The prospects of some harvests have cousiderably improved within the last fow weeks. The rain fell in many places just in time to allow the yellow millet and'the buckwheat to be sown, and there is now reasonable hope that there will not be actual famine in most places, although the harvests will only be scanty. Distress in the winter in some districts there must be, but my information extends northward as far as the inner wall, near Taichou, and a_good deal farther south than Pingyang. The worst district seems to be the northern half of the Traiyuanfa plain, and even here rain has fallen. Had the rains been delayed another week, probably there would have been no harvests atoll.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.