STONE FLOUR. 
163 
" The district Fan-Hien," says he, "contains about a thou- 
sand Christians ; but they have been horribly decimated by 
famine. I have seen a great number come to demand the last 
sacrament ; they had calculated their resources, and knew the 
number of days they had to live. They received the sacra- 
ment of extreme unction, when they had exhausted their 
means, and then calmly awaited the moment of their de- 
cease." 
To understand the occurrence of such calamities, and their 
frequent return in a society so laborious, devoted to agricul- 
ture and regularly governed for many ages, it must be recol- 
lected that many provinces of China, of greater extent than 
one-half of France, consist of level plains, traversed by large 
rivers, of which the bed is continually rising by the abundant 
deposit from the waters, so that they are compelled to restrain 
them by elevated dikes, kept in repair by immense labor. 
The provinces of Hon-Kouang and Kiang-Si, for example, of 
which mention has been made, are thus traversed by the Blue, 
and other large rivers. 
These circumstances, giving every facility for irrigation, 
develope an extremely active state of agriculture, of which the 
bountiful produce is rice, which is cultivated on the undula- 
tions of hills, whence the water is carried by means of ma- 
chines. As long as this state of things lasts, there is produced 
an immense quantity of necessaries, which likewise gives rise 
to correspondent increase of population ; but when the waters 
increase so as to overflow the dikes, it pours down upon the 
plain, inundates it, and swallows a part of the population ; 
then those who escape from this disaster find themselves ruin- 
ed and deprived of every resource, inasmuch as the land is co- 
vered by the waters, and remain a prey to all the miseries which 
the missionaries describe, and finally die of starvation. This 
cause, joined to other catastrophes produced by earthquakes, 
which appear to be more frequent, more violent, and, especial- 
ly, more extensive in China than in many other regions of the 
globe, instruct us, in a great part, as to the sudden vicissitudes 
which Chinese history attests to have recurred many limes 
