The translation informs us (note 13) that this stream which flows into, or becomes a gulf has a "delightful spring." The Canyon "has a beautiful mountain, from which there flows a delightful spring, producing a charming gulf. The water accumulates and so forms a gulf." Such is the translation; but no Chinese term for "spring" appears in the text. The original states that it is a kan shui which runs through the Canyon, and this identical compound is translated "Sweet River" by our author on page 163 of his large and comprehensive work. Kan indeed signifies sweet, sweetness; delightsome, pleasant, happy, refreshing; and Shui stands for "water or river" (see Williams dict. pp. 310, 781.) It is therefore evident that a kan shui should be remarkable for the sweetness of its water and should start from a "delightful spring" of sweet water, in order to be pure and deserve its reputation.
As a geographical fact, the Colorado flows out of the very fount which curiously enough, gives birth to the "Sweet Water." This stream becomes the Platte or Nebraska river, which joins the Missouri. And from the fount of the Sweet Water, exactly on the mountain divide, a head-stream of the Colorado bubbles out, enlarging into the affluent known as the "Green," the stream traverses the Grand Canyon and connects with the Gulf. (note 14.)
It should have a spring of kan shui or sweet water; and we find that it comes sparkling down the mountains from a Sweet Water spring.
The Sweet Water stream after traversing a Canyon, even a "Great Canyon" should connect with, or enlarge into, a gulf, described as "charming." Can the Gulf of California be regarded as charming?
One explorer expresses himself as charmed and delighted with the scenery of the gulf. A sample passage in his report reads as follows: "The island and mountain peaks, whose outlines, as seen from the gulf, had been somewhat dimmed by a light haze, appeared surprisingly near and distinct in the limpid medium through which they were now viewed. The whole panorama became invested with new attractions, and it would be hard to say whether the dazzling radiance of the day or the sparkling clearness of the night was the more beautiful and brilliant. (note 15.)
Truly a charming and beautiful Gulf is here.
Although the translation does not draw attention to the fact, the term employed in the Chinese record to describe the course of the stream which passes through the Great Canyon, is chu. Now this word is employed to designate water which is "shooting over a ledge" (Williams' dict. p. 89), and its use is entirely appropriate in a description of the course of the water in the channel of the Colorado. The bed of the stream is exceedingly irregular and consists indeed of a succession of ledges—producing a series of rapids, falls, or cataracts. Were the water to disappear, the exposed bed of the Colorado, with its ascending series of steps, might be likened indeed with truth to a stairway for giants or gods.
The falls caused by ledges (chu) are exceedingly numerous. One navigator's log contains many such entries as the following: "Still more rapids and falls today. In one, the Emma Dean One subdivision of the Grand Canyon is known as Cataract Canyon, and this section "in its 41 miles, has 75 rapids and cataracts, and 57 of these are crowded into 19 miles, with falls, in places, of 16 to 20 feet" (n. 17.) All accounts concur in representing the stream as remarkable for the fury and number of its falls. To ascend the Colorado is a sheer impossibility and even to descend the stream is an enterprise rarely indeed attempted or achieved. Only rafts or life-boats, backed by pluck and luck, stand a chance of getting through—in pieces. The mariners all wear life-belts and are just as often in the water as they are out of it. Evidently a River of Ledges is here. Surely the term Chu (or water shooting over Ledges) applies with peculiar force to the career of this "wildest of rivers"—the Colorado.