Mr. W. W. Bass with his old indian friend. Mr. Bass has written the tradition and history of the Havasupai Indians and taught them our language.
Adventures
in the Canyons of the Colorado
By two of its earliest explorers,
James White and W. W. Hawkins
with introduction and notes
by
WILLIAM WALLACE BASS
The Grand Canyon Guide
1920
Published at Grand Canyon, Arizona
by the Authors
Copyright, 1920
by
WILLIAM WALLACE BASS
Grand Canyon, Ariz.
FOREWORD
BY GEORGE WHARTON JAMES
Author of "In and Around the Grand Canyon," "Arizona the Wonderland,""The Grand Canyon of Arizona," "New Mexico, the Land of theDelightmakers," etc., etc.
The more the people of the United States know of their scenicwonderlands the more interest will there be aroused as to "who firstsaw" this or the other of them. The arousement of this especialinterest in regard to the Grand Canyon and its tributaries is growinglyapparent. A hundred thousand Americans see the Grand Canyon todaywhere one saw it at the time of my first visit, nearly forty years ago.
Among the hordes of people attracted to the Grand Canyon by curiosity,scenic allurement, business, pleasure or what not, but two have gainedany fame as guides to its wondrous depths and rim revelations. Thesetwo are John Hance and William Wallace Bass. I knew Hance long beforehe had dreamed that the Canyon would help make him famous; I atevenison stew with him when he was but a cowboy in the employ of theproprietor of the Hull ranch; I wrote the first account of thosepeculiar and exaggerated yarns of his that gained him his fame as the"Munchausen of the West." It was on these yarns alone that his famereposed. He was never a guide. He knew nothing of the Canyon, east orwest, twenty miles from the trail that unfortunately was named afterhim. He never read a line of its history, and never cared to know whofirst discovered it. He got lost years after the Canyon was beingvisited by great numbers of whites, when he attempted to guide a partyto the home of the Havasupai Indians, whose ancestors made the trailwhich he discovered and claimed as his own.
On the other hand, William Wallace Bass, who came to the Canyon someyears ahead of Hance, felt its peculiar allurements from the firstmoment he saw it. There is no man living who has been more deeplyinterested in studying its geological history, in searching the tomesof the past for stories of its discovery, and in promoting theintelligent interests of literary men, artists, photographers, poets,geologists, students and tourists who have come to visit it than hashe. His library upon the subject is exhaustive and complete, and he isso well versed in some features of its local geology, that he haschanged many a scientist's opinions as to the secret of its formationand development. John C. Van Dyke wrote truly of him when he said inhis recent book on the Grand Canyon, he "