forjHupeh—The Ploughman's The vegetables have been dried up. The one thing that is plentiful is vegetable oil. But as the country folk plaintively ask, what is the use of cooking oil if there is no vegetable to flavour? For two months there has been no rain. The idols have been worshipped, the south gate of the city has been closed, the sale of pork has been prohibited, but the ski have withheld their r I walked along the sandy bits of familiar streams, but there is no water. pass village ponds without number, but the ponds are dry. The fish that were in them are dead. In the hamlet at which I rested, water is as precious as in Gallipoli. I secured a little as a favour for toilet purposes; but my boy and coolie must do without. There are those who come into my little room and tell of the famine 45 years ago, when parents took the children that they could not feed to the banks of rivers, rocked them to sleep and left them. They tell of those who must eke out a precarious existence by weaving and shoe-making, of those who must beg, and those who must rob—for necessity knows no law. They tell of soil that is too hard for the plough and say that unless rain comes there will be no wheat sown, and next year...
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.