Of course, women and children formerly lived on the "inaccessible ledges"; and sons, fathers, husbands, or brothers, away perhaps hunting in distant glens or forests, were comparatively free from anxiety concerning the condition of loved ones at home. And if savages with tomahawks and scalping knives came stealing through ravines to the foot of impregnable stairways, the mothers aloft, pressing children to their breasts and looking down on baffled foes, must have felt something of the emotion which throbs through the well-known lines, written indeed by a woman,-- For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, Our God, our fathers' God! Thou hast made Thy children mighty By the touch of the mountain sod; Thou hast fixed our ark of refuge Where the spoiler's foot ne'er trod;-- For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, Our God, our fathers' God! And if in the darkness of night, the awaited signal or cry were heard arising from the heart of the abyss, how quickly the doors would be opened and ropes lowered and torches lighted to help the hunters to their homes on high! Torches flaming and eyes gleaming. Lights flashing in all directions. An illumination of torches. No wonder the Canyon was noted for its =chuh yuen= and cave dwellings. Lights, Climbing, and Caves, say the Ancients. Lights, Climbing, and Caves, say the Moderns. The account continues thus: 26. =Leang= (the principal, the chief; a bridge, a beam.) 27. =kien= (official writing; to mark; a slip of bamboo for making notes on; a classifier of folios or sheets.) 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).