The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-04-24

South Africa. There are almost as
many foreigners as Americans and OF
the former the English perhaps pre-
dominate. All the globe trotters visit
the Canyon stopping off on their re-
turn from the Orient. One hears
three or four languages spoken at
neighboring tables in the dining room
of Ell Tovar. The list of visitors for a
year would furnish the material for
an international who's Who"
1t is one of the charms of Ell Tovar
that you may have either society or
solitude. and of the former almost
any variety you prefer. Water is not
the only thing that seeks its own lev
ell, and so you find the Canyon visitors
OF only two, or three days. comfort
ably and congenially grouped by an
unexplainable spontaneous social Sc
lection. 1t has been said before, L
think that Ell Tovar is more like a
country club than hotel but the COM
parison is inevitable. For here is the
perfection of unconventionality, and
simple natural unobtrusive camara-
derie a place at last, where people 40
as they please. Paradoxical as 1t may
seem in a hotel where you sleep on an
irreproachable box mattress, have
ground circuit connection with por-
celain bath tub and a telephone IN
your room, you have also the freedom
and unrestraint of the primitive. 1t Is
comforts and conveniences. Verify the
Simple Life, like the kingdom OF
Heaven is not without us, as fact'
revealed in material objects like tents
and camp fires, but WITHIN US as
great yearning."
little more than a stones throw
from the hotel. the long, low. ramD-
ling bungalow built of native Doulo-
ers and pine logs. harmonizing so per-
fectly with its surroundings 10
g. III in q
equipment, you can lose yourself in
a pine forest in which 1t is easy TO
Imagine the foot of man has never
trod. Although the hotel is always
full of people, visitors arriving ana
departing and there is small army
of employees. there is never sense
of hustle nor confusion and none or
the nerve racking noises which we
have learned to believe we must en-
dure as the penalties or CIV
ilization. Both animate and mani
mate objects seem to respect the great
silence of the Canyon. You can't ina
CINE a radiator pounding at Ell Tovar.
When YOU awaken from the dream
less sleep of perfect rest ana recu-
peration which you enjoy in that de,
Iicious air, it is so quiet that you reel
as if YOU were a hermit miles from
human habitation. But presently the
softened voices of the strenuous ones
who have gone out to see the sun
rise. come floating family from some
where outside, and in the regions be-
low. the Genii of the Bell, await your
ring.
Not that I wish him any bad luck.
but no one who visits Ell Tovar should
miss meeting Mr.. c. P. Brant, the
manager. 1t is no wonder that this
hotel is so different from others, for
Mr.. Brant, who has been in charge
of it, since it was built four years ago,
is an unusual man. He has been ev-
erywhere and seen everything, and has
all the charms of osmopolitanism-
His parents were Scandinavians, Mos
COW was his birthplace and he spent
his childhood and early youth in New
York. Lobster Square he knows and
all the gay capitals of Europe. Be-
fore he was fifteen he had heard the
Ring of the Niebelungen at Beyreuth.
Wagner conducting and Louis of Ba-
varia, the Mad King, in the royal box
He has sailed strange seas and cross
ed the distant zones. The South Sea
Islands, where he met Robert Louis
Stevenson at Samoa, are as familiar
to him as your door yard to you. All
sorts of famous and interesting people
are his friends and you will rarely find
a more entertaining talker or a more
delightful personality. Mrs. Brant, too
is charming. They seem to belong at
FL Tovar. They suit their setting as
peace of the Canyon, shut away from
the irritating and inconsequential
hustle of the world beyond the pines
and the mountains and the desert that
guard them round. The Brants are
enthusiastic equestrians, as everybody
should be who stays long at the Can
yon for there riding is the principal
diversion and the winding drives and
interminable bride paths, carpeted
with pine needles which lead you
scented forest, are the joy of the
horseman.
Ask the people who live at the Can
yon the year round which is the best
season there and they will probably
say June or October. But the enthusi-
asts. like Louis Boucher, who has lived
at Dripping Springs in the Canon's
heart for twenty-three years, will tell
you that all seasons are the best and
that one must see the Canyon day af-
ter day and month after month to
reserve. The fitting visitor who ar
rives one day, drives to Sunset Point
that night. goes down the Trail next
day and over to Grandview the third,
and thinks he sees the Canyon, is re-
garded with a kind of pity and con-
tempt by the people who have been
at the Canyon off and on, for years,
know all the Trails intimately and
have gone over every foot of the ex-
plored regions. For this is still an I'M
| discovered country. Only within the
past month there came a report of
| important Canyon discoveries by en-
| ployes of the Smithsonian institute
| who found a great cliff jewellers cave
in the walls of the river. with num-
| berless divisions and compartments
| another remnant of that prehistoric
| civilization, in many respects far in
advance of our own, the evidences of
which give the Southwest it's peculiar
| atmosphere of mystery and charm. AS
| far as getting a real grasp of the Can
yon is concerned. three minutes is
probably, as one man told me. as good
as three days. Three months would
| be better and 1 met many people who
| said they had not wearied of it in
| three years. One of the most allur-
| ing Canyon trips, to the Havasupai
Indian village. in Cataract Canyon, re-
I rnnni rn- a L i =