Upwards of ten years ago I sat on the south rim of the Grand Canyon and wrote "In and Around the Grand Canyon." In that book I included much that more than a decade of wandering up and down the trails of this great abyss had taught me. At that time the only accommodations for sightseers were stage lines or private conveyance from Flagstaff and Ash Fork, and, on arrival at the Canyon, the crude hotel-camps at Hance's, Grand View, Bright Angel, and Bass's. The railway north from Williams was being built.
Everything was crude and primitive.
Now the railway is completed and has become an integral part of the great Santa Fe System, with at least two trains a day each way carrying Pullman sleepers, chair cars and coaches. At Bright Angel, where the railway deposits its passengers at the rim of the Canyon, stands El Tovar Hotel, erected by the railway company at a cost of over a quarter of a million dollars, which is equipped and conducted by Fred Harvey. Yet El Tovar is more like a country club than a hotel, in many respects, and, to that extent, is better.
Hence while nothing in the canyon itself has changed, and while my book, "In and Around the Grand Canyon," is still as helpful to the traveler and general reader as ever, there has been a growing demand for a new book which should give the information needed by the traveler who comes under the new conditions, telling him how he may best avail himself of them. This book is written to meet this demand. It therefore partakes more of the character of a guide book than the former volume, so it has been decided to make it lighter in weight and handier in form, so that it can be slipped into the pocket or handbag, and thus used on the spot by those who wish a ready reference handbook.
Used in connection with the earlier volume or alone for it is complete in itself in all its details--it cannot fail to give a clearer and fuller comprehension of this "Waterway of the Gods,"--the most incomparable piece of rugged scenery in the known world.
George Wharton James El Tovar, Grand Canyon, September, 1909.
