painted canyon."

Of course the chasm is not really "painted" by artists or human agents, and we need not look for painted cliffs anywhere. Nevertheless modern observers echo the language of the ancients, and we are told today of "the painting of the rocks" and of "deep, painted alcoves" and "painted grottos" (n. 48.)

The term yih (see Williams' dict. pp. 781, 1092) is composed of the characters for "fluid" and "vessel," and signifies "A vessel full to the brim; ready to overflow, to run over; abundant; to spread abroad, to diffuse." As seay, the word which precedes yih in our Chinese note, signifies "to paint," we perceive how the additional term yih teaches that the paint made use of has been applied to extensive surfaces, so that it presents the appearance of having "overflowed" or "run over" the rocky walls and caverns dealt with.

Of course neither writing nor literal pictures could overflow or drench—and adhere to—walls or cliffs. But seay yih might cover the motion of applying paint in a most lavish, copious, overflowing manner. Here are cliffs so "rich with parti-coloring as to justify the most extravagant language in describing them."

It looks as though the gnomes on the job, in the Canyon, just emptied their paint-pots down dizzy cliffs and then went back for more. And such extravagance is in harmony with the symbols which stand for painting and vessels and spreading abroad or overflowing! Mineral paints were freely used and sometimes apparently with considerable care and skill. Thus we read of a red sandstone cliff "unbroken by cracks or crevices or ledges" exhibiting "extensive flat surfaces beautifully stained by iron, till one could imagine all manner of tapestry effects."

Here are painted imitations of tapestry.

It should further be remembered that there are actual picture writings spread abroad on extensive painted or stained surfaces. The author just quoted beheld ancient dwellings which "exhibited considerable skill on the part of the builders, the corners being plumb and square." And just here "there were also numerous picture writings." (note 49.)

An amazed visitor exclaims: "Grand, glorious, sublime, are the Pictorial cliffs of vermillion hue!"

"Pictorial" answers to seay (the 10th character in our list.)

Pictured and painted! say the Ancients.

Pictured and painted! say the Moderns.

We have seen that our Gulf (of California) has been called a Puh-hai, or "arm of the sea."

Professor Hoith, the celebrated student of Chinese, in his work on "Chinese History" (p. 49, footnote) says that a puh hai is "an estuary."

Webster says that an "estuary" is "an arm of the sea; a firth; a narrow passage, or the mouth of a river or lake, where the tide meets the current, or flows and ebbs."

Plainly our Gulf of California is a Puh hai or Estuary.

It may further be remarked that Puh is written in Chinese by putting together two characters, one standing for "water," and the other signifying "Suddenly; hastily; flurried, disconcerted, as when caught doing wrong; to change color, confused" (Williams' dict. p. 718.)

It is superfluous to say that our Gulf or Estuary is a very "confused" or "flurried" body of water. It is truly a Puh-hai.

Moreover, it "changes color." As though "caught doing wrong," it changes color and blushes at times a rosy red. This is the hue of multidunious veins: "A thousand streams rolling down the cliffs on every side, carry with them red sand; and these all unite in the canyon below, in one great stream of red mud" (n. 50.) But sometimes the color below Yuma is yellow or black (n. 51.)

The name "Colorado" is a Spanish term conveying the idea of redness, and undoubtedly this hue predominates throughout the course of the boisterous stream; but other colors due to the dye or wash of variously painted cliffs, are also met with. Moreover a section may exhibit one color to-day and something different to-morrow. And so it is with the gulf, which receives the Colorado, and on which floating patches of color are frequently seen. Truly our Gulf or Estuary is remarkable for both its coloring, blue, red, etc., and its changes of color. In all respects it is plainly a Puh-hai.

Our Gulf or Estuary is also called a yuen. Farther on (see Chinese version) we read that the Canyon river produces or grows into (shang) a beautiful (kan) yuen.

This term yuen stands for a "gulf, an abyss; an eddy, a whirlpool or place where the back water seems to stop."

A whirling, violent, or impetuous body of water is evidently referred to. Fernando Alarchon, in 1540, found the Colorado "a very mighty river, which ran with so great a fury of stream that we could hardly sail against it.

One voyager tells how his ark, the "Emma" was "caught in a whirlpool, and set spinning about." Here is a yuen.

Again, "The men in the boats above see our trouble but they are caught in whirlpools, and are spinning about in eddies."

What have we here but Yuen—multiplied whirlpools?

Through "Whirlpool Canyon" and all the way to the Gulf, the waters dance around and about. We read of "dancing eddies or whirlpools." There are more than 600 rapids and falls in the Colorado (n. 52.)

The waters waltz their way and even furnish their own "rippling, rushing, roaring music." And we are in addition told of "innumerable cascades adding their wild music" (n. 53).

Surely the entire inlet traversed by the bore or reached by ocean tides is in precisely the condition of commotion which may well be designated by the term yuen.

We are informed that the kan (or beautiful) yuen approaches (tsih) with vapor (hi hwo) and bathes (yuh) the sun's place (ji chi su).

It is evident that the mighty stream which traverses the Great Canyon in the region beyond the Eastern Sea, should flow from a Bottomless valley to a Gulf, and reach to the Sun's Place. And we find that the current of the Colorado extends to the Tropical line of Cancer, which crosses and marks the mouth of the Gulf of California.

Vapor or fog is noticed in connection with the beautiful (even if restless or reeling) Yuen.

Are fogs a noticeable feature along the coast of California? If so, they might hide the entrance or mouth of the Gulf.

One visitor says: "Westward toward the setting sun and the sea," was a "filmy fog creeping landward, swallowing one by one the distant hills."

Again, we read of "hilltops that thrust their heads through the slowly vanishing vapor."

Here "you may bask in the sunshine of gardens of almost tropic luxuriance or shudder in fogs that shroud the coast" (n. 54.)

We need not wonder that such vapors should appear within the confines of the charming Gulf of California and at times veil its shores. A recent visitor says: "The island and mountain peaks, whose outlines are seen from the Gulf, had been somewhat dimmed by a light haze, appeared surprisingly near and distinct in the limpid medium through which they were now viewed. The whole panorama became invested with new attractions, and it would be hard to say whether the dazzling radiance of the day or the sparkling clearness of the night was the more beautiful and brilliant" (n. 55).

Hazy and Beautiful, say the Ancients.

Hazy and Beautiful, say the Moderns.

The haze is not dense enough to blind our eyes to the manifest fact that those people of old who were acquainted with the position of our Gulf of California, must also have been acquainted with Mexico and its inhabitants.

Tropical America was considered by its people