Down, and down, and ever down, roaring and leaping and throwing its spiteful spray against the hampering rocks the terrible river ran, carrying our boats along with it like little wisps of straw in the midst of a Niagara, the terraced walls around us sometimes fantastically eroded into galleries, balconies, alcoves, and Gothic caves that lent to them an additional weird and wonderful aspect, while the reverberating turmoil of the ever-descending flood was like some extravagant musical accompaniment to the extraordinary panorama flitting past of rock sculpture and bounding cliffs.
The 22d was a day to be particularly remembered, for the walls, though more broken at the water's edge, were now some thirty-five hundred feet high and seemed to be increasing by leaps and bounds, for at one place, through a side gorge on the right, we could discern cliffs so far above our heads that tall pine trees looked no larger than lead pencils.

It was the end of the Kaibab, whose summit was more than five thousand feet higher than the river at this point.

Cataract followed rapid and rapid followed cataract as we were hurled on down through the midst of the sublimity, which, parting at our advance, closed again behind like some wonderful phantasmagoria.

At times in the headlong rush the boats could barely be held in control.

Once, a wild mass of breakers appeared immediately in the path of our boat, from which it was impossible to escape, even though we made a severe effort to do so.