‘God bless thee, Philip, wherever thou goest, and make thy hopes realities,’ she said with what seemed to the lovers unnecessary solemnity.
The dame went into the house. Madge and Philip went down the meadow, and under the willows by the merry river, forgot that there was any parting before them or any danger that their fortunes might be crossed.
Those bright days! Can they ever come again, or can any future joy be so full, so perfect? There are no love-speeches—little talk of any kind, and what there is, is commonplace enough. There is no need for speech. There is only—only!—the sense of the dear presence that makes all the world beautiful, leaving the heart nothing more to desire.
But the dreams in the sunshine there under the willows, with the river murmuring sympathetic harmonies at their feet! The dreams of a future, and yet no future; for it is always to be as now. Can it be possible that this man and woman will ever look coldly on each other—ever speak angry, passionate words? Can it be possible that there will ever flit across their minds one instant’s regret that they had come together?
No, no: the dreams are of the future; but the future will be always as now—full of faith and gladness.
THE CLIFF-HOUSES OF CAÑON DE CHELLY.
The fourth and most southerly iron link of railway which will soon stretch across the North American continent from ocean to ocean is rapidly approaching completion along the thirty-fifth parallel; already it has reached the San Francisco mountains in its course to the Pacific. While avoiding the chances of blockade by snow, liable in higher latitudes, it has struck through a little explored region among the vast plains of Arizona and New Mexico. It is not easy at once to realise the extent of table-lands, greater in area than Great Britain and Ireland, upon which no soul has a settled habitation. The sun beats down with terrible force on these dry undulating plains, where at most times nothing relieves the eye, as it wanders away to the dim horizon, save a few cactus and sage-bush plants. But at seasons, heavy rains change dry gulches into roaring torrents, and parched lowlands into broad lakes, covering the country with a fine grass, on which millions of sheep, horses, and cattle are herded by wandering Navajo and Moqui Indians. To the periodical rains, as well as to geological convulsions, are traced the causes of those wondrous chasms, which in places break abruptly the rolling surface of the prairie, and extend in rocky gorges for many miles. They are called cañons. The grandeur of the scenery found in one of them, Cañon de Chelly, can scarcely be overstated.
Cañon de Chelly—pronounced Canyon de Shay—is in the north of Arizona. It takes its name from a Frenchman, who is said to have been the first white man to set foot within its walls; but except the record of a recent visit by the United States Geological Survey, no account of it seems to have hitherto appeared. The picturesque features of this magnificent ravine are unrivalled; and what lends a more fascinating interest, is the existence, among its rocky walls, of dwellings once occupied by a race of men, who, dropping into the ocean of the past with an unwritten history, are only known to us as cave-dwellers.
In October 1882, an exploring party, headed by Professor Stevenson of the Ethnological Bureau, Washington, and escorted by a number of soldiers and Indian guides, set out for this remarkable spot. One of the party, Lieutenant T. V. Keam, has furnished the following details of their investigations. After travelling one hundred and twenty miles out from the nearest military post, Fort Defiance, and crossing a desert some twenty miles broad, the entrance to Cañon de Chelly was reached. The bed of the ravine is entirely composed of sand, which is constantly being blown along it, with pitiless force, by sudden gusts of wind. The walls of the cañon are red sandstone; at first, but some fifty feet high, they increase gradually, until at eighteen miles they reach an elevation of twelve hundred feet, which is about the highest point, and continue without decreasing for at least thirty miles. The first night, Professor Stevenson’s party camped three miles from the mouth of the cañon, under a grove of cotton-wood trees, and near a clear flowing stream of water. Here the scene was an impressive one. A side ravine of great magnitude intersected the main cañon, and at the junction there stood out, like a sentinel, far from the rest of the cliff, one solemn brown stone shaft eight hundred feet high. In the morning, continuing the journey through the awful grandeur of the gorge, the walls still increased in height, some having a smooth and beautifully coloured surface reaching to one thousand feet; others, from the action of water, sand storms, and atmospheric effects, cut and broken into grand arches, battlements, and spires of every conceivable shape. At times would be seen an immense opening in the wall, stretching back a quarter of a mile, the sides covered with verdure of different shades, reaching to the summit, where tall firs with giant arms seemed dwarfed to the size of a puny gooseberry bush, and the lordly oak was only distinguished by the beautiful sheen of its leaves.