(2) Li Hung-chang reports that during the September freshet the Yellow River was only with great difficulty prevented from bursting its banks at Tuny-ning in the Province of Chihli, The water was higher than it had been during scores of years, and for a distance of twenty miles the south bank was in imminent danger. Officers and soldiers and villagers, collected from all the country round, worked with desperate energy in the pouring rain, They were only assured of the sifely of the embankment after the breach at Cheng Chou higher up stream,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.