swimming and jewelled blue predominates, as of sapphires being melted
and spun into skeins of shifting cobweb. Bend after bend this trance
of beauty and awe goes on, terrible as the Day of Judgment, sublime as
the Psalms of David. Five thousand feet below the opens and barrens of
Arizona, this canyon seems like an avenue conducting to the secret of
the universe and the presence of the gods.

Is much wonder to be felt that its beckoning enchantment should have
drawn two young men to dwell beside it for many years; to give
themselves wholly to it; to descend and ascend among its buttressed
pinnacles; to discover caves and waterfalls hidden in its labyrinths;
to climb, to creep, to hang in mid-air, in order to learn more and
more of it, and at last to gratify wholly their passion in the great
adventure of this journey through it from end to end? No siren song
could have lured travellers more than the siren silence of the Grand
Canyon: but these young men did not leave their bones to whiten upon
its shores. The courage that brought them out whole is plain
throughout this narrative, in spite of its modesty.--OWEN WISTER.




PREFACE


This is a simple narrative of our recent photographic trip down the
Green and Colorado rivers in rowboats--our observations and
impressions. It is not intended to replace in any way the books
published by others covering a similar journey. Major J.W. Powell's
report of the original exploration, for instance, is a classic,