So Camp Number 47 was made in this little cave, with a violent rapid
directly beneath us, making a din that might be anything but
reassuring, were we not pretty well accustomed to it by this time. The
next day, Sunday, November the 12th, was passed in the same spot. The
air turned decidedly cold this day, a hard wind swept up the river,
the sky above was overcast, and we had little doubt that snow was
falling on the Kaibab Plateau, which we could not see, but which we
knew rose to the height of 5500 feet above us, but a few miles to the
northwest of this camp. The sheer walls directly above the river
dropped down considerably at this point, and a break or two permitted
us to climb up as high as we cared to go on the red sandstone wall,
which had lost its level character, and now rose in a steep slope over
a thousand feet above us. These walls, with no growth but the tussocks
of bunch-grass, the prickly pear cactus, the mescal, and the yucca,
were more destitute of growth than any we had seen, excepting the
upper end of Desolation Canyon, even the upper walls lacking the
growth of pinon pine and juniper which we usually associated with
them. We were now directly below the Painted Desert, which lay to the
left of the canyon, and no doubt a similar desert was on the
right-hand side, in the form of a narrow plateau; but we had no means
of knowing just how wide or narrow this was, before it raised again to
the forest-covered Buckskin Mountains and the Kaibab Plateau.
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