_June 15._--To-day, while we make another portage, a peak, standing on
the east wall, is climbed by two of the men and found to be 2,700 feet
above the river. On the east side of the canyon a vast amphitheater has
been cut, with massive buttresses and deep, dark alcoves in which
grow beautiful mosses and delicate ferns, while springs burst out from
the farther recesses and wind in silver threads over floors of sand
rock. Here we have three falls in close succession. At the first the
wa$er is compressed into a very narrow channel against the right-hand
cliff, and falls 15 feet in 10 yards. At the second we have a broad
sheet of water tumbling down 20 feet over a group of rocks that thrust
their dark heads through the foam. The third is a broken fall, or short,
abrupt rapid, where the water makes a descent of more than 20 feet among
huge, fallen fragments of the cliff. We name the group Triplet Falls. We
make a portage around the first; past the second and the third we let
down with lines.

During the afternoon, Dunn and Howland having returned from their climb,
we run down three quarters of a mile on quiet waters and land at the
head of another fall. On examination, we find that there is an abrupt
plunge of a few feet and then the river tumbles for half a mile with a
descent of a hundred feet, in a channel beset with great numbers of huge
boulders. This stretch of the river is named Hell's Half-Mile. The
remaining portion of the day is occupied in making a trail among the
rocks at the foot of the rapid.

_June 16.--_Our first work this morning is to carry our cargoes to the
foot of the falls. Then we commence letting down the boats. We take two
of them down in safety, but not without great difficulty; for, where
such a vast body of water, rolling down an inclined plane, is broken