the trail down from the
rim. One climbs down ladders to occasional ruins which otherwise are
inaccessible. Because of its nearness to Flagstaff several thousand
persons visit this reservation yearly.

GILA CLIFFS NATIONAL MONUMENT

Fifty miles northeast of Silver City, New Mexico, a deep rough canyon in
the west fork of the Gila River contains a group of four cliff-dwellings
in a fair state of preservation. They lie in cavities in the base of an
overhanging cliff of grayish-yellow volcanic rock which at one time
apparently were closed by protecting walls. When discovered by
prospectors and hunters about 1870, many sandals, baskets, spears, and
cooking utensils were found strewn on the floors. Corn-cobs are all that
vandals have left.

XIX

DESERT SPECTACLES

The American desert, to eyes attuned, is charged with beauty. Few who
see it from the car-window find it attractive; most travellers quickly
lose interest in its repetitions and turn back to their novels. A little
intimacy changes this attitude. Live a little with the desert. See it in
its varied moods--for every hour it changes; see it at sunrise, at
midday, at sunset, in the ghostly night, by moonlight. Observe its
life--for it is full of life; its amazing vegetation; its varied
outline. Drink in its atmosphere, its history, its tradition, its
romance. Open your soul to its persuading spirit. Then, insensibly but
swiftly, its flavor will enthrall your senses; it will possess you. And
once possessed, you are charmed for life. It will call you again and
again, as the sea calls the sailor and the East its devotees.

This alluring region is represented in our national parks system by
reservations which display its range. The Zion National Monument, the
Grand Canyon, and the Mesa Verde illustrate widely differing phases. The
historical monuments convey a sense of its romance. There remain a few
to complete the gamut of its charms.

THE RAINBOW BRIDGE NATIONAL MONUMENT

Imagine a gray Navajo desert dotted with purple sage; huge mesas, deep
red, squared against the gray-blue atmosphere of the horizon; pinnacles,
spires, shapes like monstrous bloody fangs, springing from the sands; a
floor as rough as stormy seas, heaped with tumbled rocks, red, yellow,
blue, green, grayish-white, between which rise strange yellowish-green
thorny growths, cactus-like and unfamiliar; a pathless waste, strewn
with obsidian fragments, glaring in the noon sun, more conf