After our noon lunch this day, in order to keep our minds from dwelling too much on the rather depressing surroundings, we proposed having a little sport.  On two or three occasions we had made motion pictures from the deck of the boats as we rowed in the quiet water; here we proposed taking a picture from the boats as we went over the rapids.  The two boats were fastened stern to stern, so that the rowing would be done from the first boat.  My brother sat on the bow behind with the motion-picture camera in front of him, holding it down with his chin, his legs clinging to the sides of the boat, with his left hand clutching at the hatch cover, and with his right hand free to turn the crank.  In this way we passed over two small rapids.  After that one experience we never tried it in a large rapid.  As Smith had said a few days before the boat bucked like a broncho, and Emery had a great deal of difficulty to stay with the boat, to say nothing of taking a picture.  Once or twice he was nearly unseated but pluckily hung on and kept turning away at the crank when it looked as if he and the camera would be dumped into the river.

At one point in the lower end of Cataract Canyon we saw the name and date A.G.  Turner, ’07.  Below this, close to the end of the canyon, were some ruins of cliff dwellings, and a ladder made by white men, placed against the walls below the ruins.

On reaching a very deep, narrow canyon entering from the south, locally known as Dark Canyon, we knew that we were nearing the end of the rapids in Cataract Canyon.  Dark Canyon extends a great distance back into the country, heading in the mountains we had seen to the south, when we climbed out at the junction of the Green and the Grand.  Pine cones and other growths entirely foreign to the growth of the desert region were found near its mouth.  A flood had recently filled the bottom of this narrow canyon to a depth of several feet, but the water had settled down again and left a little stream of clear water running through the boulders.  The rapid at the end of this canyon was one of the worst of the entire series, and had been the scene of more than one fatality, we had been told.  It had a very difficult approach and swung against the right wall, then the water was turned abruptly to the left by a great pile of fallen boulders.  The cresting waves looked more like breakers of the ocean than anything we had seen on the river.

We each had a good scare as we ran this rapid.  Emery was completely hidden from my view, he was nearly strangled and blinded by the waves for a few seconds while struggling in the maelstrom; the Edith was dropped directly on top of a rock in the middle of this rapid, then lifted on the next wave.  I also had a thrilling experience but avoided the rock.  In the lower part of the rapid a rowlock pulled apart; and to prevent the boat from turning sideways in the rapid, I threw up my knee, holding the oar against it for a lever until I was in quieter water, and could get the other rowlock in position.