167
it was unsafe to keep so much money on his own boat, he deposited the remainder at the shop. All went well until the owner of San Ue T'aai, one Wong Tai Ying, a San On county military sau-ts'oi, learnt of the robbery, and that the Naval Commander-in-Chief of Kwangtung Province had despatched Second Captain Chau Kwok Ying to investigate into the case. The shop owner knew the captain personally, and he reported the money that was paid to him, emphasizing the point that it was paid in clean silver dollars. The captain offered a bounty of a hundred dollars, and Tanka boatmen in the area had no difficulty tracking down Lai, his brother, and two boatmen employed by him, all of whom were involved in the robbery. The bare facts of this case suggest that Leung Shuen Wan, too, in the nineteenth century, was a moorage inlet.17 For all we know, Leung Shuen Wan could have been the more important moorage inlet in those days.
Nonetheless, Sai Kung and Hang Hau were moorage inlets where eventually more shops opened. In the early 1900's, there were fifty shops and four boat-building sheds in Sai Kung, eighteen shops and four boat-building sheds in Hang Hau.18 Ferries connected Sai Kung to Nam Tau Sha, a short walk from Hang Hau, and then from Hang Hau there were ferries to Shaukiwan. To the east, there were daily ferries from Sai Kung to Pak Tam Chung and Lan Nei Wan. From Pak Tam Chung, villagers walked to To Kwa Ping and other villages to the north, and from Lan Nei Wan, to Long Ke, Sai Wan, and Tai Long. As late as the 1920's, nonetheless, there was only one daily ferry on each route (Sai Kung-Pak Tam Chung, Sai Kung-Lan Nei Wan), and this left the village in the morning at approximately 10 o'clock, and Sai Kung Market in the afternoon, at 2. There were also ferries between Sai Kung and Tai Mong Tsai.19
Occasionally, the ferry boat might be delayed in Sai Kung, and it would be dark when it arrived at Pak Tam Chung. Villagers from the villages to the north would then come down to the pier with lanterns to meet their own family members on their return.20
Villagers from the Tai Mong Tsai area also walked to Sai Kung. Other footpaths ran from Sha Kok Mei, past Sai Kung, Pak Kong, Ho Chung, and Tseng Lan Shue, into Kowloon,