THE SAN ON MAP OF MGR. VOLONTIERI
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The pattern of settlement presented by the map must be treated with some caution, for there is a distinct difference in the degree of complexity between the two portions divided roughly by an imaginary line running from the middle of the top margin south-westwards to the bottom edge. To the east of this divide practically all the villages known to have been in existence at that time were accurately located and named, but on the other side of the line, the settlements were under-represented and the locations of those actually cited were rather inaccurately plotted. Furthermore, some six to eight miles of the north-western boundary with Tung Kun District is conspicuously missing, but it does not seem that any part of San On lies beyond the margins of the map. The distortion of the coastline and the lack of relief contrasts on which Volonteri must have based his observations, were part of the reason for the imprecision, but the full explanation for the omission of many village sites in western San On must be sought elsewhere.
Although there was a larger number of small villages in the eastern peninsula, the concentration of population was definitely in the more prosperous and long established western plains. The broad valleys of the rivers emptying into Deep Bay were settled by the Cantonese Tang clan as early as the tenth century, while the hilly tracts of the east had to wait a couple of centuries for the arrival of the Hakkas. Several farming communities on the large island of Nam Tao (Lantau) have a history dating back to the Ming and even to the Sung Dynasty, but none of these were recorded on the map. There are two possible explanations which may account for this unfortunate lack of information in western San On. The first must be that Volonteri, like his successors, found that the Hakkas were, on the whole, more receptive to Christianity than were the more wealthy and tradition-bound Cantonese and hence a concentration of missionary efforts on these communities in the early days. In view of the Tai Ping Rebellion (1850-64), with its religious and ethnic implications, the timing of Volonteri's arrival and survey work was certainly not the most opportune. He would therefore have spent more time with the Hakkas and have become more familiar with the areas around the five strategically located Roman Catholic churches in the eastern section. The result was that his knowledge of the remainder of the district did not seem to have extended far beyond