In 1880 it started raining September 17 and rained. steadily for a fortnight, when one morning) the weather broke fine without _a cloud in the sky. By six in the) evening it was raining as hard as ver and continued. steadily until October 27,—40 days, during which time rain fell at some time in each 24 hours and steadily at that. The Yangtze Valley was' badly flooded so that shooting parties in the Wahu districts made record bags (the Ewo party, chiefly due to the untiring energy of the late Mr. Bell Irving, bagged some 2,200 head of pheasants), the birds having all' been driven. out of the reed beds sand low lands by the rising water fo" the grassy foothills. Deer and wild pig were drowned by the hund-' Yed and they have never been plentiful since. The rice crop was entirely ruined and could be seen' standing straight up in the fields) bout a foot below. the surface of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.