rocks and cataracts,
shut in from the outer world, always face to face with the Shadow of
Death. It was to be a duel to the finish between the mysterious torrent
on the one side and a little group of valiant men on the other. Never
had plumed knight of old a more dreadful antagonist. Like the Sleeping
Beauty, this strange Problem lay in the midst of an enchanted land
guarded by the wizard Aridity and those wonderful water-gods Erosion
and Corrasion, waiting for the knight-errant brave, who should break the
spell and vanquish the demon in his lair. No ordinary man was equal to
this difficult task, which demanded not alone courage of the highest
order, but combined with this courage a master-mind and the strategic
skill of a general. But there comes a time for everything. The moment
for shattering this mystery had apparently arrived and the mortal who
was to achieve this wonderful feat enters upon the scene with the quiet
nerve and perfect confidence of a master. He realised the gravity of the
proposition and therein rested his strength. He knew no ordinary boat
could hope to live in the turmoil of waters that lashed themselves to
fury among the rocks and against the towering and continuous cliffs; and
he knew the party must be self-supporting in every sense of the term,
depending on nothing but their own powers and what they could carry
along.

The universal dread of the Colorado and its gorges had by this time
considerably augmented. The public imagination pictured the roaring
flood ploughing its dismal channel through dark subterranean galleries
where human life would not be worth a single drop of tossing spray; or
leaping at a bound over precipices beside which the seething plunge of
Niagara was but a toy. No one could deny these weird tales. No one knew.
But Powell was fortified by Science, and he surmised that nowhere would
he encounter any obstruction which his ingenuity could not surmount.

I remember one morning, on the second voyage, when we had made an early
start and the night-gloom still lingered in the depths of Marble Canyon
as we bore down on a particularly narrow place where the river turned
a sharp bend to disappear between walls vertical at the water, into a
deep-blue haze, it seemed to me that ANYTHING might be found there,
and looking up from my seat in the bow of our boat into the gallant
explorer's face, I said: "Major, what would you have done on the first
trip if just beyond that bend you had com