To show how the floods of the Yangtzs have taken the people, some unawares and others through their own foolishness, to solve the great problem of eternity, a few notes made during an excursion in the devasted areas east of Kiukiang may be of interest to the general readers of the "N.C. Daily News." Hushakai, or Black Sand Creek, is situated between the Yangtze below the rocks known amongst the Chinese as the "threes Princes" and the city of Chichaofu. It is one of the. small creeks on which usually ply small sampans bringing rice from one village to another, or assisting in the communication between house and house. Tu the time when the usual summer floods last this creek is used by a larger dus of boat and a fair trade is carried on with its assistance between Chichao and other villages. This creek Hushakai gives its name to. small, though fairly prosperous town at its mouth or northern end When this town was seen on July 20th it was a case of the natives, who had houses on fairly high land, having ta moor boats within their homes if they wanted to get a comfortable sleep or even take their meals. These for the time were the lucky es, for there were others whose houses were deep down in the waters, while the greater number had their roofs continually Tapped with the flood. But the houses of reed and straw or what once were such houses were floating hither and thither t" finally find their way to the Yangtze and the sea. At the hour this town was seen, little did the people imagine that although their lot was bad, in the name of all concienee, yet there was worse to come within 12 or at most 24 hours. But when the writer discovered this, there was no chance to get back and warn the people for the inrush of water to those creeks was stronger than the arms of many Chinese boatmen. This has been the hard thing for foreigners who have seen the floods, that they cannot get the people to take precautions and move to high ground. All know the aptness of the Chinese to apply the expression "there is another day to-morrow," when they are told to hurry, and this has been the case wherever these vast waters have made their way, and the people hang on to the last, trusting that something may happen which will leave them at least idually safe. In thousands of cases it has been hanging on to the last in stern reality, and the only to-morrow for them has been in what we from the west call the next world, or the great unknown, When about half way up the Hushakai, if one looked, prior to the 20th of July, away to the right about J of a mile to mile, he would have seen a swollen creek, and turning on his glasses, he would have seen that the swollen waters were lapping the top of the bank. A bank raised about 15 feet above the level of the surrounding rich tice and Indian corn country, raised at the expense of this very land which had been stripped of about 2 feet of top sull to make the bank. The Hushakai itself was raised to a similar height, and was sometimes higher by two fect than the level of the water, owing to the people having pulled down mud and straw houses, mud. brick houses, and raised the banks to save the land at the expense of their homes. Others were cither unwilling or unable to do. this, and the labour of those who did was all wasted through the neglect others, for in the lower places the flood got in and covered the land. At about 11.30 a.m., the bank of the creek (name unknown) which ran as above described parallel to the Hushakai gave way, with a groat distant roar, in three places. It was a magnificent sight, but a terrible one to behold. The people when they heard it, instead of making attempts to save themselves, particularly the women and children, went off to the grave sides, which were just a fow fest above the rest of the land and here they knelt and, in the usual wailing ery on such occasions, sent up some kind of chant or other to the dear departed ones, and in this manner they met their end, for while there the waters had crept round them entirely cutting of their means of escape. Then as it row steadily and slowly as if to prolong the torture, that same cry, which some of us on occasion have heard bursting from the lips of women, civilised and savage, which ita agonising tone says plainly all is lost, filled the air and rose higher and more ter-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.