The days of final preparation passed quickly--with unpacking of
innumerable boxes and bundles, checking off each article against our
lists; and with a long and careful overhauling of our photographic
outfit.
This last was a most important task, for the success of our expedition
depended on our success as photographers. We could not hope to add
anything of importance to the scientific and topographic knowledge of
the canyons already existing: and merely to come out alive at the
other end did not make a strong appeal to our vanity. We were there as
scenic photographers in love with their work, and determined to
reproduce the marvels of the Colorado's canyons, as far as we could do
it.
In addition to three film cameras we had 8 x 10 and 5 x 7 plate
cameras; a plentiful supply of plates and films; a large cloth
dark-room; and whatever chemicals we should need for tests. Most
important of all, we had brought a motion-picture camera. We had no
real assurance that so delicate an apparatus, always difficult to use
and regulate, could even survive the journey--much less, in such
inexperienced hands as ours, reproduce its wonders. But this,
nevertheless, was our secret hope, hardly admitted to our most
intimate friends--that we could bring out a record of the Colorado as
it is, a live thing, armed as it were with teeth, ready to crush and
devour.
There was shopping to do; for the purchases of provisions, with a few
exceptions, had been left to the last.
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