Both Wednesday and Thursday night we had very heavy rains again. The amount of damage done to native houses appears tohave been great. But this is not the worst part of the sad tale. From the North (Pei) river and the western streams alike we are informed that much of the promising wheat crop is destroyed because of the standing water over all the low ground, for which there is no possible outlet. Much of the country to the north and west is already flooded by these excessive rainfalls. In addition, there are four or five: breaks in the river bank between this and Tungchow, emptying large quantities of water on the eastern plain. They are trying hard to fill these breaches, but as the river is rising, others are likely to occur before this task is accomplished. The river is still far below its usual summer height at this point, but evidently the mountain water has not reached us yet.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.