176 
THE GEAND CANON DISTEICT. 
sible route, and around some of them it cannot be made in less than two, 
without excessive driving. 
Passing around the head of the central and main branch of the amphi- 
theater, we pause for a time to look into its depths and contemplate the 
grandeur of its walls. Moving onward seven or eight miles further towards 
the south, we at length reach the end of a promontoiy, from which we be- 
hold a panorama of the central chasm rivaling in grandeur tliat of Point 
Sublime. A part of it, however, is obscured by a vast cloister-butte in 
front of the cape and in close proximity to us. But though it hides what 
lies beyond, it is in itself so imposing that it compensates the loss. To the 
south and west the vista of the Grand Canon stretches away in the fullest 
measure of its sublimity. The congregation of wonderful structures, count- 
less and vast, the profound lateral chasms, the still lower but unseen depths 
of the central abyss that holds the river, and the overwhelming palisade of 
the southern wall, are much the same in their general effects as at Point 
Sublime; but the kaleidoscope is turned and the arrangement differs. We 
named this place Cape Royal. It may be considered as dividing with one 
other headland the distinction of being the end of the Kaibab. 
Leaving the point, we make a detour to the eastward and descend into 
a large ravine and mount the platform be}mnd it. A ride of four or five 
miles brings us to the promontoiy, which we named Cape Final. Here 
we command a view of the head of the Grand Canon. The scenery is in a 
large measure changed, not only in the arrangement of its parts but in its 
character. The portion of the panorama which includes the chasm is, in 
the main, similar to what we have seen from other commanding points, and 
so far is it from being diminished in grandeur that it may in some respects 
be regarded as the finest of all. But the chasm is only half the scene be- 
fore us. To the eastward is spread out in full view the great expanse of 
the Marble Cation platform, the Echo Clifts beyond, and in the dim distance 
the Cretaceous mesas about the San Juan. To the southeastward is the 
far off mesa country around the Moquis villages sixty or seventy miles away, 
and to the southward fifty miles distant rise tlie grand volcanic piles of the 
San Francisco Mountains. 
As we mount the parapet which looks down upon the canon the eye 
