The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-12-12
PASSAGE OF THE CANYON.
Account OF Explorations I'm
Arizona and New Mexico.

PASSAGE OF THE CANYON.
Account Of Explorations I'm
Arizona and New Mexico.
Seemingly but few miles in front of
us we readily imagine we are about ap
preaching some enchanted castle, where
we shall not fail to find the rest, as well
as food, which we so much need, when
we suddenly find ourselves upon the
edge of canyon, 1000 feet in depth. AS
We gaze down into the depth of this
dark abyss, feeling of terror creeps
over us, as we vainly strive to pierce the
deep gloom that shrouds its rocky
sides, and verges into total darkness far
beneath us. The walls are perpendicu-
lar, and of blood-red color. No veg
citation is anywhere to be seen; nothing
but the stones around us, and the gray
ish-white alkali on the surface of the
plain on which we stand, with its sur
roundings of crags, pinnecles, towers
and mesas of rocks rising far above us,
until their summits pierce the clouds on
the one side and this black, yawning
abyss Just before us. Cochise moves to
the left, and there we find a narrow
shelf of rock iutting out from the per-
pendicular walls, lust wide enough to
our eye until it is lost in the gloom
and yet this is the only way of crossing
the canyon before us. Cochise now dis
mounts, and from him I endeavor to
learn something of this wonderful gorge
which we are about to cross but, Indian
like, he is reticent, and reveals nothing.
He motions to me that we must leave
our mules to follow us and utters the
single word "adelant, +" or forward. As
we descended into the gloom, we felt as
if we were about to bid good-by to the
earth and the sunlight, and to enter the
abode of the fiends. Our imagination
peoples the chasm with myriads of imps
and gnomes. Just before us, the point
of rock standing out SO prominently re-
sembled a huge giant ready to crush us
in his terrible grasp for our audacity in
presuming to venture within the realms
guarded so sedulously by his misshapen
form. On, on we go, now avoiding a
rock in our path, here sending a pebble
over the brink of the abyss at our side.
The gloom becomes more intense as we
descend. We cast our eyes upward; a
perpendicular wall on either side of us,
and far above us a narrow band of light,
against which the ragged and SCARED
edges of the gulf seemingly almost meet
ing, stand out in bold relief, giving us
the impression that we are about to be
crushed between the teeth of two gigan-
tiesaws.
Not a sound is to be heard, save the
hesitating footsteps of our mules, when
suddenly Cochise, who is some distance
in advance, utters an oath in Spanish.
The opposite side of the canyon echoes
it, and it is carried from side to side,
fIOm point to point, from rock to rock,
from crag to crag, with fearful distinct
ness, till it resembles, to our ears, the
cries of the demons, who, we are sure,
surround us and inhabit this direct de-
scent to the home of Los I1fernOS.
Still we go on, still continue to descend.
Soon we hear the faint murmur of wa
ter, as, far below us, it forces its way
among the rocks and boulders that form
the bed of the river, and we feel re-
ioiced that the poor animals so carefulS
ly following US are soon to be refreshed
with a draft of cool water after their
tedious journey over masses of rock,
baked clay and alkali powder. Instinct
lively we look behind us, and we see
that they, too, have heard the grateful
sound and are hurrying along, as though
impatient to taste its refreshing cool
ness.
Then comes the thought, that fire.
quently, when suffering from thirst,
mules have been known to stampede at
the smell of water. Suppose this should
be the case with ours? What, then,
would be our fate? We cast our eyes
over the brink of the yawning chasm,
and then back upon our mules, as if to
measure distance and strength. The
sight of their erect ears, distended nos
trils and glaring eyes does not tend to
reassure us, and we look in vain for
some spot wide enough to enable them
to pass us in safety. Nothing but a
solid perpendicular wall above us, and
| empty space for 600 feet below. We
must go on. There is no turning back
The gloom increases with every step.
The walls around assume in the dark
ness a thousand grotesque and missha-
pen forms. The obstacles in our path
| way become more frequent and danger
Gus. The darkness becomes more and
| more intense. We can no longer see
the path for more than four or five feet
| ahead of us.
Now, as it abruptly turns an angle,
we lose sight of it altogether, and we
feel as though the next step might pre-
| cipitate us into-what? And so we go
on, hesitating, doubling, fearing, until
after hours of tedious toll, such as I
hope never again to experience, we
| iUally reach the bed of the river that
has worn this mighty wrinkle in the face
of mother earth. After allowing our
thirsty animals time to drink, and fill
ing onr canteen and leathern bottles
with fresh water, we follow down the
bed of the stream for a mile, cautiously
feeling our way in the darkness as best
we can, stumbling against boulders of
granite, andoYer stones and masses oftrap
that have been precipitated from the
| vast heights above us, until at length
we reach the point where we are to be-
gin the ascent. YEARLY toiling up the
steep path, picking our way over rocks
and assures, gullies and stones, all the
while gaining light, though losing
strength, we at last reach the level of
| the plain that we left in the morning, to
find ourselves in the twilight, only four
miles below the point where we began
the descent, having been more than ten
hours in making the journey.
Here, upon the very brink of this
fearful chasm, we throw ourselves upon
the ground. declaring We can go nofur-
blSIs hoES We muSb camp LOT Tie
night. No vegetation, no grass for our
mules, no water, no food-nothing but
desolation. We are no nearer the en-
chanted castle than we we're before we
made the passage of this frightful can
yon. The pipes of that same grand old
organ look down upon us. The same
buttes, mesas, pillars, towers, ravines,
| chasms and assures, surround us, that
surrounded us in the morning. Then
we saw them as the beams of the rising
SIM gilded their SUBMITS now we see
them towering up in the twilight, and
assuming a thousand fanciful and gro
tesque shapes that we had not dreamed
they possessed before. Tired and ex-
hausted, we wrap ourselves in our blank
cts and throw ourselves upon the ground
to sleep. To sleep did say? No; for
again the scenes of the day pass in rap
| id succession before us. Our fears.
our doubts, the descent of that peril
GUS path, all thousand times more
fraught with danger than we had imag-
| med at the outset. While we are de-
batting in our minds whether we shall be
able to cross in safety an immense ifs