In 1852 it burst through its banks two hundred and fifty miles from the sea and cut a new bed through the northern part of Shaptung into the Gulf of Pechili. The isolation in which foreigners lived at that time in China prevented their obtaining any information as to the calamitous results of this change, but in 1887 many of the barriers against foreigners had been removed and a general idea of the character of the inundation was easily obtainable. For several weeks preceding the actual overflow of its banks the Hoang-Ho had been swollen from its tributaries. It had been unusually wet and stormy in northwest China, and all the small streams were full and overflowing. The first break occurred in the province of Honan, of which the capital is Kaifeng, and the city next in importance is Ching or Cheng Chou. The latter is forty miles west of Kaifeng and a short distance above a bend in the Hoang-Ho. At this bend the stream is borne violently against the south shore. For ten days a continuous rain had been soaking the embankments, and a strong wind increased the already great force of the current. Finally a breach was made. At first it extended only for a hundred yards. The guards made frantic efforts to close the gap, and were assisted by the frightened people in the vicinity. But the breach grew rapidly to a width of twelve hundred yards, and through this the river rushed with awful force. Leaping over the plain with incredible velocity, the water merged into a small stream called the Lu-chia. Down the valley of the Lu-chia the torrent poured in an easterly direction, overwhelming everything in its path. Twenty miles from Cheng Chou it encountered Chungmou, a walled city of the third rank. Its thousands of inhabitants were attending to their usual pursuits. There was no telegraph to warn them, and the first intimation of disaster came with the muddy torrent that rolled down upon them. Within a short time only the tops of the high walls marked where a flourishing city had been. Three hundred villages in the district disappeared utterly, and the lands about three hundred other villages were inundated. The flood turned south from Chungmou, still keeping to the course of the Lu-chia, and stretched out in width for thirty miles. This vast body of water was from ten to twenty feet deep. Several miles south of Kaifeng the flood struck a large river which there joins the Lu-chia. The result was that the flood rose to a still greater height, and, pouring into a low-lying and very fertile plain which was densely populated, submerged upward of one thousand five hundred villages.