Cactus of different species was now a feature of the scenery.  The ocotilla or candlewood with long, lash-like stalks springing from a common centre—­that cactus, which, when dried, needs only a lighted match to set it afire—­flourishes in the rocky ledges.  A species of small barrel-cactus about the size of a man’s head, with fluted sides, or symmetrical vertical rows of small thorned lumps converging at the top of the “nigger-head,” as they are sometimes called, grows in great numbers in crevices on the walls.  The delicate “pin cushion” gathered in clusters of myriad small spiny balls.  The prickly pear, here in Ha Va Su Canyon, were not the starved, shrivelled, mineral-tinted cactus such as we found at the beginning of our trip.  Instead they were green and flourishing, with large fleshy leaves joining on to each other until they rise to a height of three feet or more and cover large patches of ground to the utter exclusion of all other growth.  What a display of yellow and red these desert plants put forth when they are in bloom!  A previous visit to Ha Va Su was made in the month of May when every group of prickly pear was a riot of pure colour.  All this prolific growth is made possible by the extreme heat of the summer months aided in the case of those plants and trees which flourish in the fertile soil of Ha Va Su by the sub-irrigation and the spray from the fall.

After making an inventory of our provisions we concluded not to try the tedious and uncertain trip up Cataract Creek.  With care and good fortune we would have enough provisions to last us to Diamond Creek.

With our run the next day the inner gorge continued to deepen, the walls drew closer together, so that we now had a narrow gorge hemming us in with 3000-foot walls from which there was no escape.  They were about a fourth of a mile apart at the top.  A boat at the foot of one of these walls was merely an atom.  The total depth of the canyon was close to 4500 feet.  There is nothing on earth to which this gorge can be compared.  Storm-clouds lowered into the chasm in the early morning.  The sky was overcast and threatening.  We were travelling directly west again, and no sunlight entered here, even when the sun shone.  The walls had lost their brighter reds, and what colour they had was dark and sombre, a dirty brown and dark green predominating.  The mythology of the ancients, with their Inferno and their River Styx, could hardly conjure anything more supernatural or impressive than this gloomy gorge.

There were a few bad rapids.  One or two had no shore, others had an inclination to run under one wall and had to be run very carefully.  If we could not get down alongside of a rapid, we could usually climb out on the walls at the head of the rapid and look it over from that vantage point.  The one who climbed out would signal directions to the others, who would run it at once, and continue on to the next rapid.  They would have its course figured out when the last boat arrived.