THE PAJfORAMA FROM POINT SUBLIME. 
141 
these recesses far into the gulf. Towards such a point we now direct our 
steps. The one we have chosen is on the whole the most commanding in 
the Kaibab front, though there are several others which might be regarded 
as very nearly equal to it, or as even more imposing in some respects. \V e 
named it Point Sublime. 
The route is of the same character as that we have already traversed — 
open pine forest, with smooth and gently-rolling ground. The distance 
from the point where we first touched the rim of the amphitheater is about 
5 miles. Nothing is seen of the chasm until about a mile from the end we 
come once more upon the brink. Reaching the extreme verge the packs 
are cast off, and sitting upon the edge we contemplate the most sublime and 
awe-inspiring spectacle in the world. 
The Grand Cation of the Colorado is a great innovation in modern 
ideas of scenery, and in our conceptions of the grandeur, beauty, and 
power of nature. As with all great innovations it is not to be comprehended 
in a day or a week, nor even in a month. It must be dwelt upon and 
studied, and the study must comprise the slow acquisition of the meaning 
and spirit of that marvelous scenery which characterizes the Plateau Coun- 
try, and of which the great chasm is the superlative manifestation. The 
study and slow mastery of the influences of that class of scenery and its 
full appreciation is a special culture, requiring time, patience, and long 
familiarity for its consummation. The lover of nature, whose perceptions 
have been trained in the Alps, in Italy, Germany, or New England, in the 
Appalachians or Cordilleras, in Scotland or Colorado, would enter this 
strange region with a shock, and dwell there for a time with a sense of 
oppression, and perhaps with horror. Whatsoever things he had learned to 
regard as beautiful and noble he would seldom or never see, and whatsoever 
he might see would appear to him as anything but beautiful and noble. 
Whatsoever might be bold and striking would at first seem only grotesque. 
The colors would be the very ones he had learned to shun as tawdry and 
bizarre. The tones and shades, modest and tender, subdued yet rich, in 
which his fancy had always taken special delight, would be the ones which 
are conspicuously absent. But time would bring a gradual change. Some 
day he would suddenly become conscious that outlines which at first seemed 
