A miserable crowd of over ninety people crowded round the two foreigners in a state of semistarvation and told a tragic story of desolation and loss. For 970 years, there had been houses built on the site over which the waters had rushed. They wanted to know where now they should, rebuild their houses.
The next place visited was a large town of 800 families, named Yuechi. The town was badly damaged. Many houses were destroyed and many more needed extensive repairs to make them habitable. The thick mud in the streets and the evil smells arising on every hand tended to make the whole tour depressing.
Thirty-three miles up the river is the smaller twen of Koadin. This is situated on rather high ground, but here the river rose forty feet, and the loss sustained by the 300 families resident there has been very great.
These and other places prepared the two missionaries for the scene of desolation which Tsingdie city presented. And yet, actual facts exceeded anticipation. Here was a walled city with fully 3,000 families and some 800 houses before the flood of August 29. To-day there are
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.