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<br />"Long ago, there was a great wise chief, who <br />mourned the death of his wife, and would not be oom- <br />forted until Ta-V1IOats, one of the Indian gods, came <br />to him, and told him she was in a happier land, and <br />offered to take him there, that he might see for <br />himself, if, upon his return, he would oease to mourn. <br />The great ehief promised. Then Ta-vwoats made a <br />trail through the mountains that intervene between <br />that beautiful land, the balmy region in the great <br />west, and this, the desert home of the poor Nu-ma. <br />This trail was the canyon gorge of the Color- <br />ado. Through it he led him; and, when they had <br />returned, the deity exacted from the chief a pr0- <br />mise that he would tell no one of the joys of that <br />land, lest, through discontent with the circum- <br />stances of this world, they should desire to go to <br />heaven. Then he rolled a river into the gorge, a <br />mad, raging stream, that should engulf any that <br />might attempt to enter thereby. <br />More than onoe have I been warned by the <br />Indians not to enter this canyon. They consider <br />it disobedience to the gods and contempt for thitir <br />authority, and believe that it would surely bring <br />upon me their wrath. 11 <br /> <br />JOHN WESLEY POWELL, 1869. <br /> <br />III <br />