the Moki towns, as has generally been believed, where would he have
arrived by a journey of twenty days, when an able-bodied man can easily
walk to the brink of Marble Canyon from there in three or four days? Why
did the guides, if they belonged in the Moki towns, conduct Cardenas so
far to show him a river which was so near? The solution seems to be that
he started from some locality other than the present Moki towns. That is
to say, there has been an error, and these Moki towns are not Tusayan.
Where Cardenas reached the great canyon the river came from the
NORTH-EAST and turned to the SOUTH-SOUTH-WEST. There are but two places
where the canyoned river in Arizona conforms to this course, one at
Lee's Ferry, and the other the stretch from Diamond Creek to the
Kanab Canyon. The walls being low at Lee's Ferry, that locality may be
excluded, for where Cardenas first looked into the canyon it was so deep
that the river appeared like a brook, though the natives declared it to
be half a league wide. Three of the most agile men, after the party had
followed along the rim for three days hunting for a favourable place,
tried to descend to the water, but were unable to go more than one-third
of the way. Yet from the place they reached, the stream looked very
large, and buttes that from above seemed no higher than a man were found
to be taller than the great tower of Seville. There can be no doubt that
this was the gorge we now call the Grand Canyon. No other answers the
description. Cardenas said the width at the top, that is, the "outer"
gorge with its broken edge, was three or four leagues or more in an air
line.* This is the case at both great bends of the river. The point he
reached has usually been put, without definite reason, at about opposite
Bright Angel River, say near the letter "L" of the word "Colorado"
on the relief map, page 41 op., but here the river comes from the
SOUTH-EAST and turns to the NORTH-WEST, directly the reverse of what
Cardenas observed. The actual place then must have been about midway
of the stretch referred to, that is, near the letter "A" of the word
"Canon" on the relief map. Where he started from to arrive at this part
of the canyon cannot be discussed here for want of space, but the writer
believes the place was some three hundred miles south-east, say near
Four Peaks on the new Mexican line.** Cardenas was, therefore, guided
along the southerly edge of the great Colorado Plateau, through
the s