A Temple of Music is there, say the Moderns.
It will be noticed that the Chinese annotater calls the Great Canyon—the Ta Hoh—a place of (huen) midnight darkness and declares that it is erroneous to suppose that the Lute played down there (where it could not possibly be heard) was an instrument held by a human hand (the hand of a suckling!). Now, although the great gorge is wonderfully beautiful, it must be conceded that its basic part (within which human beings might dwell) is decidedly dark. Here "it is necessary to 'lie down upon one's back in order to see the sky,'—as I once heard General Crook express it. Into much of this deep gorge no ray of sunshine ever falls, and it well deserves the name of the 'Dark Canyon.'" (n. 28). Often in midday, stars are seen shining overhead; and it may well be called a place of midnight darkness (huen.)
In the following passage a modern visitor notices the "dark and frowning" walls of the chasm, but still enlarges on their beauty:—"One would think that after traveling through six hundred miles of those canyons, one would be satisfied with beauty and grandeur, but in this fact lies the charm. Of the six hundred miles no two miles are alike. The picture is ever changing from grandeur to beauty, from beauty to sublimity, from the dark and frowning greatness of its granite walls, to the dazzling colors of its upper cliffs. And I stood in the last few miles of the Grand Canyon spellbound in wonder and admiration, as firmly as I was fixed in the first few miles in surprise and astonishment." (note 29.)
Nature has done her best to adorn the walls of the mighty gorge. We are told of "thousands of rivulets" that "dropped farther and farther down, till the whole of the bright scarlet walls seemed hung with a tapestry of silver threads, the border fringed with white fleecy clouds which hung to the tops of the walls, and through which the points of the upper cliffs shone as scarlet tassels."
Nor was Dame Nature completely satisfied with her tapestry and fringe of tassels. Other embroidery was displayed. "As the sun broke through some side gorge, the canyon was spanned from side to side, as the clouds shifted their position, with rainbow after rainbow, vying to outdo in brilliancy of color the walls of the canyon themselves."
The ancient account declares, that in "the Region beyond the Eastern Sea," a Bottomless river traverses a Great Canyon. And this stream, remarkable for its ledges (chu) or rapids and falls, rushes onward and downward, and grows or enlarges into a Gulf. And the Canyon, the River, and the Gulf are all reported to be Kan—or Beautiful.
And visitors today return from all three, declaring that they are Beautiful! Beautiful!! Beautiful!!!
And some are entranced by strains of music arising from the mouth of the Canyon and declare that it holds an "orchestra." In one place the thousands of streamlets, glistening and gleaming like silvery cords, stretch downward from the edge of the painted chasm; and the resounding, melodious precipice is called "the Cliff of the Harp." (note 30.) What is this but an echo of the ancient declaration that the royal Lute in the Canyon was merely a musical stream. Similar ideas have occurred to poets. Coleridge in his "Ancient Mariner," tells of
"A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
Which to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune."
And Moore has heard the notes of harp-strings sounding forth from melodious streams. What wonder, then, that ancient poets (and the translation states that the particular work which makes mention of the "Bottomless Kuh" or valley, is a "poem") should have likened a collection of falling streams or cascades to the chords of a tuneful Lute and then, to distinguish it from others less excellent, have applied to the stringed instrument the name of their Prince. Americans today gravely talk of visiting or seeing "St. Luke's Head" (in California!) And we possess a mere natural formation which is supposed to resemble a nose and is religiously called "St. Anthony's Nose." In truth this "nose" is no more a literal nose than the "Lute" in the Canyon is a literal stringed instrument made by men. Then we have "Cleopatra's Bath" and "Pompey's Pillar." (Next tell us in the interest of chaos and confusion that Pompey left here "his" Pillar.)