y
as possible. The next day we were at it early, easily running the first
cataract, but just below it an immediate landing was imperative at the
head of another which no man in his senses would think of running. Some
hard work put us below that, and then came one far worse. The morning
was gone before we saw its foam receding behind us. The following day,
on summing up, after much severe toil, and stopping to repair boats,
it was found that we had gone only a mile and a half! At this rate, we
thought, when would we see the end of this gorge? But in the morning our
wet clothes were put on without a murmur from any one, and once more
we renewed the attack. The worst fall the next day was a drop of about
twenty feet in twenty yards; a sharp plunge of the river in one mass.
As it seemed free from rocks in the middle a run was decided on. We
therefore pulled squarely into it. On both sides the river was beaten
to solid foam amongst the rocks, but in the middle, where we were,
there was a clean chute, followed by a long tail of ugly waves. We
were entirely successful, though the waves broke over my head till they
almost took my breath away. The walls reached a height of twenty-five
hundred feet, seeming to us almost perpendicular on both sides. It was
the narrowest deep chasm we had yet seen, and beneath these majestic
cliffs we ourselves appeared mere pigmies, creeping about with our
feeble strength to overcome the tremendous difficulties. The loud
reverberation of the roaring water, the rugged rocks, the toppling
walls, the narrow sky, all combined to make this a fearful place, which
no pen can adequately describe. Another day the Major and I climbed out,
reaching an altitude, some distance back from the brink, 3135 feet
above the river. The day after this climb the walls ran up to about
twenty-seven hundred feet, apparently in places absolutely vertical,
though Stanton, who came through here in 1890, said he did not think
they were anywhere perpendicular to the top. The tongue of a bend we
found always more or less broken, but in the curve the cliffs certainly
had all the effect of absolute perpendicularity, and in one place I
estimated that if a rock should fall from the brink it would have struck
on or near our boat. This shows, at any rate, that the walls were very
straight. The boats seemed mere wisps of straw by comparison, and once
when I saw one which had preceded ours, lying at the end of a clear
stretch, I was star