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25.
The old boathouse in the left-hand corner of the plan appears in the right-hand bottom corner of the Bruce picture, also a bungalow on the rising ground between the present Zetland Street and Duddell Street, approximately where the Masonic Hall is to-day. This building is not marked on the old sale plan, but it might be noted that Zetland Street is indicated with dotted lines, as probably not more than a pathway then, while a most interesting feature is the sketched-in alignment of the old Ice House Lane, now an extension of Ice House Street up the hillside leading to Glenealy; in the plan it is marked "Proposed Road", thus giving us a definite idea of the date 1846-7, or thereabouts when the roadway was actually formed.
The small stream probably little more than a drain running down alongside the Ice House might be noted. It has long been a tradition that a stream ran down the hillside where Duddell Street (not yet planned in 1846) was subsequently formed. It is worth a note that despite good drainage of the area, a small stream of water still forms whenever exceptionally heavy rain falls, with its source about the vicinity of Lower Albert Road, below the Bishop's House, and overflows across Ice House Street near the present Metropole Hotel and so down Duddell Street.
406
At the bottom of Wyndham Street will be seen a portion marked with dotted lines; this indicates the alignment in 1841-2, and is taken from the oldest plan of the city in existence. It will be seen that the bottom portion of the street curved a little westward round part of the Harbour Master's Hill, and by the time the Hongkong Club was built (in 1845-46) the alignment had been straightened, by cutting away a portion of the rocky bluff, shown in Bruce's other picture of this area, which was published on 10-1-34.
I find that through a slip of the pen, the first register of local property preserved in the Land Office and dated 1845, was referred to yesterday as the first rent roll. Actually the earliest rent roll goes back "to the beginning," and is also in a splendid state of preservation - it is one of the oldest documents relating to Hongkong in existence, and of considerable historical value. In it we find all the names of property owners of 1841 onwards, with the sums they paid (then reckoned in pounds sterling). The registers came later, when ownership was regularised, and refer mainly to titles acquired from 1843 onward; many of them, of course, the same titles indicated on the earlier rent rolls, but by then duly confirmed.
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Reference was made the other day, in commenting on the old plan of the city drawn about 1841, to a Rope Walk marked at the coast at West Point. It is suggested that this was actually what is known as a "ropewalk," that is, a place where rope was made in the old-fashioned manner (still seen to-day). In this, the strands are twisted by hand or with small machines, and a long stretch of shore or roadway is necessary for the purpose - hence the name "ropewalk." It is possible that in the place mentioned some of the rope used in the early days was manufactured - probably the native bamboo rope.