My Native Land: The United States: its Wonders, its Beauties, and its People; with Descriptive Notes, Character Sketches, Folk Lore, Traditions, Legends and History, for the Amusement of the Old and the Instruction of the YoungCox, James
History
My Native Land: The United States: its Wonders, its Beauties, and its People; with Descriptive Notes, Character Sketches, Folk Lore, Traditions, Legends and History, for the Amusement of the Old and the Instruction of the Young
Cox, James
Indians of North America; United States -- Description and travel; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-1918
The trip through Glen Cañon was like a pleasure trip on a smooth river
in autumn, with beautiful wild flowers and ferns at every camp. At Lee's
Ferry they ate their Christmas dinner, with the table decorated with
wild flowers, picked that day.
On December 28th they started to traverse, once more, that portion of
Marble Cañon made tragic by the fatality of the summer before. "On the
next Tuesday," writes Mr. Stanton, "we reached the spot where President
Brown lost his life. What a change in the waters! What was then a
roaring torrent, now, with the water some nine feet lower, seemed from
the shore like the gentle ripple upon the quiet lake. We found, however,
in going through it with our boats, there was the same swift current,
the same huge eddy, and between them the same whirlpool, with its
ever-changing circles. Marble Cañon seemed destined to give us trouble.
On January 1st, our photographer, Mr. Nims, fell from a bench of the
cliff, some twenty-two feet, on to the sand beach below, receiving a
severe jar, and breaking one of his legs just above the ankle. Having
plenty of bandages and medicine, we made Nims as comfortable as possible
till the next day, when we loaded one of the boats to make him a level
bed, and constructing a stretcher of two oars and a piece of canvas, put
him on board and floated down river a couple of miles--running two small
rapids--to a side cañon, which led out to the Lee's Ferry road."
The next day, after discovering a way out of the deep ravine, one of the
party tramped thirty-five miles back to Lee's Ferry, where a wagon was
obtained for the injured surveyor. Eight of the strongest men of the
party then undertook the task of carrying the injured man a distance of
four miles, and up a hill 1,700 feet high. It is indicative of the
extraordinary formation of the Grand Cañon that the last half mile was
an angle of 45 degrees, up a loose rock slide. The stretcher had to be
attached to ropes and gently lifted over perpendicular cliffs, from ten
to twenty feet high. The dangerous and tedious journey was at last
accomplished, and the trip continued.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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