inues swift, but we have no serious difficulty, and at twelve
o'clock emerge from the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. We are in a valley
now, and low mountains are seen in the distance, coming to the river
below. We recognize this as the Grand Wash.

A few years ago a party of Mormons set out from St. George, Utah, taking
with them a boat, and came down to the Grand Wash, where they divided, a
portion of the party crossing the river to explore the San Francisco
Mountains. Three men--Hamblin, Miller, and Crosby--taking the boat, went
on down the river to Callville, landing a few miles below the mouth of
the Rio Virgen. We have their manuscript journal with us, and so the
stream is comparatively well known.

To-night we camp on the left bank, in a mesquite thicket.

The relief from danger and the joy of success are great. When he who has
been chained by wounds to a hospital cot until his canvas tent seems
like a dungeon cell, until the groans of those who lie about tortured
with probe and knife are piled up, a weight of horror on his ears that
he cannot throw off, cannot forget, and until the stench of festering
wounds and anaesthetic drugs has filled the air with its loathsome
burthen,--when he at last goes out into the open field, what a world he
sees! How beautiful the sky, how bright the sunshine, what "floods of
delirious music" pour from the throats of birds, how sweet the fragrance
of earth and tree and blossom! The first hour of convalescent freedom
seems rich recompense for all pain and gloom and terror.

Something like these are the feelings we experience to-night. Ever
before us has been an unknown danger, heavier than immediate peril.
Every waking hour passed in the Grand Canyon has been one of toil. We
have watched with deep solicitude the steady disappearance of our scant
supply of rations, and from time to time have seen the river snatch a
portion of the little left, while we were a-hungered. And danger and
toil were endured in those gloomy depths, where ofttimes clouds hid the
sky by day and but a narrow zone of stars could be seen at night. Only
during the few hours of deep sleep, consequent on hard labor, has the
roar of the waters been hushed. Now the danger is over, now the toil has
ceased, now the gloom has disappeared, now the firmament is bounded only
by the horizon, and what a vast expanse of constellations can be seen!

The river rolls by us in silent majesty; the quiet of the camp is sweet;
our