he Mesa is almost as gorgeous as
the Canyon.

If it had not been that the season was verging on the summer rains,
which flood the Little Colorado, we should have gone on from Oraibi to
the Grand Canyon. But the Little Colorado is full of quicksands,
dangerous to a span of a generous host's horses; so we came back the way
we had entered. As we drove down the winding trail that corkscrews from
Oraibi to the sand plain, a group of Moki women came running down the
footpath and met us just as we were turning our backs on the Mesa.

"We love you," exclaimed an old woman extending her hand (the Government
doctor interpreted for us), "we love you with all our hearts and have
come down to wish you a good-by."

CHAPTER VIII

THE GRAND CANYON AND PETRIFIED FORESTS

The belt of National Forests west of the Painted Desert and Navajo Land
comprises that strange area of onyx and agate known as the Petrified
Forests, the upland pine parks of the Francisco Mountains round
Flagstaff, the vast territory of the Grand Canyon, and the western slope
between the Continental Divide and the Pacific.

Needless to say, it takes a great deal longer to see these forests than
to write about them. You could spend a good two weeks in each area, and
then come away conscious that you had seen only the beginnings of the
wonders in each. For instance, the Petrified Forests cover an area of
2,000 acres that could keep you busy for a week. Then, when you think
you have seen everything, you learn of some hieroglyphic inscriptions on
a nearby rock, with lettering which no scientist has yet deciphered, but
with pictographs resembling the ancient Phoenician signs from which
our own alphabet is supposed to be derived. Also, after you have viewed
the canyons and upland pine parks and snowy peaks and cliff dwellings
round Flagstaff and have recovered from the surprise of learning there
are upland pine parks and snowy peaks twelve to fourteen thousand feet
high in the Desert, you may strike south and see the Aztec ruins of
Montezuma's Castle and Montezuma's Well, or go yet farther afield to the
Great Natural Bridge of Southern Arizona, or explore near Winslow a
great crater-like cavity supposed to mark the sinking of some huge
meteorite.

Of the Grand Canyon little need be said here; not because there is
nothing to say, but because all the superlatives you can pile on, all
the scientific explanations you can give, are so utterly inadequate. You
can