the people preferred a third alternative, and rather than be baptized or hanged they chose to be imprisoned within these canon-walls." The rains and the accidents in the rapids had seriously reduced the commissary by this time, and the provisions left were more or less injured. The bacon was uneatable, and had to be thrown away: the flour was musty, and the saleratus was lost overboard. On August 17th the party had only enough food remaining for ten days' use, and though they hoped that the worst places had been passed, the barometers were broken, and they did not know what descent they had yet to make. The canvas which they had brought with them for covering from Green River City was rotten, there was not one blanket apiece for the men, and more than half the party were hatless. Despite their hopes that the greatest obstacles had been overcome, however, on the morning of August 27th they reached a place which appeared more perilous than any they had so far passed. They landed on one side of the river, and clambered over the granite pinnacles for a mile or two without seeing any way by which they could lower the boats. Then they crossed to the other side and walked along the top of a crag. In his eagerness to reach a point where he could see the roaring fall below, Major Powell went too far, and was caught at a point where he could neither advance nor retreat: the river was four hundred feet below, and he was suspended in front of the cliff with one foot on a small projecting rock and one hand fixed in a little crevice. He called for help, and the men passed him a line, but he could not let go of the rock long enough to seize it. While he felt his hold becoming weaker and expected momentarily to drop into the canon, the men went to the boats and obtained three of the largest oars. The blade of one of them was pushed into the crevice of a rock beyond him in such a manner that it bound him across the body to the wall, and another oar was fixed so that he could stand upon it and walk out of the difficulty. He breathed again, but had felt that cold air which seems to fan one when death is near.