It may further be remarked that the Chinese paragraph which immediately follows the account of our Canyon, mentions a place called "Pi-mo."

This is its pronunciation in Canton, but in Shanghai, where mo is accorded the sound of mu (see Williams' dict. p. 1154 and p. 1186, column 6) Pi-mo would be called Pi-mu. Now, this Pi-mo or Pi-mu is said (see existing translation) to be situated in the "south-east corner of the desert beyond the eastern sea.

Proceeding eastward until the "Eastern Sea," which washes the coast of China, is crossed, the modern investigator reaches California and Arizona. And here, in the region or basin of the Colorado, he finds a place still called "Pi-mo." It is in Arizona, with a "desert" of sand—the desert of California and Sonora—to its west and south, and a region of running streams, grass, and forests to its east. Pimo is itself in the "desert"—in a "south-east corner of the desert beyond the Eastern Sea." It is entirely dependent on artificial irrigation for its limited power to support human beings.

Here are ruined buildings whose origin is shrouded in mystery and around or about which controversies have raged for centuries.

One visitor, an American officer, states that his General "asked a Pimo, who made the house I had seen?" The house was one of the Casas Grandes in the neighborhood of Pimo. Who had made it? was now the question. The reply was: "It was built by the son of the most beautiful woman who once dwelt in yon mountain; she was fair and all the handsome men came to court her, but in vain; when they came, they paid tribute, and out of this small store she fed all people in times of famine and it did not diminish."

Moreover, "at last she brought forth a boy, who was the builder of all these houses."

The Pimo Indian "seemed unwilling to talk about them, but said there were plenty more of them to the north, south, west, etc." (note 70.)

[Was the royal suckling or Prince ever carried down into the neighboring Grand Canyon by the beneficient being, his mother? Was he a shao hao (as the Chinese might say) or little Child of the Sun? Did he ever see the Cliff Palace? Were he and his people connected with the cave and cliff-dwellings? And when he retired from the Canyon did he fail to take with him a Lute?]

If the royal suckling (or ju) of the Chinese account ever actually lived in the neighborhood of the Grand Canyon, or in the vicinity of Pimo, and was connected with a restless or troubled nation of Cliff Dwellers or stone-house builders, why should not the Indians have some traditional, even if but hazy recollection of both the suckling and his imperial mother? The forefathers of the Pimos must have beheld them, and it is difficult to suppose that the ancient legendary knowledge has completely evaporated from the aboriginal memory. As we have learned the construction of the Casas Grandes at Pimo is connected with the advent or movements of an intelligent, even if harassed race of Builders who owed allegiance to a Princess or her child. And if it is a fact that in a time of famine the royal lady fed the ancestors of the Pimos, we wonder not that the nation has enshrined her image within its ceaseless, throbbing heart. The hill-top on which she gave birth to her suckling is remembered to the present hour and was pointed to by the Pimo interpreter when telling the American General about the merciful being who fed the hungry in a time of famine (and perhaps had relieved or cheered his own ancestor.)

Let us not overlook or snub the fact that Pimo—the Pimo of "the region beyond the Eastern Sea" is actually mentioned in the same breath with the Grand Canyon and the Gulf. It is represented by characters numbered 9 and 10 in the extract from the ancient Chinese volume, now set before the patient and intelligent reader who appreciates or perceives the difficulties connected with the present investigation.