June 4---We start early and run through to Brown's Park. Halfway down the valley, a spur of a red mountain stretches across the river, which cuts a canyon through it. Here the walls are comparatively low, but vertical. A vast number of swallows have built their adobe houses on the face of the cliffs, on either side of the river. The waters are deep and quiet, but the swallows are swift and noisy enough, sweeping by in their curved paths through the air or chattering from the rocks, while the young ones stretch their little heads on naked necks FROM FLAMING GORGE TO THE GATE OF LODORE. 147 through the doorways of their mud houses and clamor for food. They are a noisy people. We call this Swallow Canyon. Still down the river we glide until an early hour in the afternoon, when we go into camp under a giant cottonwood standing on the right bank a little way back from the stream. The party has succeeded in killing a fine lot of wild ducks, and during the afternoon a mess of fish is taken. June 5.--With one of the men I climb a mountain, off on the right. A long spur, with broken ledges of rock, puts down to the river, and along its course, or up the "hogback," as it is called, I make the ascent. Dunn, who is climbing to the same point, is coming up the gulch. Two hours' hard work has brought us to the summit. These mountains are all verdure-clad; pine and cedar forests are set on green terraces; snow-clad mountains are seen in the distance, to the west; the plains of the upper Green stretch out before us to the north until they are lost in the blue heavens; but half of the river-cleft range intervenes, and the river itself is at our feet. This half range, beyond the river, is composed of long ridges nearly parallel with the valley. On the farther ridge, to the north, four creeks have their sources. These cut through the intervening ridges, one of which is much higher than that on which they head, by canyon gorges; then they run with gentle curves across the valley, their banks set with willows, box-elders, and cottonwood groves. To the east we look up the valley of the Vermilion, through which Fremont found his path on his way to the great parks of Colorado. The reading of the barometer taken, we start down in company, and reach camp tired and hungry, which does not abate one bit our enthusiasm as we tell of the day's work with its glory of landscape. June 6.--At daybreak I am awakened by a chorus of birds. It seems as if all the feathered songsters of the region have come to the old tree. Several species of warblers, woodpeckers, and flickers above, meadow larks in the grass, and wild geese in the river. I recline on my elbow and watch a lark near by, and then awaken my bedfellow, to listen to my Jenny Lind. A real morning concert for me; none of your "matinées"! Our cook has been an ox-driver, or "bull-whacker," on the plains, in 148 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO. powell-canyons-101.jpg AN ANCIENT PUEBLO METATE.