Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-12
an american Woman S adventures Amid
Flood, Famine, PediIence and Mar,
Wherp Four Hundred Million People Lice
in Constant Fear-A Flight to Making
When Trouble Strikes the White Colony.


self the hatred Of the war lords of the North,
who feared to have the Nationalist their
Soviet advisers i'm this buffer state of Human.
For two days there was governor in the city
and the people hid behind closed shoe doors
fearing looting by the retreating soldiers, fear
ing they knew not what from the incoming
army frUm the North. Another military
aspirant from the North had the gov
ernor's seat.
Again the city was in tumult again the
incoming government took forced contributions
from the people; and South in the provinces,
in a smaller city. the retrsating governor
ensconced himself with the seals of office and
pressed the merchants there for larger and
larger loans. loans which they knew would
never be redeemed Now we had two governors
ruling the province!
TUNE came and with it a great flood. Ten
anxious. terrifying days. Our own garden,
the source OF our Summers food, buried
under the river; our furniture hudded together
on the top floor of the house, the kitchen under
water. All around US we surveyed only the
roofs of the native houses. Half the city
drowned to its hOuse-tOps in the river.
The people who had survived a year of
drought famine" which had followed upon q
year of flood famine lay silently within their
houses close up against the rafters. Through
the streets ioated the filth and refuse of an
overpopulated city. Dead rats and snakes
cases Of pigs The river, with dirty yellow
foam upon it, covered everything. claimed
everything Later, sickness and death it would
harvest. too. Calamity without hope, each year
things worse than the year before.
Then silently the river fell away inch by
inch, the world became blessedly normal One
morning the sun had shone and the river had
sparkled, denying the bodies that lay IN its
depths.
And at 10 that very day the rifles had begun
popping! For ever backward and forward
flew the shuttle Of war. The two fac
tions were fighting. No had dreamed of
such thing IL hours before. The two mill
tary governors had agreed with each other to
wait until the flood was over Could they not
have waited . day or two longer in order that
the people might have had time to build up
their collapsed houses. plant new crops, bury
their dead?
Twelve hours after We had been released
from the clutch OF the river, Gen. Tangs SOL
diers who had retreated in April were march,
ing triumphantly back. Their leader had got
money and arms and troops from Canton and
was returning. Not City of Jade and Ginger
for us-Canton with its hatred of the white
man, its slogans Of Away with Christianity
Away with foreign trade" As dressed quickly
and hurried out to the garden felt uneasy,
as If in Q short-sighted moment had placed
my home on the top Of a volcano.
But the battle did not come. What was
happening? Why did the returning governors
army delay their entrance? Why did they
not follow up that retreating army pouring out
of the city? The bills. the city were alive with
them-gray-clad retreating soldiers, carrying
fans and paper umbrellas, walking slowly
scarcely able to drag one foot before the other,
tired and hungry and afraid, therefore ILL.,
tempered, therefore bullying the common peo-
pie. Little by little they passed out of our
sight and out of the city, leaving it, for the
second time in four months, without govern
ment OF any kind
No more firing Only a belated, retreating
straggler or two moving along under the glow
of his paper lantern So we slept uneasily
hearing all night the rifles going off over in the
city. I thought Of the women of the city
hiding as they had so often before, hoping
they would not be attacked, hoping their hus-
bands shops would not be looted hoping there
was enough money to pay the forced contribu-
ton which would save their husbands lives
on In the country the farmers wives were
fearing these same things but with one more
fear, the fear Of the bandits robbing their
houses. and kidnapping their children.
The next morning with curiosity mixed with
fear watched from my terrace junkload after
junkload OF troops arriving, floating the bright
red flags of the Kuomintang the Reds
A LII was activity again in the city 1t was
being made safe for the governor who had
vacated it in such haste few weeks before.
Prominent men in the regime of yesterday who
had not been fortunate enough to escape were
beheaded. Each Of the various governors had
cleaned up the city in this way The mer-
chants, the rich were solicited for loans, no
excuses were accepted if money not
forthcoming the offenders would be thrown
into foul prisons literally to rot, or, if the gov
eminent became very much in need of funds
and thus shOrt-tempered, they would be be-
headed. The common people, trained by sue
cesson Of governments to the habit of the