Until the Harvest Is Reaped

How ageless are China's problems and how bitterly Chinese history repeats itself in cycles of wars, floods and famines, TIME Correspondent Teddy White could tell last week from firsthand knowledge. He was just back from a two-week trip through starving Honan Province. His report:

My notes tell me that I am reporting only what I saw or verified; yet even to me it seems unreal: dogs eating human bodies by the roads, peasants seeking dead human flesh under the cover of darkness, endless deserted villages, beggars swarming at every city gate, babies abandoned...