DESCENT INTO THE GRAND CAÑON
1
Its discovery was part of the fruitless quest of El Dorado by
Coronado--the greatest hole in the world and nothing in it. He had
hoped to find another Mexico in the North and despoil it of its jewels.
Like the Vandal he was, he plunged into the American Sahara to loot
another Rome. Cibola and Quivira were his glittering dreams. He rode in
all two thousand miles, cactus and alkali-whitened plains all the way.
He fought not men but deserts; instead of storied Cibola he found the
mud huts of the Zunyi Indians, rich only in their personal adornments
of turquoise and silver; and instead of fantastic Quivira with princes
in golden armor, he found near the great bend of the Arkansas River,
the tent dwellers of what is now Wichita. The mirage of El Dorado
appeared constantly before him and his followers. His horsemen wandered
in many directions seeking tidings of gold or of kingdoms to conquer.
And one of them came, as was inevitable, to the great gap in the earth
hundreds of miles long, leagues across, leagues as it seemed downward,
the Cañon del Grande, and the descent of it was as a descent to the
hidden heart of the world. It added one more fantastic page to the
story of the King of Spain's new lands wherein "of antres vast and
deserts idle" much was spoken.
Geologists do not agree as to the number of thousands of years ago the
accident occurred which made the Cañon. We shall, therefore, appear
pathetically human in our narrow gaze if we say, "Now nearly four
hundred years have passed since the Spaniards discovered it." There are
dwellings of cave men on the northern cliff, inaccessible as the nests
of the white eagles who stare from the ledges. And yet it does mean
something to us living now that it is nearly four hundred years since
our civilization took cognizance of the Grand Cañon, this bit of chaos
left over at the creation of the world.
We have tamed Niagara with power houses, and they have put lunch
counters among the branches of the giant trees of California. Nearly
all the natural wonders of America have been altered. But the Grand
Cañon remains changeless and unchangable. It is true it has become a
wonder gaze for tourists, a "stop-over" 'twixt Los Angeles and Chicago.
But there is nothing in that. Ninety-six in every hundred of those who
visit the Cañon merely look at it, go along the rim, spend a night at
the railway hotel, and resume their journey next day. But four in a
hundred venture down into the abyss.
After going to Cibola Ewart and I decided to leave this part of the
country, but before departing we went to the Grand Cañon together. So
with knapsacks on our shoulders we left New Mexico for the wilderness
of Northern Arizona. And we determined to walk down into the depths
of the Cañon, from the snow and ice of the dreadful plateau down to
flowers blooming and gentle airs.
Early one morning in December, therefore, we stood on the verge, and
in its sublimity its first awful grandeur was disclosed; its gigantic
abysses and gray-green pyramids, its rosy, castellated heights gleaming
with sunshine.
"Some hole in the wall, I'll say," cried a Mr. Babbitt, consuming a
"stack of hot cakes" at the Harvey lunch counter. "Me to hike it down
there--_not ... on ... your ... life_!"
The trail is heavily frosted, steep and narrow. It is even difficult to
stop oneself in the first slides that are strides. Both of us sat down
suddenly and unpremeditatedly once or twice. We held on to scrub and
jagged rock, footing the snow gingerly.
But something of magic had taken us. The rock walls in long slabs
looked at us, came up to us, stared at us. There was a new morning
silence in which occasionally we heard the wings of tiny birds
fluttering. As it were climbing the outer stairway or stone spiral of
some great dungeon or keep built on a mighty rock--so we looked out
over abysses, and were granted at moments unexpected views of frowning
and dreadful cliffs. The eyes spoke to the mind of vaster surfaces
and greater bulks of rock than it yet had known. And an intellectual
perspective was obtained.
Going downward rapidly we met trees made tiny, and they started to our
feet like feathers. Rocks which from above had been merely formalized
bulks gained in character as if we were approaching drawbridges of
fantastic castles. Old red pyramids torn by the ages stood before us in
awful actuality, exhibiting the myriad scars and crusts of time.
The trail, an Indian one, was there before the Spaniards came, for
the Indians used it and walked it nearly a hundred miles. But it is
improved now and made safe for the tourist on a mule--safer still for
the man upon his feet. The descent is naturally rapid. One strides over
hundreds, over thousands of feet, which it is labor indeed to climb up.
One moment one is facing the great cream and pale green fissured wall
of the upper limestone, the "key stone," as it is called. At the next
breathing space you are below that and facing red cliff which develops
before the downward-going eyes into a mighty wall, whilst the cream
rock is left far above you, a cliff in the sky.
At three thousand feet below, all the cold airs have gone; there are
green leaves on the trees. The flowers of the willow herb have gone to
seed but the leaves are tender. Japanese sunflowers are still poised
blooming in the sunshine, and where spring water comes freshening from
rock walls the gentle violet snuggles and is at home.
But we come out on an exposed plateau, above the madly rushing Colorado
River but below the main masses of the ravine. Between wall and wall of
the Cañon rise gigantic isolated rocks as if there were a city built in
the trough of the river. Rim to rim the gap is sixteen miles across--so
there is "verge enough and ample space" for adamantine temples,
pavilions and towers. The plateau is bowlder-strewn and only enlivened
by the irislike yucca stems and by small pink cactus and prickly pear.
On our left is an appalling great red fortress of stone whose sheer
wall cuts across the life light of the zenith; on our right and below
us is the rock cleavage of the hidden Colorado River; whilst above
us in a seraphically serene noonday bask the domes of isolated rocks
fantastically named and yet happily named too--the Temple of Shiva, the
Temple of Isis, the Temple of Buddha.
On the left as we walk on, comes into view, far aloft, a cream-colored
sky castle, all happy in the sun. But, lowering the eyes, there resumes
its sway the fortress whose great wall we are turning, and we begin
to see its vast, blood-red and green base. We walk into a cold shadow
which seems as substantial as the rocks themselves, and we cross the
broad stony scarp of precipitous cliffs, going downward, till we come
right under what seems an ancient castle--out of fairyland or the
England of the Mort d'Arthur, a quadrilateral of blood in a hideous
pool of darkness.
But no giant sallied forth with blood-stained ax. No one is at home
in any fortress, castle, tower, or temple--no more than in the rooms
of the stone and mud-closed caves of the cliff dwellers. Not even a
tourist--no, not a mule. Only certainly wild asses in great numbers
wherever there is any pasture, uncatchable donkeys who sneeze at you at
the most unexpected moments.
Ewart and I sat by a spring at noon and rested and talked whilst
the tumbling water spoke to us also, and we boiled a pot over dry
weeds and bits of cactus later on and had our lunch. It was a happy
moment--there was a sense of escape, as if we had gone to Southern
California or Mexico and got away from the rigorous winter of the
exalted deserts of the South.
"By George!" Ewart cried, "I nearly took a toss up above. What have you
on your boots; I have nails."
I had rubber on mine.
"Yes, I could not get a foothold on that ice; I was reduced to hands
and knees."
"Curious, they say they have had no human accidents here. The last
accident was when eight horses yoked together and laden with T. N. T.
went over the brink and fell a sheer five hundred feet."
"I did not hear of that."
"Yes, one of the horses was new to the Cañon and proved unruly. He
fouled his neighbor and he slipped over the side, pulling all seven
horses after him."
"That must have been a terrible splash."
"But the T. N. T. did not explode."
"No!"
"The horses were all killed instantaneously though; they jumped right
out of their skins."
"You'd think the Grand Cañon would tempt suicides. It's a certain and
sudden death. Dramatic and spectacular too!"
"Too much time for reflection and meditation before you get here," I
hazarded. "The man coming to commit suicide changes his mind before he
gets here and goes down on a mule instead."
Ewart laughed.
"You are a fellow who ought to be cautious," I said after a while.
"Why specially?"
"Because I don't think, strictly speaking, that you are over lucky. You
are a person who has bad accidents. I've known you in three, any of
which might have cost you your life."
"Well, I don't know," said Ewart. "I'd say I was lucky. I've come
through the war and two motor accidents, and escaped with my life up
till now."
He jumped nervously.
"Oh!" he cried unexpectedly. "Uberufen!" and turned round him to find a
piece of wood to touch.
But there was no wood handy. We were in a woodless ravine. He seemed
quite anxious and snatched at a piece of dead cactus.
I laughed heartily.
"What do you mean by 'Uberufen'?" I cried.
"I think one ought not to be too sure," said Wilfrid solemnly.
"What a fix, to be in a place with no wood to touch," said I
mirthfully. "Supposing under such circumstances one was to touch one's
head, implying modestly that it was the nearest thing to wood one could
find, do you think the Fate that watches over us would be appeased?"
Ewart smiled.
We talked of President Wilson who was superstitiously unsuperstitious.
An extraordinary thing; he did things for preference on the thirteenth
of the month, sat down thirteen to dinner, sailed on the thirteenth of
the month in cabin No. Thirteen, all of set purpose.
He has turned out to be frightfully unlucky--we agreed.
"Time to make a move now, if we're going to reach a shelter for the
night. What do you think?"
Again we lifted our knapsacks and footed it across the stones--to
rose-red mountains and cream and green pavilions of stone. Next time
we sat to rest and to share an orange together we faced as it were
an encampment of all the mountains. There were giant steps from the
Northern heights down, down to the black river, and there was the
sound of rivers running in the rocks like many rats. We walked to the
great slides which overtopped the waters, to the hundred ledges of the
serried gray rock which makes the river's bed. Then we passed into
vast mountain chambers where, despite company, you felt you were alone
whilst judges and distributors of dooms considered you.
Afternoon grew to dusk of evening, and the trail was harder to keep.
Monument Creek rushed from underground its short course to the
receiving Colorado. We were baffled with the way. Sunset rays far above
made roseate the peaks and the ridges but rapidly faded down below,
as if light would not carry to us. And night closed sharply in, with
starlight and a swelling magnificence of all that was material in the
womb of the earth.
Our quest had then become the Hermit Cabin or Camp, as it is called, a
place wherein to spend the night. Darkness almost hid the vague Tonto
trail, and the way as we traced it grew much wilder. There were many
slippery rocks and queer drops which it seemed to us not even a mule
could have taken.
We began to think not unhappily of a night in a cave or under some
overhanging ledge of the cliff, when far away we espied a lost light
that flickered uncertainly in the darkness. That indubitably must be
the little rest house on the fast running Hermit River, and we took
heart from the light and made for it.
We came to the door and no dog barked. All was utterly silent. We
opened the door and faced a man and his wife who were working at a
kitchen table on which was spread the most unlikely things to find at
the bottom of the Grand Cañon--sugarplums, yes, bright red, green,
and yellow squares of candy dusted with white sugar. In their spare
time in the long winter evenings the keeper and his spouse made these
sugarplums from the pith of the cactus and sold them later for a fair
reward. For cactus candy is a good sweet, one made by the Indians
before the white man came.
So we dined with the keeper and were given candy for dessert. And we
listened to many curious tales of the Cañon and admired the skins of
the wild cats the keeper had shot. Then we walked out into the balmy
night air, and looked up to the flame points of the stars and the
golden lines of their rays. The moon came up slowly from behind some
vast black prison wall of stone, and she dimmed the stars. Then the
grandeur of moonlight filled the Cañon as it were a precious basin. We
slept down below moon and stars and crags upon a happy earth, and all
night long the temples of Shiva and Isis and Buddha and the blood-red
castle and the white cliff palaces stared into the Arizona sky. And we
heard no coyote cry nor felt one chill breath of the snowland above us.
Next day the naked light of dawn lighted up stark cliffs and jagged
sky pointers and the green cabins of Hermit Camp under their yellow
umbrellas of wilted aspens. And we climbed up from the depth into the
cold heights once more. The mountains on all hands grew up with us as
we climbed, and towered above and were measured by us, and sank at last
beneath us and remained down in the gap with the rushing river and the
silences that are below. We looked down at sunset four thousand feet
from the rim to the river, and we reflected that in a way the Cañon had
possessed us wholly and we in our hearts possessed only part of it.
It voided us out at the top, it plumbed our hearts, it took away our
breaths, it turned the last page of the word books of our minds.