At last the rains have come in sufficient quantities, but unfortunately too late to save much of the rice crops. This has perished either in the nursery beds, before being planted out, or lies bleached, yellow, and rotting under the tardy rain. The crop has suffered much from want water, and the natives have paid with many a weary mile of water carrying from distant wells for the fatuous way in which they allowed a scheme for leading water from the bills to be interfered with. When plans were complete, and some of the plant secured, the professors of geomancy interfered, and the people refused to sanction the venture of the company. Even the Taotai was powerless to guido his "foolish people," and the result is as we have seen.
Another Old Scheme is now being revived. For many sears the need of a railway connecting Cbaochoufu with Swatow has been felt, most of all during dry seasons like the present, when the river traffic is gradually choked off vy the want of water. Plans for a railway exist, as the preliminary surveys were wndertaken by one of the large foreign hongs. The river embankment would need very little strengthening to fit it for bearing a light railway line, and the care which would be expended upon the bank to keep it in proper repair would prevent the almost annual breaches through which the need for repair is brought to light now. The line, if it could be run direct, would tap a district which must be one of the most thickly populated in China, and would command a large traffic landwards in goods and passengers. Of course, later on we must be linked up with the Grand Trunk Line, but that is not yet. When the time comes the foresight of the Imperial Customs authorities in reserving their large site on the sea front will be apparent.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.