All-overwhelming: sudden they retreat,
With their whole troubled waters; but anon
Sudden return, with louder, mightier force.
The black rocks whiten, the vex’d shores resound;
And yet more rapid, distant they retire.
Vast coruscations lighten all the sky
With volumed flames; while thunder’s voice
From forth his shrine, by night and horror girt,
Astounds the guilty, and appals the good.”
The great events to which we allude began, in the year 1333, first in China. Here parching drought, succeeded by famine, laid waste the tract of country watered by the rivers Kiang and Hoai. Rain, about this period, fell in torrents in and about Kingsai, destroying, it is said, by the floods more than 400,000 persons. The mountain Tsincheou, in falling, formed vast chasms in the earth. About this time, according to the diary of Ramon Vila, there were experienced dire famine and pestilence at Barcelona, which in a very short time carried off 10,000 persons.