tones
are lichened over; delicate mosses grow in the moist places, and ferns
festoon the walls.

CHAPTER VIII.

FROM ECHO PARK TO THE MOUTH OF THE UINTA RIVER.

The Yampa enters the Green from the east. At a point opposite its mouth
the Green runs to the south, at the foot of a rock about 700 feet high
and a mile long, and then turns sharply around the rock to the right and
runs back in a northerly course parallel to its former direction for
nearly another mile, thus having the opposite sides of a long, narrow
rock for its bank. The tongue of rock so formed is a peninsular
precipice with a mural escarpment along its whole course on the east,
but broken down at places on the west.

On the east side of the river, opposite the rock and below the Yampa,
there is a little park, just large enough for a farm, already fenced
with high walls of gray homogeneous sandstone. There are three river
entrances to this park: one down the Yampa; one below, by coming up the
Green; and another down the Green. There is also a land entrance down a
lateral canyon. Elsewhere the park is inaccessible. Through this land
entrance by the side canyon there is a trail made by Indian hunters, who
come down here in certain seasons to kill mountain sheep. Great hollow
domes are seen in the eastern side of the rock, against which the Green
sweeps; willows border the river; clumps of box-elder are seen; and a
few cottonwoods stand at the lower end. Standing opposite the rock, our
words are repeated with startling clearness, but in a soft, mellow tone,
that transforms them into magical music. Scarcely can one believe it is
the echo of his own voice. In some places two or three echoes come back;
in other places they repeat themselves, passing back and forth across
the river between this rock and the eastern wall. To hear these repeated
echoes well, we must shout. Some of the party aver that ten or twelve
repetitions can be heard. To me, they seem rapidly to diminish and merge
by multiplicity, like telegraph poles on an outstretched plain. I have
observed the same phenomenon once before in the cliffs near Long's Peak,
and am pleased to meet with it again.

During the afternoon Bradley and I climb some cliffs to the north.
Mountain sheep are seen above us, and they stand out on the rocks and
eye us intently, not seeming to move. Their color is much like that of
the gray sandstone beneath them, and, immovable as they are, they appear
like carved