There Are No Sharp Descents.

For about half a mile the trail is in Dripping Spring Amphitheatre, an alcove on the edge of Hermit Basin, so named by Louis P. Brown, a miner and prospector, who, in the early eighties, made this basin his home while engaged in prospecting operations in the Canyon.

As the plateau passes across the basin and out to the open Canyon, the scene becomes more and more enlarged, until it is stupendous and vast beyond description. Down on the right, Hermit Creek cuts its narrow path deeper and deeper, until it reaches the red-wall limestone, where it makes a narrow gorge, that, from the elevation of the plateau, seems more like a mere slit in the rock than a gorge. Louis Boucher assures me that it is so narrow and deep that he has seen stars from its recesses at midday, and I record his statement in spite of the fact that eminent astronomers have told me that such a sight is impossible. Anyhow, the effect of that stupendous descent is such as to almost make the rider on the trail see stars, though there is no danger to any one with ordinarily steady nerves. Two miles out, one sees the continuation of one arm of the Bright Angel fault in the shattered strata of the red sandstone, some masses of which are toppled over at the base of Pima Point. It was this fault that made the talus slopes, down which the Boucher Trail descends, and also the great eroded recess of Hermit Basin.

Columbus Point. The nose of the plateau on which we have been traveling, now directly under Yuma Point, is named Columbus Point, and from this spot, where several noted American painters have made paintings destined to become memorable, the outlook in three directions, east, west, and north, forms one of the noblest of all the panoramas of the Canyon my eye has ever rested upon. Shiva's Temple is almost directly opposite, as we look towards the northeast. Stretches of the river are exposed east and west, where raging rapids send up their roar to us. Overhead is a great castellated structure, surmounted by a lesser building, with a round tower, embattlements and all the architectural accompaniments of an elaborately equipped castle of ancient Europe. An attempt to describe all the objects seen in the heart of the Canyon is needless. Suffice it to say that the panorama takes in every tower, temple, butte and structure, seen from Point Sublime on the north side; or any of the points on the south side, from Havasupai Point on the east, to Yavapai Point on the west; and includes Wotan's Throne, Vishnu Temple, and the wall of the Little Colorado to the faraway east.

On the Lower Trail to the River. The trail then winds under Yuma Point, and zigzags down the thinner strata of the red sandstones on to the red-wall limestones, where it affords more extended views on a lower plateau of lesser area, the rocky butte on the end of which is named Bunker Hill Monument.

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