在印第安人来到这片土地之前,这里居住着许多各式各样的神话人物,如鸟、兽、蜥蜴等等,它们的形状全都像人一样……。出于某种原因,神话人物都很坏,于是草原狼把它们全部变成了石头。你现在在那里就可以看到,它们全都成了石头,有的一排排地站着,有的坐在那里,有的互相靠着。你可以看到它们脸上还保留着变成石头以前的原有色彩……
The Bryce Canyon1)
Situated in Utah State,the Bryce Can yon is one of the National Parks in the United States of America,of which many stories were told,here is one of them.
Before there were any lndians,the Legend2) People lived in that place,there were many of them.They were of many kinds--birds,animals,lizards3),and such things--but they looked like people...For some reason,the Legend People in that place were b ad.Because they were bad,Coyote turned them all into rocks.You can see them in that place now;all turned into rocks;some standing in rows,some sitting down,some holding on to others.You can see their faces,with paint on them just as they were before they became rocks...This is the story the people tell.The Paiute Indian legend of Bryce Canyon as told by Indian Dick.To the Paiutes,Bryce Canyon was one thing.But to Mormon pioneer Ebenezer Bryce,the badlands of the Canyon that now bears his name were simply“a helluva4) place to lose a cow.”
In 1875 Ebenezer Bryce was 45 years old.By that time,he had already served as a shipyard apprentice,a carpenter,a millwright,a sawmill operator,an architect,and a Mormon pioneer in Utah.He'd also emigrated from Scotland,survived a cholera epidemic in St.Louis,and found time to raise a large family.
Ebenezer traded his home in Pine Valley,Utah,for some livestock and moved to the warmer climate of the upper Paria Valley,hoping that his wife's health would improve.Water wasn't where he needed it,so he dug ditches to bring it from the Paria River to his farm near the present town of Tropic.To get timber and fire wood from the forest along“the breaks”of the plateau to his farm,he built a road.Among the residents who used the road,the canyon became known as Bryce's Canyon.
Bryce left the valley in 1880 and moved to Arizona.Perhaps the climate was not warm enough,or perhaps he just tired of searching for strays among the bewildering labyrinth of rocks.But he left the valley a little more habitable than when he came,and he left the canyon with the name it still bears.