28. wan (strokes, lines, literature, literary; a despatch.)
29. Ta (Great.)
30. Hoh (Canyon.)
31. fu (to spread abroad as decrees; to exact; to demand.)
A leang or chief is here referred to in connection with the Great Canyon. The ruler is not exactly called the King or supreme head (chwen suh). Indeed, we have been already informed that the head ruler was a mere nurseling (at the time when he abandoned his Lute in the Canyon) and such an infant carried about by the mother who had just brought him into the world, among the cliffs and canyons, would evidently have been unable to either write or issue decrees. Of course, however, a nominally subordinate chief (or leang) might have attended to the details of government and ruled or directed the movements of the Sun people in the name of the infant King. Such a minister might have spread abroad decrees or commands within the Canyon.
Are any writings to be seen on its walls?
An explorer already in part quoted, says: "At last we meet Captain Bishop with his flaming torch.... On a broad shelf we find the ruins of an old stone house, the walls of which are broken down, and 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, that comes out of the rocks, for irrigation. On some rocks near by we discover some curious etchings" (n. 67).
Here are cliff writings.
Again, on the brink of a rock 200 feet high stands an old house. Its walls are of stone, laid in mortar, with much regularity.... On the face of the cliff, under the building and along down the river for 200 or 300 yards, there are many etchings."
Here are writings "spread abroad" within the Ta-hoh or Great Canyon. Not painted on the cliffs, but cut into the stone! Beyond the reach or malice of savage tribes, they doubtless furnished directions to friendly clans, telling where certain companies had moved, and so forth.