﻿R0CKHILL 



i in POPUL \ I CON 01 CH [NA 3 l ' 



had occurred in 583 years in some one of the eighteen provinces, 

 frequently in four or five of them at the same time, and in many cases 

 they were accompanied by floods, typhus, and other scourges. Fre- 

 quently these droughts lasted in the same section of country for 

 eral successive years or occurred at such close intervals that the 

 country had not time to recover from them. To cite but two cases : 

 from A. d. 1 601 to 1643 drought is recorded in some one province of 

 China in 30 years, in 15 of which it occurred in the province of Shan- 

 hsi, and in 11 in that of Che-kiang. 



The fearful loss of life which has marked every calamity that has 

 visited any part of China, and the nearly incredible cruelty which has 

 been shown in the suppression of every uprising that has taken place 

 from the earliest days down to the present time, are unfortunately 

 too well authenticated to be denied. 



Without going back to the early annals of the Chinese for ex- 

 amples of the terrible mortality which has always attended natural 

 calamities and warfare in China, a few in the last three centuries, 

 vouched for by reliable European writers, or by foreigners resident 

 in the country at the time of their occurrence, may be cited here. 



Father Du Halde 1 states that in the year 1 582 " there was such a 

 great drought in the Province of Shan-hsi, that it was impossible ti 1 

 count the number of those who died of starvation. There were dug 

 in various localities some sixty great ditches, each of which held a 

 thousand corpses, and were therefore called Van gin keng " (Wan 

 jen k'eng), " Grave of a myriad men." 



The same author 2 says that on September 2, 1678, there was an 

 earthquake in the Province of Chih-li when over 30,000 persons lost 

 their lives in the town of T'ung chou alone. On November 30, 1731. 

 there was another earthquake in the same province, when over 100,- 

 000 persons lost their lives in Peking, and more than that number in 

 the adjacent country. 



Father Amiot, 3 writing from Peking, May 20, 1786, tells of a 

 terrible drought which for the three past years had visited the prov- 



From 1501 to 1600 there were 84 years with drought, of which 69 were 

 "great droughts" (in A. D., 1568, it extended over 8 provinces) ; during sev- 

 eral cannibalism is recorded. 



From 1601 to 1643 there were 15 years with drought. In 15 years it oc- 

 curred in Shan-hsi and in 11 in Che-kiang. 



1 Description, 1, p. 522. The expression Wan jen k'eng is colloquially used 

 to designate a pit into which the bodies of executed criminals are thrown. 

 See H. A. Giles, Chin. Diet., s. v.. k'eng. 



2 Ibid., 1, p. 543- 



'Mem. concernant les Chinois, xni, p. 425- 



