Into this we descend, and then we follow it for miles, clambering down and still down. Often we cross beds of lava, that have been poured into the canyon by lateral channels, and these angular fragments of basalt make the way very rough for the animals. About two o'clock the guide halts us with his wand, and, springing over the rocks, he is lost in a gulch. In a few minutes he returns, and tells us there is a little water below in a pocket. It is vile and our ponies refuse to drink it. We pass on, still descending. A mile or two from the water basin we come to a precipice more than 1,000 feet to the bottom. There is a canyon running at a greater depth and at right angles to this, into which this enters by the precipice; and this second canyon is a lateral one to the greater one, in the bottom of which we are to find the river. Searching about, we find a way by which we can descend along the shelves and steps and piles of broken rocks. We start, leading our ponies; a wall upon our left; unknown depths on our right. At places our way is along shelves so narrow or so sloping that I ache with fear lest a pony should make a misstep and knock a man over the cliffs with him. Now and then we start the loose rocks under our feet, and over the cliffs they go, thundering down, down, the echoes rolling through distant canyons. At last we pass along a level shelf for some distance, then we turn to the right and zigzag down a steep slope to the bottom. Now we pass along this lower canyon for two or three miles, to where it terminates in the Grand Canyon, as the other ended in this, only the river is 1,800 feet below us, and it seems at this distance to be but a creek. Our withered guide, the human pickle, seats himself on a rock and seems wonderfully amused at our discomfiture, for we can see no way by which to descend to the river. After some minutes he quietly rises and, beckoning us to follow, points out a narrow sloping shelf on the right, and this is to be our way. It leads along the cliff for half a mile to a wider bench beyond, which, he says, is broken down on the other side in a great slide, and there we can get to the river. So we start out on the shelf; it is so steep we can hardly stand on it, and to fall or slip is to go--don't look to see! It is soon manifest that we cannot get the ponies along the ledge. The storms have washed it down since our guide was here last, years ago. One of the ponies has gone so far that we cannot turn him back until we 314 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.