This place exerts a magnetic spell.  The sky is there above it, but not of it.  Its being is apart; its climate; its light; its own.  The beams of the sun come into it like visitors.  Its own winds blow through it, not those of outside, where we live.  The River streams down its mysterious reaches, hurrying ceaselessly; sometimes a smooth sliding lap, sometimes a falling, broken wilderness of billows and whirlpools.  Above stand its walls, rising through space upon space of silence.  They glow, they gloom, they shine.  Bend after bend they reveal themselves, endlessly new in endlessly changing veils of colour.  A 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, literary and geological; and searchers after excellence may well be recommended to his admirable work.

Neither is this chronicle intended as a handbook of the territory traversed—­such as Mr. F.S.  Dellenbaugh’s two volumes:  “The Romance of the Grand Canyon,” and “A Canyon Voyage.”  We could hardly hope to add anything of value to his wealth of detail.  In fact, much of the data given here—­such as distances, elevations, and records of other expeditions—­is borrowed from the latter volume.  And I take this opportunity of expressing our appreciation to Mr. Dellenbaugh for his most excellent and entertaining books.

We are indebted to Mr. Julius F. Stone, of Columbus, Ohio, for much valuable information and assistance.  Mr. Stone organized a party and made the complete trip down the Green and Colorado rivers in the fall and winter of 1909, arriving at Needles, California, on November 27, 1909.  He freely gave us the benefit of his experience and presented us with the complete plans of the boats he used.