d deep gulches are flanked with
great crags, and snow fields are seen near the summits. So the mountains
are in uniform,--green, gray, and silver. Wherever we look there is but
a wilderness of rocks,--deep gorges where the rivers are lost below
cliffs and towers and pinnacles, and ten thousand strangely carved forms
in every direction, and beyond them mountains blending with the clouds.

Now we return to camp. While eating supper we very naturally speak of
better fare, as musty bread and spoiled bacon are not palatable. Soon I
see Hawkins down by the boat, taking up the sextant--rather a strange
proceeding for him--and I question him concerning it. He replies that he
is trying to find the latitude and longitude of the nearest pie.

_July 20.--_This morning Captain Powell and I go out to climb the west
wall of the canyon, for the purpose of examining the strange rocks seen
yesterday from the other side. Two hours bring us to the top, at a point
between the Green and Colorado overlooking the junction of the rivers.

A long neck of rock extends toward the mouth of the Grand. Out on this
we walk, crossing a great number of deep crevices. Usually the smooth
rock slopes down to the fissure on either side. Sometimes it is an
interesting question to us whether the slope is not so steep that we
cannot stand on it. Sometimes, starting down, we are compelled to go
on, and when we measure the crevice with our eye from above we are not
always sure that it is not too wide for a jump. Probably the slopes
would not be difficult if there was not a fissure at the lower end; nor
would the fissures cause fear if they were but a few feet deep. It is
curious how a little obstacle becomes a great obstruction when a misstep
would land a man in the bottom of a deep chasm. Climbing the face of a
cliff, a man will without hesitancy walk along a step or shelf but a few
inches wide if the landing is but ten feet below, but if the foot of the
cliff is a thousand feet down he will prefer to crawl along the shelf.
At last our way is cut off by a fissure so deep and wide that we cannot
pass it. Then we turn and walk back into the country, over the smooth,
naked sandstone, without vegetation, except that here and there dwarf
cedars and pinon pines have found a footing in the huge cracks. There
are great basins in the rock, holding water,--some but a few gallons,
others hundreds of barrels.

The day is spent in walking about through these strange scene