Identifier: arizonawonderla00jame (find matches)
Title: Arizona, the wonderland; the history of its ancient cliff and cave dwellings, ruined pueblos, conquest by the Spaniards, Jesuit and Franciscan missions, trail makers and Indians; a survey of its climate, scenic marvels, topography, deserts, mountains, rivers and valleys; a review of its industries; an account of its influence on art, literature and science; and some reference to what it offers of delight to the automobilist, sportsman, pleasure and health seeker. By George Wharton James. With a map and sixty plates, of which twelve are in colour
Year: 1917 (1910s)
Authors: James, George Wharton, 1858-1923
Subjects:
Publisher: Boston Page company
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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out into the Painted Desert. Each finger is a mesa, or table-land of solid rock, from five hundred to eight hundred feet high, and ten miles away from its ad-joining finger. Here are natural defenses galore; places where a fearful people might build on precipitous heights, reached only by precarious trails, and where a handful of savages could keep an army of millions at bay, provided that they were equipped with no other than the weapons of savagery. On each of these three fingers villages are built, three on the easternmost, three on the central and one on the western. Here, later, I will take you and show you one of the strangest, weirdest, most thrilling,— perhaps to you most disgusting — yet, withal,the most wonderful religious ceremony known to man, where, as an act of worship, these reverent, serious, devout Indians carry deadly living rattlesnakes between their teeth in performance of one of their ancient and important rites. Or, did I dare to show it, I might take you to another
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Glimpses of the Land 11 even more remarkable ceremony, though not so thrilling and awe-inspiring, where phallicism is the subject of reverent and considerate worship, by a people as simple-hearted in this respect as the beasts of the field. And before we leave this region let me ask you to look upon the corn-fields of this interesting people. Small and meager patches, wrested with infinite patience and in-credible labor from the thirsty face of the Desert, who shall say that people capable of such endeavors — which are generally crowned with success — are either lazy or unobserving? Once more let us wing our flight. Are you a hunter? Then I will take you where antelope, deer, pine-hens and bear abound. We will shoot across the Grand Canyon,and land upon a great detached plateau I well know over there, where, if one were quick enough and expert with the camera he might catch on his sensitive film a thou-sand head of deer in one picture; where, a few miles away, black bear and cinnamon are comm

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