CHAPTER XVIII

INTO THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH.

The Grand Cañon of the Colorado--Niagara Outdone--The Course of the Colorado River--A Survey Party Through the Cañon--Experiences of a Terrible Night--Wonderful Contrasts of Color in the Massive Rocks--A Natural Wall a Thousand Feet High--Hieroglyphics which have Never been Deciphered--Relics of a Superior Race--Conjecture as to the Origin of the Ancient Bearded White Men.

We have already spoken of Niagara as one of the wonders of the world, and one of the most sought-after beauty spots of America. We will now devote a few pages to a description of a far more remarkable natural wonder and to a phenomenon which, were it situated nearer the center of population, would have long since outclassed even Niagara as a tourist's Mecca.

Reference is made to the Grand Cañon of the Colorado.

Few people have the slightest conception of the magnitude or awfulness of this cañon. It is clearly one of the wonders of the world, and its vastness is such that to explore it from end to end is a work of the greatest possible difficulty.

Even in area, the cañon is extraordinary. It is large enough to contain more than one Old World country. It is long enough to stretch across some of the largest States in the Union. Some of the smaller New England States would be absolutely swallowed up in the yawning abyss could they, by any means, be removed to it bodily. An express train running at a high rate of speed, without a single stop and on a first-class road-bed, could hardly get from one end of the cañon to the other in less than five hours, and an ordinary train with the usual percentage of stoppage would about make the distance between morning and evening.

Reduced to the record of cold figures, the Grand Cañon is made up of a series of chasms measuring about 220 miles in length, as much as 12 miles in width, and frequently as much as 7,000 feet in depth.

This marvelous feature of American scenery is very fully described in "Our Own Country," published by the National Publishing Company. In describing the cañon, that profusely illustrated work says that the figures quoted "do not readily strike a responsive chord in the human mind, for the simple reason that they involve something utterly different from anything that more than 99 per cent. of the inhabitants of the world have ever seen. The man who gazes upon Niagara for the first time, is astounded at the depth of the gorge as well as at the force of the water; and he who has seen Niagara can appreciate somewhat the marvels of the Grand Cañon, when he bears in mind that the great wonder of the Western World is for miles at a stretch more than fifty times as deep as the falls and the gorge, generally admitted to be the most awful scenic grandeur within reach of the ordinary traveler. Nor is this all. Visitors to Paris who have enjoyed a bird's-eye view of the gay city from the summit of Eifel Tower, have felt terribly impressed with its immense altitude, and have been astounded at the effect on the appearance of living and inanimate objects so far below them. How many of the Americans who have been thus impressed by French enterprise, have realized that in their own country there is a natural gorge, at points of which the distance between the summit and the base is more than five times as great as the height of the Eifel Tower?"

The Colorado River rises in the Rocky Mountains, crosses the Territories of Utah and Arizona, and then running between the last named and the State of California, finally empties its waters into the gulf bearing the name of the Golden State. For more than two hundred miles of its course it runs through the gorge known as the Grand Cañon, and hence it has been a very difficult river to explore. During the Sixteenth Century, some of the Spanish explorers, to whom this country is indebted so much for early records and descriptions, crossed the then undeveloped deserts of the Southwest and discovered the Grand Cañon. Many of the reports they made of the wonders of the New World read so much like fairy tales, and seemed so obviously exaggerated, that little credence was given to them. Hence it was that their estimates concerning the gorge through which the Rio Colorado Grande flows were treated as fables, and laughed at rather than believed.

Major Powell, than whom few men have done more to enlighten the world concerning the wonders of the Far West, describes the cañon very aptly, and speaks in a most attractive manner of the countless cañons and caverns, whirlpools and eddies, brooklets and rivers, fords and waterfalls, that abound on every side. In his first extended description of the cañon, he stated that "every river entering it has cut another cañon; every lateral creek has also cut another cañon; every brook runs in a cañon; every rill born of a shower and living only in the showers, has cut for itself a cañon; so that the whole upper portion of the basin of the Colorado is traversed by a labyrinth of these deep gorges. About the basin are mountains; within the basin are cañon gorges; the stretches of land from brink to brink are of naked rock or of drifting sands, with here and there lines of volcanic cones, and of black scoria and ashes scattered about."

Of late years thousands of people have been attracted to this great cañon, although but very few have succeeded in exploring its entire length. Few, indeed, have been able to pass along the balcony of the cañon, and to gaze up at the countless wonders of nature, piled one above the other, apparently up to the very region of the clouds. The common notion of a cañon, as Captain C. E. Dutton tells us, is that of a deep, narrow gash in the earth, with nearly vertical walls, like a great and neatly cut trench. There are hundreds of chasms in the plateau country which answer very well to this notion. It is, however, unfortunate that the stupendous passway for the Colorado River through the Kaibabs was ever called a cañon, for the name identified it with the baser conception. At places the distance across the chasm to the nearest point on the summit of the opposite wall is about seven miles. A more correct statement of the general width would be from eleven to twelve miles. It is hence somewhat unfortunate that there is a prevalent idea, in some way, that an essential part of the grandeur of the Grand Cañon is the narrowness of its defile.

As Major Powell expresses it, there are rather a series of cañons, than one huge one. Wherever the river has cut its way through the sandstones, marbles and granites of the Kaibab Mountains, beautiful and awe-inspiring pictures are seen, while above there are domes and peaks, some of red sandstone and some of snowy whiteness. Cataract Cañon alone is forty-one miles long, and has seventy-five cataracts and rapids, of which fifty-seven are within a space of nineteen miles. A journey along the bank of a river with a waterfall every twenty feet, on the average, is no joke, and only the hardiest men have been able to accomplish it. In the spring of 1889, the survey party of a projected railroad from Grand Junction to the Gulf of California, made this journey, and from its published description more actual information can be gleaned concerning the cañon itself than almost any mere verbal description.

The surveyors had to carry with them, on their backs, for a great portion of the way, the limited supplies of food they took with them, because it was frequently impossible to get the boats along at all. When the boats were used, several were upset, and everything was uncertainty as to the bill of fare that would be presented at the next meal, even if there was to be a meal at all. Mr. Frank M. Brown, president of the railroad company, lost his life in one of the whirlpools. He was in a boat, a little ahead of the others, and seemed to be cheerful and hopeful. He shouted to his comrades in the rear to come on with their boats, and that he was all right. A moment later, his friends were astonished to see the boat gone, and their leader swimming around and around in a whirlpool, trying hard to reach smooth water.

He was a good swimmer, and a brave man, but his efforts were futile, and finally he sank. The party waited and watched for hours, but were finally compelled to recognize the fact that their friend and leader was gone forever.

It was determined almost immediately to beat a retreat. While the party was hunting for a side cañon leading northward through which they could make their exit, it became evident that a storm was brewing. Rain commenced to fall in a steady shower, and to increase in quantity. The surveyors had no dry clothing beyond what they stood up in, and there was no shelter of any kind at hand. They were near Vassey's Paradise, in the deepest part of the cañon they had yet reached. A storm in such a location had its awfulness intensified beyond measure, and the frightened men looked in every direction for shelter. Finally, about forty feet up the side of the marble cliff, the opening to a small cavern was seen. Into this Mr. R. B. Stanton, one of the party, climbed. There was not room enough for his body at full length, but he crawled in as best he could, curled himself up, and tried to sleep.

A terrible night followed. At about midnight he was awakened by a terrific peal of thunder, which re-echoed and reverberated through the cañon in a most magnificently awful manner. He had been caught in storms in mountain regions and deep valleys before, but he had never felt so terribly alone or so superstitiously alarmed as on this occasion. Every now and then a vivid flash of lightning would light up the dark recesses of the gorge, casting ghastly shadows upon the cliffs, hill sides, ravines and river. Then again there would be the darkness which, as Milton puts it, could be felt, and the feeling of solitude was almost intolerable.

The river in the meantime had swollen into a torrent, by the drenching rain, which had converted every creek into a river, and every feeder of the Colorado into a magnificent, if raging, river itself. The noise caused by the excited river, as it leaped over the massive rocks along its bed, vied with the thunder, and the echoes seemed to extend hundreds of miles in every direction. What affected the stranded traveler the most was the noise overhead, the reverberation inducing a feeling of alarm that huge masses of rock were being displaced from their lofty eminence thousands of feet above his head, and were rushing down upon him.

The night was passed, finally, and when the storm had spent itself, the survivors of the party succeeded in getting out of the cañon and reaching a plateau, 2,500 feet above. They then took a brief rest, but with that disregard for danger which is characteristic of the true American, they at once organized another expedition, and a few months later resumed the task so tragically interrupted and marred with such a sad fatality.

The trip through Glen Cañon was like a pleasure trip on a smooth river in autumn, with beautiful wild flowers and ferns at every camp. At Lee's Ferry they ate their Christmas dinner, with the table decorated with wild flowers, picked that day.

On December 28th they started to traverse, once more, that portion of Marble Cañon made tragic by the fatality of the summer before. "On the next Tuesday," writes Mr. Stanton, "we reached the spot where President Brown lost his life. What a change in the waters! What was then a roaring torrent, now, with the water some nine feet lower, seemed from the shore like the gentle ripple upon the quiet lake. We found, however, in going through it with our boats, there was the same swift current, the same huge eddy, and between them the same whirlpool, with its ever-changing circles. Marble Cañon seemed destined to give us trouble. On January 1st, our photographer, Mr. Nims, fell from a bench of the cliff, some twenty-two feet, on to the sand beach below, receiving a severe jar, and breaking one of his legs just above the ankle. Having plenty of bandages and medicine, we made Nims as comfortable as possible till the next day, when we loaded one of the boats to make him a level bed, and constructing a stretcher of two oars and a piece of canvas, put him on board and floated down river a couple of miles--running two small rapids--to a side cañon, which led out to the Lee's Ferry road."

The next day, after discovering a way out of the deep ravine, one of the party tramped thirty-five miles back to Lee's Ferry, where a wagon was obtained for the injured surveyor. Eight of the strongest men of the party then undertook the task of carrying the injured man a distance of four miles, and up a hill 1,700 feet high. It is indicative of the extraordinary formation of the Grand Cañon that the last half mile was an angle of 45 degrees, up a loose rock slide. The stretcher had to be attached to ropes and gently lifted over perpendicular cliffs, from ten to twenty feet high. The dangerous and tedious journey was at last accomplished, and the trip continued.

Finally the unexplored portion of the cañon was reached. For thirty miles down Marble Cañon, to the Little Colorado River, the most beautiful scenery was encountered. At Point Retreat, the solid marble walls stand perpendicularly 300 feet high from the river edge. Behind these walls the sandstone lies in benches, and slopes to an aggregate height of 2,500 feet. Above the narrow ravine of marble, the color is mostly rich gray, although the presence of minerals has in places imparted so many tints that quite a rainbow appearance is presented. Caves and caverns relieve the monotony of the solid walls. Here and there a most delightful grotto is seen, while the action of the water rushing down the cliff sides has left little natural bridges in many places. Countless fountains of pure, sparkling water adorn the smooth rocks, and here and there are little oases of ferns and flowers, which seem strangely out of place so far down into the very bowels of the earth.

Below Point Hausbrough, named in honor of Peter M. Hausbrough, who was drowned during the first exploring trip, the cañon widens rapidly. The marble benches are replaced by strata of limestone and between the river and the rocks green fields and groves of trees become common. The view from the river, looking across this verdure, with sandstone rocks for the immediate background, and snow-capped mountains in the distance, is extraordinary in its magnificence and combinations. Between the grand junction of the Little Colorado with the main cañon and the Granite Gorge, there is about eight hundred miles of a very different section. Evidences of volcanic action abound. Rocks and boulders seem to have been blown out of position and mixed up all in a heap. The rocks are largely charged with mineral, and, as a result, almost every known color is represented, in the most remarkable purity. The river runs through a wide valley, with the top walls several miles apart.

The Granite Gorge itself is entirely different. Here the great walls of granite start from the water's edge. The first few feet are usually vertical. Then, for a thousand feet or more, the rise is at an angle of about 45 degrees, while occasionally masses of rock stand out prominently and overhang the river. Above the granite comes a mass of dark colored sandstone, with a vertical front. In many places it is perfectly black, the color being intensified by the brightness of the red below. If an artist were to paint a cliff deep red, with a jet black border along the top, Old World critics would be apt to declare him insane. Yet this is really the coloring of this section of the most wonderful cañon in the entire world.

Although the cañon at this point varies in width at the top from six to twelve miles, the river really runs through a narrow gorge, and partakes very much of the nature of a long rapid or cataract. For ten miles the fall averages twenty-one feet per mile, sufficient to make the current very dangerous even at low water, and something terrible after heavy rains or much snow melting. In one place the fall is eighty feet in about five hundred yards, and here, of course, navigation is practically out of the question. The explorers, to whom we have referred, were compelled to proceed with great deliberation at this point. Occasionally they ran the rapids, but very often they were compelled to lower their boats by means of lines, and even to lift them over exceptionally dangerous rocks.

At the worst point of all, one of the boats, while being lowered by lines, was struck by an eddy and run tightly in between two rocks. It became necessary for men to go into the water to liberate the boat. With lines tied securely to their bodies, some of the boldest of the explorers ventured into the water and tried to loosen the boat, or at least to secure the invaluable provisions and blankets on board. It was January, and the water was so intensely cold that no man could endure it more than a few minutes at a time, so that the process was a long and tedious one. Finally the boat was got out, but it took five days to repair it, and even then it was a very poor means of navigation. A few days later, a still more powerful and dangerous rapid was encountered. Some idea of the force of the water can be gleaned from the precautions that were necessary. A line 250 feet long was strung out ahead, and the boat was swung into the stream. It went through apparently the most dangerous places without much difficulty. The line was loosened slowly and the boat held under control, but when it reached the main eddy it began to get contrary, and finally swung round, and seemed to have struck a back current. Several hours' work got the boat to shore, but the next one was dashed into a thousand pieces while crossing over some of the sharp-pointed rocks.

The forty miles of the Granite Gorge are replete with wonders. The strangely misnamed section, the Bright Angel Creek, is absolutely dark, even at midday. It has been described as a sentinel of the great cañon, and few people have dared attempt to pass through it. Farther down, the granite walls become less steep, and black granite relieves the monotony of color. Here and there, at side cañons and sudden bends, the vast rear view of the gorge, with its sandstone cliffs, is brought into view. These are benched back several miles from the river, with huge mountains here and there intervening. Above the dark sandstone there are flattened slopes of yellow, brown, red, green and white rock, rich in mineral. Through these the force of water for ages has cut narrow, trench-like waterfalls, most remarkable in appearance and attractive in their variety of coloring.

It is difficult to imagine an upright wall a thousand feet high with red the predominating color, and with brighter hues near the summit. Benches of marble, with tufts of glass and bush, appear here and there, while occasionally there is a little tract of faultless green. Above all this, there is something like two thousand feet of a lighter colored sandstone. This is beautified by spiral turrets and domes, and wherever the slope is gradual enough, pine and cedar trees abound in large numbers. Behind all this there is the background of snow on the summit of the mountains, and when an unexpected view can be obtained from the river below, there is so great a profusion of coloring that the eye rebels, and a feeling not unlike headache is produced.

Further wonders are revealed every few thousand feet. At the mouth of the next creek the coloring is different. The strata dips visibly, and the marble, which has hitherto been exposed to view, is now beneath the surface. The sandstone forms the river boundary, and rises at a sharp angle from the water's edge. The river itself is narrow in consequence, but the great valley is even wider at the top. The walls vary in height from 2,000 to 8,000 feet, and in rainy seasons the water rushes down the side in great profusion. Thousands of little rivulets join the main stream, and add greatly to the volume of water. Sometimes the river will rise four or five feet in a single night, upsetting all calculation, and making navigation risky in the extreme. When, by chance, the sun is able to penetrate into the depths of this cañon, the kaleidoscopic effects are exquisite, and cause the most indifferent to pause and wonder.

The discovery of an extinct volcano explains a great deal of the wonders of the great cañon. The volcano is examined by thousands of tourists, this being one of the spots to reach which scientists are willing to incur countless hardships and risks. No one can tell when the volcano was active, but from the nature of the crater it is perfectly clear that at one time it belched forth volumes of lava, which had a marked effect on the formation of the rock and the lay of the land of the surrounding country. Past the volcano, for many miles, the bright colors already referred to are supplanted by more sombre hues. Occasionally there is a little scarlet, and, as a rule, the sandstone is covered with the mysterious substance brought out of the bowels of the earth by the now silent, but once magnificently awful, mountains.

The exploring party to which we have referred, went through 600 miles of cañons, and found that no two miles were really alike. Finally, after three months of hardship, they emerged into an open country, and became almost frantic with joy. Never did country seem so beautiful, or verdure so attractive, and the panorama of beauty which was presented to their view caused them to shout with delight, and to offer up cries of thankfulness for their ultimate deliverance from a series of hardships and dangers which at one time seemed almost insurmountable.

The region also abounds with archaeological curiosities and remarkable hieroglyphics. Many of these are found in close proximity to the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, and on the cliffs in which the far-famed cliff dwellers of old took up their abode. Hieroglyphics, marked upon rocks or other lasting substances, have been used by nearly all ancient races to perpetuate the history of certain events among them. Especially true is this of the ancient people who lived in Arizona. The remarkable picture rocks and boulders, with strange symbols upon them, left by the prehistoric races of Arizona, have been the cause of much discussion among those who have seen them, as to who these ancient hieroglyphic makers were. These rock records may be divided into three different kinds, which it is thought were made by two different races. The first, or very ancient race, left records on rocks, in some instances of symbols only, and in other instances of pictures and symbols combined. The later race, which came after the first race had vanished, made only crude representations of animals, birds or reptiles, not using symbols or combinations of lines.

The age of the most ancient pictographs and hieroglyphics can only be conjectured, but all give certain indications that they are many centuries old, and the difference between the work of the ancient and the later race leads the observer to believe that the older hieroglyphics were made by a people far superior to those who came after them, and who left no record in symbols, as we have said, with the exception of crude representations of animals and reptiles.

In many instances it is quite evident that the same rock or cliff has been used by the two different races to put their markings upon, the later, or inferior, race often making their pictographs over or across the hieroglyphic writings of the first race. Of the superiority of the first people who left their writings on the rocks and boulders found in the ancient mounds, ruins and graves, there can be no doubt, for their writings show order and a well defined design in symbols, which were evidently intended to convey their history to others; and it is quite probable that those who made the great mounds, houses and canals were the authors of these writings. It may be truthfully asserted that the cliff dwellers of the rock houses in the deep cañons of the mountains were of the same race as the mound builders of the valleys, for exactly the same class of hieroglyphics found on boulders from the ancient ruins of the valleys, are found on the rocks near the houses of the cliff dwellers.

If this superior race were so distinctive from all other ancient races of Arizona--in their work being so far advanced as to solve what would be called, even at the present day, difficult engineering problems; to dig great canals many miles in length, the remains of which can be seen at the present time, and to bring them to such perfection for irrigating purposes; to build such great houses and to live in cities--may it not have been, as many who have studied this subject now contend, that this superior race were white people instead of a copper colored race, as has generally been supposed?

The hieroglyphics of the more ancient race are often found on sheltered rocks on the slopes of the mountains leading up from the valleys. Generally protected from the elements by overhanging cliffs, the dry climate has kept the writings from wearing away, and being in most instances picked into rocks which have a black, glistening surface, but of a lighter color underneath, the contrast is very noticeable, and when in prominent places these hieroglyphics can be seen several hundred feet away.

As no metal tools have ever been found in the mounds, ruins or cliff dwellings, the hieroglyphics were probably picked into the rock with a sharp-pointed stone much harder than the rock upon which the work was done. It is a singular fact that, although iron, copper, gold and silver abound in the mountains in Arizona, no tools, utensils or ornaments of these metals are found in the mounds or ruins. Yet furnace-like structures of ancient origin have been found, which appear to have been used for reducing ores, and in and around which can be found great quantities of an unknown kind of slag.

In many instances the hieroglyphic boulders have been found in great heaps, of several hundred in number, as if many different persons had contributed a piece of this strange writing to the collection. These etched boulders have been found buried in the ground with ollas containing the charred bones of human beings, and could the writings on the boulders be deciphered, we would undoubtedly learn of the virtues of the prehistoric deceased, just as we do of a person who dies in the present day, when we read the epitaph on a tombstone of the one who is buried beneath.

In opening some of the mounds, the investigator finds they are made of the fallen walls of great adobe buildings, and as he digs deeper he finds rooms of various dimensions, and which, in many instances, have cemented walls and floors. In one instance there were found the impressions of a baby's feet and hands, made, presumably, as the child had crawled over the newly laid soft cement. In another mound the cemented walls of a room were found covered with hieroglyphics and rude drawings, which were thought to represent stellar constellations.

To a certain extent, some of the pictured rocks tell us of part of the daily life of this ancient race, for in a number of instances the pictures picked into the rocks, although rudely formed, are self-explanatory, and the ancient artist tells plainly by his work what is meant. On the edge of a little valley in the Superstition Mountains, there was found a great rock on which had been etched many small animals, apparently representing sheep, and at one side was the figure of a man, as if watching them. It may be the ancient herder himself, sitting in the shadow of the great rock, while his sheep were grazing in the valley below, has passed away the time in making this rock picture. The hardy wild sheep still found in the mountains of Arizona may be the remnants of great bands formerly domesticated by these people.

The skeleton of the prehistoric man dug from beneath the stalagmites in the cave of Mentone, France, and which set all the scientific men of the world talking and thinking, gives proof of no greater age than many of the skeletons, relics or bones of some of these ancient mound and canal builders.

An incident illustrating the great antiquity of prehistoric man in Arizona, is the following: In digging a well on the desert north of Phoenix, at the depth of 115 feet from the surface a stone mortar, such as the ancients used, was found standing upright, and in it was found a stone pestle, showing the mortar had not been carried there by any underground current of water, and that it had not been disturbed from the position in which its ancient owner had left it with the pestle in it. There is only one way to account for this mortar and pestle. They had originally been left on what was at that time the surface of the ground, and the slow wash from the mountains had gradually, during unknown ages, raised the surface for miles on every side to the extent of 115 feet.

The question is often asked, Will this hieroglyphic writing ever be deciphered? The authors of the most ancient hieroglyphic writings or markings seem to have had well-defined forms or marks, which were in common use for this class of writing. Is it not most reasonable that a race so far advanced in other ways would have perfected a method of transmitting by marks of some kind their records to those who might come after them? Again, where so much system is shown in the use of symbols, it may be presumed that the same mark, wherever used in the same position, carries with it a fixed meaning, alike at all times. Having such a settled system of marks, there must be a key to the thoughts concealed in writing, and quite likely the key for deciphering these hieroglyphics will sometime be found on one of the yet undiscovered hieroglyphic rocks in the high mountains or in the mounds not yet examined. On the other hand, there can be no key to the inferior class of pictographs made by the people who came after the mound, canal and city builders had disappeared, for the crudely marked forms of reptiles, animals or similar things had a meaning, if any, varying with each individual maker.

Who were these people who formed a great nation here in the obscurity of the remote past? Were they the ancient Phoenicians, who were not only a maritime but a colonizing nation, and who, in their well-manned ships, might have found their way to the southern coast of America ages since, and from thence journeyed north? Or were they some of the followers of Votan or Zamna, who had wandered north and founded a colony of the Aztecs? Whoever these people were, and whichever way they came from, the evidences of the great works they left behind them give ample proof that they were superior and different from other races around them, and these particular people may have been the "bearded white men," whom the Indians had traditions of when Coronado's followers first came through the Gila and Salt River valleys in 1526.