ndependent of sleep. "Sleep!" he would
exclaim, when the rest of us, after a long day of sight-seeing, would
have to yield to our sense of fatigue, "why, you can sleep when you get
back home, or, at least, in the grave."

Mr. Burroughs, on the contrary, is specially dependent upon sleep and
food in order to do his work or to enjoy anything. On our arrival at the
Grand Canon in the morning, after a night of travel and fasting, all the
rest of us felt the need of refreshing ourselves and taking breakfast
before we would even take a peep at the great rose-purple abyss out
there a few steps from the hotel, but the teasing Scot jeered at us for
thinking of eating when there was that sublime spectacle to be seen.
When we did go out to the rim, Mr. Muir preceded us, and, as we
approached, waved toward the great abyss and said: "There! Empty your
heads of all vanity, and look!" And we did look, overwhelmed by what
must be the most truly sublime spectacle this earth has to offer--a
veritable terrestrial Book of Revelation, as Mr. Burroughs said.

We followed a little path along the rim, led by Mr. Muir, to where we
could escape from the other sight-seers, and there we sat on the rocks,
though the snow lay in patches on the ground that bright February day.
Mr. Burroughs made a fire of Juniper brush, and as the fragrant incense
rose on the air, with that wondrous spectacle before our eyes, we
listened to Mr. Muir reciting some lines from Milton--almost the only
poet one would think of quoting in the presence of such solemn, awful
beauty.

Mr. Muir tried to dissuade us the next day from going down into the
canon: "Don't straddle a mule and poke your noses down to the ground,
and plunge down that dangerous icy trail, imagining, because you get a
few shivers down your backs, you are seeing the glories of the canon, or
getting any conception of the noble river that made it. You must climb,
climb, to see the glories, always." But when Mr. Burroughs would ask him
where we could climb to, to see the canon, since under his guidance
we had been brought to the very edge on the top, he did not deign to
explain, but continued to deride the project of the descent into the
depths--a way the dear man has of meeting an argument that is a bit
annoying at times.

We did go down into the canon on mule-back,--down, down, over four
thousand feet,--and the jeering Scot went with us, sitting his mule
uncompromisingly, and indulging in many a jest at