I take upon myself the consequences,
whatever they may be." Akoui threw himself into his great task with
energy, and it is said that he succeeded in no small degree in controlling
the waters and restricting their ravages.
We are ignorant of the details
of his work, but it may certainly be said that the Hoangho has done less
damage since Akoui carried out his scheme than it had effected before. The
question is still unsolved, and probably there is no undertaking in which
China would benefit more from the engineering science of Europe than this,
if the Chinese government were to seriously devote its attention to a
matter that affects many millions of people and some of the most important
provinces of the empire.
A great famine about the same period is chiefly remarkable for the
persecution it entailed on the Christian missionaries and those among the
Chinese themselves professing the foreign religion. The cause of this
scarcity was mainly due to the extraordinary growth of the population,
which had certainly doubled in fifty years, and which, according to the
official censuses, had risen from sixty millions in 1735 to three hundred
millions in 1792. Of course the larger part of this increase was due to
the expansion of the empire and the consolidation of the Manchu authority.
So great was the national suffering that the gratuitous distribution of
grain and other supplies at the cost of the state provided but a very
partial remedy for the evil, which was aggravated by the peculation of the
mandarins, and the evidence of the few European witnesses shows that the
horrors of this famine have seldom been surpassed.
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