In the succeeding year, 1334, inundations occurred in the neighbourhood of Canton. Soon after, at Tche, after an unexampled drought, pestilence arose and carried off 500,000 human beings. Hecker graphically describes the unprecedented and universal commotions of this period. An earthquake happened 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 thousands found their grave. In Houkouang and Ho-nan a drought prevailed for five months, and innumerable swarms of locusts destroyed the vegetation; famine and pestilence, as is usually the case, following in their train. It is remarkable, that, simultaneously with a drought and renewed floods in China, in 1336, many uncommon atmospheric phenomena and, in the winter-time, frequent thunderstorms were observed in the north of France; and, so early as the eventful year 1333, an eruption of Etna took place. According to the Chinese annals, 4,000,000 persons perished by famine in the neighbourhood of Kiang in 1337; and deluges of rain, swarms of locusts, and an earthquake which lasted six days, caused an incredible devastation.
During this year, 776 of the Ejira, or 1334 of the Christian era, Mohamed Ben Abdalla Ben Alkhatrib, a native of the city of Granada, being a physician and a member of an illustrious family versed in all species of cosmography, acquired considerable authority and importance amongst many of the Moorish kings of Granada; but, towards the termination of his valuable life, fortune became adverse; for having been accused of treason during the reign of Ebn Alahmoz, he was thrown into prison, and shortly afterwards died, leaving, amongst other works on medicine and the veterinary art, one on the mode of avoiding plague, which is cited by Casiri in his ‘Biblioteca Arábigo Hispana Escurialense,’ tom. ii. pp. 71 and 72.
A.D. 1338, Kingsai was visited by an earthquake of ten days’ duration; at the same time France suffered from failure in the harvest. From this period until 1342 there was in China a succession of inundations, earthquakes, and famines. It seemed as though everywhere on the tops of mountains springs were made to burst forth, and dry tracts were deluged in an inexplicable manner. Great floods also occurred in the vicinity of the Rhine, in France, &c. In the year following, 1343, the mountain Hong-tchang, in China, fell in; and in Pien-tcheou and Leang-tcheou, three months after, rain followed, and unheard-of inundations, which destroyed seven cities:
“Towers, temples, palaces
Flung from their deep foundations; roof on roof
Crush’d horrible, and pile on pile o’erturn’d,
Fall total!”
In Egypt and in Syria violent earthquakes took place, and in China they became from this time more and more frequent; for they recurred, in 1344, in Ven-tcheou, where the sea overflowed. A dreadful earthquake was experienced at Lisbon, where vast numbers of the inhabitants perished by the falling of the buildings. A.D. 1345, in Ki-tcheou, and also in both the following years in Canton, great commotions were experienced, especially subterraneous thunder. Meanwhile floods and famine devastated various districts until 1347, when the fury of the elements subsided in China.
Whilst pestilence was thus raging, China, Syria, Greece, Egypt, Asia, and Africa suffered from it, A.D. 1346; and the year following, 1347, a pestilence similar to that which subsequently committed such ravages in the south of Gaul, Spain, and England (1348), raged in Italy and Sicily.
1345. Guido de Gaullaco informs us that in Spain, in the month of March, there broke out a pestilence, which he affirms spread all over the world, leaving scarcely a fourth part of the human race alive. Andres Laguna, Martinez de Leyva, Duarte Nunhez, and other medical writers, speak with horror and astonishment of this terrific plague, which, they say, lasted five years.