In our haste to push on, we left the brass motion-picture tripod head
on an island, from which we pictured this lovely spot. A rapid was put
behind us before we noticed our loss, and there was no going back
then.
Another turn revealed a Gothic arch, or grotto, carved at the bend of
the wall by the high water, with an overhang of more than a hundred
feet, and a height nearly as great, for the flood waters ran above the
hundred-foot stage in this narrow walled section. Then came a gloomy,
prison-like formation, with a "Bridge of Sighs" two hundred feet above
a gulch, connecting the dungeon to the perpendicular wall beyond; and
with a hundred cave-like openings in its sheer sides like small
windows, admitting a little daylight into its dark interior. The
sullen boom of a rapid around the turn sounded like the march of an
army coming up the gorge, so we climbed back into our boats after a
vain attempt to climb up to some of the caves, and advanced to meet
our foe. This rapid--the tenth for the day--while it was clear of
rocks, had an abrupt drop, with powerful waves which did all sorts of
things to us and to our boats; breaking a rowlock and the four pieces
of line which held it, and flooding us both with a ton of water. We
went into camp a short distance below this, in a narrow box canyon
running back a hundred yards from the river, a gloomy, cathedral-like
interior with sheer walls rising several hundred feet on three sides
of us, and with the top of the south wall 2500 feet above us in plain
sight of our camp, the one camp in Marble Canyon where our sleep was
undisturbed by the roar of a rapid.
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