[Illustration: FANTASTIC FORMS.]

The section of country through which one travels to behold this
last-named marvel is full of mystery and fascination. It is a land
where rivers frequently run underground or cut their way through
gorges of such depth that the bewildered tourist, peering over their
precipitous cliffs, can hardly gain a glimpse of the streams flowing
half a mile below; a land of colored landscapes such as elsewhere
would be deemed impossible, with "painted deserts," red and yellow
rocks, petrified forests, brown grass and purple grazing grounds; a
land where from a sea of tawny sand, flecked here and there with
bleached bones, like whitecaps on the ocean, one gazes upon mountains
glistening with snow; and where at times the intervals are so brief
between aridity and flood, that one might choose, like Alaric, a
river-bed for his sepulchre, yet see a host like that of Pharaoh
drowned in it before the dawn. In almost every other portion of the
world Nature reveals her finished work; but here she partially
discloses the secrets of her skill, and shows to us her modes of
earth-building. Thus, the entire country is dotted with _mesas_, or
table-lands of sandstone, furrowed and fashioned in a tremendous
process of erosion, caused by the draining through this area of a
prehistoric ocean, whose rushing, whirling, and receding waters
molded the mountains, carved the cañons, and etched innumerable
grotesque figures and fantastic forms. A feeling of solemnity steals
over us, as we reflect upon the lapse of geologic time which such a
record covers, unnumbered ages before man's advent on this planet;
and these deep cañons and eroded valleys, whose present streams are
only miniature representatives of those which formerly wrought havoc
here, teach lessons of patience to the restless mortals who behold
them; while some of the singular formations on the cliffs present