It is sufficiently apparent that the soil when properly watered can produce abundant vegetation and sufficient nourishment for, of course, limited numbers of human beings. Deprived of water, the soil is unable to sustain desirable plants, and presents a sterile aspect. Surveying its present condition or appearance of barrenness, a modern visitor wonders how the ancient inhabitants contrived to exist, or find food, within the withered, unfruitful chasm. But one of the ancients, Mr. Chwang Tsze, writing about this very Ta-Hoh or Great Chasm, says that they used water to irrigate the otherwise scorched or dried up soil. Then, if such a somewhat belated answer is true, the question arises, where are the proofs?
A chief of the Ethnological Bureau very properly furnishes the answer. Standing in the abyss of the Ta-Hoh, on the bank of the roaring river, he beholds some ancient buildings and perceives how their vanished occupants formerly contrived to subsist. He says: "We can see where the ancient people who lived here—a race more highly civilized than the present—had made a garden, and used a great spring" [or feeder of the Colorado], "that comes out of the rocks for irrigation," etc. (n. 45.)
We irrigated the soil, say the Ancients.
They irrigated the soil, say the Moderns.
Next comes the statement of some trusted early sage or scholar who was certainly acquainted with our Ta-Hoh (containing the ruin and irrigated soil just noticed.) It is an observer or scribe named Tu-tsan, who says:—
10. Seay (to paint, to draw, to sketch.)
11. yih (to spread abroad, to diffuse.)
12. tung (a gorge, ravine, canyon, a cave, a grotto.)
13. hueh ("a hole in the earth or side of a hill,—they are used for dwellings;" a den, a grotto, a cavern.)
Something called seay is here said to be spread abroad, or diffused over rocky walls or caves. Williams (p. 796) says that seay (or sie as it is also spelled) stands for a sketch or design, and adds that it means to draw, to compose, to write. Morrison, in his dictionary, says that seay signifies "to paint," etc.