326
NOTES AND QUERIES
with two others like it, you can imagine the people there must have been all crowded together. I was told that in Hong Kong harbor and Canton River, below Canton, there are over three hundred thousand people living on these boats.
All we got of the typhoon was a heavy rain storm, the wind having passed twenty miles north of us.
Mr. Lack comments as follows:
I believe the writer refers to the original Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter, but over-estimates the acreage—nearer to 60 than “over 80" — and to the two anchorages of 'Mongkok' and ‘Cheung Sha Wan'.
These two anchorages headed the list of 'possibles' for the new shelter discussed from 1903 onwards. I would suggest that it was in recognition that they were used to give some shelter in typhoons that they headed that list. Mongkok of course became Yaumatei Typhoon Shelter, and Cheung Sha Wan continued to be used for shelter until it was reclaimed in the nineteen fifties/sixties.
Certainly, only Causeway Bay was regarded as an official harbour of refuge and was the only one afforded breakwater protection in 1903.
Hong Kong, 1976.