very precious to me; but
at last they arrive. The blade of one of the oars is pushed into a
little crevice in the rock beyond me in such a manner that they can hold
me pressed against the wall. Then another is fixed in such a way that I
can step on it; and thus I am extricated.

Still another hour is spent in examining the river from this side, but
no good view of it is obtained; so now we return to the side that was
first examined, and the afternoon is spent in clambering among the crags
and pinnacles and carefully scanning the river again. We find that the
lateral streams have washed boulders into the river, so as to form a
dam, over which the water makes a broken fall of 18 or 20 feet; then
there is a rapid, beset with rocks, for 200 or 300 yards, while on the
other side, points of the wall project into the river. Below, there is a
second fall; how great, we cannot tell. Then there is a rapid, filled
with huge rocks, for 100 or 200 yards. At the bottom of it, from the
right wall, a great rock projects quite halfway across the river. It has
a sloping surface extending up stream, and the water, coming down with
all the momentum gained in the falls and rapids above, rolls up this
inclined plane many feet, and tumbles over to the left. I decide that it
is possible to let down over the first fall, then run near the right
cliff to a point just above the second, where we can pull out into a
little chute, and, having run over that in safety, if we pull with all
our power across the stream, we may avoid the great rock below. On my
return to the boat I announce to the men that we are to run it in the
morning. Then we cross the river and go into camp for the night on some
rocks in the mouth of the little side canyon.

After supper Captain Howland asks to have a talk with me. We walk up the
little creek a short distance, and I soon find that his object is to
remonstrate against my determination to proceed. He thinks that we had
better abandon the river here. Talking with him, I learn that he, his
brother, and William Dunn have determined to go no farther in the boats.
So we return to camp. Nothing is said to the other men.

For the last two days our course has not been plotted. I sit down and do
this now, for the purpose of finding where we are by dead reckoning. It
is a clear night, and I take out the sextant to make observation for
latitude, and I find that the astronomic determination agrees very
nearly with that of the pl