CHINA. 



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10 to 30, prayed that measures for their 

 protection might be taken. The commissioners 

 reported that there were several millions of 

 Chinamen doing business as merchants or work- 

 ing as laborers in foreign countries. In some 

 ports emigration is increasing, and the Chinese 

 merchants are thriving. Their prosperity has 

 excited the jealousy of the peoples among which 

 they dwell, and caused hostile measures to be 

 adopted by foreign governments. The Dutch 

 authorities have been endeavoring to expel 

 them from their colonies, and collisions between 

 the Chinese and natives are of frequent occur- 

 rence. If steps are not taken to render the 

 residence of the Chinese abroad more secure 

 and peaceful, the commissioners fear that they 

 will all flock home. They view with dread 

 the prospect of this sudden influx of population 

 in the overcrowded districts of the sea-coast. 

 After placing their report in the hands of Chan 

 Chih-tung, the Viceroy of Canton, they set out, 

 in September, 1887, on a journey to Borneo to 

 study the condition of their countrymen in 

 British North Borneo, Sarawak, and the Dutch 

 possessions. The viceroy, in forwarding their 

 report to Pekin, accompanied it with a memo- 

 rial in which he recommended the appointment 

 of consuls to look after the interests of Chinese 

 subjects in foreign lands. He suggested that 

 consuls-general should be maintained in Manila, 

 in some of the Dutch colonies, in Sydney, and 

 in Singapore. So important did he consider 

 the matter of appointing a consul-general to 

 Manila that he obtained the consent of the 

 Government of Madrid, but this was with- 

 drawn when the colonial authorities objected. 

 The treaties of 1857, that give European gov- 

 ernments the right to maintain consuls in Chi- 

 na, do not accord reciprocal rights to the Chi- 

 nese Government. The omission is simply due 

 to the heedlessness of the Chinese negotiators, 

 who had no thought when the instruments 

 were drawn up that China would ever want 

 to send officials abroad. The number of Chi- 

 nese emigrants who sailed from Hong-Kong 

 during 1887 was 82,897, being 18,000 more 

 than in the previous year. About half of the 

 increase was due to a larger emigration to the 

 Straits Settlements, while 5,000 more emi- 

 grants than in 1886 were destined for the 

 United States, and 3,500 more for the Aus- 

 tralian colonies. 



Inundation in Honan. One of the periodical 

 floods that have caused the Hoang-Ho, or Yel- 

 low river to be known as u China's Sorrow," 

 occurred in the autumn of 1887. This river, 

 rising in the mountains of Thibet, and descend- 

 ing with great rapidity from the Mongolian 

 plateau, washing down great quantities of 

 the loose, fine, yellow earth called loess, has 

 changed its course in the flat coast region nine 

 times within the historical period. In 1852, 

 having for five hundred years poured its great 

 volume of water into the Yellow Sea south of 

 the promontory of Shantung, it burst its north- 

 ern bank near Kaifeng-fu, the capital of the 



province of Honan, where it enters the great 

 eastern plain, and cut a new bed through the 

 northern part of Shantung into the Gulf of 

 Pechili. In 1887 this process was reversed. 

 After an unusually rainy September the stream 

 broke through the southern embankment at 

 Cheng-chow, forty miles above Kaifeng-fu, on 

 the 28th of that month. Where the first breach 

 occurred 5,000 men, who were strengthening 

 the levee, were drowned, and at another spot 

 nearly 4,000 laborers were swept away. The 

 bed of the river was several feet above the sur- 

 face of the land. "When the gap attained a 

 breadth of 1,200 yards, the river deserted its 

 bed. The overflow confined itself at first to 

 the channel of the Lu-Chia river, but soon 

 flooded the Chungnou district, destroying 100 

 villages and inundating the lands of 300 more. 

 Several of the suburbs of the great commercial 

 city of Chusien-Chen were swept away, and 

 the elevated situation of the main town alone 

 saved it from destruction. The flood spread 

 over a low, thickly populated district, begin- 

 ning 70 miles south of Kaifeng-fu, submerging 

 1,500 villages, and when it reached the valley 

 of the Huai-Ho, the destruction of life and 

 property was still greater. Many walled cities 

 were depopulated and virtually destroyed. 

 There were between one and two millions of 

 persons drowned, and some say as many as 

 seven millions. The most careful estimate 

 makes the number of those who lost their lives 

 1,600,000, and of those who were left horne- 

 :.d destitute 5.000,000. Millions of those 

 left without shelter or means of life, per- 

 ished of famine and cold. The Emperor and 

 Empress contributed largely from their private 

 fortunes to relieve the distress, and the Gov- 

 ernment did everything within its power, be- 

 ginning by ordering 32,000,000 pounds of rice 

 from Central China destined for Pekin, to be 

 taken at once to the inundated district. The 

 guilds co-operated with the mandarins in dis- 

 tributing relief. The river, if left to itself, 

 would probably have formed a channel very 

 nearly along its aucieut bed. The Government 

 ordered the breach to be closed as soon as the 

 waters subsided, appropriating $2,500,000 for 

 the purpose. When the work was begun in 

 the spring the people of Honan destroyed ma- 

 terial that was sent to mend the dikes, because 

 they wished to have the river run in its new 

 bed. and not return to their province. The 

 soldiers and workmen who were sent to stay 

 the progress of the flood or to repair the dam- 

 age were sometimes surprised by a fresh over- 

 flow, and in one instance nearly 5,000 soldiers 

 were drowned together. The waters of the 

 river spread over a district 7,500 square miles 

 in extent in a series of lakes. The cities of 

 Chin-chow. TTei-shi. Tsung-mow, Yen-lin, 

 Fu-kao, Shiva, Cheng-chow, Taikang, Taiping, 

 and Ying-chow were submerged, and all but 

 the northern part of Chow-kia-kow. The 

 waters found an outlet through the Hnai-IIo 

 into the Hongtsze Lake, flooding a wide dis- 



