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at the corner of Wyndham Street and Queen's Road, where other Government buildings were also erected. An early map of the Colony shows that the harbour master had a boatshed on the site of the present Holland House at the bottom of Battery Path. The first building for commercial purposes appears to have been a godown, or warehouse, constructed in 1841 for Messrs Lindsay and Company at Spring Gardens, Wan Chai. Messrs Jardine, Matheson and Company constructed their first godown about the same time and apparently used it to accommodate a cargo of cotton which Mr James Matheson had purchased from America. Another godown owner was Messrs Livingston and Company, who built an office combined with a godown in Wan Chai, but moved to another site in Aberdeen Street about two years later.
Records indicate that marine legislation began in 1841 when Lieutenant Pedder issued Port Regulations to control vessels in the harbour. A copy of these regulations is not available, but later ordinances are strongly reminiscent of the times in which they were made. For instance Section 68(1)(c) of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1853, refers not only to bodies of dead animals floating in the harbour but also to dead seamen, as it was not unusual in Hong Kong's early days for masters of vessels to throw overboard the body of any crew member who died. Another regulation ordered masters to hoist the international code flag 'P', commonly called the Blue Peter, at least 24 hours before a ship was due to leave port. This was in order that merchants and others could go on board and collect any debts due to them from the ship's master or crew. Another ordinance put an end to the practice of leaving seamen ashore on the departure of their vessel.
Under Section 15 of Ordinance No 19, 20 boats, probably sam- pans, were permitted to ply in the harbour between 9 p.m. and midnight. The registrar general in 1854, Mr C. May, listed the small craft in the harbour of Victoria and the bays of Hong Kong as: 'Junks, trading boats, wood boats, passage boats, salt boats, lorchas, cargo boats, fishing boats, harbour and pull-away boats, cooking boats, water boats, sampans, stone boats and bum boats'. Most are still known in Hong Kong today, but the lorcha is not so familiar. It is, in fact, a craft with a western type hull fitted with Chinese rigging.