2.
3.1
403
endeavoured to induce the Military Authorities
accommodation ~
to erect the temporary required by them upon another site,
the
one selected - Napier's Range- in its- unimproved state, being in my opinion and that of the Surveyor General almost-
Surveyor-General
the worst situation in the whole Peninsula
for a temporary Cantorment.
The grounds upon
2.
which this
opinions
αυτ
based were
fully stated at
to
Your Grace
I there
the time in my Despateti
N: 40 of the 26th March 1861
observed:
I
May
"
"
mention also an instance
"of what is now taking place to shors how
it is, before deciding upon the unhealthiness of a site, to ascertain that at-
Mecessary
· least the most obvious sanitary precautions
"have been adopted. The Surveyor General. hav "recommended Napier's Range at- Kowloon as
4
"a place fitted for permanent Barracks, and "the medical men of the Island
Island agree
with
• him that with proper improvements (i.c. draining "the Paddy Fields befe
before
and behind the Range
excercise
" and Converting them into es
grounds for "the men) which can be effected at a small:
• Cost, the situation would be found as heallting
in the Peninsula. In this opinion, I believe, any
4
*
7 as
"the Military Medical men do not concur, and to test the healthiness of the place, temporary barracks have been erected to enable 200 men to be the Summer. But the Paddy fields
quartered
and
d there
for
gardens around remain undisturbed; and: "in it's present condition I do not think there is a
• much more
unfit situation in the whole
gardens
over
"peninsula for a temporary Cantonment. Every
breeze that reaches it from whatever quarter will "be impregnated with the Miasma hovering "these Swamps, and with the liquid manure with
which these
dens are saturated morning and. - evening. The result of such a trial can be forcloth certainty. The percentage of Richness wilt be "greater than in other localities on the peninverla, and the place will, like West Point, be condemned. But "such a result after such a trial will I conceive in, no degree
gree impugn the correctness of the opinion
and the medical i "expressed by the Surveyor General
a to a