chaos.  The boat rolled and plunged.  The wild waters rolled over us, filling the open spaces to the gunwale.  With the camp kettles that were left out of the cabins for that purpose, Hillers and I bailed as hard as we could, letting the boat go with the current, but it seemed to do little good, for every moment the waves broke over the craft from end to end, and our efforts might as well have been made with a teaspoon, though in many other rapids the kettles had proved effective.  Here and there, as we shot down, I could look back under a canopy of foam and see the head of a great black rock.  Fortunately we safely cleared everything, and in probably less than a minute we were at the bottom, lying to in an eddy, bailing fast and watching for the other boat.  No sign of any living thing could be discovered as we peered up the rapid, which from below had the appearance of an almost vertical fall.  Presently at the top of the foam a white speck moved, clearly seen against the dark background.  It was the Canonita on the edge of the fall.  I can see her yet, pausing for an instant, apparently, and then disappearing completely amidst the plunging waters.  A minute later she reappeared at the bottom and ran alongside of us in good order.  Owing to the large amount of water there seemed to be not much danger of striking a rock, and our boats did not capsize easily.  After the plunge was begun we did not try to guide the boats—­it would have been useless.  The fall here was about forty feet in a third of a mile.  Some of the men called it the Sockdologer.  The picture of it from above, on page 219, does not give a correct impression, as the plate was too slow, but it was the best that could be done at the time.  The canyon continued very narrow at the bottom, the river averaging about one hundred and fifty feet.  Late in the afternoon we arrived at a much worse place than the Sockdologer, though the fall was not so great.  Landing on the left on some broken rocks, we saw no chance of getting around the rapid there, so we crossed to the right and landed on another little pile of rocks in a small alcove.  The walls rose vertically, or nearly so, from the water’s edge.  We saw the only thing to do was to lower one boat, with two men on board, by her line for some distance (a hundred feet of best Manila rope were attached to each boat by a strong iron ring; in the stern was also an iron ring), and from the stern let the other cautiously down to the very head of the fall, where there was a second pile of rocks which received the boat between them and held her fast.  The upper boat was then pulled back to where we had remained, the line from the second being tied to her stern.  Entering her we clung to projections of the wall with our hands, to prevent the current from swinging the boat out, while the men who were in the lower boat carefully hauled on the stern line till at last we also reached the rocks.  With a great deal of labour we then worked both boats from these rocks to some others