the western line of Missouri,
and, finding colonisation anywhere in the regions visited out of the
question, he returned in 1542 to Mexico, with his entire army excepting
a couple of padres.

CHAPTER III

The Grand Canyon--Character of the Colorado River--The Water-Gods;
Erosion and Corrosion--The Natives and their Highways--The "Green River
Valley" of the Old Trappers--The Strange Vegetation and Some Singular
Animals.

The stupendous chasm known as the Grand Canyon, discovered by
Cardenas in the autumn of 1540, is the most remarkable feature of this
extraordinary river, and at the same time is one of the marvels of
the world. Though discovered so long ago that we make friends with the
conquistadores when we approach its history, it remained, with the other
canyons of the river, a problem for 329 years thereafter, that is, till
1869. Discovery does not mean knowledge, and knowledge does not mean
publicity. In the case of this gorge, with its immense length and
countless tributary chasms, the view Cardenas obtained was akin to
a dog's discovery of the moon. It has practically been several times
re-discovered. Indeed, each person who first looks into the abyss has
a sensation of being a discoverer, for the scene is so weird and lonely
and so incomprehensible in its novelty that one feels that it could
never have been viewed before. And it IS rather a discovery for each
individual, because no amount of verbal or pictorial description can
ever fully prepare the spectator for, the sublime reality. Even when
one becomes familiar with the incomparable spectacle it never ceases to
astonish. A recent writer has well said: "The sublimity of the Pyramids
is endurable, but at the rim of the Grand Canyon we feel outdone."*
Outdone is exactly the right word. Nowhere else can man's insignificance
be so burned into his soul as here, where his ingenuity and power count
for naught.

* Harriet Monroe, Atlantic Monthly, June, 1902.

Cardenas, after all, was only one of the discoverers. He was merely the
first WHITE man who saw it. When was it that the first MAN recoiled from
the edge of that then actually unknown masterpiece of the Water-gods,
who so persistently plied their tools in the forgotten ages? He was
the real discoverer and he will never be known. As applied to new
countries--new to our race--the term "unknown" is relative. Each fresh
explorer considers his the deed that shall permanently be recorded, no
matter