much-enduring beasts. The scrawniest Rosinantes and
wizened-rat mules cling hard to the rocks endwise or sidewise, like
lizards or ants. From terrace to terrace, climate to climate, down one
creeps in sun and shade, through gorge and gully and grassy ravine, and,
after a long scramble on foot, at last beneath the mighty cliffs one
comes to the grand, roaring river.

To the mountaineer the depth of the canyon, from five thousand to
six thousand feet, will not seem so very wonderful, for he has often
explored others that are about as deep. But the most experienced will be
awestruck by the vast extent of huge rock monuments of pointed masonry
built up in regular courses towering above, beneath, and round about
him. By the Bright Angel Trail the last fifteen hundred feet of the
descent to the river has to be made afoot down the gorge of Indian
Garden Creek. Most of the visitors do not like this part, and are
content to stop at the end of the horse trail and look down on the
dull-brown flood from the edge of the Indian Garden Plateau. By the new
Hance Trail, excepting a few daringly steep spots, you can ride all
the way to the river, where there is a good spacious camp-ground in a
mesquite grove. This trail, built by brave Hance, begins on the highest
part of the rim, eight thousand feet above the sea, a thousand feet
higher than the head of Bright Angel Trail, and the descent is a little
over six thousand feet, through a wonderful variety of climate and life.
Often late in the fall, when frosty winds are blowing and snow is flying
at one end of the trail, tender plants are blooming in balmy summer
weather at the other. The trip down and up can be made afoot easily in
a day. In this way one is free to observe the scenery and vegetation,
instead of merely clinging to his animal and watching its steps. But
all who have time should go prepared to camp awhile on the riverbank,
to rest and learn something about the plants and animals and the mighty
flood roaring past. In cool, shady amphitheaters at the head of the
trail there are groves of white silver fir and Douglas spruce, with
ferns and saxifrages that recall snowy mountains; below these, yellow
pine, nut pine, juniper, hop-hornbeam, ash, maple, holly-leaved
berberis, cowania, spiraea, dwarf oak, and other small shrubs and
trees. In dry gulches and on taluses and sun-beaten crags are sparsely
scattered yuccas, cactuses, agave, etc. Where springs gush from the
rocks there are