We thought we were surely to be crushed, and I shall not forget the seconds that passed as we waited for the collision which never came, for when the boat dashed into the midst of the spray, there was no shock whatever; we glided through as if on oil,--the rocks were too far beneath the surface to harm us.

So constant was the rush of the descending waters that our oars were needed only for guidance.
Late in the day there came a long straight stretch, at the bottom of which the river appeared to vanish.

Had any one said the course was now underground from that point onward, it would have seemed entirely appropriate.

In the outer world the sun was low, though it had long been gone to us, and the blue haze of approaching night was drawing a veil of strange uncertainty among the cliffs, while far above, the upper portions of the mighty eastern walls, at all times of gorgeous hue, were now beautifully enriched by the last hot radiance of the western sky.
Such a view as this was worth all the labour we had accomplished.

When the end of this marvellous piece of canyon was reached a small river was found to enter on the left through a narrow gorge like the main canyon.
It was the Little Colorado, and beside it on a sand-bank we stopped for the night, having ended one of the finest runs of our experience, about eighteen miles with but a single let-down; yet in this distance there were eighteen rapids, one of which was about two and one half miles long.