l slope down, with here and there a fall. At other places huge rocks
have fallen and block the way. Down such a one the two men start. There
is a curious plant growing out from the crevices of the rock. A dozen
stems will start from one root and grow to the length of eight or ten
feet and not throw out a branch or twig, but these stems are thickly
covered with leaves. Now and then the two men come to a bunch of dead
stems and make a fire to mark for us their way and progress.

In the meantime we find such a gulch and start down, but soon come to
the "jumping-off place," where we can throw a stone and faintly hear it
strike, away below. We fear that we shall have to stay here, clinging to
the rocks until daylight. Our little Indian gathers a few dry stems,
ties them into a bundle, lights one end, and holds it up. The others do
the same, and with these torches we find a way out of trouble. Helping
each other, holding torches for each other, one clinging to another's
hand until we can get footing, then supporting the other on his
shoulders, thus we make our passage into the depths of the canyon.

And now Captain Bishop has kindled a huge fire of driftwood on the bank
of the river. This and the fires in the gulch opposite and our own
flaming torches light up little patches that make more manifest the
awful darkness below. Still, on we go for an hour or two, and at last we
see Captain Bishop coming up the gulch with a huge torchlight on his
shoulders. He looks like a fiend, waving brands and lighting the fires
of hell, and the men in the opposite gulch are imps, lighting delusive
fires in inaccessible crevices, over yawning chasms; our own little
Indian is surely the king of wizards, so I think, as I stop for a few
moments on a rock to rest. At last we meet Captain Bishop, with his
flaming torch, and as he has learned the way he soon pilots us to the
side of the great Colorado. We are athirst and hungry, almost to
starvation. Here we lie down on the rocks and drink, just a mouthful or
so, as we dare; then we make a cup of coffee, and spreading our blankets
on a sand beach the roaring Colorado lulls us to sleep.

_September 18._--We are in the Grand Canyon, by the side of the
Colorado, more than 6,000 feet below our camp on the mountain side,
which is 18 miles away; but the miles of horizontal distance represent
but a small part of the day's labor before us. It is the mile of
altitude we must gain that makes it a Herculean t