Shsyang, September 26.
The river Hao, from which Hankow takes its name, is fast earning for itself an unenviable reputation for carrying devastation and sorrow in its train. add to the catastrophe of two years ago. when Hankow was nearly swept clean of its boating population by a freshet, ing the banks of the Yangtze for miles with wreckage, a flood last year, canted by " broken embankment, brought destruction to hundreds oot homes in four counties and drove those ho escaped with their lives to avoid
life of begging refugees. narration by th pitifalstroggl ofthe "hie for there have been the usual incidents of many an acre of ungathered harvest absorbed by the current sod many houses undermined la the same At Mehmantzai—eighty miles
has disappeared, and there" brea hal the arent the embankment has flooded the country for miles. But the greatest catastrophe has befallen the neighboarhood of Shayang, about 140 miles higher up the river. There the land all round lies considerably lower than the river bed, and the water to its course by huge embankments. At this particaler spot where the river bendaalmost at right angles the chief official of the country—Ching Men-chon—
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.