THE DIVINE ABYSS 
way with his round little feet, as, with lowered 
head, he seemed to be scanning the trail critically! 
Only when he swung around the sharp elbows of 
the trail did his forefeet come near the edge of the 
brink. Only once or twice at such times, as we hung 
for a breath above the terrible incline, did I feel a 
slight shudder. One of my companions, who had 
never before been upon an animal’s back, so fell in 
love with her “Sandy” that she longed for a trunk 
big enough in which to take him home with her. 
It was more than worth while to make the de- 
scent to traverse that Cambrian plateau, which 
from the rim is seen to flow out from the base of the 
enormous cliffs to the brink of the inner chasm, look- 
ing like some soft, lavender-colored carpet or rug. 
I had never seen the Cambrian rocks, the lowest of 
the stratified formations, nor set my foot upon Cam- 
brian soil. Hence a new experience was promised 
me. Rocky layers probably two or three miles thick 
had been worn away from the old Cambrian foun- 
dations, and when I looked down upon that gently 
undulating plateau, the thought of the eternity of 
time which it represented tended quite as much to 
make me dizzy as did the drop of nearly four thou- 
sand feet. We found it gravelly and desert-like, cov- 
ered with cacti, low sagebrush, and other growths. 
The dim trail led us to its edge, where we could look 
down into the twelve-hundred-foot V-shaped gash 
which the river had cut into the dark, crude-looking 
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