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Show 26 BY PATH AND TRAIL. quered by the Mexicans there will be no civilization for the state. Tf we accept the Grand Canyon of Arizona as it was fifty years ago, there is not upon the earth any forma tion like that of the Gran Barranca. The railroad, the modern hotel and the endless procession of mere and very often vulgar sightseers, have commonized the Grafid Canyon and its wonderful surroundings. The curio shops, the hawkers of sham aboriginal " finds," the ob trusive guides, the inquisitive tourist, have vulgarized the approaches to the Arizona wonder, and robbed it of its preternatural solitude, its awful isolation and weird ro mance. Again the exaggerated and distorted descrip tions of railroad folders, of correspondents and of maga zine writers, have created in the public mind perverted and unreasonable expectations impossible of realization. Take away from any of the great natural wonders of the earth the dowers and gifts of the Creator, the haze of sustained silence, the immense solitude, the entire separation from human homes and human lives, the sav age wealth of forest growth and forest decay dissolve these and, for all time, you mar their glory and matchless fascination. . This is what the greed of man and his lust for gold have done for the Garden of the Gods, for the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls. But what avail our regrets and protests? Kismet, it is fate; we must sur render to the inevitable, ' ' and to lament the consequence is vain." Here among these untenanted wilds, surrounded by igneous and plutonic hills of immeasurable age, the Gran Barranca of the Urique reposes in all its savage magnificence and all its primeval solitude. Never had I seen a panorama of such primitive loveliness and of |