A BIRD-GAZER AT THE CANON 



an extraordinarily pungent and persistent, agree- 

 ably medicinal odor. 



The bird-gazer was noting these details (the 

 last-mentioned bush, especially, being a most 

 interesting one, with which he hoped some time 

 or other to come to a better understanding), and 

 now and then pushing out to the brink of the 

 Canon, every point affording a change of pros- 

 pect, when, to his surprise, he found himself at 

 the end of his jaunt. 



Here, surely, was a grand outlook. He was 

 glad he had come. The Canon was beginning to 

 fasten its hold upon him. Far down (a good part 

 of a mile down) could be seen a stretch of the 

 Colorado River, and now for the first time he 

 heard its voice, the only sound that had yet 

 reached him out of the abyss. 



**The silent Canon," he had caught himself 

 murmuring the day before. Indeed, its silence 

 had impressed him almost as much as its ex- 

 tent, its wealth of color, and its strange architect- 

 ural forms, which last, one may almost say, are 

 what chiefly give to the Canon its peculiar char- 

 acter. One gazes upon the huge, symmetrical 

 artificial-looking constructions (''like the visible 

 dream of an architect gone mad "), and thinks 

 of Coleridge's lines — at least our bird-gazer 

 thought of them : — 



215 



