gun and shooting the arrow in two. Driven out of
the camp the following day, the chief shot a horse as he rode past it
and was himself instantly pierced with four rifle balls.

 [4] _The Personal Narrative of James O. Pattie, of Kentucky_, etc.,
 edited by Timothy Flint. Cincinnati, E. H. Flint, 1833. There is a
 copy in the Astor Library, New York.


 [5] There were two classes of trappers, the free and those in the
 employ of some company. The Patties belonged to the former class.


The Grand Canyon from Bright Angel Trail looking East. The Grand Canyon
from Bright Angel Trail looking East.
Point of view 1000 feet above the water. Total depth between 5000 and
6000 feet.
Photograph by ROSE.


A band of his followers, armed, of course, with only bows and arrows,
next day made a concerted attack, but were cut down by the rifles and
fine marksmanship of the Americans. As these Mohaves had been good
friends to Garces, and afterwards treated Americans well till they were
instigated by the Spaniards to fight, it is probable that a somewhat
more conciliatory approach might have avoided the trouble this party
experienced.


Entrance to Black Canyon, first seen by James O. Pattie. Entrance to
Black Canyon, first seen by James O. Pattie.
Photograph by WHEELER EXPEDITION.


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

On the 28th of March they came to a place on the river where “the
mountains shut in so close upon its shores that we were compelled to
climb a mountain and travel along the aclivity, the river still in
sight, and at an immense depth beneath us.” This was probably Black
Canyon; they are the first white men on record to reach it. They now
took a remarkable journey of fourteen days, but unfortunately little
detail is given, probably because Pattie’s editor considered a cut
across the country of little importance. They travelled, they thought,
one hundred leagues along these canyons, with the “river bluffs on the
opposite shore never more than a mile” from them.[6] Thus they
evidently did not see the Grand Canyon at its widest part. By April
10th they arrived “where the river emerges from these horrid mountains,
which so cage it up as to deprive all human beings of the ability to
descend to its banks and make use of its waters. No mortal has the
power of describing the pleasure I felt when I could once more reach
the banks of the river.” They had suffered for food on this journey,
but now they were again in a beaver country and also killed plenty of
elk, the skins of which they dressed for clothing. They had made the
first extended trip on record along the Grand Canyon and the other
canyons of the Colorado, but whether they passed up by the north or the
south I am unable to determine. My impression is that they passed by
the north, as they would otherwise have met with the Havasupai in their
Canyon, with the Little Colorado, and with the Moki. They would also
have struck the San Juan, but the first stream mentioned as coming in
is from the north, which they reached three days after arriving at the
place where they could get to the water. Three days after leaving this
they met a large body of Shoshones. They appear now to be somewhere on
Grand River. They had a brush with the Shoshones, whom they defeated,
and then compelled the women to exchange six scalps of Frenchmen whom
the Shoshones had killed on the headwaters of the Platte, for scalps of
members of their own party of whom the Patties had killed eight; They
also took from them all the stolen beaver-skins, five mules, and their
dried buffalo meat. After this interchange of civilities the trappers
went on to where the river forked again, neither fork being more than
twenty-five or thirty yards wide. The right-hand-fork pursued a
north-east course, and following it four days brought them (probably in
Middle Park) to a large village of the “Nabahoes.” Of these they
inquired as to the pass over the mountains (Continental Divide) and
were informed they must follow the left-hand fork, which they
accordingly did, and on the thirty-first day of May, 1826, came to the
gap, which they traversed, by following the buffalo trails through the
snow, in six days. Then they descended to the Platte, and went on north
to the Yellowstone, making in all a traverse of the whole Rocky
Mountain region probably never since surpassed, and certainly never
before approached.

 [6] “It is perhaps this very long and formidable range of mountains,”
 says Pattie, “which has caused that this country of Red River has not
 been more explored,” p. 98.


A few months later a lieutenant of the British Navy, R. W. H. Hardy,
travelling in Mexico, chartered in the port of Guaymas a
twenty-five-ton schooner, the _Bruja_ or _Sea Witch_, and sailed up the
Gulf of California. Encountering a good deal of trouble in high winds
and shoals he finally reached a vein of reddish water which he surmised
came from “Red River,” and at two o’clock of the same day he saw an
opening ahead which he took to be the mouth of the river. An hour later
all doubt was dispelled, and by half-past six he came to anchor for the
night at the entrance, believing the tide to be at nearly low water.
“In the middle of the night,” he says, “I was awakened by the dew and
the noise of jackals. I took this opportunity of examining the lead
which had been left hanging alongside, to see what water we had. What
was my astonishment to find only a foot and a half. The crew was sound
asleep. Not even the sentinel was able to keep his eyes open.” They got
off without damage at the rise of the tide, but the next day misfortune
awaited the schooner. The helmsman neglecting his duty for a moment as
they were working up the stream, the vessel lost headway, and the
fierce current immediately swept her, stern foremost, into the bank and
broke the rudder. After much labour the _Bruja_ was finally again
placed in the stream, where they waited for slack water, expecting then
to ship the rudder. “But in the Rio Colorado,” he declares with
italics, “_there is no such thing as slack water_. Before the ebb has
finished running the flood commences, boiling up full eighteen inches
above the surface and roaring like the rapids of Canada.” Had he known
what we now know he might have found a simile nearer his position at
the moment. Finding he could make no further progress with the a
schooner, he took a small boat and continued his voyage in it, though
not for any great distance, as he returned to the vessel at night. Five
or six thousand Yumas were seen, but they were entirely friendly. He
thought the mouth of the Gila was below his stranded vessel, but he was
mistaken in this, for it was in reality a great many miles farther up.
What he took for the Gila was the main Colorado itself, and what he
thought was the Colorado was only a bayou or flood-water channel. It
being midsummer the river was at flood. The bayou is still called the
False or Hardy’s Colorado.


The Navajo Type. The Navajo Type.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Survey.


After eight days of waiting they at last got their rudder shipped, the
vessel on the tide, and went back down the stream, one of the Yuma
women swimming after them till taken on board. She was landed at the
first opportunity. The interpreter told Hardy his was the first vessel
that had ever visited the river, and that they took it for a large
bird. The lieutenant was evidently not posted on the history of the
region, and the Yuma was excusable for not having a memory that went
back eighty years.[7] Hardy gave some of the names that still hold on
that part of the river, like Howard’s Reach, where his _Bruja_ was
stranded, Montague and Gore Islands, etc.

 [7] Fernando Consag entered the river, 1746, looking for mission
 sites, and two centuries before that was Alarçon.


The same month that Hardy sailed away from the mouth of the Colorado,
August, 1826, Jedediah Smith started from Salt Lake (the 22d), passed
south by Ashley’s or Utah Lake, and, keeping down the west side of the
Wasatch and the High Plateaus, reached the Virgen River near the
south-western corner of Utah. This he called Adams River in honour of
the President of the United States. Following it south-west through the
Pai Ute country for twelve days he came to its junction with what he
called the Seedskeedee, knowing it to be the same stream so called in
the north. This was the Colorado. Proceeding down the Colorado to the
Mohaves he was kindly received by them and remained some time
recuperating his stock. It may seem strange that the Mohaves should be
so perverse, killing one set of trappers and treating another like old
friends, but the secret of the difference on this occasion, perhaps,
lay in the difference of approach. Jedediah Smith was a sort of
reincarnation of the old padres, and of all the trappers the only one
apparently who allowed piety or humanitarianism to sway his will. His
piety was universally known. It was not an affectation, but a genuine
religion which he carried about with him into the fastnesses of the
mountains. Leaving the Mohaves he crossed the desert to the Californian
coast, where he afterwards had trouble with the authorities, who seemed
to bear a grudge against all American trappers, and who seized every
opportunity to maltreat and rob them. This, however, did not prevent
Smith from returning again after a visit to the northern rendezvous.
But while crossing the Colorado, the Mohaves, who had meanwhile been
instigated to harass Americans by the Spaniards (so it is said),
attacked the expedition, killing ten men and capturing everything.
Smith escaped to be afterwards killed on the Cimarron by the Comanches.


Upper Valley of the Virgen. Upper Valley of the Virgen.
Photograph by C.R. SAVAGE.


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

On the 9th of December (1827)[8] they started, probably the first
navigators of this part of the river since Alarçon, 287 years before.
That night they set forty traps and were rewarded with thirty-six
beaver. Such good luck decided them to travel slowly with the current,
about four miles an hour, “and trap the river clear.” The stream was
about two hundred to three hundred yards wide, with bottoms extending
back from six to ten miles, giving good camp-grounds all along. With
abundance of fat beaver meat and so many pelts added to their store
they forgot their misfortunes and began to count on reaching the
Spanish settlements they thought existed near the mouth of the river.
Sometimes their traps yielded as many as sixty beaver in a night, and
finally they were obliged to halt and make another canoe. So they went
slowly down, occasionally killing a couple of hostile natives, or deer,
panthers, foxes, or wild-cats. One animal is described as like an
African leopard, the first they had ever seen. At length they came to a
tribe much shorter of stature than the Yumas, and friendly. These were
probably Cocopas. Not a patch of clothing existed in the whole band,
and Pattie’s men gave the women some old shirts, intimating, as well as
they could, that they ought to wear some covering. These people were
well formed, and many of the women had exceptionally fine figures if
the judgment of the trappers can be trusted in this respect. When a gun
was fired they either fell prostrate or ran away, so little did they
know about firearms. The chief had a feast of young dog prepared for
his guests, who partook of it with reluctance. All communication was by
signs, and when the chief imitated the beating of surf and drew a cow
and a sheep in the sand, pointing west, they thought they were at last
nearing the longed-for Spanish settlements, and went on their way
joyfully. Little did they imagine that the settlements the chief
described were far off on the Californian coast.

 [8] The reader may think I introduce too many year-dates but I have
 found most books so lacking in this regard that I prefer to err on the
 other side.


The “Navajo Church,” a Freak of Erosion near Ft. Wingate, N.M. The
“Navajo Church,” a Freak of Erosion near Ft. Wingate, N.M.
The Basin of the Colorado is full of such architectural forms. See
Dellenbaugh Butte, p. 269. Gunnison Butte, p. 271. “Hole in the Wall,”
p. 41, etc.
Photograph by BEN WITTICK.


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


Cliffs of the Rio Virgin, about 2500 Feet High. Cliffs of the Rio
Virgin, about 2500 Feet High.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Survey.


They now proceeded with the ebb tide, stopping with the beginning of
the flood, constantly on the lookout for the Spanish settlements, and
not till the 28th, when they saw before them such a commotion of waters
that their small craft would be instantly engulfed, and wide sandy
stretches, perfectly barren, all round, did they realise what a mistake
they had made.

“The fierce billows,” says Pattie, “shut us in from below, the river
current from above, and murderous savages on either hand on the shore.
We had a rich cargo of furs, a little independence for each one of us
could we have disposed of them among the Spanish people whom we
expected to have found here. There were no such settlements. Every side
on which we looked offered an array of danger, famine, or death. In
this predicament what were furs to us.”

In order to escape they worked their way back up the river as far as
they could by rowing, poling, and towing, but on February 10th they met
a great rise which put a stop to progress. They now abandoned the
canoes, buried the furs in deep pits, and headed for the coast
settlements of California. After many vicissitudes, which I am unable
to relate here, they finally arrived, completely worn out, at the
Spanish mission of St. Catherine.

Now they believed their troubles were over, and that after recuperating
they could go back, bring in their furs, dispose of them handsomely,
and reap the reward of all their privation and toil. Not so, however.
Indeed, the worst of their trials was now to come. Before they
comprehended the intention the Spanish official had seized their rifles
and the men were locked up with only the commonest fare to relieve
their suffering. Cruelty followed cruelty, but they believed it was the
mistake of the minor officers, and appealed to the general in charge at
San Diego, expecting an order from him for release. Instead of this
they were marched under guard to San Diego, where each was confined in
a separate room, frustrating their plan to recapture their arms and
fight their way out. Pattie’s father presently became ill, and no
amount of entreaty was sufficient to gain permission for the son to see
him even for a moment. He died in his cell. After much argument and the
intercession of some of the minor officers, Pattie was permitted
liberty long enough to attend the funeral. At last the men were allowed
to go back for the furs, which no doubt the wily general intended to
confiscate, Pattie himself being retained as a hostage. But the furs
had been ruined by a rise of the river. Smallpox then began to rage on
the coast, and through this fact Pattie finally gained his freedom.
Having with him a quantity of vaccine virus, he was able to barter
skill in vaccinating the populace for liberty, though it was tardily
and grudgingly granted. He was able, at length, to get away from
California, and returned, broken in health and penniless, by way of the
City of Mexico, to his old home near Cincinnati, after six years of
extraordinary travel through the wildest portions of the Rocky Mountain
region and the extreme Southwest.


The “Colob” Country, Southern Utah. The “Colob” Country, Southern Utah.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.


In the year 1826, an afterwards famous personage appeared in the valley
of the Colorado, on the Gila branch, being no less than Kit Carson,[9]
one of the greatest scouts and trappers of all. At this time he was but
seventeen years old, though in sagacity, knowledge, and skill soon the
equal of any trapper in the field. In 1827, Ewing Young, another noted
trapper, having been driven away from the Gila by the natives,
organised a company of forty men to go back and punish them, which
meant to kill all they could see, innocent or guilty. Carson was one of
this party. They succeeded in killing fifteen of the offenders, after
which slight diversion they went on down the stream, trapping it as
they went, but finally, running short of provisions, they had to eat
horses. Arriving among the Mohaves, they obtained food from them, and
proceeded across to San Gabriel Mission, to which place after trapping
up the Sacramento Valley, they again returned, in season to assist the
Spaniards to reduce the natives around the settlement to submission.
This was accomplished by the simple method of killing one-third of
them.

 [9] _Life of Kit Carson_, by Charles Burdett. There are several Lives
 by other biographers.


Limited space prohibits my recounting the exploits of even the smaller
part of the trappers of this period, but with what follows I believe
the reader will possess a sufficient picture of the life of the Rocky
Mountain Trapper at this time.[10] A trail from Santa Fé to California
was opened by way of what is now Gunnison Valley on Green River, and
thence west by about the same route that Jedediah Smith followed, that
is, down the Virgen River, by William Wolfskill who went out by this
route to Los Angeles, in 1830.[11] There were trappers now in every
part of the wilderness, excepting always the canyons of the Green and
Colorado, which were given a wide berth as their forbidding character
became better known; and as time went on the stories of those who had
here and there looked into the angry depths, or had essayed a tilt with
the furious rapids at one or two northern points, were enlarged upon,
and, like all unknown things, the terrors became magnified.

 [10] The reader is referred for exact details to the admirable work by
 H. M. Chittenden, _The American Fur Trade of the Far West_.


 [11] H. H. Bancroft says 1831-2.


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


In the Canyon of Lodore. In the Canyon of Lodore.
Walls about 2500 feet, width of river about 400 feet.


In May, 1839, a traveller who was a careful observer, Thomas J.
Farnham, went from New Mexico across the mountains to Brown’s Hole en
route for Oregon, and a portion of his narrative[12] is of deep
interest in this connection, because his guide, Kelly, gave him some
account of the Green and Colorado, which reflects the amount of real
knowledge then possessed concerning the canyon-river.

 [12] _Travels in the Great Western Prairies, the Anahuac and Rocky
 Mountains, and in the Oregon Territory_, by Thomas J. Farnham. There
 is a copy in the library of Columbia University, New York.


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

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

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


Uinta Utes, Saiar’s Home. Uinta Utes, Saiar’s Home.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Survey.


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

Note.—Near the emigrant crossing of Green River, in Wyoming, early in
1849, a party bound for California discovered an old scow ferry-boat,
twelve feet long and about six feet wide, with two oars. Deciding to
complete their journey by water they embarked. Later they built canoes.
They were: William Lewis Manly (aged 29); M. S. McMahon; Charles and
Joseph Hazelrig; Richard Field; Alfred Watson; and John Rogers. Manly’s
account appears entirely truthful. He tells of canyons, rapids, etc.,
till near the mouth of Uinta River they met the Ute chief Walker
(Wakar) who explained by signs that the fury of the river below was
worse than above, and all but two gave up. These two, McMahon and
Field, stopped with the Utes, intending to continue. The others went to
Salt Lake. Wakar (whom McMahon calls “the generous old chief”) repeated
his warnings. Field lost courage, and finally McMahon also abandoned
the desire. Manly’s story (first published in the Santa Clara Valley
Weekly) is given in his book Death Valley in ’49. The volume was edited
by the late Henry L. Brainard, head of the San Jose, California,
company which, in 1894, published it. It was Mr. Brainard who secured
the story from M

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