Page:The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey.djvu/266

tung, Honan, Hupeh, Szechwan, and Yunnan. We have the man of business in the Shansi merchant, whose care for gain absorbs his whole energies and time ; the opium-sot, sodden, demoralised, in the aboriginal type ; the Honanese — real sons of Han — neither good nor bad, who seem to live in an Epicurean Paradise, indifferent to everything save daily food ; the Shantung man, stalwart, fearless, unceremonious, resolute, proud of his province, even of his poverty ; the Hupeh immigrant, vicious, mean, superstitious, cowardly, a worshipper of everything in the heaven above and earth beneath — a dweller in caves, his heart, like his hamlet, is low. All are comparatively poor — even the natives, because of their opium — and dependent upon the produce of the soil." ' The province has been the victim of what the inhabitants term " four rebellions." First of these was the Taiping Eebellion ; then, about 1874, the great Mohammedan rebellion, when the province suffered severely. During this rebellion practically all the Mohammedans who had taken part were put to death, which measure is estimated to have swept away about half of the people. Then followed the " Eebellion of Nature," in the shape of the famine of 1877-78 ; and finally the rebellion of wolves, which were brought down from their mountain haunts by stress of hunger. The desolation thus caused led the Government to encourage immigration, about which more will be said later on. With regard to the products of this province, what has been said of Kausu largely applies here, though, generally speaking, Shensi is hotter and more fertile than Kansu. ^ Dr. Moir Duncan in B.M.S. Reporn