That portion of the stables where the animals are kept, and which
accommodates about one hundred and fifteen head, is thoroughly equipped
with the most approved methods for the care of the stock, including a
complete system-for drainage and cleanliness; vermin proof, zinc-lined
storage bins, and automatic self-recording feeding apparatus. Other
departments are a blacksmith, carpenter and paint shop; harness, storage,
and repair rooms, offices for the stable manager and his assistants; and a
large wagon-room where the carriages, wagons, and other conveyances are
housed. Visitors to this part of the stables will note an interesting
feature in the painting of the vehicles, namely, that each is in the El
Tovar colors, the body being dark yellow, and the wheels lighter yellow,
striped with red. Each coach bears, in addition to the coat of arms of
Pedro del Tovar, an individual name, selected from tribes of the Southwest
Indians. For instance, visitors will recall having driven to various points
on the rim in stages named "Navaho," "Supai," "Walpi," etc.
A large corral provides for the turning out of stock not in use.
Employees' Quarters. There is also a building devoted to the accommodation
of the employees of this department, comprised of kitchen and dining-rooms,
sleeping quarters, and a smoking, reading and recreation room.
The grounds around the employees' building, commonly called the mess house,
are laid off into walks and gardens. Owing to the quantity and quality of
the soil being superior to that around El Tovar (which is near the rim and
therefore on almost naked rock), the grass, and the domestic and wild
flowers, which are cared for by the men, thrive abundantly.
The Mallery Grotto. This is a small and rather insignificant cave just
under the rim, to the extreme left (west) of El Tovar amphitheatre, wherein
a number of interesting Indian pictographs are to be seen. The overhanging
rock makes a rude cave or grotto, and it has been named Mallery Grotto,
after Garrick Mallery, the great authority on the pictographs of the North
American Indians. His latest monograph takes up the whole of one of the
large volumes of the United States Bureau of Ethnology, and in its nearly
eight hundred pages there are one thousand two hundred and ninety
illustrations. To this illuminating book, therefore, the curious student is
referred for further information regarding the pictographs themselves.
Trail to Mallery Grotto. Leaving El Tovar, the visitor can easily walk to
and from Mallery Grotto in half an hour: Keeping on the rim, he passes the
old Bright Angel Hotel, and all the buildings, about as far past the log
house as, that is from El Tovar. There, in a slight depression, he will see
the foot-trail leading down from the rim to the Grotto. It is a place about
forty to fifty feet long, and with an overhanging wall of from five to
fifteen feet high, and ten to twenty feet broad. The shelf upon which one
walks is narrow, but I have slept there many a time in cold and rainy
weather.
The pictographs are mainly in a rich brownish-red, and are of deer,
mountain-sheep, men and women, serpentine lines suggesting the course of
rivers, rain-clouds, lightning, and many-legged reptiles, - or what seem to
represent these things. They were here, exactly as one now sees them, when
I first camped here with some friendly Havasupais, nearly twenty years ago,
and I was then informed that some of the designs represent great hunts, in
which their ancestors had been successful.
Of the genuineness of the pictographs no one need have the slightest
question. They afford a good opportunity to those who have never before
seen such specimens of aboriginal art, to examine a fairly representative
lot of them.
CHAPTER IV. The Grand Canyon At El Tovar
If guests at the Canyon will take this book in hand and, line by line, read
this chapter, just as they would listen to the talk of a friend in whose
knowledge they confide, they will leave the Canyon with fewer erroneous
conceptions than are quite common now.
El Tovar Amphitheatre. The first thing to be observed is that El Tovar
rests in the centre of the curve of a wide crescent, named El Tovar
amphitheatre, the arms of which extend out into the heart of the Canyon,
and shut in the scenery from the east and west, concentrating the view.
These arms afford an excellent opportunity for seeing the various
carboniferous deposits. The topmost is the cherty limestone, the layers of
which lead the eye to the crossbedded sandstone, a creamy buff in color,
and composed of a soft, sugary sand. Each of these walls is from five
hundred to six hundred feet high, though in some parts of the Canyon they
are reduced to not more than four hundred feet.
Maricopa and El Tovar Points. El Tovar is six thousand eight hundred and
sixty-six feet above sea level; the highest part of the point on the left
is seven thousand and fifty feet, and on the right seven thousand feet. The
point to the left, Maricopa Point, is a portion of the great promontory
known as Hopi Point, to which all Canyon visitors should go. That to the
right is El Tovar Point.
Heights and Depths. The height of the lime and sandstone walls can readily
be measured by looking down upon the rudely carved mass of red sandstone
slightly to the left, which has been called the "Battleship." The top of
this is five thousand, eight hundred and sixty-seven feet above sea level.
Now look up to the Maricopa Point above, seven thousand and fifty feet. The
difference is one thousand, one hundred and eighty-three feet, which is
practically the height of these two strata.
