x-elders, and cottonwood groves. To the east we look up the
valley of the Vermilion, through which Fremont found his path on his way
to the great parks of Colorado.

The reading of the barometer taken, we start down in company, and reach
camp tired and hungry, which does not abate one bit our enthusiasm as we
tell of the day's work with its glory of landscape.

_June 6._--At daybreak I am awakened by a chorus of birds. It seems as
if all the feathered songsters of the region have come to the old tree.
Several species of warblers, woodpeckers, and flickers above, meadow
larks in the grass, and wild geese in the river. I recline on my elbow
and watch a lark near by, and then awaken my bedfellow, to listen to my
Jenny Lind. A real morning concert for _me;_ none of your _"matinees"!_

Our cook has been an ox-driver, or "bull-whacker," on the plains, in
one of those long trains now no longer seen, and he hasn't forgotten his
old ways. In the midst of the concert, his voice breaks in: "Roll out!
roll out! bulls in the corral! chain up the gaps! Roll out! roll out!
roll out!" And this is our breakfast bell.

To-day we pass through, the park, and camp at the head of another
canyon.

_June 7.--_To-day two or three of us climb to the summit of the cliff on
the left, and find its altitude above camp to be 2,086 feet. The rocks
are split with fissures, deep and narrow, sometimes a hundred feet or
more to the bottom, and these fissures are filled with loose earth and
decayed vegetation in which lofty pines find root. On a rock we find a
pool of clear, cold water, caught from yesterday evening's shower. After
a good drink we walk out to the brink of the canyon and look down to the
water below. I can do this now, but it has taken several years of
mountain climbing to cool my nerves so that I can sit with my feet over
the edge and calmly look down a precipice 2,000 feet. And yet I cannot
look on and see another do the same. I must either bid him come away or
turn my head. The canyon walls are buttressed on a grand scale, with
deep alcoves intervening; columned crags crown the cliffs, and the river
is rolling below.

When we return to camp at noon the sun shines in splendor on vermilion
walls, shaded into green and gray where the rocks are lichened over; the
river fills the channel from wall to wall, and the canyon opens, like a
beautiful portal, to a region of glory. This evening, as I write, the
sun is going down and the shadows