The Grand Cañon of the Colorado was once, in the minds of white men, an Indian fable. It exists to-day. It is now familiar ground. Getting there is an easy, quite luxurious journey, if one has the money. The Santa Fe Railway system has removed all the one-time misery and terror of the desert route to it. The hostile tribes, the sun and thirst that plagued Don Pedro de Tovar and Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas in 1540, when given leave to discover what truth was in the Cibola stories, have been subdued by engineers and steam. Coronado’s search for treasure cities and fabulous mines, for Quivira, ended in weariness, failure, disillusion; and his record in obscurity. Cardenas saw the Grand Cañon, while Tovar found something that should endear his name to the ubiquitous tourist. He located the Hopi Indians under their castellated cliffs. Now—had Tovar seen a Snake Dance! Although he arrived in August, that was denied him. Thus a Wall of China was prepared in America nearly four centuries ago, and through “spirit and curiosity,” male and female wearing pants, tourists seek it to-day. When the clans have all gone back to the Underworld, leaving their educated young to jazz and evangelists, the wall will retreat northward to the silent cavern-cities and the monuments of the Utah border, to Betatakin, and Kitsiel, and Inscription House. When a Service station desecrates the beautiful Laguna Cañon—the Tsegi—the wall will make a last stand at Rainbow Bridge—Nunashoshe—that great archway of the triumphant desert gods. Tourists! Age does not wither them. I remember a very old lady, traveling alone. Alone she arrived on the mail-stage, obsessed by a mission, quite as Kim’s lama. Having viewed one hundred miles of desert beauty from the mail car, she caught a little sleep, and then aroused me Sunday morning, quite early, with determined cries. Thinking that someone had been injured, I very nearly greeted her in pajamas, to learn that her search must be continued, and that it required an automobile or other conveyance. I referred her to the local trader, who also slept late of Sundays, and he sleepily turned her over to Ed. Ed told me of it later. He said that he “packed” her about sixty miles farther, hither and yon, around the Moqui cliffs and through the tinted valleys. She granted him not a croak of interest. And when he was thoroughly tired out, with the gas “about all,” and the hour late enough to suggest a return to the post, she halted him with:— “Now, my man, I’ve seen this, and it is very fine indeed; but—I came to see the Painted Desert.” “And we had been a-trompin’ it all day!” said Ed.