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NOTES AND QUERIES
known geologist and archaeologist. A few notes and articles from his pen on Hong Kong subjects appeared in Vols. 8 and 9 (1968 and 1969) of this Journal.
These pile houses are the habitation of Tanka,(4) the boat people of South China, and Tai O has long been a considerable fishing port and market town, indeed the principal and only one of any size on Lantau Island. At the 1911 census of the Colony the land population was 2248 persons and was probably outnumbered by the floating population which stood at 5413 for the whole of Lantau. The pile huts were probably there long before the British took over the New Territories in 1899 following the Convention of Peking, 9th June, 1898. One of the early administrative reports of the District Officer, South (1911) mentions taking over responsibility from the Harbour Office for issuing licences to pile dwellers at Tai O Creek, when 221 new matshed permits were issued at $1 p.a., and in 1916 it was stated that there were still as many as 350 matsheds there.
Fires were always a hazard to these dwellings of wood and palm leaves. A big fire was noted in the 1916 report and it is no surprise to read in a later report of a really big one in 1926 when 300 matsheds were destroyed. Fortunately there was no loss of life, due, it was related, to it being high tide at the time of the fire.
Typhoons, too, were a constant menace to these frail structures and in 1927, the year after the big fire, the District Officer notes that a typhoon caused great damage to the matsheds.
The photographs at plates 26 to 29 are by Mr. Schofield, and the plans at Figs. 1 and 2 are re-drawn from his notebook. I am greatly indebted to Mrs. Katherine M. Schofield for permission to reproduce her husband's valuable notes. The italicised sentences are my additions. The aerial view of Tai O Creek at plate 25 is by courtesy of the Hong Kong Government.
Mr. Schofield's Text
The accompanying plan (Fig. 1) is of a typical shed at Yee Chung (二涌) Second Creek, Tai O. It measures 9′ in width and 29′ 2′′ in depth (32′ 5′′ including the 1 metre deep veranda) and is 7′ high. It is 8′ above the waters of the creek at mid