The New Territories include 75 adjacent islands many of which are uninhabited. Productive land is even scarcer than on the mainland and the estimated island population of 60,000 includes many fisherfolk living aboard their boats. Lantau, the largest island, is well watered, but the gradients are such that even the patient Chinese farmer has been able to secure only a few precarious footholds and there is little cultivation. Wild boar and barking deer abound among the well-wooded ravines and scrub-covered spurs of the island. The island of Cheung Chau, although quite small in area, maintains a thriving community and is an important fishing centre. Another still smaller island, Ping Chau, is the site of a match factory. The rest of the islands are much smaller, one (Ngai Ying Chau) measuring only 81 acres having been inhabited until, recently by a single family.
CLIMATE
The climate is sub-tropical and is governed to a large extent by the monsoons, the winter being normally cool and dry and the summer hot and humid. The north-east monsoon sets in during October and persists until April. The early winter is the most pleasant time of the year, the weather being generally sunny and the atmosphere dry. Later in the winter cloud is more frequent, though rainfall remains slight; in March and April long spells of dull overcast weather may occur. Warm southerly winds may temporarily displace the cool north-east monsoon during this period and under these conditions fog and low cloud are common. From May until August the weather is persistently hot and humid and is often cloudy and showery with frequent thunderstorms. Although the winds, apart from typhoons, are lighter and more variable in summer than in winter, the air has generally travelled from warm tropical seas to the east and south of Hong Kong. The summer is the rainy season, three quarters of the annual rainfall falling between the months of May and September. The mean annual rainfall is 84.26 inches (2140.2 MM.).
From July to October Hong Kong is most liable to be affected by typhoons, although they are sometimes ex- perienced before and after this period. A typhoon whose centre passes over or near the Colony may be accompanied by winds of hurricane force, resulting in widespread damage on sea and land. Although the loss of life on such occasions among the boat people is now minimized by an elaborate system of warnings, there are always a number of boats which fail to reach the specially constructed typhoon shelters in time. Sixteen such disasters have occurred in the last sixty six years. Spells of bad weather, heavy rain and strong
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