This
Fearful Proposition So Horrified Ashley That He Begged Them To Hold Out A
While Longer, And To Their Joy They Soon Emerged From The Canyon, Possibly
At A Place Known As Brown's Hole; Where Provo, An Experienced Trapper, Had
His Camp.
From here they abandoned the Canyon expedition, and doubtless
returned with Provo to Salt Lake.
Powell named the falls near where Ashley
left his name Ashley Falls.
There is every reason to assume that other trappers attempted the passage
of the Canyon, for Powell found a bake oven, several tin plates, and part
of a boot in Lodore Canyon, which he imagined were Ashley's; but, as we
have seen, Ashley never went down so far.
Other Unsuccessful Trappers. In his excellent Romance of the Colorado
River, Dellenbaugh recites at length, from their own narratives largely,
the adventures of several trappers and others, whose experiences are
connected with the Colorado River, - the Patties, Jedediah Smith,
Kit Carson, William Wolfskill, Farnham, Fremont, Lieutenant Derby, Captain
Johnson, and others, who, however, never came actually into the Grand
Canyon region. Hence I shall make no further reference to them here.
My reason for giving so much space to Ashley has been merely to offer a
sample of the kind of experiences the trappers of the early days met with,
in trying to solve the problem of the canyons of the Colorado River.
Lieutenant Ives' Expedition. Lieutenant Ives' expedition, however,
reached into the very heart of this country. He visited the Havasupais in
their canyon, also the Wallapais, and traversed the weary miles across the
desert to the villages of the Hopi. Steamboats had plied up and down the
Colorado River from the Gulf of California as far as Fort Yuma - near where
the present railroad bridge crosses the stream - but Ives was instructed by
the War Department to explore the river further up, in order to determine
whether the military posts of New Mexico and Utah could be reached, and
their supplies transported by the Colorado. Instead of calling upon Captain
Johnson and chartering his steamboat, the Colorado, Ives ordered his
steamer constructed in Philadelphia, and shipped in sections via the
Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco, and thence around Cape Lucas into the
Gulf of California, to the mouth of the Colorado River. Yet he was able to
report, doubtless with a clear conscience, that Johnson's company "was
unable to spare a boat, except for a compensation beyond the limits of the
appropriation."
Ives' Report and Accompanying Pictures. Ives' report is a most
interesting document, and the pictures that accompany it, made by
Mollhausen and Eggloffstein, especially those of the latter artist, are
wonderful in their imaginative qualities. They are no more like the Grand
Canyon than are the visions of Dore, yet they afford a good idea of the
impression its vastness and sublimity made upon an artistic mind.
Starts up the River. Ives ascended the river, passing Johnson on the way in
the Mohave Valley, a few miles above the Needles.
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