The present Spr ing has proved one of the most unpleasant within the mem ory of the oldest foreign residents. The cloudy days have been more and cloudier, the winds have been more frequent and more piercing, the sun slower and more feeble, and diseases more prevalent and fatal than for many, years. In addition to the winter epidemic of grippe, the 'Spring' (so-called) has brought measles and in' some regions small pox on @ comprehensive and liberal scale, The Chinese, however, are used to such visitations, and accept them with a stoical philosophy which we may envy, though we cannot imitate. No search for the microbe' disturbs their placid ion of all functional or organic bauices is preponderance of some kind of ire,' or of some variety of chi,' Beyond this they are content to be as ignorant as the late Sir Morell Mackenzie confessed the medi profession to be. The chronic, wonder is that with such perfect arrangements for the cultivation, propagation and diffusion of every species of microbe," the Chi-race contrives to exist at all. Yet ive and flourish, while the learned physicians, with their vast microscopical knowledge, are laid to rest. "One of the phenomena of this unseasonable season, is the perpetual recurrence of the feiirful dust stornis for which North China ig noted, Sometimes they seem to come directly own, from' Liaotung sweeping with the fury of a simoon, but at others they are borne up fro, the South, and sometimes from several quarters at once.. Yesterday for example was an uncommonly hot day, the temperature standing, at the ordinars elevation of the close if, May, when.suddenly a. cry was raised the weather has come,' and in a few moments a'fine and almost impalpable yellow. powder settled down from above, and then followed the tornado which rocked the trees. and reduced the heavens and the earth to the complexion of, the. interior, mustard pot..- Every object is immediately obliterated, extinguished, annihilated, and the traveller who is forced, to face the dist finds his. way by the sense of feeling only.:. If seen at all through this dense cloud, approaching figures, loom large and terrible like advancing groves of. pine trees, Dut in.au instant they disappear like Vessels passing in thickest fog. As the travellers gather. in the, shelter of some friendly inn, and: discuss their. woes,' some one of, the number more experienced than the rest, tells them of the fearful condition to which
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.