adow upon the rock wall has wiped it out and
obliterated it--but you do not mourn the loss, because there are still
upward of a million things for you to look at.

And then, if you have timed wisely the hour of your coming, the sun
pretty soon goes down; and as it sinks lower and lower out of titanic
crannies come the thickening shades, making new plays and tricks of
painted colors upon the walls--purples and reds and golds and blues,
ambers and umbers and opals and ochres, yellows and tans and tawnys and
browns--and the canyon fills to its very brim with the silence of
oncoming night.

You stand there, stricken dumb, your whole being dwarfed yet
transfigured; and in the glory of that moment you can even forget the
gabble of the lady tourist alongside of you who, after searching her
soul for the right words, comes right out and gives the Grand Canon her
cordial indorsement. She pronounces it to be just perfectly lovely! But
I said at the outset I was not going to undertake to describe the Grand
Canon--and I'm not. These few remarks were practically jolted out of me
and should not be made to count in the total score.

Having seen the canyon--or a little bit of it--from the top, the next
thing to do is to go down into it and view it from the sides and the
bottom. Most of the visitors follow the Bright Angel Trail which is
handily near by and has an assuring name. There are only two ways to do
the inside of the Grand Canon--afoot and on mule-back. El Tovar hotel
provides the necessary regalia, if you have not come prepared--divided
skirts for the women and leggings for the men, a mule apiece and a guide
to every party of six or eight.

At the start there is always a lot of nervous chatter--airy persiflage
flies to and fro and much laughing is indulged in. But it has a forced,
strained sound, that laughter has; it does not come from the heart, the
heart being otherwise engaged for the moment. Down a winding footpath
moves the procession, with the guide in front, and behind him in single
file his string of pilgrims--all as nervous as cats and some holding to
their saddle-pommels with death-grips. Just under the first terrace a
halt is made while the official photographer takes a picture; and when
you get back he has your finished copy ready for you, so you can see for
yourself just how pale and haggard and wall-eyed and how much like a
typhoid patient you looked.

The parade moves on. All at once you notice that the per