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?