Now we return to camp. While eating supper we very naturally speak of better fare, as musty bread and spoiled bacon are not palatable. Soon I see Hawkins down by the boat, taking up the sextant--rather a strange proceeding for him--and I question him concerning it. He replies that he is trying to find the latitude and longitude of the nearest pie. July 20.--This morning Captain Powell and I go out to climb the west wall of the canyon, for the purpose of examining the strange rocks seen yesterday from the other side. Two hours bring us to the top, at a point between the Green and Colorado overlooking the junction of the rivers. A long neck of rock extends toward the mouth of the Grand. Out on this we walk, crossing a great number of deep crevices. Usually the smooth rock slopes down to the fissure on either side. Sometimes powell-canyons-141.jpg A LATERAL CANYON. 214 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO. it is an interesting question to us whether the slope is not so steep that we cannot stand on it. Sometimes, starting down, we are compelled to go on, and when we measure the crevice with our eye from above we are not always sure that it is not too wide for a jump. Probably the slopes would not be difficult if there was not a fissure at the lower end; nor would the fissures cause fear if they were but a few feet deep. It is curious how a little obstacle becomes a great obstruction when a misstep would land a man in the bottom of a deep chasm. Climbing the face of a cliff, a man will without hesitancy walk along a step or shelf but a few inches wide if the landing is but ten feet below, but if the foot of the cliff is a thousand feet down he will prefer to crawl along the shelf. At last our way is cut off by a fissure so deep and wide that we cannot pass it. Then we turn and walk back into the country, over the smooth, naked sandstone, without vegetation, except that here and there dwarf cedars and piñón pines have found a footing in the huge cracks. There are great basins in the rock, holding water,--some but a few gallons, others hundreds of barrels.