Ch. xii. China and Japan. 225 



would find a place among the most important 

 events and revolutions of the empire, if they were 

 not desolating and destructive to a great degree. 



One of the Jesuits remarks that the occasions 

 when the mandarins pretend to shew the greatest 

 compassion for the people are, when they are ap- 

 prehensive of a failure in the crops, either from 

 drought, from excessive rains, or from some other 

 accident, such as a multitude of locusts, which 

 sometimes overwhelms certain provinces.* The 

 causes here enumerated are probably those, which 

 principally contribute to the failure of the har- 

 vests in China ; and the manner in which they 

 are mentioned seems to shew that they are not 

 uncommon. 



Meares speaks of violent hurricanes, by which 

 whole harvests are dissipated, and a famine fol- 

 lows. From a similar cause, he says, accompa- 

 nied by excessive drought, a most dreadful dearth 

 prevailed in 1787, throughout all the southern 

 provinces of China, by which an incredible num- 

 ber of people perished. It was no uncommon 

 thing at Canton to see the famished wretch breath- 

 ing his last, while mothers thought it a duty to 

 destroy their infant children., and the young to 

 give the stroke of fate to the aged, to save them 

 from the agonies of such a dilatory death, j - 



The Jesuit Parennin, writing to a member of 

 the Royal Academy of Sciences, says, " Another 

 " thing that you can scarcely believe is, that 



* Lettres Edif. torn. xix. p. 15-1. 

 t Meares's Voyage, ch. vii. p. 92. 

 VOL. I. Q 



