Identifier: threewonderlands00murp (find matches)
Title: Three wonderlands of the American West; being the notes of a traveler, concerning the Yellowstone park, the Yosemite national park, and the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, with a chapter on other wonders of the great American West
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Murphy, Thos. D. (Thomas Dowler), 1866-1928
Subjects:
Publisher: Boston, L. C. Page & company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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ms it. It is only gradually thatthe individual features of the great panoramacome out before ones vision; slowly the weirdarchitectural forms take shape out of the chaosthat at first confuses you. You experience astrange feeling of familiarity with some of them—was it in some old volume of fairy tales, somehalf-forgotten story of India or Egypt or somewell-fingered copy of the Arabian Nights thatyou saw the prototypes of these enchantedpalaces? Or did you, perchance, in someprevious state of existence, wander among suchwondrous forms—now lingering in your soul asthe haziest possible memory? And when youlearn the fanciful names they bear, you are allthe more confirmed in your surmise. ManuTemple, Buddha Temple, Shiva Temple, Templeof Sett, Vishnu Temple, and many other sugges-tive names show that this dim sense ofsemblance to strange temples of the Orient hascome to other minds than yours. A longing comes upon you to descend intothe vast chasm, to gaze on its many-colored walls 114
Text Appearing After Image:
THE GRAND CANYON at close range, and to look upwards to the stu-pendous forms now lying so far beneath youreye. It seems an almost impossible aspiration—where may one find foot-hold among thesebeetling walls, and how may he cross thoseyawning ravines? But it may be accomplishedeasily enough—the hardy pioneers of the Canyonhave sought out several practicable trails to theriver and considerable work has been expendedto make these fairly safe, though none of themcan truthfully be described as easy. The trailsare fatiguing at best and hardly to be recom-mended to persons with much tendency to nauseawhen on giddy heights, but seldom indeed isthere dissent to the proposition that the fatigueof a descent is well worth while. For, indeed,to appreciate the grandeur and matchless magni-tude of these temples and palaces, one must godown among them and look upward to themfrom the depths; to know the awful majesty andresistless power of that sullen river he muststand on its very bank. Missing

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