ing before them. The torrent rushes on, and in a few hours the
earth reappears; but the crops are gone, and worse even than that, the
arable soil also has gone with them. Nothing remains but a ramification
of deep ruts, filled with gravel, and thenceforth incapable of being
ploughed.

Hail is of frequent occurrence in these unhappy districts, and the
dimensions of the hailstones are generally enormous. We have ourselves
seen some that weighed twelve pounds. One moment sometimes suffices to
exterminate whole flocks. In 1843, during one of these storms, there was
heard in the air a sound as of a rushing wind, and therewith fell, in a
field near a house, a mass of ice larger than an ordinary millstone. It
was broken to pieces with hatchets, yet, though the sun burned fiercely,
three days elapsed before these pieces entirely melted.

The droughts and the inundations together, sometimes occasion famines
which well nigh exterminate the inhabitants. That of 1832, in the
twelfth year of the reign of _Tao-Kouang_, {12} is the most terrible of
these on record. The Chinese report that it was everywhere announced by
a general presentiment, the exact nature of which no one could explain or
comprehend. During the winter of 1831, a dark rumour grew into
circulation. _Next year_, it was said, _there will be neither rich nor
poor_; _blood will cover the mountains_; _bones will fill the valleys_
(Ou fou, ou kioung; hue man chan, kou man tchouan.) These words were in
every one's mouth; the children repeated them in their sports; all were
under the domination of these sinister apprehensions when the year 1832
commenced. Spring and summer passed away without rain, and the frosts of
autumn set in while the crops were yet green; these crops of course
perished, and there was absolutely no harvest. The population was soon
reduced to the most entire destitution. Houses, fields, cattle,
everything was exchanged for grain, the price of which attained its
weight in gold. When the grass on the mountain sides was devoured by the
starving creatures, the depths of the earth were dug into for roots. The
fearful prognostic, that had been so often repeated, became accomplished.
Thousands died upon the hills, whither they had crawled in search of
grass; dead bodies filled the roads and houses; whole villages were
depopulated to the last man. There was, indeed, _neither rich nor poor_;
pitiless famine had levelled all alike.

It was in th