The Grand Cañon of the Colorado | Page 4

nature giving beauty for ashes,--as in the flowers of a
prairie after fire,--but here the very dust and ashes are beautiful.
Gazing across the mighty chasm, we at last discover that it is not its
great depth nor length, nor yet these wonderful buildings, that most

impresses us. It is its immense width, sharply defined by precipitous
walls plunging suddenly down from a flat plain, declaring in terms
instantly apprehended that the vast gulf is a gash in the once unbroken
plateau, made by slow, orderly erosion and removal of huge beds of
rocks. Other valleys of erosion are as great,--in all their dimensions
some are greater,--but none of these produces an effect on the
imagination at once so quick and profound, coming without study,
given at a glance. Therefore by far the greatest and most influential
feature of this view from Bright Angel or any other of the cañon views
is the opposite wall. Of the one beneath our feet we see only
fragmentary sections in cirques and amphitheaters and on the sides of
the outjutting promontories between them, while the other, though far
distant, is beheld in all its glory of color and noble proportions--the one
supreme beauty and wonder to which the eye is ever turning. For while
charming with its beauty it tells the story of the stupendous erosion of
the cañon--the foundation of the unspeakable impression made on
everybody. It seems a gigantic statement for even nature to make, all in
one mighty stone word, apprehended at once like a burst of light,
celestial color its natural vesture, coming in glory to mind and heart as
to a home prepared for it from the very beginning. Wildness so godful,
cosmic, primeval, bestows a new sense of earth's beauty and size. Not
even from high mountains does the world seem so wide, so like a star
in glory of light on its way through the heavens.
I have observed scenery-hunters of all sorts getting first views of
yosemites, glaciers. While Mountain ranges, etc. Mixed with the
enthusiasm which such scenery naturally excites, there is often weak
gushing, and many splutter aloud like little waterfalls. Here, for a few
moments at least, there is silence, and all are in dead earnest, as if awed
and hushed by an earthquake--perhaps until the cook cries "Breakfast!"
or the stable-boy "Horses are ready!" Then the poor unfortunates,
slaves of regular habits, turn quickly away, gasping and muttering as if
wondering where they had been and what had enchanted them.
Roads have been made from Bright Angel Hotel through the Cocanini
Forest to the ends of outstanding promontories, commanding extensive
views up and down the cañon. The nearest of them, three or four miles

east and west, are McNeil's Point and Rowe's Point; the latter, besides
commanding the eternally interesting cañon, gives wide-sweeping
views southeast and west over the dark forest roof to the San Francisco
and Mount Trumbull volcanoes--the bluest of mountains over the
blackest of level woods.
Instead of thus riding in dust with the crowd, more will be gained by
going quietly afoot along the rim at different times of day and night,
free to observe the vegetation, the fossils in the rocks, the seams
beneath overhanging ledges once inhabited by Indians, and to watch the
stupendous scenery in the changing lights and shadows, clouds,
showers, and storms. One need not go hunting the so-called "points of
interest." The verge anywhere, everywhere, is a point of interest
beyond one's wildest dreams.
As yet, few of the promontories or throng of mountain buildings in the
cañon are named. Nor among such exuberance of forms are names
thought of by the bewildered, hurried tourist. He would be as likely to
think of names for waves in a storm. The Eastern and Western Cloisters,
Hindu Amphitheater, Cape Royal, Powell's Plateau, and Grand View
Point, Point Sublime, Bissell and Moran points, the Temple of Set,
Vishnu's Temple, Shiva's Temple, Twin Temples, Tower of Babel,
Hance's Column--these fairly good names given by Dutton, Holmes,
Moran, and others are scattered over a large stretch of the cañon
wilderness.
All the cañon rock-beds are lavishly painted, except a few neutral bars
and the granite notch at the bottom occupied by the river, which makes
but little sign. It is a vast wilderness of rocks in a sea of light, colored
and glowing like oak and maple woods in autumn, when the sun-gold is
richest. I have just said that it is impossible to learn what the cañon is
like from descriptions and pictures. Powell's and Dutton's descriptions
present magnificent views not only of the cañon but of all the grand
region round about it; and Holmes's drawings, accompanying Dutton's
report, are wonderfully good. Surely faithful and loving skill can go no
further in putting the multitudinous decorated