Giant petrified log.A Petrified Leviathan.
A Petrified Leviathan.
Motorcycle."Lizzie" in the Petrified Forest, Arizona.
"Lizzie" in the Petrified Forest, Arizona.
The sun was nearly setting when a couple of hours later I set out from Holbrook, well fed and well refreshed. From my map I judged I should be able to reach the Little Colorado River, on whose banks I could spend the night. But in Arizona the sun sets quickly. It can almost be said to get dark with a bump. The result was that in half an hour I was completely lost in the outskirts of the Great Arizona Desert. The trail had somehow disappeared, I knew not where, and but for my headlight, I should undoubtedly have ended in difficulties amid the inky blackness. Loth to turn back, I continued over thealmost trackless waste of rock, sand, and prairie. I arrived at the rocky bed of a small stream. There were a few inches of water here and there, but it was not perceptibly moving. It could not possibly be the Little Colorado. I walked across to the other side. There I found a large ditch, more like an artificial dyke, that I knew I could never get Lizzie across. There was grass growing near, however, so I laid down my bed for the night, resolving to leave further investigations till daylight.
I should have known better than to camp by an almost stagnant stream, but I was so utterly tired that I defied the counsel of my own experience. Mosquitoes literally filled the air. Never have I known them so thick and so tenacious. The vibration of millions of wings kept the air in a constant shriek—a wild yell that never abated. I could only obtain relief from their attacks by enveloping my face completely with the thick blanket, and breathing through it. Then everything became so hot—the night itself was very sultry—that sleep was next to impossible. I snatched an hour or two of rest, but was a mass of bites and itching lumps next day.
In the morning, I returned to Holbrook, had breakfast, and searched for information about the road. It appeared that a bridge had collapsed somewhere, so a new trail had been formed to circumvent it. I had missed the turning the night before. At the garage where I made these inquiries, I took the opportunity of removing Lizzie's wheels, and of cleaning and adjusting the spindles. I packed them with new grease in preparation for the sandy journey to come, and removed and re-aligned the chain sprockets; I wanted no breakdowns or searches for missing parts in the baking, sandy desert. It was as well that I had taken precautions. I found the lock ring of one chainwheel missing altogether, and the sprocket half-way unscrewed from its shaft. The only item for regret was the charge of one dollar for the use of the garage! Having already had experience of American garage mechanics, I resolved not to allow any more to learn their trade at Lizzie's expense.
I had no difficulty in picking up the trail in the full light of day. Once again I set out to cross the great Desert of Arizona. The next town, a kind of oasis, was Winslow, about forty miles away. The barren prairie soon gave way to bare limestone rocks and shifting sand; vegetation disappeared altogether, save for occasional clumps of greeny-grey sage brush dotted here and there over the rocky waste that ever met the eye. The air was hot but clear. On an elevation one could see for tremendous distances. The little tuft of black smoke that hung over Winslow looked clear enough to be a mile or two away. It was thirty; in the distance was a great silver line, threading its way intermittently across the plain. I knew it to be the Little Colorado, which, like its mother, the Great Colorado, flows nearly the whole of its length in a canyon and seems deliberately to choose the path of greatest resistance, cutting through rocks and gorges of limestone and granite with ne'er a murmur.
As Winslow drew near, the narrow sandy track gave way to a broad concrete highway. I had not seen a made road of any description for many days. The appearance of concrete here in the middle of a desert seemed ridiculous. I would enjoy it to the full. Lizzie's throttle jumped open unexpectedly and away we sailed through the breeze. "There's a catch in this somewhere," I told myself. There was! It nearly meant grief. The city architect had foreseen the goading lure of that cold flat stretch ofconcrete and made up his mind that speeding should not exist thereon. So he made several dips therein at intervals, each dip about five or ten feet below the normal level of the road. Any attempt to travel at more than twenty would mean damage to the vehicle when it hit the opposite side. Unfortunately these obstructions were absolutely invisible until but a few feet ahead. Sometimes there was a warning. More often there was not. The first I came to quite unawares and at a high speed. The machine with its momentum nearly leapt clean across the space, and had I been going much slower it would have struck the opposite side lower down and inevitably have caused a serious crash. I went warily after that and wondered what ingeniously contrived anti-speeding devices I should meet next.
Arrived at Winslow, I ate heartily of ices. The busy modern town seemed a most remarkable contrast to the sandy wastes that surrounded it.
I now had a long journey ahead. Flagstaff, the next town, was over eighty miles away, and the trail ran across some of the most arid country of Arizona. For mile upon mile there was nothing to be seen but yellow sand and, on the horizon, a rugged range of hills. Ahead, nearly a hundred miles away, loomed up the San Francisco Peaks, dark and threatening. Overhead the sun beat down with unrelenting fury. One could see the shimmer of the air above the baking sand as the tremendous heat oozed out of it into the atmosphere. Here and there, one could see spirals of sand hundreds of feet high whisked up by some strange whirling motion of the air, and carried for hundreds of yards across the wilderness, gathering in volume and height as they moved, only to collapse again and give birth to others. Not a sign of life or vegetationwas visible anywhere. What a place to be stranded in without water! But I had plenty with me. I stopped to drink from the bag on my handlebar every few miles. The heat and the glare were awful.
A few miles out of Winslow one cylinder ceased to fire. I had been wondering when the next instalment of misfortune was to arrive. Like a true pessimist, I expected it would come in a place like this. So I was not disheartened.
I stopped two or three times to change plugs and examine the engine. It was of no avail, and the heat grew so intense when I was not moving that it was impossible to stop for longer than a few minutes at a time. There was no shade, not even a rock to hide me from the fiery sun. The frame of the machine seemed red-hot, and even the tools in the tool-box were too hot to handle unprotected.
"Another overhaul at Flagstaff," I told myself, and continued again on three cylinders. Ploughing through the loose sand absorbed much of the power of the engine, but I was content, so long as we kept moving. Slowly the metal sign-posts of the "Touring Club of California" that marked the miles were passed. They were the only items of interest in this barren country. Many times they were missing altogether. Often they lay prone upon the ground, the strong, eight-feet-long steel tubing of the post bent in strange forms. They had been uprooted by some unfortunate traveller and used as levers or crowbars to extricate a car that had left the beaten track and sunk in the loose sand of the desert. Some even bore conflicting particulars, and it was quite usual to notice the distances increase instead of decrease the nearer one drew to one's destination! Often the signs themselves had been riddled with bullet-holes "just for fun" by some blasé traveller with a taste for shooting. Splendidamusement, to shoot at a sign-post put there at enormous expense by a private club for the benefit of all!
Slowly the hours went by and, as they did, a huge thunder-storm could be seen brewing over the San Francisco Peaks, now only forty miles away. The whole sky became dull and overcast. The loose yellow sand gave place to rocks and shingle, and gradually the desert was left behind. As the altitude increased—we were climbing slowly all the time—signs of life appeared. Lean grass, parched with thirst and brown with the heat, was seen once more, and later a few sheep were noticed sheltering behind rocks and boulders.
I pushed forward with all haste. Flagstaff was at the foot of the San Francisco Peaks and there would certainly be a deluge very shortly. The road was abominable. In most places it was so rocky and the gradient so steep that it was like riding up great flights of rugged steps. The sharp rocks dug in the tyres down to the rims, and the vibration shook the very sockets of one's bones.
On the left, barely a mile from the trail, we passed the "Meteor Mountain." This is a most remarkable sight. Situated in the midst of comparatively flat or rolling country, it looks at first sight like the crater of a great volcano. But its origin is not volcanic. It gives the impression of having been formed by artificial and not by natural means. The crater is half a mile across and the interior of the crater is saucer-shaped. An air of mystery envelops its origin, and many theories have been put forward to explain it. But the theories have either been disproved or have never been definitely accepted.
"Meteor Mountain" remains to this day a mystery of geology. In its crater is a ranch-house and hundreds of sheep graze in its vicinity.
A dozen miles farther on the trail led on to a magnificent steel bridge spanning the "Diablo Canyon"—a wonderful gorge in the limestone rocks. Far, far below ran a little stream of clear water.
The sky grew blacker still. We continued climbing over the sharp, rocky trail. The mighty peaks ahead were almost lost in a sea of blackness. Distant thunder rumbled and groaned across the desolate waste. Sharp flashes of lightning lit up the heavens for a moment and revealed the sharp, lurid outlines of the three giants around whose peaks centred the fury of the skies. Slowly the storm abated. I thanked Heaven for that.
Then we came to the fringe of a wonderful forest that covers the plateau and clothes the mountain sides almost to the summit of their peaks. The sight of the trees, the sound of the breezes as they rustled through the branches bearing with them the magic scent of the pines, was like passing from death to life. It was a new world, a world of new sensations and pleasant forms. The broiling wastes, the dazzling yellow sand, the strange and sometimes ugly shapes, the grotesque, the mysterious, the incredible: these were left behind—for a while.
The storm had almost passed. Much rain had fallen, but fortunately the trail lay through a stretch of volcanic dust. The rain when it fell did not dissolve it, but soaked through as quickly as it fell, leaving the surface almost as hard and dry as it was before. I thanked Heaven again for that. Closer, closer, ever we climbed, until often the mountains were hardly to be seen; we were amongst them, climbing them, in them. Here and there the clustering trees grew thinner and fields of wild flowers, mauve and purple-coloured, would burst into view, clothing the valleys and the slopes like a great carpet.Then a glade would appear of fresh green grass—grass so fresh and so green that it would seem to have been meant more for a child's fairy-book than for a real live world. Then a beautiful mountain would appear through the trees, its sides and its angles glistening with every colour of the rainbow and changing with every new aspect. This would be an extinct volcanic cone and the colours would be reflected from the loose cinders that formed its whole. Then amongst the lofty pine trees the traveller would see—as a last remnant of the grotesque—vast fields of lava, great beds of solid cinder, thrown up into monstrous shapes with strange, sinister outlines. And onwards, ever onwards, ever nearer to Flagstaff we went, the wheels gliding noiselessly over the smooth lava-track that wound its way in and out of the pine trees and up and over the foothills and valleys towards the West. We enter a large valley, from which a wonderful view of the San Francisco Peaks delights the traveller. They are barely a half-dozen miles away now; their great volcanic cones, over a couple of miles in height above the sea, can be seen as sharply and as clearly as though they were but 100 yards away. So mighty are they, and so pure is the air of Arizona, that on a clear day they can be seen for 200 miles in any direction.
At last the small town of Flagstaff is reached. It is clean, modern, and laid out in pretentious square blocks, some with only a few bungalows built thereon. Evening was drawing on. Not having had a meal for over twelve hours, I hied me to a restaurant where puffed cereals and apricot pies and mugs of good coffee effected a miraculous disappearance. Thereafter I followed the scent of a comfortable hotel, where once more I slept the sleep of the righteous.
I woke up next morning feeling very groggy, for no reason accountable to myself. It was Sunday. My first endeavour would be to fulfil one of the desires of my boyhood. It lay at my very door.
The Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff is known throughout the whole of the civilized world. Years ago, hundreds and thousands of people read with unabated interest of the theories and discoveries of Professor Lowell concerning the planet Mars. In his book,Mars and its Canals, he recorded the researches of a lifetime on this most interesting of planets. He announced his conviction that civilized life of a very high order was present and flourishing on Mars, and supported his theory with exhaustive data and series of beautiful photographs of the planet at different times and under different aspects—the result of the work carried out at the Lowell Observatory which he himself had founded, built, and maintained at his own expense.
In my boyhood's days that book read like a wonderful fairy story, illustrated with photographs that were far more wonderful and far more strange than the merely pretty pictures of fancy. Some day, I promised myself, I would see the Lowell Observatory, and look through the giant telescope that revealed to the human eye, millions of miles away, so much of the mysterious and the unknown.
San Francisco Peaks from Flagstaff.San Francisco Peaks from Flagstaff.
San Francisco Peaks from Flagstaff.
The Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff.The Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff.
The Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff.
The Trail to the Grand Canyon.The Trail to the Grand Canyon.
The Trail to the Grand Canyon.
And here I stood, at the door of the hotel, but a few hundred yards from that same Observatory. Looking up the main street I could plainly see the white dome, perched on the summit of a hill overlooking the town, surrounded, but unobscured, by the tall pine trees that clustered thickly on its slopes.
An hour later I was standing inside the great dome. The dream had come true.
The astronomers of "Mars Hill" treated me, like all visitors, with the utmost hospitality. My wishes to see this and that and the other thing had only to be expressed, and they were granted. I was shown the result of years upon years of tireless, ceaseless research. In the library, a magnificently designed and equipped building, I found myself in a veritable Monte Cristo's cave. Arranged around the walls, and lit from behind by a wonderful system of electric lights, were treasures of far more value than would appear to the casual, disinterested sightseer. There were transparent photographs of planets, star clusters, nebulæ, and comets by the hundred, some but a fraction of an inch in diameter, and others several feet across. There were volumes of records and reports of every Observatory, besides astronomical and other scientific works of all classes, sizes, and tongues.
Hours afterwards I slowly descended the path that wound down the hill-side through the pine trees, wrapped in thought and proudly conscious of having at last achieved something that for so long had been but a vague vision of the imagination.
Unfortunately my indisposition of the morning did not disappear. It increased. I surmised that somewhere or other I had drunk some poisoned water—an easy thing to do—and must suffer the consequences.
The consequences I suffered were those of ptomaine poisoning. The next day was spent in the throes of it. I crept out of bed for an hour or two, with just enough courage to visit the garage to whose charge I had confined Lizzie for an overhaul. Finding her once again in pieces, but with no parts broken, I returned, with a sigh of relief and a body full of pains, to bed. I had discovered that many patrons of a certain restaurant—the one which I had so heartily greeted upon my arrival—had also suffered from ptomaine poisoning. I reflected that this was an ailment that often proved fatal. But I determined that it would not be so in my case, at any rate not until Lizzie and I had gazed down on the deep blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. That accomplished, anything could happen!
The next day found things much brighter. The sickness was fast disappearing, and I was consoled towards midday by the sight of Lizzie erected, tested, and passed O.K. I was, however, sceptical of the youth to whom, in my indisposition, I had entrusted her delicate body. He had sworn that he had overhauled Hendersons until he could do them blindfold. With characteristic American modesty he claimed to be the only man between Kansas City and Los Angeles who knew anything at all about the breed. That made me a trifle suspicious at the outset. Furthermore, he had agreed to turn in on Sunday and commence operations, but when Sunday came he was hardly conspicuous by his presence—the garage door was locked.
However, I paid over the required quota of dollars with Spartan stoicism and took Lizzie once more unto my bosom. Being naturally of a lazy disposition and a firm believer in the futility of walking whenever thereis the remotest opportunity of some form of mechanical transit being available, I had deferred an extensive survey of the town until I could execute it in comfort.
Originally a stores depot on the early trail through the West, Flagstaff soon became a ranching centre and a kind of "Mecca" for cow-boys, globe-trotters, wasters, drifters, Indians, Mexicans, and, of late years, speculators and East-weary business men. Although boasting only a few thousand inhabitants, the town is growing fast, and naturally where towns grow fast—a thing known only in the west of America and the Colonies—the "real estate" agents flourish in their legions. The people of Flagstaff are "boosters," and so do all they can to encourage and quicken the growth of their neat little town. Many come there, buy a plot of land in one of the outlying blocks, build a bungalow and settle down for good, charmed with the climate, the atmosphere, the surroundings, the great pine forests, and the view to the north of the mighty Peaks that are almost always capped with snow and seem to look down and protect the little town that lies scattered at their feet.
Next morning I had concluded all preparations for the fulfilment of another life-long desire. My next ambition was to see the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, of which I had read much in school-books in my childhood.
In and out through the pine trees we swung once again, darting down sudden dips in the road and skipping up little hills all fresh with grass and thick wild flowers. In ten or fifteen miles of exquisite woodland scenery we had come once more to the fringe of the forest. Ahead lay plain, prairie, and desert, with never a town or a village or a house to be seen until the Canyon was reachedseventy odd miles to the north. On the left rose the great San Francisco Peaks, clothed in green and white. On the right lay Sunset Mountain, a volcanic cinder cone of ruddy-brown hue, that glistened in the morning sunlight.
Slowly they were left behind as we hopped, skipped, and jumped over the rough trail that swerved and twisted untiringly through the strangest country imaginable. Here it would be broad and sandy; there it would narrow down almost to nothing; further on, it would make a sudden bend and dip across a "wash" or some waterless river that had never known a bridge; then it would enter a beautiful valley all aglow with golden flowers that crowded thickly up its sides—there were yellow flowers everywhere, in each direction as far as the eye could see, and at the same time so close that they were swept aside by the machine as it passed. Then that picture passed away and there remained just two deep undulating ruts that struggled persistently across a wilderness of sand, rock, and boulder. We passed on either side the remains of ancient volcanoes, now but solitary hills rising abruptly from the desert around. Then appeared giant heaps of stone clustered strangely together, the ruins of ancient towns for many a thousand years deserted. Then for miles and miles was nothing but barren, arid waste that tired one's patience and cut one's tyres and shook one's limbs, while thousands upon thousands of prairie-dogs were ever running, hurrying, scurrying away from the intruder upon their solitude. Their holes were everywhere, even in the ruts of the trail that stretched always like a forgotten, lifeless thing through this land of scorching loneliness.
Four hours and a half we had now been travelling, and not a soul, not even a sign of a living being had we seen, save the merry little vermin that scurried off at the sound and the sight of us. For the first time in the whole of the trip I felt a great sense of loneliness creeping over me. The solitude, the peace of the great barren distances at last made itself known—it was a solitude and a peace that I had never felt before. It took time for me to appreciate its worth. I amused myself by bursting suddenly into song. All the old familiar refrains came to my aid, were they hymn tunes or ridiculous rag-time airs.
Feeling absurd—even positively ridiculous—in my efforts to remain cheerful at all costs, but comforted by the thought that there was no one to witness my insanity, I continued thus until my voice rebelled and I relapsed once again into stony—very stony—silence!
Once again the trail entered a great forest; huge pine trees and cedar trees closed densely around and the trail branched and split here and there to avoid them. The vegetation grew thicker. It seemed wonderful how it could possibly thrive in such a country. Not a drop of water had I seen for eighty miles, when suddenly a most beautiful vista appeared directly ahead of me. There was a wonderful lake bordered with giant pine trees, its waters still and flat like a great jewel. At its edge a few horses were drinking. It was such a magnificent sight that I was forced to stop to admire it to the full. I breathed a prayer that my little pocket camera would do it justice, and convey, if only a fraction, some of that entrancing charm that hung over its glassy waters.
On once again we rode, through avenues of pine and cedar; the further we went, the thicker the forest grewand the greater the stately trees became. It was possible only to see a few yards ahead in some places.... "But say, we must be getting near the Canyon soon! How can all this be?" I asked myself.
Swerving now to the right, now to the left, to avoid some obstacle, now leaving the trail altogether to ride on the soft green grass at the side, when a boulder or a fallen branch blocked the way, it was like exploring one of those magic forests where fairies....
The thought was never finished.
It seemed as if the whole earth had suddenly stopped dead. There, in front, the great tree trunks stood silhouetted against space itself. It was as though something dreadful had happened. Beyond was tremendous, awful nothingness that made the observer catch his breath and sent a shiver throughout his frame. But see, there, on the distant horizon, like a dimly-coloured shadow, lies the opposite side of the gigantic rift, ten, twenty—aye, in places thirty miles away. It is a sight to enjoy in silence, with reverence and with fear. Once seen, it is never to be forgotten, that first glimpse of the greatest of all natural wonders—the Grand Canyon of the Colorado.
The trail made a sudden swerve to the left and followed close to its brink. There were some wooden railings; beyond, a varying strip of broken, rocky moorland; and then, space. Leaving Lizzie, I clambered down a narrow pathway carved in the rocks that led to a jutting prominence known as "Grand View Point." Seated on a huge lump of limestone that reared like a lofty pinnacle thousands of feet above the chasm below, I surveyed in mute bewilderment the overpowering, awe-inspiring sight.
The Grand Canyon has never been described. It is too immense, too sublime, too unearthly for mere words to convey one iota of its might and majesty. One struggles with the futility of mere expression by words where such a spectacle is concerned and finds that all the known phrases and well-used artifices of speech are useless to convey to another the sense of infinite grandeur that only sight can appreciate—and that so feebly!
The Canyon is a titanic rift in the earth, over 200 miles in length. The Colorado River, hardly ever seen from its brinks, lies 6,000 feet below the surface of the plain through which it has cut. Æons of time have been taken in the making of it, and it is yet but young, its progress still continuing. That sinister river, to reach which takes a seven-mile walk down the trail that leads to its waters, has cut down through strata of rock that took untold millions of years to be deposited, has cut lower and lower until it has come to the very beginning, the foundation of the earth, and then it has carved its way even through the granite, the very crust of the earth, to a depth of almost 1,000 feet. Eternal erosion by water, winds, and frost has helped it to play its part, and now nigh on 2,000 cubic miles of limestone, sandstone, and granite have disappeared entirely—all carried as sediment into the Pacific Ocean by the river that for ever swirls and rages in its bosom.
The actual settlement that goes by the name of the Grand Canyon is twenty miles further on. The trail follows closely the rim of the Canyon, cutting through the fringe of the "Coconino National Forest," with its stately pine trees that crowd up to the very edge of the plateau.
When the end of the trail is reached, it is as thoughthe traveller had arrived at the edge of the world. On the right is a luxurious, low-built hotel all but toppling over the edge; on the left is a railway station; and that is all. The road almost doubles back on itself, swerving due south towards the Continental Trail eighty miles away. I do not mean to imply that at the end of this world there will be either a luxurious hotel or a railway station at the service of the weary traveller, but the appearance of finality of all things is complete when one is faced with that terrible chasm ahead.
For three days and three nights I sojourned at the Canyon, content to gaze upon its ever-changing colours, and to marvel at the wealth of beauty and variation of spectacle that lay in its mighty bosom, always changing, always fresh, always more wonderful than before. One day after breakfast I began strolling down the narrow "Bright Angel Trail" that leads from the summit to the river. Between two and three feet wide in most places, it is wonderfully built and kept in excellent repair for the mule-back parties of tourists that daily descend its seven tortuous miles in the morning and ascend them again in the evening. In places it is like a spiral pathway down an almost perpendicular wall. One looks over and sees it doubling and folding and twisting on itself like a thin white line until it is lost behind some prominence thousands of feet below.
I did not mean to walk down. Walking is not my forte; I only set out to take a few photographs. I have the best of reasons for believing that people never walk down the Canyon. Instead they bulge upon diminutive mules in strings of twenty or thirty or more and make the descent slowly, nervously, solemnly, and more or less in comfort. True, there are places wherethe trail is so precipitous that they have to dismount for safety's sake, but to walk the whole way would be absurd.
Perhaps that was the reason I found myself tramping down the long, steep trail. The more photographs I took, the further down I went to take another. One view followed another with endless change. At every turn there was some new sensation, some fresh vista that just cried out for remembrance. In this way I gradually found myself descending into the depths of the Canyon. Truly it is the most wonderful walk I have ever had.
It was as though the traveller were entering a new world of a new climate, new scenery, and new sensations. Up on the plateau at the top the altitude was 8,000 feet above sea level, and the heat there had been intense. But as I descended thousand after thousand of feet into the bowels of the earth, the air became more dense and the heat more intense until at the bottom, over 6,000 feet below, the climate was almost tropical. Further, the great "temples"—the fragments of the plateau where the erosion had left isolated mountains remaining within the gorge—took on a far different aspect when viewed from below. From above one saw them as one would see hills and valleys from an aeroplane—with hardly any relief. But from below they loomed up sharp against the sky, each one a mighty mountain in itself. What seemed from the brink to be a mere blotch of green mould on the bare rocks below proved on closer acquaintance to be a luxurious coppice, dense with trees and shrubs and tall, thick grass. Minute specks of black scattered broadcast on the slope turned out to be trees that eked out a scanty but sufficient livelihood on the crevices and the crags. A brown, inconspicuous carpetfrom above developed into a huge tropical plateau several miles across. So clear is the atmosphere and so great are the distances that magnitudes are ridiculed and illusions raised to the point of absurdity.
It was well after midday when I reached the bottom and watched the roaring, rushing Colorado, like a great yellow flood, lashing its angry way between the steep walls of the granite gorge. Above, it had been invisible, unknown, and whisperless.
The walk back developed into a tiring, eternal struggle up an interminable staircase that had no stairs. Sometimes I half decided to rest until next day. At intervals I grasped my knees in my hands and helped to lift the heavy, tired feet one above the other. I abused myself heartily for not having furnished myself with reserve refreshments before starting, and then remembered that I had only set out to take a few pictures; I had quenched my thirst at a little creek six hours before, but felt that a meal of some kind would be acceptable.
I arrived at the top about 5.30. The mule-party had overtaken me a quarter of an hour before. They had only stopped half an hour at the bottom for lunch.
"Waal, I've done some walkin' in my time, boss, but I guess you've gotten the best pair o' legs that ever MY optics did see," was the remark of one heavily-spectacled American who beamed from his mule upon me as he passed.
"Aye, that's so," echoed others in the long file with undisguised approbation.
So the reader will observe that I am already becoming Americanized, even in true modesty!
The Bottom of the Grand Canyon.The Bottom of the Grand Canyon.By permission of Dr. F. Rolt-Wheeler.
The Bottom of the Grand Canyon.By permission of Dr. F. Rolt-Wheeler.
My stay at the Canyon was longer than I had anticipated. Considerable rain had fallen on the second day,and a report came through that the road in places had been washed clean away. Just what that meant I did not know, but I did not fear it in the slightest. My experience of the roads in Arizona was that they were much better away than present. But I had no taste for mud, so I waited for the sun to do its work before starting back again.
I left the Grand Canyon with regret. Everything was so wonderful and I just seemed to have begun to make friends with it. At first it all seemed so great, so awful, so grotesque as to give one the impression of anything but friendliness. I had begun to overcome that feeling, as everyone does in time. The truth is that it takes a long acquaintanceship with the giant wonders of the world to form anything approaching a true idea of them.
Mud there was in plenty on the way back. In the forest going was bad and slow, for the sun had not had its due quota of time to play upon the damp earth. But in the open there was a marked improvement. The only evidence of the heavy rains was an occasional pool of water between the tracks of the road that had not yet been completely dried up, and this remained as a pool of muddy water within a ring of soft, dark-brown mud.
I was glad that progress was not so bad as I had expected. I was tired of making slow progress, low averages, and big delays, so whenever I had the chance I gave Lizzie her reins and with many bursts of speed where the condition of the road permitted, and occasional hold-ups where it did not, we made pretty good progress for a couple of hours.
Until....
We were about half-way between the Canyon and Flagstaff. The country was bare and rocky—almost on the fringe of the "Painted Desert." I was riding on the narrow but level track between the two large ruts that formed the road. I was furthermore enjoying a little burst of speed, my eyes glued on the little strip below me, for if I but once missed it and allowed Lizzie to slip into either of those deep, treacherous ruts that bordered it, there would be a nasty smash.
I must have been too careful, for I had not noticed a fairly large and deep mud-pool dead in the centre of the track and only a few yards ahead of me. There were just about three or four inches between either side of it and those terrible ruts. If I banged into it, it would mean a nasty jar to the machine and possible damage. I judged I could steer round all right without fouling the rut.
The front wheel went through splendidly. The back one, approaching at an angle as I swerved, did not. It just skimmed the greasy edge of the pool and commenced momentarily to side-slip down into the hollow. That was the beginning of the end. I was going fast, and the equilibrium of the machine had been suddenly upset. The nightmare known as a "speed-wobble" ensued.
I did my utmost to check it, but it got worse and worse. From one side to the other the machine swayed, like a great pendulum, swinging faster and faster and each time through a greater distance. For some time I managed to keep the swerves within the limits of the track without fouling the ruts and the rocks at the side, but it was no use; I saw a fearful crash coming.
The wobble developed at an alarming speed; no doubt the heavy baggage on the carrier helped. At the endof each oscillation the machine was at a still greater, a still more ridiculous angle to the ground. The front wheel caught something. It had to come sooner or later. With a wild lurch we crashed down on the loose rocks and boulders that bordered the trail. Our momentum was soon absorbed owing to the rough nature of the rocks and boulders aforesaid.
"Here endeth the trip to the coast. Farewell, Lizzie; it might have happened sooner, you know, old girl." That's what I was saying to myself as I struggled from underneath her remains!
I have often thought there must be a guardian angel watching over mad motor-cyclists. Certainly in my case some theory of that sort is necessary to account for the almost entire immunity from personal damage that I have always experienced when fate has led me into crashes of all kinds. At one time and another I have performed wonderful acrobatic feats after a bad skid or a sudden encounter in the dark with a stray horse or a flock of sheep. By all the laws of nature and common sense, I should long since have ceased to labour on this earthly plane. Instead of that, I continue to flourish like the green bay tree, the terror of the country I inhabit, and the bane of the Company that has the misfortune to insure my machines!
Thus it happened that when I extricated myself from the debris, I found myself still sound in wind and limb. Apart from one finger having been crushed between the handle and the final boulder, and the absence of one or two square inches of good epidermis here and there, I had nothing whatever to complain of.
Lizzie, however, wore a forlorn look. Her left handlebar was badly bent and most of the controls and projections on her starboard side were either bent backwards or swept clean away. The stand, a heavy steel structure strong enough to make a suspension bridge, had brokenaway altogether, and had not the footboard been of the collapsing type, it would undoubtedly have shared the same fate.
An hour of doctoring, with frequent applications of wire and insulation tape, and Lizzie was going again. I was relieved in the extreme to find that after all there was a chance of continuing to the coast under her own power. My forefinger pained a trifle, and I could not bear to bend it. I believe always in leaving Nature to carry out her own repairs—it saves a lot of time and bother and generally gets the job finished much quicker in the end, so I spent no time in doctoring it.
We got back to Flagstaff all right that evening and, accepting the hospitality of one of the astronomers at Mars Hill, I spent the night at his bungalow up amongst the pine trees. It was nearly a month before I regained the use of my finger and over three months before the sense of feeling came back to it. Evidently it had been broken at or near the joint.
Two days afterwards I made an unwilling exit from Flagstaff. I was so enamoured with the spirit of the West and the cordiality of its people, as well as the scenery and the climate, that it seemed a shame to move away. But how could I do otherwise when in three days' good running I should be enjoying the reality of the deep blue Pacific washing up against the fringe of some golden Californian valley?
From Flagstaff to Williams, a thirty-mile jaunt, the road traversed the edges of the Coconino Forest. In places it was almost impassable. Stretches of rock-hard mud, that had been cut up into fantastic shapes, hindered progress for hundreds of yards at a stretch. I had often to resort to the old expedient of chippingthe edges of the ruts away in advance to enable Lizzie's cradle frame to get through. Then for miles there were stretches of incredible roughness where often I left the road and scrambled over the rough prairie at the side, leaping over gullies, mounds, cracks, and rocks in preference to the treacherous trail. But the wild scenery compensated for everything. It was exquisite.
Town after town slowly but surely went by, and as they did so, the country grew wilder and the climate hotter. The trail wound through great gorges with towering cliffs that obscured most of the sky. Mad rivers would come rushing down from mountain sides and seldom were there bridges with which to cross them. Vegetation became less plentiful and here and there were stretches of barren prairie land with great boulders and masses of rock spread indiscriminately about them.
Past Ashforks, some sixty miles from Flagstaff, I came upon a Ford car by a wide, rough-bedded, unbridged river. The owner, dressed in blue combination overalls (the standard garment of the West) was playing round it with a "monkey-wrench."
"Want anything, brother?" I asked.
"No thanks, nothing wrong," he replied, eyeing Lizzie and me curiously up and down. "Gee! What the ..." (his eye caught the number plate)—"Well, I'll be goldarned!"
"How's the road ahead?" I asked, ignoring his evident amazement at one so young having come so far!
"Pretty tough in places. You've got a fairly good run for a hundred miles, but you've got to keep your eyes skinned for washouts. There's a big one about ten miles further on, just before you come to Pineveta. You can't miss it. It's just beyond a big cliff on the left sidewhere it says 'Repent Your Sins, the End is at Hand.' And by G—, you'd better repent 'em quick in case anything does happen!"
Washouts there were, good and plentiful. Great gullies had been cut across the roads by the rains. Many were not visible much before they were felt. On the whole it was exciting running.
Pineveta was a most "movie-looking" town. I could easily have imagined myself a Gaumont operator on several occasions. Every building, whether a house, the village church or the town hall, was of wood and of the simplest construction possible. Everything seemed loose, ramshackle and toppling. It was a good home for the tough guys of the West, where towns spring up in a night, prosper awhile and then fade into insignificance.
After Seligman, another twenty miles further on, the trail showed signs of nervous prostration. It led into a great canyon whose grey walls towered high on either side. Then it seemed to say to the traveller, "See here, Boss, you can go on if you like, I'm staying right here; had enough of this." It had already dwindled down to a couple of ruts in the sandy bed of the canyon and now it was besieged on all sides with dense growths of grey scrub, like sage-brush. Even the ruts were barely visible and now appeared only in white patchy blotches through the scrub that grew a foot or a couple of feet high in dense, clustered tufts. It seemed as though something would have to be done about it soon.
Finally we came to a wooden fence, rudely but effectively constructed and barring the way entirely. Behind the fence was a railway track. Evidently it was necessary to cross the track somewhere but not the slightest opportunity did there appear of doing so. I explored awhile.
On the left, where the trail had ended, the fence showed signs of having been pulled down and ruts in the ground bore witness to traffic having gone that way at some time or another more or less remote. But stay, what is this? A large post had been torn down from the fence and laid right across the track of the apparent detour. In the middle of it, and fastened on by a piece of wire, was a scrap of paper bearing the following anonymous inscription in scrawled handwriting—"Doant go this rode cant get thru."
Now wasn't this kind of some one? I began to wonder if I would have gone to the same trouble if I had struggled through a fence on an old Ford car (I was sure from the writing that it was a Ford) and after proceeding half a mile or so over interminable boulders and gullies had found it necessary to come back again. I came to the conclusion that Iwould, at any rate, if I was in the West, and thus consoled, I proceeded to search for another outlet.
Yes, here were a pair of ruts leading off backwards at a tangent. Where they went was not possible to see, for they were overgrown with scrub. I started Lizzie once again, put her front wheel into the deeper of the ruts and set off whither it should take me. It was faithful and true. Brushing the bushes sideways with the machine as we passed, we arrived in half a mile at a gate where a good wide road appeared. It was the entrance to the "city" of Nelson, consisting of a few shacks, a ranch-house and a railway station. After opening a few more gates we crossed the rails at a level crossing and were going once again swiftly westwards.
"Dinner in Peach Springs," I told myself. Peach Springs on my AAA Map was a fair-sized town fifteenmiles ahead. Evening was drawing on and there would not be much light left for travelling, but where dinner was concerned it was another matter. Proceed we must, until fodder hove in sight.
Slowly the canyon was left behind. The country opened out and became flatter. Vast rolling plains appeared, with cedar woods creeping down their slopes. The air was sultry, hardly a breeze stirred in the trees; wild pigeons in hundreds flew hither and thither; occasionally a young antelope or a great jack rabbit leaped across the plains. I hardly gave them a thought. My mind dwelt upon an imaginary tin of pineapple chunks somewhere in the distance!
Peach Springs showed no trace of materializing when required. There was no sign of it anywhere where it should have been. I stopped at a wooden shack near the roadside. There was a Bowser pump outside the door.
An old man with a goat's beard appeared at the door.
"A couple of gallons of gas, please," I shouted, and while he pumped it in I surveyed the surroundings; there was another little shack not far away and two dirty-looking Mexican women were sitting down outside. Here and there, round about, lay rubbish, pieces of timber, tin cans and other débris.
"Guess you get mighty lonesome here, dad?"
"Aw, dunno," he replied. "Bin here nigh on forty years. Guess I got purty well accustomed to it now."
"Forty years! I should say so!... Thanks. Say, how far's Peach Springs from here?"
"Peach Springs? This is Peach Springs. You're in it right here," and he pointed to his shack.
"ThisPeach Springs? I thought it was a big town with umpteen thousand people in it."
"And so it was, till they moved it."
"Moved it?" I stood aghast at the thought of such a horrible thing.
"Aye, I mind the time when there was over 40,000 people in Peach Springs. They'd all come in a heluva sweat lookin' for gold, and what's more, they found it. Then the gold begun to give out until in the end there warn't none at all, an' when the gold went the people went with it. I'm the only one as didn't go and I guess I'm not much concerned about it neither. Provisions and gas and oil are better'n grubbin' after gold all yer life."
"Provisions?" I queried. "Got any pineapple chunks?"
"Sure thing. Got everything."
Overcome with emotion, I filled my pockets with tinned fruit and biscuits.
That night my camp fire burned in a glorious spot sheltered by high cliffs. Fuel was scarce, there were just a few dried-up bushes to burn, but it was splendid, camping there with the beautiful clear sky above, the stars shining as I had never known them shine before.
On again we went at dawn. This time it was to leave behind the cedar forests and the towering canyons. We were getting near the fringe of the great arid desert that stretches for nearly 300 miles to the heart of California. Gradually the ground became flat, almost as flat as the proverbial pancake. On it grew no vegetation at all, save the scanty sage-brush that can flourish where all other things die. Miles away, but clear enough to be only a few hundred yards, rose ranges of saw-toothed, evil-looking mountains, as barren as barrenness could be. Ahead lies the trail stretching beyond the traveller's visionto the horizon. On the left runs a fence. Beyond the fence is the Santa Fé Railway. The telegraph poles and the distant mountains are the only objects that break the interminable flatness. The sky is cloudless and the heat of the sun intense. At every five or ten miles a stop is made to drink water from the bag on the handlebar. One has a glorious thirst in these parts.
Mile after mile goes by, and hour after hour. The sun grows higher in the heavens, its rays pour down upon my back with unrelenting fury. When shall we get to anywhere? The inner man grows weary of fasting in this infernal heat. A massive rock, lying all alone in the vast plain on the right, asks: "Why will ye not repent?" Oh, the irony of it! The man who painted that rock was a fanatic, but he knew what he was about.
Kingman at last! Kingman meant breakfast. Breakfast meant water melons and coffee and pies and other good—nay, beautiful—things. Kingman meant drinks and ices and sundries to one's heart's content, and one's pocket's contents.
On again I pursue my way, feeling like a new man. Next stop Yucca, thirty miles. Gee! the sun is hot. Nearly eleven. My stars, what will it be like at one? Everything is sand now—underneath, around, everywhere. The wheels tear it up in clouds as they skim through. Sometimes they slip sideways in it and flounder about, trying to grip on to something firm. Sometimes we slither over altogether but the sand is soft and spills do not disturb one much. But the sun—I wish it would stop working a bit!
Vegetation appears once again, but of a very strange kind. It is a vegetation that is different from any we know in Europe. It is at the same time grotesque, mysterious,ridiculous, wonderful and luxurious. It is desert vegetation. You have always thought of deserts as devoid of every sign of vegetation? It is not so in the great deserts of America. Life abounds but, as if in recompense for the privilege of living, it has to take strange forms. Yet, if they are strange, it is only in comparison with the vegetation to which in temperate climes we are accustomed. The unnumbered varieties of cactus plants and trees are in reality beautiful and strange beyond description. They are always green, always fresh and always beautiful. It is a kind of "Futurist" beauty that adorns them. The cactus trees, for instance, have their leafless branches projecting almost at right angles to the trunk, and they in turn branch out in a similar manner, presenting a grotesque appearance. The tall and beautiful Ocatilla—one can almost refer to it as a desert "shrub"—springs directly from the ground like several long waving feelers bunched together below and spread apart above. The prickly-pear, with its needle-covered fleshy leaves, each one joined on to another without stem or stalk, presents a most weird aspect. Even the modest and unassuming sage-brush, the poor down-trodden "John Citizen" of every desert, seems to have been arranged on the barren plain in regular rectangles and rows, spaced at mathematical distances apart.
The secret is that each one has to think of only one thing—water. Each cactus plant or tree is provided in itself with the means of storing a reserve of water. Moisture is the one great thing that dominates them all. That being so, the constitution of desert vegetation has to be altogether different from that of humid climates just as our constitutions would have to be entirely different if we lived on Mars, where there is hardly any water at all.
This was truly a world of wild fancy. It would be ridiculous—I thought—to try to explain a scene like this to people who had never seen anything but ordinary trees and plants and flowers. They would laugh in scorn when I tried to describe to them that strange conglomeration of fanciful shapes, those mad-looking cactus trees with every joint dislocated, those weird Ocatilla waving their long slender arms twenty and thirty feet above the ground. And look at that great organ-pipe cactus over there, nothing but a huge light-green fleshy trunk, with two or three other trunks all perfectly straight and perfectly vertical on top of it! How could one possibly describe things like that?
"With a Watch-Pocket 'Carbine,' of course. What else?" I mused and stopped to take out my camera from the toolbox. It was not so easily done as said. The toolbox lid seemed red-hot to my fingers. I could not bear my hand on the top of the tank even.
Oh, water, water: how beautiful thou art! Even when imbibed under hand-pressure from a smelly canvas water-bag!
Could iteverget any hotter than this? The only way was to keep going, the faster the better. Then the heat, with frequent drinks, was just tolerable. When I stopped, it was like being plunged suddenly into a great furnace. Never mind; there would be ice-creams at Yucca. On again, as fast as we can, leaping over gullies, ploughing through the loose white sand. Lower and lower we get as we travel. The gradient is not noticeable, for there are ups and downs all the way, and ridges of hills here and there. All the same, we are making a steady descent. In a couple of dozen miles we shall cross the River Colorado. That morning we were overa mile high above it. Now we are at its level. That explains the increasing heat the further we go, and further on for hundreds of miles the road lies but a few feet above the level of the sea; in places it is actually below it.
In the distance appear trees—poplars, eucalyptus and cedars. They denote the small ramshackle town of Yucca, like an island in the plain. The trail widens into a road. Living beings are seen, horses, carts and motor-cars. It is the civilized world once again. What Yucca does for a living I am at a loss to know. It cannot certainly be a ranching town. Probably there is a little gold in the vicinity and it is a small trading centre. Probably it is more important as a thirst-quenching centre!
A short stop and on we went again into the desert, leaving behind us the little oasis, and plunging ahead into a still hotter region. The strange cactus trees and desert plants gathered round once more. Rougher and rougher the road became. The sand gave place to sharp loose grit interspersed with rocks and jutting boulders. As it did so, gradually the luxurious vegetation of the desert grew thinner and the dull miserable sage-brush took its place. The trail divided up into two deep and solitary ruts and in between them lay loose shale and grit that absolutely defied progress. The wheels would sink in freely and churn the road up aimlessly. It was necessary then to ride in one of the ruts. Where they were broad this was not difficult, but when they narrowed and deepened a spill was almost bound to occur if one wobbled but a fraction of an inch from the dead centre of the rut. Negotiating a road of this nature was something new in the sport of motor-cycling, but it was exasperating. I was to find later that riding continuously in a rut was like riding on a greasy road, in that the morecarefully one went and the more timid one grew, the more dangerous did the riding become. Time and time again I was thrown off by fouling the side of the rut and plunged headlong over the handlebars into the road. The slower I went the more often was I thrown. If I travelled about ten or twelve miles an hour I could maintain my balance by using my feet where necessary. Riding at that speed, however, was out of the question. It was better to go faster and risk the frequent spills than to be roasted alive. So I went faster. The faster I went the easier was it to maintain balance naturally, because the steering became more sensitive and only a very small movement of the handlebars within the limits of the rut would suffice to correct any deviation from perfect balance. I found that at between thirty-five and forty miles an hour it was moderately easy to follow the rut through the swerves in its course. But even then, occasionally there would be a nasty spill, a few bent levers and some scratches. (I learned a week or so later from "Cannonball Baker," the famous American racer, that he travels in these same ruts at between fifty and sixty!)
Here and there the trail would cross a "wash" or a dried-up lake bed and then the sand régime would reappear. And ever did death speak from all around—desolation in bewildering intensity almost cried aloud from the fire-swept waste that lay all about me. Often I passed the remains of derelict cars left at the side of the road; sometimes it was a mudguard or a spring, a tyre or a broken wheel; sometimes it was a complete chassis, stripped of everything that could be taken away. For what could be done in a region like this if the breakdown were too large? Nothing but to push the car off the road and leave it to its fate. Almost withoutexception the remains were of Ford cars. That shows the wisdom of travelling in a machine that bears no great loss if it is damaged or forsaken!
Occasionally I passed a gigantic heap of small tins all rusty and forlorn. I was puzzled at first. How did they get there? And why had they been heaped up if they were the discarded food-tins of passing travellers? But no. They are the sole remains of a "mushroom" town of the West. In them one can picture the sudden growth and the almost equally sudden decay of a settlement that thrived while there was gold to be found in the vicinity.
Here and there, too, were little heaps of bones, bleached white as snow—the remains of a horse or a cow that had strayed. To lose oneself, be it man or animal, is sure death in the Mohave Desert.
It is just midday. The sun is vertically above. It beats down on my shoulders and dries up the skin of my hands. My hair, over which I had never worn a hat since I left New York, is bleached to a light yellow colour and stands erect, stiff and brittle. The alkali sand and dust have absorbed all the moisture from my fingers and gradually cracks and cuts are developing in my finger tips and at the joints. I find it easier to grasp the handlebars with the palms of my hands alone. My clothes are saturated with dust and my trench boots are cut and scratched, with the seams broken away; the right sole has pulled away and threatens to come off altogether unless carefully used. I feel that the sooner I get out of the Mohave Desert the better it will be for me.
But the heat! It seems to know no shame, no pity. It is terrific. Every five miles I stop and drink from the water bag. There is just enough to carry me to thenext stop. For the first time I begin to long for shelter from the burning rays. There is none around anywhere—not as far as the horizon. I must push on quickly.... The rut suddenly breaks and swerves away....Crash!... Up again, lose no time. On once more; what matter if the footbrake doesn't work? A motor-cycle is made to go, not to stop!
In front, to the left, rise pinnacles of purple granite. They stick up sharply into the sky like the teeth of a great monster grinning over its prey. They are the "Needles," and they fringe the Colorado River. What a glorious sight it will be to see a river again, with water flowing in it.
Now on the horizon appears a blotch of green. Its beauty in that yellow wilderness is beyond description. It is the green of the stately poplar trees that surround the railway station of Topock. That is where the road and the railway and the river all meet, and where we leave Arizona and enter the State of California. Thank Heaven it is not far away. The pinnacles rise higher and higher, the little oasis grows bigger and bigger, and the trees greener and taller.
At last! Lizzie's rattle is silent. We come to rest under a great shelter thatched with straw that has been erected by the roadside opposite the restaurant—the only building in the town beside the railway station. A few yards further on was a massive steel bridge 400 yards long that spanned the Colorado. Beyond lay California, but I was satisfied with Arizona and the straw-thatched shelter for an hour or two.
At two we crossed the great bridge. What good fortunewould California bring, I wondered. It brought even worse roads than I had seen in Arizona. There still remained over 200 miles of desert to be crossed. The trail was very rough, like a mountain track at the start, full of ups and downs and swerves and washes. Twelve miles further on I arrived at the town of Needles, so tired and hot that I decided to abandon travel until the evening. Then I would ride out into the desert and make my bed under the steel-blue sky. I was too enamoured of the wonderful sunsets and the glorious sunrises of the open plain to allow them to pass unseen in a musty, stuffy hotel bedroom.
Needles, I was surprised to find, was very much bigger than I had expected. It is now a good-sized town and its main street a bustle of activity. After disposing of a steak at a Chinese restaurant, I bought a book and retired to the square. There I took off my tunic, rolled up my shirt sleeves and lay on the grass beneath the tall, thick palm trees and whiled away the hot afternoon hours.
At evening as the setting sun was drawing a magic cloak over the tropical sky, I stole out of Needles along the lonesome trail that I had learnt to love. Except for low-lying mountains all around, there was nothing but the everlasting sand and sage-brush. Behind lay the gigantic plain and across it, like a silver snake, crept the great silent river. It was the most impressive scene that I have ever beheld from my bedroom window. My mattress was the sand with a waterproof sheet laid upon it. Never did Monte Cristo with all his wealth sleep in such luxury as that.