to get it out.  By attaching near the handle a rim of hard leather, there was no way for the oar to come out accidentally, and so well did this arrangement work that in a capsize the oars remained in the rowlocks.  To any one wishing to try the descent of the Colorado, I commend these boats as being perhaps as well adapted to the work as any that can be devised; though perhaps a pointed stern would be an improvement.  Iron construction is not advisable, as it is difficult to repair.

When I went the first, time to look at the boats lying on Bagley’s wharf, their ominous porpoise-like appearance gave me a peculiar sensation.  I had expected rough-water, but this was the first understanding I had that the journey was to be more or less amphibian.  On a day when the waves on Lake Michigan were running high we took them out for trial.  The crews were filled out by Bagley’s men, our party not all being present, and with some reporters and a cargo of champagne and cigars our course was laid for the open sea.  The action of the boats was all that could be desired, and, in the great billows it was so constant that our reportorial friends found some difficulty in obtaining their share of the refreshments.  We were satisfied that the boats could ride any sea, and they were accordingly placed on a car and sent by way of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy and the Union Pacific railways to Green River Station.  These companies charged nothing for this service and also transported all the men and baggage on the same terms.  On the 29th of April we alighted at Green River and found the boats already there.  This place, when the railway was building, had been for a considerable time the terminus, and a town of respectable proportions had grown up, but with the completion of the road through this region, the terminus had moved on, and now all that was to be seen of those golden days was a group of adobe walls, roofless and forlorn.  The present “city” consisted of about thirteen houses, and some of these were of such complex construction that one hesitates whether to describe them as houses with canvas roofs, or tents with board sides.  The population consisted of a few whites, a number of Chinese railway labourers, an occasional straggling miner, native, or cattleman, and last but not least, at the small railway-station eating-house, honoured by the patronage of emigrant-trains, his highness Ah Chug, the cook, whose dried-apple pies, at twenty-five cents apiece, I have never ceased to enjoy, for they were the ladder by which I was able to descend from a home table to the camp fare of bacon and beans.  I then despised these ruder viands, but now I desire to pay my tribute to them by saying that as a basis for campaigning they are the very best.  In hot weather you eat more beans and less bacon, and when the weather is cold your diet is easily arranged in the reverse order.