HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE
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where the terraces are constructed running down a spur from the top, whereas tin denotes valley land which is terraced from a water-course upwards and stops at the toe of the hill around which flows the highest of the irrigation channels. A study can be made in the Lam Tsuen valley and in Pat Heung of the two systems of terrace; and one is often corrected by the locals if describing che as tin, or tin as che, though both are terraced and irrigated land. Whether this truly represents a new meaning given to an old word, or whether the Chinese reference books are wrong in describing che as dry cultivation, is another of the gaps in my puzzle which I hope can be authoritatively filled. Other indicator words which appear to be non-Chinese, though I cannot identify them as Yao, are quoted in my introduction to Mr. Tregear's Gazetteer, already quoted. The commonest among them are chun, kau, lek, pok, ting, to, run, tung, wat and yuen. In a paper presented at the Jubilee Congress of Hong Kong University I suggested that wongchuk and wongmai in local place names stood for left and right respectively. Another interesting specimen is the raised valley Wat Lo Fu northeast of Silvermine Bay, which preserves the original order (attribute after noun) of words in most of the non-Han languages of south-western China.
Regarding the other tribe which is described as inhabiting our hills, the Shan Lao, I have not been able to obtain any distinctive marks of identification. However one easily observed feature of our hills, about which most of the present villagers disclaim all knowledge, is the system of low walls made of graded uncut stones enclosing rectangular areas of hillside which are either not terraced or only roughly terraced, with terraces at an angle; and since those of my acquaintance who have worked and lived among the Yao people say they have seen nothing of the kind in the Yao system of cultivation, it may well be that these old stone walls are a "trade mark” of the Shan Lao people. If so, then the same people must also be responsible for a number of irrigation works, of which the two most conspicuous are the one that begins near Hau Tong and flows about half a mile, partly underground, to one of these walled enclosures about the village of Ko Tong on the west of Long Harbour; and another on the northwest coast of Lantao, part of which, owing to the tilt...