# PENG CHAU
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in this region in the late CHING. Their time is obviously short, and as much use should be made of their evidence as is still possible.
In this article I have attempted an outline study of an island community which, despite its small size and population at the time of the British lease, included groups of the various sea and land peoples who are common to this region. It is, for this reason, of particular interest, though by no means unique.
## II
Peng Chau *** is a small island lying off the south-east coast of Lantau, about four miles from the west end of Hong Kong harbour. Its land area is 213 acres (0.328 square mile), of which 23.13 acres were cultivated and 4.35 built over when, together with the rest of the New Territories, the island passed under British rule in 1899.6 At the 1911 census of the Colony of Hong Kong, the first accurate count of the population of the New Territories, the land population of Peng Chau totalled 642 persons.7
This article attempts to tell something of its history before 1899, for which purpose it is material to its theme to state that it was one of many islands, large and small, inhabited or deserted, which lay off the coast of the Kwangtung province, in this case within the boundaries of the San On district of which the island of Hong Kong itself was formerly an insignificant part.
Peng Chau's past is shrouded in mystery. It is likely that its first, and for most of its history, its only users were the fishermen whose boats sheltered in its bays whilst their owners dried and mended their nets on shore or beached their boats at the water's edge with grass cut from the hillsides. Pirates and other lawless men may have visited it from time to time because of its remoteness. Eventually its regular use by the sea people must have attracted land dwellers, mainly Cantonese in the first instance it would seem, who set up shops to deal with the fishermen by supplying them with stores and provisions on credit and acting as middlemen for the disposal of their catch.
When this first occurred is not certain. The first dated information now available comes from the local temple dedicated to Tin Hau the Queen of Heaven, a popular goddess with