Kaifeng awoke Sunday morning to 20 of the worst dust storms of recent years, but some. of the oldest. inhabitants says there was one worse than this 60 years ago. Others say this was equal to anything they have seen. Following an unusually hot sunny day on Saturday, Old Boreas took up the challenge of an early summer, and by morning it was blowing' a gale which was taken off the branches of trees and the roofs from a few houses, Even the tightest foreign style houses had yellow dust filtering in all daylong.
Some friends said that they could taste the sand being served up with their food, which invaded the kitchens. One smiled as he thought of some recent newspaper reports from the "dust bow!" of America saying that visibility was less. than haifa mile, "Here all Sunday it was searcely ever beyond 100 yards and much of the time one had to strain to sce the outline of a tree feet 50 away.
Next to 9 big window one" could see to read big print, but candles were necessary" at dinner. There have been some bretly severe blows in this district which lasted a. few hours, but this one broke the record for length as well as severity, for it did not et up for 24 hours. Coming fat the end of a ton-months drought which has brought famine conditions tu three large areas in Honan, it Jooked as though the country' were infor another serious crop failure with even more dire results.
By Monday, however, even the heavens wept over our plight and the strong cast' wind which then began to blow brought moisture from the sea. One of the best spring rains in years ensued and this was followed by more rain $0 that the horror of Sunday has been quickly forgotten in these showers of blessing. This will be a great help to the wheat crop which all thought had been blasted, and will prepare the ground for planting kaoliang and millet in see tions which were too dty for the seed wheat to sprout.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.