# Appendix.
Report on the Island of Hong Kong.
# APPENDIX.
PAPERS delivered in by R. Montgomery Martin, Esq., and referred to in his Evidence on 18 May 1847.
(1.)
REPORT on the Island of Hong Kong, by R. Montgomery Martin, Her Majesty's Treasurer for the Colonial and Consular Service in China, and a Member of Her Majesty's Council at Hong Kong. Transmitted to Governor Davis for Lord Stanley, 24 July 1844.
Locality-Hong Kong, which in the Chinese language signifies Red Harbour, or Flowing Streams, is in north latitude 22° 16' 27", east longitude 114° 14' 48", distant about 40 miles east from Macao. It forms one of a numerous but scattered group of lofty islands termed the "Ladrones," which vary in size and height, but agree in their arid and rugged features. The length of the island from east to west is about eight miles, with a breadth of two to four miles; it is separated from the main land of China by a strait or inlet of the sea, varying in breadth from half a mile to three miles; one entrance, the Lymoon Pass, being only about a quarter of a mile wide.
Physical Aspect. The island consists of a broken ridge or "hog's back" of mountainous bills running from W.N.W. to E.S.E. at an average height of about 1,000 feet; but from this ridge and its spurs various conical mountains are elevated to the height of 1,500 to 2,000 feet above the sea, and very precipitous. The whole island indeed rises abruptly from the ocean, particularly on the north face. There are a few narrow vallies and deep ravines through which the sea occasionally bursts, or which serve as conduits for the mountain torrents; but on the north side of the island, especially where the town of Victoria is built, the rocky ridge approaches close to the sea, and it was only by hewing through this ridge that a street or road could be made to connect the straggling town of Victoria, which stretches along the water edge for nearly four miles, although only comprising about 60 European houses and several Chinese huts and bazaars. Here and there, on the tops of some isolated hills or along the precipitous slopes of the mountains, some houses have been constructed, but the rugged, broken, and abrupt precipices and deep rocky ravines will ever effectually prevent the formation at Victoria of any concentrated town adapted for mutual protection, cleanliness, and comfort. Hong Kong cannot be said to possess any vegetation; a few goats with difficulty find pasturage. After the heavy rains of May, June, July, and August, the hills assume somewhat of a greenish hue, like a decayed Stilton cheese; but the whitey-brown or red-streaked ridges, with the scattered masses of black rocks, give a most uninviting and desolate aspect to the island, which is unrelieved by the adjacent main land, whose physical features are precisely similar to that of Hong Kong, the mountains' tops and sides presenting in many places the appearance of a negro streaked with leprosy.
Page 12
Geology.There is no igneous formation in Hong Kong; the island partakes of the same geological character as the whole south coast of China, excepting that it seems of older formation. The structure may be briefly described as consisting of decomposed coarse granite intermixed with strata of a red disintegrating sandstone crumbling into a stiff ferruginous-looking clay. Here and there huge boulder-stones, which gunpowder will not blast, may be seen imbedded in a stiff pudding earth, or they are strewed over the tops and sides of the mountains. Gneiss and felspar are found in fragments. That the granite is rotten, and passing like dead animal and vegetable substances into a putrescent state, is evidenced from the crumbling of the apparently solid rock beneath the touch, and from the noxious vapour or nitrogen which it yields when the sun strikes fervidly on it after rain. On examining the sites of houses in Victoria whose foundations were being excavated in the sides of the hills, the strata appeared like a richly prepared compost, emitting a fetid odour of the most sickening nature, and which at night must prove a deadly poison. This strata quickly absorbs any quantity of rain, which it returns to the surface in the nature of a pestiferous mineral gas. The position of the town of Victoria, which may be likened to the bottom of a crater with a lake, prevents the dissipation of this gas, while the geological formation favours the retention of a morbific poison on the surface, to be occasionally called into deadly activity. There is no extent of marsh on the island capable of generating miasm, but the heavy rains are annually washing large portions of the mountains through deep ravines into the bay, and thus continually exposing a fresh rotten surface to the sun's rays, and preserving a focus of disease which will finally become endemic. Vast quantities of the silt from the hills are being deposited along the shores of the harbour; owing to this circumstance, and to the rapid receding of the tides from this coast, the bay is becoming shoaler every day; the average depth is only four to five fathoms, except in the stream, where there is six to seven fathoms. In no great interval of time the harbour of Hong Kong will be too shoal in many places for large vessels.
Page 13
Climate. It is difficult to convey by thermometrical registers an accurate idea of the climate of any place. The range of the thermometer will not indicate the pressure of the atmosphere; the barometer in or near the tropics is of little utility as an index; the hygrometer imperfectly shows the quantity of rain which is in solution; while the height of the surrounding land, its configuration, the nature of the soil, the extent and quality of the vegetation, the exposure to the sea, and the prevailing winds, all influence what is comprised under the word "Climate." In some respects the whole coast of China partakes of the climatic characteristics of the opposite coast of the American continents, particularly as regards the extremes of temperature, and its depressing influence on mental or bodily exertion.
For six months in the year, April to September, the heat varies from 80° to 90° F.; but occasionally during the other six months the heat is also very great, the thermometer having been known to stand at 80° F. on Christmas-day. The island being on the verge of the tropics, is subject to the extremes of the torrid and temperate zones. Even on the same day the range of mercury in the thermometer is very great, and the vicissitudes are exceedingly trying to the European constitution.
But neither the range from heat to cold, nor the quantity of moisture in the atmosphere, will adequately convey an idea of the effects that this climate is capable of producing on the human frame.
During April and part of May, when the sun is approaching rapidly from the Equator, there is a dry, burning heat, with a cloudless sky; but towards the end of May, and throughout June, July, August, and part of September, the rain descends in torrents, with a force and continuance, such as I have never seen in India, Africa, Australasia, or any other part of the world. The clouds pour down one vast sheet of water, washing away hills and rocks, surrounding the island with deep ravines, and saturating the soft, porous, putrescent strata, to the extent of many feet, with daily renewed moisture. In the intervals of rain a nearly vertical sun acts with an intense evaporating power, and a noxious steam or vapour rises from the fetid soil, yielding a gas of a most sickly and deleterious nature, exactly such as I experienced on the coast of Africa in 1824, when I was seized with an "earth fever," while in H. M. service, from the effects of which I, with great difficulty, recovered, but of which most of my brother officers perished. This morbific gas does not arise from vegetable or animal decomposition. There is none on the island of any extent. Decomposed mineral substances yield an aëriform poison, under some circumstances, of a but more deadly nature than either of the other kingdoms of nature. This gas does not rise more than a few feet from the earth; it slowly mingles with the surrounding atmosphere, and when not causing immediate illness produces a depressing effect on mind and body, which undermines and destroys the strongest constitutions.
Military and naval men who have served in Africa and India feel the effects of the sun in Hong Kong in a manner never before experienced. Even at Macao, only 40 miles west of Hong Kong, Europeans may walk about the whole day in the month of July, when to do so at Hong Kong would be attended with almost certain death. Neither the Indian Sepoys, Malays, nor Chinese can endure the climate so well as Europeans, whose stamina they do not possess. The Chinese deem it a dangerous experiment to prolong their abode in the island beyond a certain time. They have ever viewed Hong Kong as injurious to health and fatal to life. The Europeans who survive a brief residence in this climate, generally get a lassitude of frame, and an irritability of fibre, which destroys the spring of existence. A malign influence operates on the system in a most distressing manner, which is not removed by a return to Europe; on the contrary, the sufferers frequently die in England soon after their arrival.
Diseases and Mortality.-The prevailing disease of Hong Kong is a fever combining the character of the African and West India fevers. It was at first supposed to be epidemic, but it has now become endemic, and may be assumed to be the fixed malady of the island. Diarrhoea and dysentery form the next most immediately fatal class of diseases; but intermittent fever or ague destroys health gradually. Last year the strength per annum of European and native troops was 1,526, and the number who passed through the hospital in year amounted to 7,893; thus on an average, each man went through the hospital more than five times in the year. Of the diseases with which they were afflicted, 4,069 were fevers, 762 diarrhoeas, 497 dysenteries, and 180 were pulmonic complaints. The total number of deaths, out of 1,526 men, was 440, or 1 in 3¼. The fatal fever cases were 155; ditto, diarrhoea, 80; ditto, dysentery, 137. The destruction of life since our occupation of Hong Kong has been enormous. Last year the deaths among the troops in the island amounted to 1 in 3; at Chusan, to 1 in 29; and at Koolungsoo, to 1 in 12. Her Majesty's 98th Regiment lost at Hong Kong, in 21 months, 257 men by death. But in this and other regiments, it is not merely the deaths which indicate disease and a pernicious climate; it is the great number of men invalided, and constantly unfit for duty. One half the men of a company are frequently unable to attend the parade; out of 100 men there are sometimes not more than five or six men fit for duty.