At the foot of this, without any preliminaries, they were literally swept into the heart of the mountains, for it is here that the river so suddenly rends the massive formations in twain and speeds away toward the sea between wonderful precipices of red sandstone, churning itself to ivory in the headlong rush.

This was named the Canyon of Lodore at the suggestion of one of the men.

The work of safely proceeding down the torrent now grew far more difficult.

Rapids were numerous and the descent in most of them very great.

The boats had to be handled with extra caution.