The growth of the Colony's population is one of the features of Hong Kong's development. The last census (1931) gave 410,921 people resident on the island of Hong Kong alone, of whom over 400,000 are Chinese. In the year of cession of the Colony, at the beginning of 1841, see the last article (24-6-33) there were approximately 5,000 Chinese living here. They actually numbered 5,650, made up as follows:- 2,550 villagers and fishermen scattered in about 20 hamlets, some 800 living in what was then known as the Bazaar (opposite the present Naval Yard), and a little over 2,000 living in boats in the harbour. A large number of native shops opened in the vicinity of Queen's Road East soon after the occupation of the island by Britain, and the area became known as the Canton Bazaar, most of the newcomers being of course from Canton. It is interesting to observe that the Wanchai area is still one of the most densely populated Chinese districts of the city.
The question of the Colony's population has already been touched upon (26-6-33) and it is seen that the island supported only a few thousand Chinese inhabitants (a little over 5,000) when the British occupation took place. These were entirely peasantry and fisherfolk, with some pirates among them, as no trade whatever was done here. The people who dwelt in Hong Kong in pre-British days largely occupied matshed huts, but it is probable that fairly substantial stone dwellings of one storey, built of granite roughly hewn and boulders, with a mortar composed of clay and a little lime, were in existence even then. In fact, it is known that a fairly substantial village community had long been settled at Stanley (then known as Chick-chu). Naturally, any permanent settlers would erect dwellings capable of weathering the typhoons to which they would be periodically exposed.
The question of what race of Chinese these settlers belonged to is a matter of some interest, in view of fairly recent research into the origin of the Kwangtung inhabitants: for it is natural to assume that Hong Kong's original Chinese population were the same type as on the mainland. There is evidence that several dialects were in use at the time of the British advent, and we can proceed to a brief examination of these.
Three classes of Chinese speaking different dialects were amongst the early settlers of the Colony. According to Eitel, the town of Kowloon was formed by settlers speaking the Cantonese dialect called Puntis (lit. aborigines). These Puntis also occupied the hamlets of Matauwai (near Kowloon City), Kwantailau (East Point) and Wongneicheong on the island of Hong Kong, and to them were added later the hamlets of Sookumpoo, Tanglungchau and Pokfulam.
Some time after the Puntis had occupied the best portions of Kow Kong and Hong Kong, settlers from the north-west of the Canton provinces, speaking a different dialect, called Hakkas (lit. strangers) began to push their way between the Punti settlements. Thus the Hakka villages of Mongkok, Tsopaitsai, Tsimshatsui, and Matauchung were formed on Kowloon Peninsula, and on Hong Kong Island the hamlets of Hungheunglou, Tunglowan, Tytamtuk, Chaiwan, Hoktsui, Qongmakok and Little Hong Kong. Hamlets were also formed by the Hakkas at Taikoktsui, Hokun and Tokwawan on Kowloon and at Tsattsimui, Shuitsingwan, Wongkoktsui and Akungngam on the island of Hong Kong.
Later on natives speaking another dialect (Swatow) settled at Shaukiwan, Tokwawan, Hunghom and Yaumati. These were sea-faring men called Hoklos.
The earliest inhabitants of Hong Kong island were presumably Puntis, though a considerable variation is possible in view of the roving nature of some of them (the so-called boat people, for
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