Grand Cañon of the Colorado River, Arizona

F

788
H48
1893

HIGGINS
GRAND CANON

BANCROFT

University of California • Berkeley

BeT**r>ft Library

OFXH&

DRBDO RIVER

•ARIZONA

GKAND CANON

COLOEADO BIVEK,

ARIZONA.

C. A. HIGGINS.

WITH ORIGINAL, ILLUSTRATIONS BY THOMAS MORAN, H. F. FAHNY AND
F. H. L.UNOREN.

PASSENGER DEPARTMENT SANTA FK ROUTE.

CHICAGO, 1893.

THE HENRY O. SHEPARD COMPANY,

PRINTERS AND BOOKBINDERS,
212-214 MONROE STREET, CHICAGO.

THE Colorado is one of the great rivers of North America. Formed in southern Utah by
the confluence of the Green and Grand, it intersects the northwestern corner of Ariz na, and,

becoming the eastern boundary of Nevada and California, flows southward until it roaches
tidewater in the Gulf of California, Mexico. It drains a territory of 300,000 square miles, and,
traced back to the rise of its principal source, is 2,000 miles long. At two points, The Needles
and Yuma, on the California boundary, it is crossed by a railroad. Elsewhere its course lies
far from Caucasian settlements and far from the routes of common travel, in the heart of a
vast region fenced on the one hand by arid plains and on the other by formidable mountains.
The early Spanish explorers first reported it to the civilized world in 1540, two separate
expeditions becoming acquainted with the river for a comparatively short distance alx>ve its
mouth, and another, journeying from the Moqui Pueblos northwestward across the desert,
obtaining the first view of the Big Canon, failing in every effort to descend the canon wall,
and seeing the river only from afar. Again, in 1776, a Spanish priest traveling southward
through Utah struck off from the Virgen River to the southeast and found a practicable
crossing at a point that still bears the name " Vado de los Padres." For more than eighty
years thereafter the Big Canon remained unvisited, except by the Indian, the Mormon herds-
man and the trapper, although the Sitgreaves expedition of 1851, journeying westward, struck
the Colorado about one hundred and fifty miles above Yuma, and Lieutenant Whipple in
1854 made a survey for a practicable railroad route along the thirty-fifth parallel, where the
Atlantic and Pacific Railroad has since been constructed. The establishment of military posts
in New Mexico and Utah having made desirable the use of a water-way for the cheap trans-
portation of supplies, in 1857 the War Department dispatched an expedition in charge of
Lieutenant Ives to explore the Colorado as far from its mouth as navigation should be found
practicable. Ives amended the river in a specially constructed steamboat to the head of Black
Canon, a few miles below the confluence of the Virgen River in Nevada, where further navi-
gation became impossible ; then, returning to The Needles, he set off across the country toward
the northeast. He reached the Big Canon at Diamond Creek and at Cataract Creek in the
spring of 1858, and from the latter point made a wide southward detour around the San
Francisco peaks, thence northeastward to the Moqui Pueblos, thence eastward to Fort Defiance
and so back to civilization.

That is the history of the explorations of the Colorado up to twenty-five years ago. Ita
exact course was unknown for many hundred miles, even its origin in the junction of the
Grand and Green Rivers being a matter of conjecture, it being difficult to approach within a
distance of two or three miles from the channel, while descent to the river's edge could be
hazarded only at wide intervals, inasmuch as it lay in an appalling fissure at the foot of
seemingly impassable cliff terraces that led down from the bordering plateau ; and an attempt
at its navigation would have been courting death. It was known in a general way that the

entire channel between Nevada and Utah was of the same titanic character, reaching its
culmination nearly midway in its course through Arizona. In 1869 Maj. J. W. Powell, now in
charge of the United States Geological Survey, undertook the exploration of the river with
nine men and four boats, starting from Green River City, on the Green Eiver, in Utah. The
enterprise met with the most urgent remonstrance from those who were best acquainted with
the region, including the Indians, who maintained that boats could not possibly live in any
one of a score of rapids and falls known to them, to say nothing of the vast unknown
stretches in which at any moment a Niagara might be disclosed. It was also currently
believed that for hundreds of miles the river disappeared wholly beneath the surface of the
earth. Powell launched his flotilla on May 24, and on August 30 landed at the mouth of the
Virgen River, more than one thousand miles by the river channel from the place of starting,
minus two boats and four men. One of the men had left the expedition by way of an Indian
reservation agency before reaching Arizona, and three, after holding out against unprecedented
terrors for many weeks, had finally become daunted, choosing to encounter the perils of an
unknown desert rather than to brave any longer the frightful menaces of that Stygian torrent.
These three, unfortunately making their appearance on the plateau at a time when a recent
depredation was colorably chargeable upon them, were killed by Indians, their story of having
come thus far down the river in boats being wholly discredited by their captors. Powell's
journal of the trip is a fascinating tale, written in a compact and modest style, which, in spite
of its reticence, tells an epic story of purest heroism. It definitely established the scene of
his exploration as the most wonderful geological and spectacular phenomenon known to man-
kind, and justified the name which had been bestowed upon it — THE GRAND CANON —
sublimest of gorges; Titan of chasms. Many scientists have since visited it, and, in the
aggregate, a considerable number of unprofessional lovers of nature; but until recently no
definite appeal was made to the general sightseer, and the world's most stupendous panorama
has been known principally through report, by reason of the discomforts and difficulties of
the trip, which deterred all except the most indefatigable enthusiasts. Even its geographical
location has been the subject of widespread misapprehension. As stated by Captain Button,
in his " Tertiary History of the Grand Canon District," its title has been pirated for application
to relatively insignificant caiions in distant parts of the country, and thousands of tourists
have been led to believe that they were viewing the Grand Caiion when, in fact, they looked
upon a totally different scene, between which and the real Grand Canon there is no more
comparison " than there is between the Alleghanies or Trosachs and the Himalayas "

There is but one Grand Canon. Nowhere in human experience can its like be found.

II.

IT lies wholly in the northern part of Arizona. It is accessible from the north only at the
cost of weeks of arduous travel, necessitating a special expedition with camp outfit and
pack animals. On the south it is easily reached in a single day's journey by stage from
the town of Flagstaff, an important station on the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, which is a
division of the Santa Fe Route. There is no other railroad within a distance of several
hundred miles.

In May, 1892. a tri-weekly stage line was permanently established between Flagstaff and
the Grand Canon. The entire distance is sixty-five miles, and it is covered in less than twelve
hours, by the aid of three relays. The route is nearly level, traversing the platform district
which, taking name from the river, is known as the Colorado Plateau. The excellence of the

roadway needs no other testimony than the fact that the journey consumes PO little time. For
long stretches it is as hard and smooth as a boulevard. The stage leaves Flagstaff in the morn-
ing, reaches a comfortable dinner station at noon, and deposits its passengers at a permanent
camp on the rim of the most impressive portion of the Canon before nightfall. The Canon
camp is a tiny tent village, picturesquely located in a park of tall pines. Each tent is floored,
and furnished with bed, table, chairs and other articles of comfort. Excellent meals are regularly
provided. Pending the construction of more pretentious accommodations, which are in prospect,
no more satisfactory provision for the needs of the visitor could be desired. Elevated more than
7,000 feet above sea-level, the air is pure and exhilarating, and the health-giving climate that is
characteristic of the region, together with the charming environment of the pine forest, would
make a week's stay at the Canon camp a delightful and profitable outing, even were there no
Grand Canon at hand.

The stage returns from the Canon to Flagstaff every other day, enabling tourists who are
pressed for time, or transcontinental travelers on business intent, to obtain a view of this incom-

MIDWAY STATION AT CEDAR RANCH.

parable spectacle at the cost of little delay. If it is necessary to be satisfied with a few hours'
insi>ection, one may return the following morning after arrival, and thus see the Grand Canon in
but two days' absence from Flagstaff. While so superficial a view will reveal only a fraction of its
protean splendors, it will prove an everlasting memory.

III.

THE journey to the Canon is greatly diversified in interest. Plunging at once into one of the
parks that are peculiar to Arizona — forests of pine free from undergrowth, streaked with sun-
light and seductively carpeted with grass — for many miles the road closely skirts the splendid
San Francisco peaks, emerging into open stretches where prairie dogs abound, again winding
through rocky defiles, on past volcanic vent-holes, in whose subterranean recesses the Cave
Dwellers made their primitive home t-nd where the hill slopes are thickly strewn with fragments
of pottery ; past bare mountains of black cinder striped with red slag; over broad ranges when1
sheep and cattle browse and the tents of the herders gleam from the hillside where the infrequent

spring pours out its flow ; threading the notches of slopes regularly set with cedar and pinon ;
across gentle divides from whose summits the faint rosy hues of the Painted Desert may be seen
in the northeast, and in the north the black jagged lines of mountain ranges indefinitely far
away ; then once more into the pines and down a short, steep descent to the terminus in a roman-
tic glen near John Hance's cabin, some fifteen miles west of the confluence of the Little Colorado
with the main river.

In all the journey nothing has been encountered that could prepare the mind for trans-
cendent scenery, save that in the last half mile two or three glimpses of what were guessed to be
pinkish cliffs far to right and left were shadowed faintly through the trees. And certainly there
is nothing that portends the heroic in the sylvan scene where at last the traveler quits the stage.
Small herbage and flowers of every hue grow at the foot of the pines, among pretty rock frag-
ments of variegated color. Save for a single crag, whose gray crest barely tops the northward
slope of the glen, a hundred yards away, there is no hint of any presence foreign to the peaceful
air of a woodland glade, denizened by birds and squirrels, innocent even of the rumor of such a
thing as the Grand Canon. The visitor, smitten with a sudden fear of bitter disappointment in
store, strides eagerly up the slope to put the vaunted Canon to the test. Without an instant's
warning he finds himself upon the verge of an unearthly spectacle that stretches beneath his feet
to the far horizon. Stolid is he, indeed, if he can front that awful scene without quaking knee or
tremulous breath.

IV.

AN inferno, swathed in soft celestial fires; a whole chaotic under-world, just emptied of
primeval floods and waiting for a new creative word ; a boding, terrible thing, unflinchingly

real, yet spectral as a dream, eluding all sense of perspective or dimension, outstretching the
faculty of measurement, overlapping the confines of definite apprehension. The beholder is at
first unimpressed by any detail ; he is overwhelmed by the ensemble of a stupendous panorama, a
thousand square miles in extent, that lies wholly beneath the eye, as if he stood upon a mountain
peak instead of the level brink of a fearful chasm in the plateau whose opposite shore is thirteen
miles away. A labyrinth of huge architectural forms, endlessly varied in design, fretted wTith
ornamental devices, festooned with lace-like webs formed of talus from the upper cliffs and
painted with every color known to the palette in pure transparent tones of marvelous delicacy.
Never was picture more harmonious, never flower more exquisitely beautiful. It flashes instant
communication of all that architecture and painting and music for a thousand years have grop-
ingly striven to express. It is the soul of Michael Angelo and of Beethoven.

A canon, truly, but not after the accepted type. An intricate system of canons, rather, all
subordinate to the river channel in the midst, which in its turn is subordinate to the total
effect. That river channel, the profoundest depth, and actually more than six thousand feet
below the point of view, is in seeming a rather insignificant trench, attracting the eye more by
reason of its somber tone and mysterious suggestion than by any appreciable characteristic of a
chasm. It is nearly five miles distant in a straight line, and its uppermost rims are 3,000 feet
beneath the observer, whose measuring capacity is entirely inadequate to the demand made by
such magnitudes. One cannot believe the distance to be more than a mile as the crow flies,
before descending the wall or attempting some other form of inchworm measurement. Mere
brain knowledge counts for little against the illusion under which the organ of vision is doomed
here to labor. That red cliff upon your right, fading through brown, yellow and gray to white
at the top, is tall;r than the Washington monument. The Auditorium in Chicago would not
cover one-half its perpendicular span. Yet it does not greatly impress you. You idly toss a

10

HEAD OF THE HANCE TRAIL.

pebble toward it, and are surprised that your aim fell short. Sub-
sequently you learn that the cliff is a good half mile distant. If
you care for an abiding sense of its true proportions, go over to the
trail that begins beside its summit and clamber down to its base and
back. You will return some hours later, and with a decide 1 respect
for a small Grand Canon cliff. Relatively it is insignificant; in that
sense your first estimate was correct. Were Vulcan to cast it bodily
into the chasm directly beneath your feet, it would pass for a bowlder,
if indeed it wrre discoverable to the unaided eye. Yet the imme-
diate chasm itself is only the
first step of a long terrace that
Iwids down to the innermost
gorge and the river. Roll a
heavy stone to the rim and let
it go. It falls sheer the height
of a church or an Eiffel Tower,
according to your position, and
explodes like a bomb on a pro-
jecting ledge. If, happily, anv
considerable fragments remain,
they bound onward like elastic
balls, leaping in wild parabola
from point to point, snapping
trees like straws, bursting, crash-
ing, thundering down until they
make a last plunge over the
brink of a void, and then there
comes languidly up the cliff
sides a faint, distant roar, and
your bowlder that had with-
stood the buffets of centuries lies
scattered as wide as Wycliffe's
ashes, although the final frag-
ment has lodged only a little
way, eo to speak, below the
rim. Such performances are fre-
quently given in these amphi-
theaters without human aid, by
the mere undermining of the
rain, or perhaps it is here that

Sisyphus rehearses his unending task. Often in the silence of night a tremendous fragment
may be heard crashing from terrace to terrace like shocks of thunder peal.

The spectacle is so symmetrical, and so completely excludes the outside world and its
accustomed standards, it is with difficulty one can act mire any notion of its immensity. Were
it half as deep, half as broad, it would be no less bewildering, so utterly dues it luillle human
grasp. Something may be gleaned from the account given by geologists. What is known t<>
them as the Grand Cafion District lies principally in northwestern Arizona, its length from
northwest to southeast in a straight line being about 180 miles, its width 12o miles, and its total

18

THE STAGE TERMINUS.

area some 15,000 square miles. Its northerly beginning, at the high plateaus in southern Utah,
is a series of terraces, many miles broad, dropping like a stairway step by step to successively
lower geological formations, until in Arizona the platform is reached which borders the real
chasm and extends southward beyond far into the central part of that territory. It is the theory
of geologists that 10,000 feet of strata have been swept by erosion from the surface of this
entire platform, whose present uppermost formation is the Carboniferous ; the deduction being
based upon the fact that the missing Permian, Mesozoic and Tertiary formations, which belong
above this Carboniferous in the series, are found in their place at the beginning of the northern
terraces referred to. The theory is fortified by many evidences supplied by examination of the
district, where, more than anywhere else, mother earth has laid bare the secrets of her girl-
hood. The climax in this extraordinary example of erosion is, of course, the chasm of the Grand
Canon proper, which, were the missing strata restored to the adjacent plateau, would be 16,000
feet deep. The layman is apt to stigmatize such an assertion as a vagary of theorists, and until
the argument has been heard it does seem incredible that water should have carved such a
trough in solid rock. Briefly, the whole region appears to have been repeatedly lifted and
submerged, both under the ocean and under a fresh-water sea, and during the period of the last
upheaval the river cut its gorge. Existing as the drainage system of a vast territory, it had the
right of way, and as the plateau deliberately rose before the pressure of the internal forces,
slowly, as grind the mills of the gods, through a period not to be measured by years, the river
kept its bed worn down to the level of erosion ; sawed its channel free, as the saw cuts the log
that is thrust against it. Tributaries, traceable now only by dry lateral gorges, and the gradual
but no less effective process of weathering, did the rest.

Beginning on the plateau level on the Canon's brink, the order of the rock formations above
the river, according to Captain Button, is as follows :

1. Cherty limestone, 240 feet. 6. Red Wall limestone, 1,500 feet.

2. Upper Aubrey limestone, 320 feet. 7. Lower Carboniferous sandstone, 550 feet.

3. Cross-bedded sandstone, 380 feet. 8. Quartzite base of Carboniferous, 180 feet

4. Lower Aubrey sandstone, 950 feet. 9. Archaean.

5. Upper Red Wall sandstone, 400 feet.

The total vertical depth is more than a mile.

V.

A PRACTICABLE way of descending the Canon wall is known to exist upon either side in but
two or three places along its entire length. One of these, the Hance trail, begins within half

a mile of the Canon camp, which point thus offers the remarkable combination of a magnifi-
cent view from the rim and a feasible trail to the river. Only by descending into the Canon can
one arrive at anything like a comprehension of its proportions, and the descent cannot be too
urgently commended to every visitor who possesses a stout heart and good lungs. It is destined
to become more famous than the ascent of the Alps.

For the first two miles the Hance trail is a sort of Jacob's ladder, zigzagging at an unrelenting
pitch down a steep and nearly uniform decline caused by a sliding geological fault and centuries
of frost and rain. It is safe and practicable for pack animals and for sound pedestrians ; ladies
have occasionally made the descent, but at present it necessitates too hurried a scramble in places
to attempt it confidently on horseback. At the end of two miles a comparatively gentle slope is
reached, known as the First Level, some 2,500 feet below the rim ; that is to say — for such figures
have to be impressed objectively upon the mind — five times the height of St. Peter's, the Pyramid

14

LOOKING UP THE RANGE TRAIL.

of Cheops, or the Strasburg Cathedral ; eight times the height of the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty;
eleven times the height of Bunker Hill Monument. Looking back from this level the huge pic-
turesque towers that border the rim shrink to pigmies and seem to crown a perpendicular wall,
unattainably far in the sky. Yet less than one-half the descent has been made, and less than
one-third the entire distance of the trail to the river accomplished. For more than three miles
now riding on horse or mule back is entirely practicable. Hance's Rock Cabin lies only a short
distance ahead, where dinner and rest are to be had under the shade of cotton woods by the side
of a living spring. Further on, the trail continues down a widening gorge plentifully set with
shrubs and spangled, in season, with the bloom of the yucca, prickly pear, primrose, marigold and
a score of unfamiliar showy flowers, white, blue, red and yellow, surprisingly fresh and vigorous
above a dry, red, stony soil. Small lizards dart across the path — brown lizards, spotted lizards,
gtriped lizards, lizards with tails of peacock blue — and an occasional horned toad scrambles out of

the way. No other reptile
is encountered. Soon the
course of a clear rivulet is
reached, whose windings
are followed to the end.
The red wall limestone
gives place to dark-brown
sandstone, whose perfectly
horizontal strata rapidly
rise above the head to prove
the rate of descent along

AT THE ROCK CABIN.

the apparently gentle de-
cline. Overshadowed by
this sandstone of chocolate
hue the way grows gloomy
and foreboding, and the
gorge narrows greatly. The
traveler stops a moment
beneath a slanting cliff 500
feet high, where there is
an Indian grave and pot-
tery scattered about. A
gigantic niche has been

worn in the face of this cavernous cliff, which, in recognition of its fancied Egyptian character,
was named the Temple of Sett by the celebrated painter, Thomas Moran. A little beyond
this temple it becomes necessary to abandon the animals. The river is still a mile and a half
distant. The way narrows now to a mere notch, where two wagons could barely pass, and the
granite begins to tower gloomily overhead, for we have dropped below the sandstone and have
entered the arcluean — a frowning black rock, streaked, veined and swirled with vivid red
and white, smoothed and polished by the rivulet and beautiful as a mosaic. Obstacles are
encountered in the form of steep interposing crags, past which the brook has found a way, but
over which the pedestrian must clamber. After these lesser difliculties come sheer descents, which
at present are passed by tiie aid of ropes. The last considerable drop is a forty foot bit by the
side of a pretty cascade, where there are just enough irregularities in the wall to give toe-hold.
The narrowed cleft becomes exceedingly wayward in its course, turning abruptly to right and left,
and v/orking down into twilight depths. It is very still. At every turn one looks to see the

embouchure upon the river, anticipating the sudden shock of the unintercepted roar of waters.
When at last this is reached, over a final downward clamber, the traveler stands upon a sandy rift
confronted by nearly vertical walls many hundred feet high, at whose base a black torrent
pitches in a giddying onward slide that gives him momentarily the sensation of slipping into an

With so little labor may one come to the Colorado River in the heart of its most tremendous
channel, and gaze upon a sight that heretofore has had fewer witnesses than have the wilds of
Africa. Dwarfed by such prodigious mountain shores, which rise immediately from the water at
an angle that would deny footing to a mountain sheep, it is not easy to estimate confidently the
width and volume of the river. Choked by the stubborn granite at this point, its width is prob-
ably between two hundred and fifty and three hundred feet, its velocity fifteen miles an hour, and
its volume and turmoil eqxial to the Whirlpool Rapids of Niagara. Its rise in time of heavy rain
is rapid and appalling, for the walls shed almost instantly all the water that falls upon them.
Drift is lodged in the crevices thirty feet overhead. For only a few hundred yards is the tortuous
stream visible, but its effect upon the senses is perhaps the greater for that reason. Issuing as
from a mountain side, it slides with oily smoothness for a space and suddenly breaks into violent
waves that comb back against the current and shoot unexpectedly here and there, while the
volume sways tide-like from side to side, and long curling breakers form and hold their outline
lengthwise of the shore, despite the seemingly irresistible velocity of the water. The river is
laden with drift, huge tree trunks, which it tosses like chips in its terrible play.

Standing upon that shore one can barely credit Powell's achievement, in spite of its absolute
authenticity. Never was a more magnificent self-reliance displayed than by the man who not
only undertook the passage of Colorado River but won his way. And after viewing a fraction of
the scene at close range, one cannot hold it to the discredit of three of his companions that they
abandoned the undertaking not far below this point. The fact that those who persisted got
through alive is hardly more astonishing than that any should have had the hardihood to persist.
For it could not have been alone the privation, the infinite toil, the unending suspense in constant
menace of death that assaulted their courage ; these they had looked for ; it was rather the
unlifted gloom of those tartarean depths, the unspeakable horrors of an endless valley of the
shadow of de_th, in which every step was irrevocable.

Returning to the spot where the animals were abandoned, camp is made for the night. Next
morning the way is retraced. Not the most fervid pictures of a poet's fancy could transcend the
glories then revealed in the depths of the Canon ; inky shadows, pale gildings of lofty spires,
golden splendors of sun beating full on facades of red and yellow, obscurations of distant peaks
by veils of transient shower, glimpses of white towers half drowned in purple haze, suffusions of
rosy light blended in reflection from a hundred tinted walls. Caught up to exalted emotional
heights the beholder becomes unmindful of fatigue. He mounts on wings. He drives the chariot
of the sun.

VI.

HAVING returned to the plateau, it will be found that the descent into the Canon has
bestowed a sense of intimacy that almost amounts to a mental grasp of the scene. The
imposing Temple of Sett will be recognized after close scrutiny in a just determinable pen-
stroke of detail. A memorably gorgeous Olympian height that dominated everything for the
space of a mile will be seen to be nothing more than the perpendicular front of the Red Wall
limestone, topped up and away by retreating summits, hidden from below, that reduce it now
to the unimportance of a mere girdle. The verdant, flowered expanse of notable ruggedness

18

IN THE GRANITE.

below the Rock Cabin will bo
discoverable in a small smooth
patch of marly hue. The ter-
rific deeps that part the walls of
hundreds of castles and turrets
of mountainous bulk will be
apprehended mainly through
the memory of upward looks
from the bottom, while towers
and obstructions and yawning
fissures that were deemed events
of the trail will be wholly indis-
tinguishable, although they are
known to lie somewhere flat
beneath the eye. The compara-
tive insignificance of what are
termed grand sights in other
parts of the world is now clearly
revealed. Twenty Yosemites
might lie unperceived anywhere
below. Niagara, that Mecca of
marvel seekers, would not here
possess the dignity of a trout
stream. Your companion, stand-
ing at a short distance on the
verge, is an insect to the eye.

Still such particulars cannot long hold the
attention, for the panorama is the real over-
mastering charm. It is never twice the same. Althougl
you think you have spelt out every temple and peak and
escarpment, as the angle of sunlight changes there begins
a ghostly advance of colossal forms from the farther side,
and what you had taken to be the ultimate wall is seen
to be made up of still other isolated sculptures, revealed now for
the first time by silhouetting shadows. The scene incessantly
changes, flushing and fading, advancing into crystalline clearness,
retiring into slumberous haze. Should it chance to have rained heavily
in the night, next morning the Canon is completely filled with fog. As
the sun mounts, the curtain of mist suddenly breaks into cloud fleeces,
and while you gaze these fleeces rise and dissipate, leaving the Canon

bare. At once around the bases of the lowest cliffs white pull's begin to appear, creating a
scene of unparalleled beauty as their dazzling cumuli swell and rise and their number multi-
plies, until once more they overflow the rim, and it is as if you stood upon some land's end
looking down upon a formless v«.id. Then quickly comes the complete dissipation, and asain
the marshalling in the depths, the upward advance, the total suffusion and the speedy vanishing,
repeated over and over until the warm walls have expelled their saturation.

Long may the visitor loiter upon the rim, powerless to shake loose from the charm, tire-
lessly intent upon the silent transformations until the sun is low in the west. Then the Canon

21

,

ON THE TRAIL.

sinks into mysterious purple shadow, the far Shinumo Altar is tipped with a golden ray, and
against a leaden horizon the long line of the Echo Cliffs reflects a soft brilliance of indescribable
beauty, a light that, elsewhere, surely never was on sea or land. Then darkness falls, and
should there be a moon, the scene in part revives in silver light, a thousand spectral forms
projected from inscrutable gloom ; dreams of mountains, as in their sleep they brood on things
eternal.

NOTE. — Improvements of the Hance trail are now in rapid progress, with the object of enabling visitors to make
the entire descent to the river on horseback, and another trail, three miles west of Hance's, gives promise of a
similar exemption from the fatigues which hitherto have attended the undertaking.

A GRAND CANON CAMPFIRE.

CLIFF DWELLINGS.

At several points upon
the rim of the Grand Canon,
both east and west of the
stage terminus, the razed
walls of ancient stone dwell-
ings may be seen. They
are situated upon the verge
of the precipice, in one in-
stance crowning an out-
standing tower that is con-
nected with the main wall
by only a narrow saddle,
and protected on every
other hand by the per-
pendicular depths of the
Canon. The world does not
contain another fortress so
triumphantly invulnerable
to primitive warfare, nor
a dwelling-place that can
equal it in sublimity. It
will be found upon one of
the salients of Point Moran.

Scattered southward over the plateau, other ruins of similar
character have been found. Perfect specimens of pottery and other
domestic utensils have been exhumed in small number, and the rich
and varied archaeological collections that have so recently rewarded
systematic examination of prehistoric ruins in other parts of the
country, whose treasures were thought to have been exhausted,
would seem to warrant careful search of this region, where the
known ruins have been but superficially examined, and doubtless
many more await discovery.

The most famous group, and the largest aggregation, is found in
Walnut Canon, eight miles southeast from Flagstaff. This canon is

several hundred feet deep and some three miles long, with steep terraced walls of limestone.
Along the shelving terraces, under beetling projections of the strata, are scores of these quaint
abodes. The larger are divided into four or five compartments by cemented walls, many parts of
which are still intact. It is believed that these ancient people customarily dwelt upon the plateau
above, retiring to their fortifications when attacked by an enemy.

28

CAVE DWELLINGS.

Nine miles from Flagstaff, and only half a mile from the stage road to the Grand
Canon, these remarkable ruins are to be seen, upon the summit and farther side of an extinct
crater whose slopes are buried deep in black and red gravel-like cinder. The Caves, so-called,
were the vent holes of the volcano in the time of the eruptions of lava and ashes that have so
plentifully covered the region for many miles about — countless ragged caverns opening directly
under foot and leading by murky windings to unknown deeps in the earth's crust. Many are
simple pot-holes a few yards in depth, their subterranean leads choked up and concealed. Others
yawn black, like burrows of huge beasts of prey. In many instances they are surrounded by
loose stone walls, parts of which are standing just as when their singular inhabitants peered
through their crevices at an approaching foe. Broken pottery abounds, scattered in small frag-
ments like a talus to the very foot of the hill. The character of the pottery ia similar to that
found in the Cliff Dwellings, and it is probable that the Cave Dwellers and the Cliff Dwellers
were the same people. The coarser vessels are simply glazed, or roughly corrugated ; the smaller
ones are decorated by regular indentations, in imitation of the scales of the rattlesnake, or painted
in black and white geometrical designs.

Inferentially, these mysterious people, like the Cliff Dwellers, were of the same stock as the
Pueblo Indians of our day. How long ago they dwelt here cannot be surmised, save roughly from
the appearance of extreme age that characterizes many of the ruins, and the absence of native
traditions concerning them. Their age has been estimated at from six to eight hundred years.

CAVE DWELLING, NEAR FLAGSTAFF.

2G

CLIFF DWELLINGS, NEAR FL^

SAN FRANCISCO PEAKS.

These magnificent peaks, visible from every part of the country within a radius of a hundred
miles, lie just north of Flagstaff. They are four in number, but form one mountain. From Flag-
staff a road has recently been constructed to one of the peaks, Mt. Humphrey, whose summit is
12,750 feet above sea-level. It is a good mountain road, and the entire distance from Flagstaff is
only about ten miles. The trip to the summit and back is easily made in one day.

Mr. A. Doyle, of Flagstaff, is the owner of the trail to Humphrey's Peak, and acts as guide
when desired. He provides the necessary equipment, including hia own services, at a reasonable
cost. Independent arrangements may be made if desired, but in that case toll is charged for use
of the trail.

The summit of Mt. Humphrey affords one of the noblest of mountain views, the panorama
including the north wall of the Grand Canon, the Painted Desert, the Moqui villages, the Super-
stition Mountains near Phoenix, many lakes, and far glimpses over a wide circle.

COST OF A TRIP TO THE GRAND CANON, STAGE
SCHEDULE, HOTELS, ETC.

The stage fare from Flagstaff to the Grand Canon and return is $20.00. Stage tickets may be
purchased on arrival at Flagstaff, or special railroad tickets, bearing stage coupon, may be
obtained by the tourist. In the latter case a reduction is made in the railroad fare from the
principal points at which such tickets are sold.

The stage leaves Flagstaff for the Grand Canon after breakfast every Monday, Wednesday
and Friday morning, except during the winter months, returning Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday
mornings. The office of E. S. Wilcox, manager of the Grand Canon Stage Line Company, is con-
veniently situated on the depot platform, and visitors will find it to their advantage to apply to
him immediately upon arrival and secure stage accommodations.

The price of lunch en route is 50 cents, and of meals at the Canon camp $1.00 each, which
latter is also the price of lodging in the comfortable tents provided at the Canon. The lunch
station en route is Cedar Ranch, a point midway.

Camping outfits, pack animals, saddle horses, guides, rough clothing, stout shoes and general
supplies can be procured at the Canon camp by parties who desire to descend the Hance Trail or
make excursions along the rim.

There are several hotels in Flagstaff, and visitors to the Grand Canon who may chance to
arrive in town between the regular stage runs, as scheduled above, will have no difficulty in
spending time agreeably in the interim. In addition to the San Francisco Peaks and the Cliff and
Cave Dwellings, Fisher's Tanks and the Bottomless Pits may be reached by a short and agreeable
drive, and fifteen miles to the south, in Oak Creek Canon, there is really excellent trout fishing.

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MAP OF STAGE ROUTE.

Flagstaff is situated on the Atlantic and Pacific Raihoad, a division of the through California
line of the Santa Fe Route.

Special tickets to the Grand Canon, containing stage coupon, are sold at reduced rates hy
agents of the Santa Fe Route, and by agents of connecting lines, in the principal cities of the
United States.

Inquiries as to cost of tickets, time of trains, etc., may be addressed to agents of the Santa F6
Route, or to W. F. White, Passenger Traffic Manager, 723 Monadnock Building, Chicago, Illinois.

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