by inundations; whilst in Tche, after an unexampled drought, a
plague arose, which is said to have carried off about 5,000,000 of
people. A few months afterwards an earthquake followed, at and
near Kingsai; and subsequent to the falling in of the mountains of
Ki-ming-chan, a lake was formed of more than a hundred leagues in
circumference, where, again, thousands found their grave. In
Houkouang and Honan, a drought prevailed for five months; and
innumerable swarms of locusts destroyed the vegetation; while
famine and pestilence, as usual, followed in their train.
Connected accounts of the condition of Europe before this great
catastrophe are not to be expected from the writers of the
fourteenth century. It is remarkable, however, that
simultaneously with a drought and renewed floods in China, in
1336, many uncommon atmospheric phenomena, and in the winter,
frequent thunderstorms, were observed in the north of France; and
so early as the eventful year of 1333 an eruption of Etna took
place. According to the Chinese annuals, about 4,000,000 of
people perished by famine in the neighbourhood of Kiang in 1337;
and deluges, swarms of locusts, and an earthquake which lasted six
days, caused incredible devastation. In the same year, the first
swarms of locusts appeared in Franconia, which were succeeded in
the following year by myriads of these insects. In 1338 Kingsai
was visited by an earthquake of ten days' duration; at the same
time France suffered from a failure in the harvest; and
thenceforth, till the year 1342, there was in China a constant
succession of inundations, earthquakes, and famines. In the same
year great floods occurred in the vicinity of the Rhine and in
France, which could not be attributed to rain alone; for,
everywhere, even on tops of mountains, springs were seen to burst
forth, and dry tracts were laid under water in an inexplicable