The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1900-05-26
GREAT CANYON OF PALo DURo
A Chasm that Appalls the Traveller
in Texas.

From Canyon City, Texas, comes this
interesting story of the wonders of the great
canyon:
1t may not be generally known that some
of the grandest and ruggedest scenery in
the country is to be met with on the plains;
but such is the fact. And this is no more
surprising than the first glimpse of it, even
when tie sightseer knows it is there. Sup
posing him to be riding down from Amarillo
on horseback, he will see. after he has left
the town few miles, nothing but he wide
stretches of the plains, dotted here and
there with the dugouts and shacks Of the.
settlers and threaded with the few fence
lines; and all the scene distorted and dane
ing in the mirages which lift and lower and
fade out like clouds of silvery mist, and
though at times settle and look like CLASSY
lakes mirroring fantastic scenes.
By the time he has Travelled ten or a
dozen miles he will see far away to the
southwark a dim red line running due east
and west like wagon trail That is what
he takes iG to be, for it looks exactly like
one As he rides nearer it slowly widens
toward him and he recalls the fact that the
great cattle trails of the old days were
sometimes hundred yards wide in those
parts of the country where water abounded,
and knowing that there is water in the Palo
Duro he will decide that that is what it is
and ride on.
Not until he is within hundred yards
of the brink will he realize that he is watch
ing the opposite wall of the canyon. Then,
suddenly, and with the appearance of actual
the scene will right itself In
voluntarily he will check his horse, lest
coming nearer, another appalling shift
might flip him, steed and all, right out over
the fringe of grass 100 yards away, which
marks the brink of the chasm.
As he slowly approaches, studying the
face of the opposite wall, he is amazed at
the startling distance at which it bangs
the grass over there is mere color, and little
humps of green, which he knows are prickly
pear by their outline, seem no bigger than
punches of buffalo grass By the time he
has come to the brink and dismounted he
will begin to realize that the great red wall,
blotched with white in places and every
where scanned with cracks and caves, is
fully half mile away. And the bottom
of it-he will see that only when lying face
downward with his toes digging frantically
into the tough sod, he peers down, down,
2, 900 feet or more There it rises, rough
as at the top, from the edge of a wildly
little valley, strewn with trees
that look no bigger than bushes, among
which lie dimly outlined the huge masses
of rock that from time to time have broken
off the walls and tumbled down. And
gllnting up through the bushes Of simmer
ing like silver in the open places he sees the
sun on the water of Palo Duro Greek.
Far up and down the valley as the eye
can see the view is the same, everywhere
the same rugged rising precipitous walls,
the same picturesque valley and the same
bits of sunlight on the water. As he gazes
down again along the face of the sheer
wall beneath him, near to the bottom, he
may see bird slowly winging its way up
ward toward him. He thinks it is thrush,
and watches it curiously up, up it comes.
larger and larger. 1t is a crow; it rises
nearer and still increases in bulk, and he
decides that it is a buzzard-but it is far
down yet; it rises faster, bigger and bigger,
until it is right under his face, and then,
with mighty wing beats passes before his
eyes, golden eagle. Startled at his invol
untary movement, it sails away across the
chasm, and, perching on the opposite wall,
seems no bigger than it did when he first
saw it flying, a thousand yards below. With
an idea of the immensity of the canyon
thus fixed in his mind, his next wish will
be to get down into it.
To do this it will be necessary for him to
ride eight or ten miles to the westward,
where Terra Blanco runs in from the south,
at which point the walls of the canyon are
much less abrupt and the bed much shall
ower. Here the old trail to Fort Sumner
and Les Cruces crossed in the days of the
and now the Pecos Valley and
Northern Railroad, which, in the three
miles down to Canyon City, makes grade
Of over thousand feet Going down in the
bed of the old trail, he finds in the valley
the traces made by the freighters and trail
outfits who passed here, back and forth,
during the twenty or more years they drove
the cattle out from New Mexico and freight
ed in the supplies. There are huge walls
Of rock and dirt, behind which they built
their fires and spread their beds when the
wind was blowing from the west, and deep
hollows worn in the hard earth, where
night by night the tethered horses stood.
Above this place there is no canyon, and
wherever the stream is not 'boggy'' it can
be crossed without difficulty; but below,
clear down to the Red River, hundred
miles away, in the whole course of the
canyon, there are not more than four or
FIVE places where it is possible for teams to
get up or down; in many miles of the course
the walls are too steep even for man to
scale them
The bed of the canyon is well wooded,
but, owing to the inaccessibility, little of
the timber has been taken out, although
the demand for it makes it valuable. Some
years ago the manager Of the I Anchor
ranch decided to get some of it out for
posts; accordingly, he sent three or four
men down there with axes and camp sup
plies, which they packed in on ponies, and
told them to cut thousand posts and
sssnake them out to where they could be
got with wagon. They worked for a
couple of weeks, and then came back, hav
ing cut the required number, and then
learned that there was too much brush and
rock in the valley to permit dragging them
out. They are in there yet, and will be
until the camping and hunting parties have
used them all up for irewood.
As might be expected in such place,
there is considerable game. Wild turkey
and blue quail are abundant at every sea