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Along the waterfront are various piers and landing places: note might specially be made of Dent's Wharf, near the present site of the new Bank of East Asia. A jetty marked Fearon's Wharf is shown near West Point. Then there are various godowns, along the western harbour front, with the names of their owners, such as Pybus; Jamieson, Low and Company; Edger; and, somewhat inland near the Kennedy Town area, Webster (probably a dwelling house). These names will have to be dealt with in a subsequent article, including that of Morgan, the pioneer of Sookunpoo.
Maps of the city in the late Forties already show an amazing amount of town planning, street demarcation, and substantial houses; so it is worth noting that as early as 1841-2 a large area on the extreme west, approximately on the present West Point waterfront, is marked Brick Making Establishment. Here was manufactured much of the material that went to build the rapidly formed City of Victoria, Hongkong.
Reply to correspondent "/": The sea-beach in 1841 was only a few yards from the old Hongkong Bank site, but curved even further inward towards the cricket ground, so that it touched the corner of the old City Hall site, prior to sweeping round the cricket ground. Most of the Hongkong Bank and City Hall site is natural shore line, with perhaps a little surface reclamation near the north-eastern portion.
Further investigation of the old plans of Hongkong, drawn during the Fifties, confirms the existence of the causeway at Causeway Bay: in a map of 1858 it is marked "Sookunpoo Causeway" and was of considerable length, with a partly made road over most of it, crossing the mud flats at the mouth of the stream flowing from Tai Hang. Since then it has been incorporated in the seawall which runs alongside the present road, bordering the reclamation made in 1844. A map of the late Eighties has this line marked "old causeway".
A closer inspection of the Sookunpoo and Wongnaichong areas in the Fifties and Sixties shows definitely that the old house at Caroline Hill was the early French Mission. This property had originally belonged to Capt. W. Morgan (vide yesterday's note). In the Wongneichong valley, the Jewish cemetery is shown in the Fifties with several adjoining lots which had been granted to Dr. Peter Young, Mr. A. Jardine, Mr. A. Fletcher (who also owned property in what later became the present Naval Yard), Mr. W. Stewart, and Mr. Marjoribanks.
The name of Ouchterlony Bazaar, mentioned yesterday, is explained in the records of land sales. One John Ouchterlony, evidently a Scottish merchant of the early days, had that property. It was resumed by Government in due course, and is now military land.
Sun Leighton's Hill is so marked in maps of the Fifties, which also show that Mr. F. Leighton, of Leighton and Co., owned the plot on the summit, now occupied by Government quarters. He also owned a plot approximately where the Police Recreation Club is now situated, in Happy Valley.
Let us examine a few of the names recalled by the old land sales. The purchasers of lots in the first two years of the Colony - the records show they entered into possession