For quite a few weeks things have been going on very quietly. Thieves have been fairly busy. Quite the biggest haul that I have hoard of was when they entered the house of a wealthy family here and stole large quantity of clothes. Amongst them was a fur garment fcr which the owner had already refused $800.
The wife of the official at Chang-ming has been carried off by brigands, and "a detachment of soldiers from here has been sent pursuit.
There is much destitution up amongst the Shihtsiien hills. Hundreds of starving people are calling upon the wealthy folk around, and forcing them to feed them. For a long time there has been no rain all through this district, and the want of it is beginning to be felt. The air grows damp, and the rain-clouds gather, and all begin to hope it will rain when suddenly from the northeast comes the wind, big and blustering, and blows all the clouds and our hopes away. The weather is very changeable. This morning before breakfast it was so warm that a fire seemed an anachronism. but by ten o'clock it was so cold that the fire was most welcome.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.