But few of these cañons contain water throughout the year. Most of them are dry at all times, excepting for a few days in the early spring, or for a few minutes or hours at most after a heavy shower. It is characteristic of Western North America, as of all arid countries, that the streams, away from their sources in the mountains, lose water, rather than gain it, in traversing the lower country. The dry atmosphere and the thirsty soil absorb it, and, in many cases, large streams entirely disappear in this way. This is the case to a great extent in the plateau country, and still more so in the Great Basin, where these are the only outlets to the drainage.
Those who have long and carefully studied the Grand Cañon of the Colorado do not hesitate for a moment to pronounce it by far the most sublime of all earthly spectacles. If its sublimity consisted only in its dimensions, it could be sufficiently set forth in a single sentence. It is more than 200 miles long, from five to twelve miles wide, and from 5,000 to 6,000 feet deep. There are in the world valleys which are longer and a few which are deeper. There are valleys flanked by summits loftier than the palisades of the Kaibab. Still the Grand Cañon is the sublimest thing on earth. It is not alone by virtue of its magnitudes, but by virtue of the whole--its _ensemble_.
The space under immediate view from our stand-point, fifty miles long and ten to twelve wide, is thronged with a great multitude of objects so vast in size, so bold yet majestic in form, so infinite in their details, that as the truth gradually reveals itself to the perceptions it arouses the strongest emotions. Unquestionably the great, the overruling feature is the wall on the opposite side of the gulf. Can mortal fancy create a picture of a mural front a mile in height, seven to ten miles distant, and receding into space in either direction? As the mind strives to realize its proportions its spirit is broken and its imagination completely crushed. If the wall were simple in its character, if it were only blank and sheer, some rest might be found in contemplating it; but it is full of diversity and eloquent with grand suggestions. It is deeply recessed by alcoves and amphitheatres receding far into the plateau beyond, and usually disclosing only the portals by which they open into the main chasm. Between them the promontories jut out ending in magnificent gables with sharp mitred angles. Thus the wall rambles in and out, turning numberless corners. Many of the angles are acute, and descend as sharp spurs like the forward edge of a ploughshare. Only those alcoves which are directly opposite to us can be seen in their full length and depth. Yet so excessive, nay, so prodigious, is the effect of foreshortening, that it is impossible to realize their full extensions.
Numerous detached masses are also seen flanking the ends of the long promontories. These buttes are of gigantic proportions, and yet so overwhelming is the effect of the wall against which they are projected that they seem insignificant in mass, and the observer is often deluded by them, failing to perceive that they are really detached from the wall and perhaps separated from it by an interval of a mile or two.
At the foot of this palisade is a platform through which meanders the inner gorge, in whose dark and sombre depths flows the river. Only in one place can the water surface be seen. In its winding the abyss which holds it extends for a short distance towards us and the line of vision enters the gorge lengthwise. Above and below this short reach the gorge swings its course in other directions and reveals only a dark, narrow opening, while its nearer wall hides its depth. This inner chasm is 1,000 to 2,000 feet deep. Its upper 200 feet is a vertical ledge of sandstone of a dark rich brownish colour. Beneath it lies the granite of a dark iron-grey shade, verging towards black, and lending a gloomy aspect to the lowest deeps. Perhaps half a mile of the river is disclosed. A pale, dirty red, without glimmer or sheen, a motionless surface, a small featureless spot enclosed in the dark shade of the granite, is all of it that is here visible. Yet we know it is a large river, 150 yards wide, with a headlong torrent foaming and plunging over rocky rapids.
The walls of the Grand Cañon and the level of the plateau descend by a succession of great steps, produced by faults, until the level of the river is reached at the mouth of the Grand Wash; and thus ends the Grand Cañon.
Below the Grand Wash, a dry stream bed which enters the Colorado from the north, the river turns south again and enters the Black Cañon of Lieutenant Ives’ report--a cañon which would be a remarkable feature were it not brought into such close juxtaposition with that described above.
Below it the river runs in narrow valleys and low cañons to its mouth.
THE AVON
JOHN WILSON CROKER
There are Avons and Avons. Of course, Shakespeare’s Avon is the famous stream which takes precedence of all others. It rises at Naseby, in the yard of a small inn near the church. So for two things is that village of Naseby renowned. A good many years ago a hospitable agriculturist, resident near Naseby, asked me to come over and see the battle-field and source of the Avon. I came and saw. The battle-field, truth to say, impressed me in no degree more than the river-head; I saw a quantity of ploughed land, undulating in true Northamptonshire fashion. Doubtless grim old Oliver and hot Prince Rupert saw a good deal more; and that heavy land is responsible for many oaths on the part of the prince, and prayers from the ever-prayerful lips of the Roundhead general. But Naseby field is very much like all the rest of Northamptonshire. There is not a hill in the country, or a brook that a boy cannot leap, or a church spire that a boy cannot throw a stone over, or enough level ground for a game of cricket. Yet it is a capital hunting county nevertheless.
[Illustration: THE AVON]
Descending the Avon from Naseby, we pass through much dreary Northamptonshire scenery. At a village called Catthorpe, we are reminded of a certain poetaster named Dyer. Poetry was in a poor state when the author of _Grongar Hill_ could be considered a poet. He was an amiable clergyman, who wrote mediocre verse; but Horace’s opinion of such verse is peculiarly popular in the present day. The first town of any consequence which the pedestrian reaches is Lutterworth; and concerning Lutterworth there is little to be said, except that Wicliffe was once its rector; and the ashes of the great reformer were disinterred by certain ecclesiastical vultures, and thrown into the brook which runs into the Avon at Lutterworth. So says Fuller, whom Wordsworth has followed: “This brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wicliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over.”
The next town is Rugby; an immortal town, forever connected with the greatest of school-masters.
The scenery about Avon begins to improve near Newnham Regis; a small village, remarkable for having nothing of the church left except the tower. The rector of Church Lawford is also vicar of King’s Newnham; and as the two villages cannot count five hundred inhabitants, we perhaps need not regret the destruction of the ancient church.
The city of Coventry lies not very far from the Avon. It is, I think, the dirtiest place in England, Bristol and Birmingham not excepted. In days gone by it had great fame, this _Coventria civitas_; and its earl, Leofric, who used to stride about his hall among his dogs,
“His beard a foot before him, and his hair A yard behind,”
was a worthy ancestor of Lord Palmerston; and we all remember who wrote,
“I waited for the train at Coventry; I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, To watch the three tall spires.”
What strikes me in this city of Coventry--when I look at those noble spires, which Tennyson has immortalized (St. Michael’s is second to Salisbury only), and at the splendid city-hall--is the wonderful change between the past and the present. It is now one of the most sordid and miserable towns in the empire. What generous and magnificent inhabitants must it have had when the spires of St. Michael’s and Trinity were raised heavenwards! I’ll be hanged if Godiva the beautiful would have
“Unclasped the wedded eagles of her belt”
for the present population of Coventry. I fear that among its makers of watches and ribbons there are goodly number of “low churls, compact of thankless earth.”
The beauty of Avon begins where it enters the park of Stoneleigh Abbey, seat of Lord Leigh. The first baron, when Mr. Chandos Leigh, published some elegant poetry. His title to the estate was at one time questioned; and an inventive attorney produced a most marvellous case against him, accusing him and Lady Leigh of pulling down one side of Stoneleigh Church, to get rid of some genealogical testimony furnished by the Monuments, and of causing a huge stone to be dropped on some men who were engaged in building a bridge across the river Sow, it being important to suppress their evidence; I forget how many murders this lawyer (who very justly suffered imprisonment) charged against one of the gentlest and most amiable of men. Of the old abbey nothing is left but a gateway; and the great mansion of the Leighs, though doubtless magnificent and luxurious within, has no external beauty. But the park is redolent of _As you like it_. All this Warwickshire woodland breathes of Shakespeare. Under these stately oaks, the noblest I have ever seen, beside this sparkling river, how sweet it were to moralize with melancholy Jaques, to while away the golden time with joyous Rosalind! As the traveller lies beneath a patrician tree, amid the magical noontide, well might he fancy the mellow voice of Amiens in the distance, cheering the banished Duke with music. Of Stoneleigh village I have only to say, that when last there I found it impossible to obtain a glass of ale; Lord Leigh having an objection to that wholesome liquid. An English village without ale is awful to think of.