hasty writing in camp necessitated. It chanced that the journal was
written in the present tense, so that the first account of my trip
appeared in that tense. The journal thus published was not a lengthy
paper, constituting but a part of a report entitled "Exploration of the
Colorado River of the West and its Tributaries. Explored in 1869, 1870,
1871, and 1872, under the direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution." The other papers published with it relate to the
geography, geology, and natural history of the country. And here again I
supposed all account of the exploration ended. But from that time until
the present I have received many letters urging that a popular account
of the exploration and a description of that wonderful land should be
published by me. This call has been voiced occasionally in the daily
press and sometimes in the magazines, until at last I have concluded to
publish a fuller account in popular form. In doing this I have revised
and enlarged the original journal of exploration, and have added several
new chapters descriptive of the region and of the people who inhabit it.
Realizing the difficulty of painting in word colors a land so strange,
so wonderful, and so vast in its features, in the weakness of my
descriptive powers I have sought refuge in graphic illustration, and for
this purpose have gathered from the magazines and from various
scientific reports an abundance of material. All of this illustrative
material originated in my work, but it has already been used elsewhere.

Many years have passed since the exploration, and those who were boys
with me in the enterprise are--ah, most of them are dead, and the living
are gray with age. Their bronzed, hardy, brave faces come before me as
they appeared in the vigor of life; their lithe but powerful forms seem
to move around me; and the memory of the men and their heroic deeds, the
men and their generous acts, overwhelms me with a joy that seems almost
a grief, for it starts a fountain of tears. I was a maimed man; my right