The long spell of heat and drought in this hitherto favoured province continues. vho officials have prayed for rain at the Tungwang Miao (Dragon-king Temple) and have forbidden the slaughter of all animals from chickens upwards. Some "carly" rice is now being harvested: the ears are not filled out, showing heavy husk and little grain; this, after the failure of the opium crop in the spring, is a severe blow to the turmers, Meanwhile our river has gone right buck after the short and sudden rise to 70) fect, which I reported in my last it now appears that this freshet was caused by cloudbursts, Chu Chiao" or the " Emp: tion of the Dragon," as the Chinese not unnaturally cul them. (ne such cloudburst occurred on the "Little" River, about 160 miles to the north and washed away the ity of Pingwo, including the Magistrate's amen; the occupant with his family were drowned, The Little River where it falls into the Yangtze at Chungking, came down a violent spate, bringing with it a process sion of corpses, wrecks of houses and junks and pigs innumerable. The other cloudburst reported occurred at about the same time in the Suifit prefecture and carried away the city of Mapien nated to the south of the celebrated Mount Omi. Mapien is on the Tung River, an important affluent which joins the Minor northern branch of the great Yangtze at the prefectural city of Ihiatin; correspondent at Suifi, which is situated sbout 150 miles lower vu, where the Min unites with the Kinsha to form the Yangtze proper, gives a similar description of the effect as there witnessed to 0 here. " Bodies of men, with furniture, timber our city, a xad ler places, both on the rivers, have been more or now lying off Team more and aweurate when she returns. These ordinary clonibursts, resulting 1 well be described as water described in Mr, Little's ut Omi and the sudden onto burst an avalanche of water, rocks nid from the " of a" mountain peak, stich as occurs at intervals on the Tibetan border, are, as fur as I know, only leied att the fit of the Himalayas in Any traveller who has seen the broken crater whence such water issues, and the d vastation produced. may well accept the eruption of the "Chiao" asa working hypothesis to explain the phenomenon until a better explanation is forthemning!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.