In the journal of the first day on the river Captain Clark writes: "At the distance of a mile from camp the river passes under a high bluff for about 23 miles, when the bottom widens on both sides." This would give the impression that the river flowed continuously for many miles under an overhanging bluff. This it does not do, and could hardly have done at any previous period. What it does do is to run along the base of a long chain of broken bluffs, many of which it has undermined. I have always thought of this as by long odds the most beautiful and picturesque stretch of stream I navigated between the Rockies and the lower Mississippi. The bluffs varied in natural colour from a grey-brown to a reddish-black, but mosses and lichens and mineral stains from the hills behind tinted their abrupt faces with streaks and patches of various shades, all blended like delicate pastelling. The main stream usually ran close up against the bluffs, but numerous chutes and back-channels sprawling over the verdant flats to the left formed score on score of small islands, all shaded with tall cottonwoods, lush with new grass and brilliant with wild flowers. There was a fresh vista of beauty at every turn. It was a shame not to be able to stop and call on the Queen of the Fairies. Titania's Bowers succeeded each other like apartments on upper Broadway. For the second time that day I regretted my speed and the fact that wind and rough water kept my attention riveted close to the boat. At first I gave the face of the bluffs a wide berth, especially at those points where the full strength of the current went swirling beneath the painted overhang in sinuous coils of green and white. As I think of it now, it was the cavernous growls and rumbles, magnified by the sounding board of the cliff, that made me chary of venturing in where the animals were being fed. The racket was not a little terrifying until one found that it was more bark than bite. It was not until a sudden side-swiping squall forced me under an overhang I was doing my best to avoid that I had direct and conclusive evidence that the yawning mouths had no teeth in them. Swift as it was, the surface of the water was untorn by lurking rocks, while the refluent waves from the inner depths of the cavern had a tendency to force the boat out rather than to draw it in. My courage rallied rapidly after that, so that I played hide-and-seek with the river and the cliffs for the next twenty miles. This was most opportune, as it chanced. The overhangs provided me with cover from the worst of a heavy series of rain squalls that began to sweep the river at this juncture, and continued for an hour or more. All in all, that little bluff-bluffing stunt proved one of the most novel and delightful bits of boating I have ever known.