158 
THE GEAND GASTON DISTRICT. 
and a few yards from its fountain the waters disappear. If any one would 
know how great a luxury pure cold water is, let him drink of Parusiwom- 
pats,*and afterwards pitch his tent by the water-pockets of the Kanab 
and Uinkaret deserts. Leaving the spring at sunrise and moving north- 
westward through an undulating forest-clad country, a ride of about three 
and a half miles brings us to an angle of the 
TA-PEATS AMPHITHEATER. 
It is one of the first order of magnitude, and is eroded back about 
eight miles into the Kaibab mass from the angle where the river bends to 
the west to flow through the Kanab division of the canon. We come upon 
it suddenly and in a moment are gazing down into fearful depths or across 
at c liff s piled on cliffe. Upon the southern side is the large isolated mass 
called Powell’s Plateau (of which we shall see more hereafter), forming the 
southern wall of the amphitheater. In the middle of the abyss is planted 
one of those gigantic buttes so characteristic of the’ Kaibab scenery. It is 
very noble in its proportions and beautiful in its profiles. A remnant of the 
cherty limestone about 200 feet thick carved into some shape, which is 
quite striking though nameless, serves as a finial to the pagoda. Below it 
the curved profiles sweep down 1,600 feet, and then plunge precipitously 
below the Red Wall some 1,400 to 2,000 feet more. The width of the 
amphitheater measured parallel to the general course of the river is about 
nine miles. Its back wall on the east is nearly straight in its general trend, 
but in detail it is deeply scored by notches. At the bottom runs the Tapeats 
Creek, a considerable stream of clear water fed by many large springs 
bursting from the lower portions of the great Kaibab wall. Though it is 
wrought upon a grand scale, and though, in comparison with ordinary 
plateau scenery, this profound valley is unspeakably impressive, it is infe- 
rior in diversity, and in the number of commanding objects displayed, to 
those further to the southeastward. It occupies a middle ground between 
* I am unalile to give the full translatioirof this name. Faruah means flowing water; the last 
word is probably associated with some mythical ideas of which Indians rarely speak to white men. 
