The Governor of Shantung has been attending to the dredging and dam-building annually required to facilitate the return of the empty grain boats from Tientsin He gave orders to hurry on the boatmen, so as t" avoid as much as possible the difficulties which increase with the falling of the water in the autumn, On the 30th of September the boats had all reached Linch'ing; but as the water in the W.i River wax by this time lower than that in the Csnal proper, it was a hard task to drag them from the former into the latter. With strenuous however, the work had been accomplished by the 17th of Ociober and the boats were all pr-ceeding southwards, The canal had been dredged to proper depth; but there still were groundings owing to the heavy cargoes on board some of the beats. When they approached the Yellow River the water in the canal was at a lower level but the difficulty was surmounted by letting in water fromthe River. On the 3rd of November all the eighteen detachments had crossed the Yellow River and recommenced their voyage. The crews were well-behaved and not giving any trouble.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.