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The population is contained in six main divisions, inhabiting 423 villages. These villages vary in population from 10 to 5,000 persons.
The eastern portion of the district, being more mountainous and less fertile, is not so thickly populated as the western portion. The Un Long Tung, or the division including the fertile valleys and plains of Pat Heung and Shap Pat Heung, is the most populous, its population, amounting to 23.020, being distributed among 59 villages. The Sheung U Tung or western division, though much larger in area than the Un Long division. contains a population of only 20,870, distributed among no fewer than 182 villages.
The total area of the territory to be leased being 376 square miles, the popu- lation is about 266 persons to the square mile. Though by no means at present thickly populated, it is anticipated that when the new territory comes under British occupation its population will rapidly increase.
VILLAGES.
The total number of villages amounts to 423. The houses in these villages are, as a rule, well and solidly built. The foundations and lower courses of their walls are, in many cases, of granite masonry, the upper courses being made of blue or sun-dried bricks. The door posts and lintels are of dressed granite slabs with tiled roofs on rafters made of China fir. The floors are generally concreted, and frequently paved with red brick or with granite. Well built and handsomely decorated temples exist in all the important villages, and in many places large and expensively constructed buildings, in which the ancestral tablets are kept, were
seen.
As usual in China the streets are narrow and paved with large slabs of stone. Such drainage as exists is on the surface, underground drains never being used in Chinese villages.
There are several walled villages in the territory, which are invariably inhabited by the members of one clan only. They are rectangular or square in shape, and are enclosed within brick walls about 16 feet in height, flanked by square towers, and surrounded by a moat some 40 feet in width. They have one entrance, protected with iron gates. Within the walls, houses of the usual type are found, built with great regularity. There is one main street from either side of which small lanes branch off in parallel rows. The object of these villages being walled is to afford the inhabitants greater security in case of attack, and to place them in a stronger position of defence in the event of clin feuds, which were formerly very commnon, and are still not infrequent. In one of the villages visited was found a temple specially dedicated to the memory of those members of the clan who had fallen in the fights against a neighbouring village. The feud between these two villages, the inhabit- ants of which are descended from a common ancestor and possess the same surname, extended over many years, during which great numbers were killed. Peace has now been restored, and we had the pleasure of being entertained at the same table by the heads of the two villages which were so long at enmity with each other.
Those who are able to express an opinion on the subject state that the villages in the territory compare favourably with those of Southern India and Ceylon.
Appendix 5 contains a list of the name and population of each village in the area to be leased.
INHABITANTS.
The inhabitants are composed of three races of Chinese: the Puntis, the Hak- kas, and the Tankas.
The Puntis, or Cantonese, as they are termed by Europeans, belong to the race which is supposed to have come from the provinces bordering on the south of the Yangtsz river. The term Punti means "Natives of the soil"; but the exist- ence of aborigines in many parts of the Kwong-tung province shows that the Puntis were not the aboriginal inhabitants.
It is not improbable that they commenced to find their way to the south of China during the early periods of Chinese history. At any rate they were firmly established in the south during the time of the Southern Sung Dynasty, which reigned from A.D. 1127 to A.D. 1278. Most of the Punti inhabitants easily trace their descent from ancestors who were settled in the San On district in that period.
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