The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 14, 1897, Page 19

ee— THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MARCH 14, 1897. ‘19 HESE days of cold wind and driving rain bave been a veritable season of | O\ discontent to the birds. The pleas- throng that bad taken possession of | the willows and the big oaks disappeared | when the storm came, keeping so closely | to cover thatthe casual observer might Lave thought they had been driven away altoge ther, but the first day of bright sun- shine brought them out, if anything, in greater numbers. I thought I saw this morning, away up in a tall treetop, a flash of black and white and red, but the bird bearing the colors refused to place Limself on exhibition, and although I lingered for nearly an bour, watching and listening, I did not get another glimpse and only caughf a few clear, delicious notes that made me hope the new-comer is the black-headea grosbeak. It is early for him, but he is a weather-wise sort of chap and we may feel fairly certain when he makes his appearance that we shall not have much more heavy rain. With the returning sunshine this week came the least fly-catcher, the drollest joke of a bird that visits us in these parts. Nature must have been in a humorous mood when she made the least fly-catcher. He 1s a'pretty little feliow with his coat of olive-gray, his dusty vestand black-and- white wings, but his tiny body supperts a pair of shoulders and a head (he hasappa- rently no neck) thatan ornithological Her- cules might bear with pride. Taken alto- gether heis not as big as the goldtinch and the funny effect of his absurdly big head is heightened by his long, rather flat bill and a pair of wide-open, round eyes that seem full of amaze that no one takes him at his own valuation, for tiny as he is he | possesses in a marked degree the aggres- sive, inquiring, self-assertive nature that characterizes all the tyranmde, to which | family he belongs. At a little distance, or amid the green foliage, the least fiy-catcher might readily be mistaken by the uninitiated for the gold- finch, to which, in size and coloring, he besafs a superficial resemblance, but the golafinch has a black cap and a graceful neck and is as slim and flexible as the fiy-catcher is chunky. The latter bird has a characteristic way of suddenly fly cut from amid the foliage of a tree, for the distance of a yard or two, and as sudaenly returning, as though he were attached by an invisible cord, to the trunk, and had unexpectedly got to the end of his tether. dJ ant g [any fear of him. I fancy he darts forth in pursuit of insects, and returns when he has captured his prey. It must be confessed that he is a veritable little scold, and keeps up an incessant and manifestly unfavorable comment upon all that happens about him, but for all that ne is a useful and attractive little fellow, and I have never seen any bird, even the hummer, manifest Perhaps they, too, regard him in the light of a feathered jest. These fiy-catchers build a charming nest, round, warm and compact; strippine for it, hereabouts, the fine, young inner bark of eucalyptus trees, which they weave in with slender rootlets of plauts and’ lire the nest with horse-hair and piant-down. Like all the fiy-catchers, the Minimus is no singer, though he looks as though he | ought to be one, but during the mating | season the male has an absurd, ascending | ery, delivered on the wing, which has | been aptly interpreted: ‘‘Chebec, tooral- ooral! Chebec, tooral-oora!!” and with this his musical accomplishments close. During the fierce, long-continued rains of the week most of the shelter in the deep canyons, and in one of these, where I was indulging in a rainy- day prowl, I came upon a disconsolate birds sou:ht! congragation of wrens, finches, robins and buntings, huddled for protection on a bough amid the thick foliage of a red- wood tree. Icaught the branch, to save myself, as I swung down the slippery trail, and the birdlings rushed out. The rain was sheeting down in broadsides from the strip of leaden sky just visible between the tops of the hills towering nighabove us, and the startled flock flew heavily, with many a protest, to another tree, where they perched and huddlea again, a picture of discomfort. A single prown towhee, sleek and trim, was peer- mg about in the toft leaf-mould with the air of mackintoshed and overshoed saltis- faction that this bird always wears in a storm. IamsureI donot know where- 1n lies the secret of his unfailing content- ment. He is the plainest of our birds. He cannot sing; he has only this charm of unfailiag, brisk cheeriness ard gentle acceptance alike of sunshine and cloud to recommend him to us, but heis aiways a welcome sight about garden or hedge. It was interesting to note the effects of the storm in the deep canyon. Here flows a swift, deep stream that is always cold and clear. Evidently the wind had been at work, for clear across the creek, its spreading arms lifted in appealing pro- test against fate, lay a great alder, broken squarely off some six feet from the base. I heard the.sharp “tap! tap!” of a wood- pecker’s horny ax on it as I approached and saw the bird fly off. A good carpen- ter is known by his chips, and this one left behind him quite a pile of clean-cut bits of the hard, yellow wood. Crawling un- der the trunk of the fallen tree I came face to face with a huge snail trailing over a moss-grown rock just above me. I got a glimpse of a queer, doglike visace, with snub nose and bright eyes, and then the creature pulled its hoodlike, soft shell down over its head and I could see only its rounded, resoluie-looking shoulders. I poked it in the back, but it only hunched itseif together a lit:le more and rolled over and over. I could not get an- other peep at its head. Going forward I soon found my progress barred by a lana- slide. The softened earth above had given way and slipped down into the deep cut and the bare gray bones of the mountain lay glistening wet wich the driving rain. The mosses were already creeping up to cover them, and tiny spires of the hor etail had begun growing whnere 1 do not think horsetail had grown before for generations. Probably the spores had been uncovered by theslide and the queer, belated rush was making the most of this unexpected opportunity to renew 1ts life. Climbing up through the exposed roots of a great redwooa stump, a relic of the forest primeval, [drove a woodrat scam- pering from his haunts, and I came out in the midst of a mass of nodding white flowers, one of the crucifers, the spring cress, I think. Its cheery blossoms were about the only things in the canyon that AsT sit n life’s last sunset waiting calmly for And the rosy clouds are glowing and then fading in the West, With the wife of fifty winters sitting placid by my side, Then the thoughts of other sunsets rise as swells a coming tide 1L Then these shoulders, bent with farmer’s toil, and strong, Till the time we wandered throagh the fields 1L wine; And I live again the pleasure that my memory Of the time I went with pretiy Nell a-hunting for the cows. And the eyes 50 dim and faded now were dancing all day long; And the sweetest thing within their sight was preity, saucy Nell, Who would never seem to understand the love she knew so well, (Though I tried, as bashful lovers will, her pity to arouse), 1 could never tell just what I said or how I gained such bliss, But I know that when we crossed the brook sweet Nell gave me a kiss; And I know we walked on silently, her small brown hand in mine, While my heart beat fast, my eyes grew dim with ccstacy’s strong And my aged head to that bright ray of memory’s vision bows As I walk again with pretty Nell a-hunting for the cows. death’s rert, alliows wers square, and broad, a-hunting for the cows Then we lingered by the growing grain, its deep’ning gieen to mark And we harkened (o the trilling of & lonely meadow- lark: All our future seemed as rosy as the sunset clouds that glowed— All the path of life as level as the gently winding road— And the cattle all were left afield contentedly to brows:, For we quite forgot that we had come a-hunting for the cows! V. €hall I tell the wife beside me now—the wife with silver hair— That she has a youthful rival in sweet Nelly young and fair! Shall Itell her never happiness so pure could come again And I never loved another as I loved my Nelly then? Shall 1 tell her that the very day that I made my marriage vows All my heart had gone with pretty Nell a-hunting for the cows? VI As I turn to look upon her face my old wife softly smiles, And I know how base it is to heed her younger rival’s wiles; But to test her own devotion, though I ought to know it well, 1 must tell her ail the story and my love for pretty Nell, Then she smiles and lays her hand in mine and perfect trust avows— Who but she was preity Nell who went a-hunting for the cows? MARY C. BANTZ. did not look wet through. The trillinm lay prostrate, its broad leaves spread out upon the ground; the various Solo- mon’s seals trailed damply down the banks; blackberry, huckleberry, currant were soaked and wind blown; the red- woods drooped and dripped, with here and there a branch broken by its own wet weight. The mosses looked like huge, unsqueezed sponges, but the little four- petaled white flowers played in the keen wind, dancing upon their roots like happy children. It is surprising how much rain seems to find its way down into a canyon. One might suppose that narrow cleft between two hign biils might escape its notice, but it pours down from above ; it sweeps in on the searching wind; it flows down the wooded banks from the upper earth. It | whips and patters among the thick branches and plays musically upon the | broad leaves of the water-loving plants, and it roars along the rocky bed of the stream at the bottom until everythingz is | wetter than the proverbial drowned rat. | But it does not make mud-puddles; it “ does not bring the same dirt and discom- fort in its train that it does where man has made his abode. Thesoft, fragrant brown mold receives it gladly; the mosses soak it up; the trees catch it in their cutstretched hands and turn it gently down upon their roote; the broad- leaved plants lie down before it and when it has passed arise, washed and re- freshed. Let but a single sunbeam sift through the cloud musses and the birds, discom{ort forgotien, wili flic away to the open. Where the earth had slid away from about the roots of the great redwood stump I found a lung, creeping rootstock of the Solomon’s seal, with no less than ten romnd, seal-like impressions telling itsage. Tne last shoot to come forth had encountered an obstacle in the shape of a long, outreaching arm of the redwood root. The tender green plant striking against this from beneath was turned backward and downward until, feeling its cautious way in the dark, it traveled be- neath the big root and then, striking up- ward, grew joyfully out to greet the sun. I suppose that could we oftener watch these underground occurrences we should find this sort of thing happening oftener than we now dream of, but 1 do not imagine we should ever really hit upon the secret of ths plant's upward growth toward the light, and of the root’s down- ward journey for water. We only know that neither root nor flower has any choice but to turn tothat which is its good. Thereis a class of thinkers now abroad in the land who claim that to teach the duty of obedience 1s to destroy the power of the human will, yet the lesson of obedience to the laws of good is everywhere the most inexorable of nature's teachings. The plants, obeying unconscious instinct, make no mistakes in following the good. Higher in the scale, where a measure of reason comes to the aid of instinct, as among the birds and some of the other animals, we find the possibility of making mistakes ap- pearing, but only in man do we see the vower to retrieve mistake; voluntarily and consciously to retrace the wrong course and begin anew, and only in man the more perilous power of choice be- tween following the good or deserting it. ApeLiNk Knarr, A SAN FRANGISGAN IN ARIZONA'S WONDERLAND--~GRAND GANYON OF THE GOLORADO » PAGE MINOR of Williams, | Ariz., who is well known in | } San 'Franci-co, recently re-| rom a visit to the agency of the | a Indians, in the Grand Canyon | of the Colorado. He was accompanied on | his journey by S. J. Sullivan, one of the | most intrepid guides to the great gorge. | Mr. Minor talks most interestingly of bis journey. Telling of it to a CarL re resentative he said: “I left the busiling little town of Wil- liams, Ariz., in a buckboard, drawn by two ‘range horses, on the afternocoa of Fetruary 6. As we crossed the ‘mesa’ lands we encountered snow, at times three and four feet deep, and the cold north wind made the moisture from our breath form inio icicles on our whiskers. We.stopped now and then to inspect zold, copper and iron ledges, and pulled up at some ‘frienaly sheepherder’s shack and spent the night upon our blankets before a big blazing fire, to arise in | the morning to pursue our coarse. Here | and there were great patches of lowlands, where the snow had melted, and wiaere were to be seen the gramma, the alfilerilla and other grasses indigenous to the coun- try, upon which thousands of fat sheep were feeding. . “Again we would cut across the country, leaving the winding roads; and then there were nights of sleeping out in the cold, crisp air, with the blue canopy overhead | for our roof. In the daytime herds of lithesome antelope and deer were to be seen, as they fled before the snowstorms with' the jackrabbits and other small game, fleeing for safety into the moun- tains, while eagles and ravens circlea in | the air. Days of sunshine brought to| view the snowclad mountains of Bill | Williams, San Francisco, Kendrick, Sid- grave, Floyd, the Red Butte and the high northern walls of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. | “For water for our horses and ourselves | we melted the snow, from which we made | our coffee and cooked our meals. Afier | covering 100 miles, at noon on February | 12 we 1eached tbe Indian agency shack, | or small wooden building, in which sup- | plies for the Indians are stored. Three hundred feet from the shack the mesa, or tableland bench of this upper world, comes to a short stop between two walls of limesione, red and white sandstone, and onyx, 2000 feet in height, which are called .‘The Hinees of Hell.” One is startled at the wonderful scene. Far be- | low. slieer down, seemingly into the bowels | of the earth, was the great fissure of | “Hualpai,’ into which we soon descended to go thro: it to the Yava Supai Indian village, ten miles distant. “Leaving the buckboard at the shack we soon were on the trail, with our horses | pécked with provisions and blankets. We wormed around the high southern cliff of Cataract Creck, the horsés having barely room to place their feet on the narrow il Aslip and they would have fallen 1500 feet. *The north walls of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, in ,a direct line, are cnly eight miles beyond this, and the grand -gight of these walls, when the sun is shin- ing brightly upon them, bringing outall the bues of the rainbow, is a delight to fhe senses. This part of the trail is called ‘The Tenderfoot’s Delight.’ “As we slowiy descended we encoun- tered great bowlders and large flat, slip- | perv layers of white chalk, which we laboriously passed over. The place is well named ‘The Davil’s Stewpot. «mding around the huge rocks and downward around this huge southern | wall, whose top edge wasso far above us | and its base so far below; stopping here ind there to examine the strata of red, gray and white sanastone, great ledges of marb'e, red and green layers of alabaster and white limestone ‘'and chalky ridges; along the big walls red and yellow ocher ana tale, with the blue and black stains of copper and iron strata, we hed an oppor- tunity to make a most interesting geologi- cal study, Finally we reached the ‘wash’ of the great wall and obtained most charming views of the rocky points of intere.t far beyond and still below us. “The: partly suow-clad walls of the| | and the walls became Grand Canyon stood high in the fore- ground, a solid wall, seemingly a great barrier to mortals. Down into the depths we went and were scon on the dry bed of the creek in Hock-a-pock Canyon, with its edges lined with ‘Palto Mariah’ and willow bushes. As we descendeda we found that the extent of the vegetation de- creased. The fissure became narrower higher; fifty or more feet of jump-offs were to be seen, and around them, over the big boulders, bugging the sandstone and porphyry walls, we led the frightened horses, iollowing the trail. Now and then long, narrow sheets of water were seen, falling from che high encompassing walls, to pour along the creek’s rocky bed and soon to fall over another precipice of fifty or more feet and then to disappear under huge boulders, forming underground streams, only to re- appear a mile or two further on. “Over the dry bed of the creek we led our horses, the precipitous walls reaching over 1000 feet on each side of us, and their | top edges being only twenty feet across. Not a ruy of sunlight penetrated these deep chasms, and it was fearful to look upward to see only a narrow strip of the blue sky and to expect the walls to fall | and crush one to death. The echo of our voices was brougut weirdly and hoarsely to us, and the echo of a whisper cou'd be distinctly beard. “'As we descended into the mighty zorge we hoped that the next turn in the creek wouid bring us to a wider space. But not s0. The great wall of the frowning stone ledges continued to meet us. But after a couple of miles we came into a wider space and to the rim of a great basin where a descent of sixty feet can be made to its bottom, which contains about twenty | acres of land. This descent is made on & ‘burro bridge,” or a slide consisting of long poplar logs corduroyed with smaller logs and cribbed with stones, one of the many of Prospector Sullivan’s unique | bridges for transporting ore from nis mines near by. After safely going over this bridge we turned from the basin and after traveling 600 yards south finally reached our destination, the lndian vil- iage, over 7000 feet down into the ‘lower world.’ *Here, situated in the bottom land ot the Cataract Canyon on a ‘rise,’ is tie agency, consisting of a limestone and sandstone one-story house occupied by Professor R. C. Bauer, the teacher at the agency, Mrs, Bauerand their little son Warner, and Charles Bushnell, the farmer of the agency, and a substantial school- house, recently built of limestone and marble by Mr. Bushnell alone. Mr. Bush- nell quarsied the stones from the high. cliffs, brougit the lumber on burros from the heights, and with his trowel, saw and hammer built a monument to himself { which will only decay with the stupendous walls overhanging it. “The dividing walls of the canyon here stand 1200 feet high, and across the little dell the distance is only 900 feet. Along- the eastern wail the Cataract Creek flows north over the pebbles to a little valiey three miles in length and about halfa mile wide. There are 350 acres of the ssil cultivated by the Supais, under the super- visign of Professor Bauer and Farmer Bushnell. “‘The Supais have been a peaceable tribe of Indians, and it is their boast that they have ncver been at war with the ‘Hikos’ (white people). They were, in the dim past, of the Hualpai tribe. Dissensions arose among them and a hundred or more braves seceded and took refuge in this val- ley. They built fortresses on the edges of the hich walls, from which they hurlea stones down upon their enemies, the Hualpais and the Navajoes. Peace was finally restored and to-day the Supais and Hualpais are frienaly, vut they keev a sharp eye on the Navajoes, who occasion- ally steal from them a squaw or a child, “During the fifties, when the Mormons were converting the Indian tribes to their faith, John D. Lee, the same miscreant who was shot to death in Utah for the hand he took in the Mountain Meadow sacre, came into these deep recesses with two of his white wives and converted the Yava Supais to his faith, He planted for them peach and apricot trees, and re- mained with them for a season, until the beans, corn and pumpkins were harvested. | Sice that time the tribe, wbich now con- sists of 300 souls, increased in numbers. | The land is tilled by the Inaians to corn, | beans, sunflowers (from which meal is made from the seed) pumpkins, sorghum | cane and watermelons, peach, apricot and | fig trees, and alfaifa. By irrigation, water from the creek is carried to the rich red sedimentary soil. and the results obtained areremarkable. In the cracks and caves of the high walls of the valley caches sre made, in which corn, beans and dried fruit are placed and sealed with the ce- ment found plentifully in the creek beds, for the winter and spring consumption. | The domiciles or ‘wickiups' consist of willow and arrowwood boughs, the roofs being made of the same materials, and covered with alfalfa hay. Tne buck usu- | aliy has two squaws. The entire family | sleeps together, but when tie children | become 10 or more years of age they are allotted corners of the ‘teepes.’ Their morals are good; far beyond those of other Indian tribes. | “When sickness comes to them they cure or kill themselves by ‘sweating.’ Sap- | iings of the poplar trees are placed in a conical shape on the ground and covered with blankets. The sick Indian crawls into this little sweathouse in the dress nature gave him. Hot stones are thrown in to him and he is left for hours 1o sweat and grow thin. Up to two years ago cre- mation of the dead was in vogne among these Indians. When a buck died his fa- vorite horse was burned with him; and peach trees were cutdown and burned with the bodies of the squaws, along with. | their beadsand other trinkets. Down ou the lower bench from the village I visited theold crematory and gathered many pieces of the charred bonesof the dead ana bzads and other trinkets which had been melted into a compact mass. I gathered a large bag of the charred con- glomerates, and, thongh cruel to state, 1 pressed a young Indian boy 1nto service by having him carry across his shoulaer, up the ‘crematory trail,’ the remains of his ancestors. “'As one goes along the trail in the little valley the now budding fruit trees, patches of alfulfa, the willow, birch and arrowwood trees showing their first early leaves, with here and there a wild flower, and the native green grasses with the lit- tle canals, the whole being inclosed in the stupendons white and gray walls guarded by ‘the gods,” two great pillars of white limestone standing high on the northern walls, he has before him a most beautiful picture of nature. There are at present eighty Indians in the village, the others of the tribe being in the ‘upper world," in the foresis and mountains, hunting and visiting their neighbors, the Hualpais, near Pouch Springs, and trading with them their dried peaches and corn for blankets and trinkets. *The Supais have been in hard luck tor the past teason. A flood cafiie upon them last August and desiroyed many of their | fruit trees, their corn and beans, and ap- peals have been made to the charitable to aid them. Clothes, young fruit trees and seeds are necessities with them, and if uny of these wants are sent to Henry Ew- ing, the eeneral agent of the Supais and Hualpais, at Hackberry, Ariz, the In- dians’ blessings will be on the kind and generous givers. The Government has been appealed to, but by the time it acts ‘Lo, the poor Indian,’ may have been gath- ered to his fathers. ‘Since Professor Bauer's advent amone the Supais he has abolished tbeir custom of burning dead bodies, and they are now placed in the crevices 1n the high walls and sealed with the natural cement, and no more fruit trees or horses are destroye as a part of a funeral ceremony. “Professor Bauer is & man of humanity and has wrought many good reforms among the Indians. The Gavernment furnisbes rations to only the children at- tending school, and the bucks and squaws have to ‘hustle’ for a living. They barter dried fruits, corn and sunflower meal with other tribes for blankets and pelts. The squaws make beautiful willow and grass baskets, dyed with the natural pigments tound in the walls of the canyons, and water jugs of the willow covered with the wax of the pinon tree, wwhich they sell to the Hikos on their pilgrimages to the ‘upper world.” The present chief of the tribe 15 Na- vajo (a singular coincidence, as the Na- vajo tribe are their enemies), an infirm old chieftain of 80 vears. He has a council of nine other lesser chiefs, and they at times veto hix final determination of a knotty Juestion. “An aspirant for the chieftainship, after Navajo, is called Week-e-a-le-a-la, the Spirit God of the tribe. He is a noble looking 1naian, 35 years of age, named Vesmer. He has caused his superstitions brothers to venerate him, as inev vener- ate their stone pillars, Paah and Pokee, | by felling them of a visitation he had from Week-e-a-le-a-la, who told him to return from his hunting on the mesa lands above to the village, to have no | iabor done for him by his squaw and chil- dren, but to work for them, clothe and feed them, and be good to all the tribe, and when Navajo was called to that bright star above, which these Indians believe the departed souls inhabit, he would be chosen the chief of all the Supais, and probably chigf of the Hualpais. Vesmer, being one of the most intelligent Indians on tLe little reservation, has been made | policemun by the Government, his stipend being $10 a morth. When duty calls him to action he dons a blue coat and shining silver medal and instantly quiet prevails in the little valley. “The pinenuts, or pinons, as they are general'y called, are roasted by the squaws and giris in a large oval basket, its bottom being pinoned, waxed and clayed. The nuts and redhot embers are placed in it together and tossed into the air. After the nuts are roasted they are taken to a large rock, in which is an oval cavity, and in this the nuts are placed. The squaws pound and grind the nuts, shelis and ker- | nels, with an egg-shaped stone of four | pounds or more weight. The kernel con- aining much resinous matter gives to the mess a red-brownish tinge and the sticky substance is eaten with relish i by ihe Indians. The corn and sun- 1 flower seeds are similarly treated for the making of meal, which when prepared makes a palatable dish. “The Cataract Creek rises from a great spring or fissure in the rocks a few rods above the schoolhouse. The water gushes forth in a large volume, its temperature being seventy-three degrees above zero. It contains lime ana magnesiaand has ex- cellent medicinal properties. Along the Dbanks for two miles innumerable warm springs teed the stream until it becomes a swift river. “For six miles the river rushes along, forming beautiful cascades and grand | waterfalls. Among them are the Navajo, twenty feet wide with a thirty-foot fall; the Supai (meaning blue water), ten feet in width and sixty fset fall; tre Bridal Veil, 200 feet in width and 175 feet fall; the Mooney, twenty feet in width and 400 feet fall; the Beaver, sixteen feet in widtn and eighty feet fall. These are all most beautiful cascades, and as the water falls upon the ferns, twigs and leaves the lime is precipitated upon them, soon con- verting them into most beautiful fossils. There are great caves in close proximity to these falls and long, beautiful stalac- tites and stalagmites of crystallized vege- tation hang from the roofs snd walls, which are beautiiul to behold. “The country around and near the In- dian village is mineral to a great extent. | I saw galena, covper, gold and silver PN YAVA SUPAL mo‘u;rg SQuAw . - MAKING ETS. Wi . i i L 7 l ledges in number. One freak of nature seen was a pillar of gold and silver ore standing off from one of the high wa'ls ot the canyon, its height being over 00 leet and its base over 2000 feet in circumfer- ence. The Indians call 1t ‘Silicum’ (big chimney), but it is known to the miners as Sullivan’s Pillar of Gold, 8. J. Sullivan having located it as a mineral claim, which he will work when the contemplated wagon road is made to the Indian village from the world above. “The Colorado River in an airline is only five miles from the agency, but to reach the point where the Cataract Creek empties into it requires a circuitous and most laborious journey ot twelve miles around the great fissures. We made the trip half the distance on burros and tha other half on foot, ana by climbing up the ‘washes,’ now and then hanging by our eyebrows, scaling the almost perpen- dicular walls, crawling under great ledges of rock, we reached the high mesa land, where for the moment we were bewildered with intoxication of delight with the grrundest views imaginable. From the edge of Meteor Point, where we stood, to the north, the northern walls of the Grand Canyon stood high toward heaven, above the Colorado River, their tops covered with forests. The sun gleams brought out all the beautiful cardinal colors and their shades on the ledges of this stupen- dous wall, which extended forty or more miles. Mountains were under us; moun- tains towered above us, now broken by a seemingly large plateau, with great black zigzag lines in it, being the dark fissures or narrow canyons, from which we had emerged. One mile to the east stood a massive rocky mountain, resembling a mammoth water tank, called by the In- dians after their god Week-e-a-le-a-la. It is two miles in circumference at its base and 6000 teet high. “‘To the northeast a great red ‘wash,’ or slide, on the walls shone like a big blot of blood, and further in the same direction a point, called Point Sublime, stood like a great peninsula running out on the mesa. Off to the east the blue northern and southern walls seemed to meet, forming a huge basin, their edges covered with snow. Two miles to the south, standinga thousand feet above us, was an isolated mountain of stone covering 400 acres, its northern end seemingly wrought into long white pillars, the whole mountain resembling pictures of King Solomon’s Temple, whose nsme it bears. Three miles tothe west was a big mass of red oxide of iron, standing far from the lime- stone and sandstone walls, its height be- ing over 600 feet, and its base 3000 feet in circumference. With the red oxide there is blended nickel, antimony and meteoric iron, and it is the belief of those who have seen it that it is a fallen meteor, and it is cailed ‘The Fallen Meteor.’ The fall- ing of it is beyond the ken of the Supais. To the southwest the southern grayish- blue walls stood in their precipitous heights, their jagged tops forming church spires and every conceivable structure, “The great seriés of terraces of the north wall leading down to the Colorado River are veritable titan stairways. Walls, grand monuments of the erosion or up- heaval of nature, disappear in the azure beyond, and the isolated buttes were sublime. The crooked black lines we saw seemingly a few hundred rods beyond, looking like Indian trails, were the walls of Cataract Creek, which, by the irresistible process of erosion, has cut into the bowels of the earth seven thou- sand and more feet. “A railrosd is under contemplation, connecting Williams, Arizona, on the line of the Atlantic and Pacific road, with the Grand Canyon of the Colorado and Yava Supai agency. This road will run through fertile valleys and great forests of pine and fir trees, and mining will be developed to a great extent. Mines are plentiful and the owners and prospectoers are waiting for such a road, over which to ship their ores and bullion.’* Peovle say in Turkey that it takes ten Hebrews to equal one Armenian, and five Armenians to equa! one Persian in sharp business dealing.