d in
our _ponchos,_ getting what sleep we can.

_August 15.--_This morning we find we can let down for 300 or 400 yards,
and it is managed in this way: we pass along the wall by climbing from
projecting point to point, sometimes near the water's edge, at other
places 50 or 60 feet above, and hold the boat with a line while two men
remain aboard and prevent her from being dashed against the rocks and
keep the line from getting caught on the wall. In two hours we have
brought them all down, as far as it is possible, in this way. A few
yards below, the river strikes with great violence against a projecting
rock and our boats are pulled up in a little bay above. We must now
manage to pull out of this and clear the point below. The little boat is
held by the bow obliquely up the stream. We jump in and pull out only a
few strokes, and sweep clear of the dangerous rock. The other boats
follow in the same manner and the rapid is passed.

It is not easy to describe the labor of such navigation. We must prevent
the waves from dashing the boats against the cliffs. Sometimes, where
the river is swift, we must put a bight of rope about a rock, to prevent
the boat from being snatched from us by a wave; but where the plunge is
too great or the chute too swift, we must let her leap and catch her
below or the undertow will drag her under the falling water and sink
her. Where we wish to run her out a little way from shore through a
channel between rocks, we first throw in little sticks of driftwood and
watch their course, to see where we must steer so that she will pass the
channel in safety. And so we hold, and let go, and pull, and lift, and
ward--among rocks, around rocks, and over rocks.

And now we go on through this solemn, mysterious way. The river is very
deep, the canyon very narrow, and still obstructed, so that there is no
steady flow of the stream; but the waters reel and roll and boil, and we
are scarcely able to determine where we can go. Now the boat is carried
to the right, perhaps close to the wall; again, she is shot into the
stream, and perhaps is dragged over to the other side, where, caught in
a whirlpool, she spins about. We can neither land nor run as we please.
The boats are entirely unmanageable; no order in their running can be
preserved; now one, now another, is ahead, each crew laboring for its
own preservation. In such a place we come to another rapid. Two of the
boats run it perforce. One succeeds in landi