HOIHOW
9290
A
The harbour of Hoihow is an open roadstead, unprotected against the North-east eonsoon, which blows here with undisturbed vigour from September to April. The rking of cargo is, therefore, normally difficult during those months, and at times im- ssible. In addition to the above disadvantages those months are also the dry months hen no rain falls up-country, and consequently no water comes down by the Po- hung River to the sea. Again, the tides are more erratic in the winter than they are the summer: sometimes there are two tides during the 24 hours, sometimes one, d sometimes none. Cargo then, having heen loaded with difficulty into a cargo- at alongside the importing steamer, has to face a stormy passage of two to three- iles to the spit, which runs parallel to the town of Hoihow and a mile distant from it. nce at the spit the cargo-boat may be able to pole up the two miles of shallow muddy ater which separates it from Hoihow-to sail is impossible, as the wind is always ead ahead-or may have to wait for hours until there is sufficient water, a few feet hly, to enable it to continue its drawn-out voyage from ship to shore. If a canal 7 feet eep and 300 feet wide is dredged on the Hoihow river between the neighbourhood the Custom House and the spit thus permitting junks, cargo boats and motor unches to navigate at all tides it would be sufficient to meet present requirements the trade and would not be an expensive undertaking. Several suggestions have een made for the improvement of the port of Hoihow and some even advocated the ansfer of the port to Chinglan or Pochin but all these suggestions were impracticable oth from the engineering and from the financial points of view. Chinglan, for stance, which has been much spoken of in the past, is situated on the East Coast, hich, though not properly surveyed, is known to be lined with coral reefs and
much exposed to typhoons and S.W. monsoons in the Summer months. And it is. ar more expensive to open a new port than to improve an old established one, ithout taking into consideration the opposition such a change would create from ocal vested interests. Hoihow will therefore remain the port of Hainan and it is now being connected by good motor roads with all the principal towns in the sland and when financial conditions permit the harbour may be improved. A motor road girding the island is projected and if peace is not disturbed locally in he next three years this plan will in all likelihood be realised. There are four Motor Boat Cos. running small boats from Hoihow into the interior and they have been doing fairly well.
As regards health, there is less fever in Hoihow than anywhere else in Hainan. There is excellent water to be had by the sinking of artesian wells, and several are already in existence both in the foreign Quarters and in the Chinese City. The majority of the Chinese, however, prefer to follow the old method of sending a woman with a couple of buckets to fetch pure drinking water, at a long distance, from a well, the contents of which are kept pure by the innumerable little fish that dart hither and thither across its stoneflagged bottom. The water in the actual wells at Hoihow is brackish, partly from seawater that filters into the wells and partly from the alkiline condition of the soil.
The trade of Hoihow remains more or less stationary. The native commercial com- munity of Hoihow is one that is always being drawn in different directions by op- posing interests. There is a Chamber of Commerce, which works in conjunction with the Five Guilds, representing the merchants of Canton, Swatow, Kochow, Fuh- kien and Hainan.
No foreign settlement has been formed at Hoihow for the very excellent reason that there is no space for such a settlement, unless the foreigners concerned were to see their way to disburse large sums of money in reclaiming the swamp on the verge of which the town of Hoihow stands. From Hoihow itself a tongue of dry land, known as the Tê Shêng Sha, or Victory Spit, runs westward for a distance of about a mile until it loses itself in the morass which there encompasses it on three sides. This strip of dry land is very narrow and has been entirely taken up. The consequence is that any future development, if any, must be out into the marshy ground that borders the Victory Spit. With the exception of the Roman Catholic Orphanage, erected in 1895, the American Presbyterian Mission Hospital and doctor's residence, the Customs Indoor Staff quarters, the French School for Chinese, the French doctor's residence, and the French Hospital, the houses occupied by the foreign residents are Chinese converted into European habitations by alterations and improvements. H.B.M. Consulate obtained a site after 14 years' negotiations, and a Consulate building was erected in 1899 to the south-west of the Hospital; towards the end of 1897 a piece of land was granted, and a French Consulate has been built on the Northern side of the river and facing Hoihow town. Since the beginning of 1899 a free school.