Jacob Hamblin: A Narrative of His Personal Experience as a Frontiersman, Missionary to the Indians and Explorer, Disclosing Interpositions of Providence, Severe Privations, Perilous Situations and Remarkable Escapes: Fifth Book of the Faith-Promoting Series, Designed for the Instruction and Encouragement of Young Latter-day SaintsHamblin, Jacob
History
Jacob Hamblin: A Narrative of His Personal Experience as a Frontiersman, Missionary to the Indians and Explorer, Disclosing Interpositions of Providence, Severe Privations, Perilous Situations and Remarkable Escapes: Fifth Book of the Faith-Promoting Series, Designed for the Instruction and Encouragement of Young Latter-day Saints
Hamblin, Jacob
Frontier and pioneer life -- Utah; Hamblin, Jacob, 1819-1886; Indians of North America -- Utah; Latter Day Saint churches -- Utah
In coming to this point we, at one time, traveled about three miles
continuously on a trail made with considerable labor in the side of
shale rock. I do not remember of a place in this distance where we
could have turned our animals around to return, had we wished to do so.
We afterwards learned that this part of the trail was considered by the
people who lived in the canyon, as their strongest point of defense in
that direction.
We traveled a very circuitous and still difficult trail, until four
o'clock in the afternoon, before we arrived at the water we had seen
six hours before. We found the stream to be about fifteen yards in
width, with an average depth of over a foot.
It was rapid and clear, and skirted with cottonwood timber, growing on
rich bottom land.
The bottom of Cataract Canyon, Lieut. Ives informs us, in his
"Explorations of the Colorado," is 2,775 feet below the general level
of the plateau above. We judged the sides of the canyon where we were,
to be one-half of this distance in perpendicular height.
The first people that we met had been informed of our approach by one
of our Moqui companions, whom we had sent ahead of us. While we were
talking with them, others arrived from lower down the stream, who
inquired rather sharply why we were there. They were soon satisfied
with out explanations.
We were soon engaged in interesting conversation. They had heard of
me and my travels, and appeared pleased to see me. They desired that
I would not lead anyone into their hiding place, and particularly a
stranger, without their consent.
They told us that the horses we had picked up belonged to the Walapies,
and if we would leave them they would return them to the owners before
we came back. We remained with this people one day. In going out we
traveled up the main canyon.
Not long previously these people had been attacked in their stronghold
by a band of Indians from the southeast. They showed us a narrow pass
where they had met them, and killed seven of their number.
About three miles above where we first struck the stream, it boils
from the bottom of the canyon in a large, beautiful spring. We found
no water above this. About nine miles up the canyon above the water,
we turned into a left-hand side canyon, through which it was about two
miles to the country above.
The trail up this canyon was very steep and difficult. The trail we
came in on, and this one, are said to be the only means of getting
in and out of the Cataract Canyon. From what we could learn from the
Indians, we supposed the distance from the spring to where the creek
empties into the Colorado to be about eighteen miles.
Through some misunderstanding, two of our Moqui friends had continued
up the main canyon. We made a dry camp that night. The Moqui man who
remained with us was a religious leader among his people. He became
very anxious about his companions, for he said they would find no
water. He went through some religious ceremonies for their safe return.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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