HARBOUR OF REFUGE.
1326447
361
COUNCIL CHAMBER,
HONGKONG, 23rd October, 1877.
SIR-In accordance with the Governor's instructions contained in your Minute of the 7th of August, we have now the honour to lay before His Excellency the following Report upon the intended Harbours of Refuge for the boat population of Victoria.
2. We would premise our remarks upon the main question by a few words, perhaps not out of place, upon the condition of life, and the requirements of the class whom the Project seeks to assist.
3. We find that the boat population of Victoria comprises about three thousand craft containing in all over twelve thousand souls of both sexes and of all ages.
4. Following the hereditary custom of other parts of China, these people live entirely afloat, forming by themselves a completely distinct and isolated industrial section of the Community, mingling and intermarrying, as a rule, only with one another, living under social observances peculiarly their own, and earning only with much toil and exposure a livelihood that is not always unattended by danger.
5. Their boats are of all builds and sizes, varying from the frail sampan ten feet long to the first class cargo lighter of fifty tons, and are tenanted sometimes by as many as three generations. In these boats people are born and die, knowing no other home during their whole lives and only leaving them to procure those necessaries of life which are not purchaseable from other boats, or occasionally perhaps to visit a friend, and eventually to be buried.
6. Of the sampans, a large number are equipped with masts and sails and are, as a rule, employed in carrying passengers about the harbour, or in fishing, but the cargo lighters which devote themselves entirely to the loading and unloading of ships and junks are propelled with considerable labour exclusively by sculls and are more helpless than the small sampan in consequence of their clumsy build which renders them difficult to manage even in a moderately strong breeze.
7. On the approach of bad weather, all the larger boats having sails cross over, in the wake of the junks, to the North side of the Harbour, and anchoring close inshore either at Yan-ma-ti under the lee of the Peninsula of Kowloon or in the inlets on the North side of Stone Cutters' Island, secure for themselves, betimes, fairly safe positions.
8. The smaller and less venturesome sampans, however, unprovided with sails or having very small ones, and the slow and unwieldy cargo lighters unable to follow this example, are forced to seek protection where they can on the Victoria side of the Harbour, and it is for these that a Haven of Refuge is required.
9. On the advent of a typhoon, a number of the smaller sampans make for the Bowrington Canal, which is too small to contain more than a fourth of them, while others, together with the cargo lighters, work their way up to Causeway Bay. It often happens, however, that from over confidence or other cause, shelter is sought too late, in which case, the wind having already become too strong to beat against, the only chance for sampans is to run before it and beach at Belcher's Bay. The case of cargo lighters under similar circumstances is however more serious; of too great a draught and too heavy to beach with any degree of safety in so exposed a situation, no alternative appears left them but to be driven out to sea and most likely to perish with all hands.
10. As the cyclones that pass over Hongkong are generally ushered in by strong winds from the North-East quarter of the compass, the most desirable place for a Harbour of Refuge would have been in the vicinity of Belcher's Bay, to leeward of the entire boat population, thus enabling them to reach it up to the last moment by simply going before the wind, but unfortunately the configuration of the coast line and the great depth of the soundings close inshore preclude the possibility of a Breakwater of adequate length in that locality, except at inordinate cost.
11. We have, therefore, necessarily confined our attention to the only two places on the Victoria side of the Harbour affording any lee capable of being extended or utilised in a Project of the kind under consideration. These are: (2) the water to the South and West of Kellett's Island, and (i.) Causeway Bay.
12. Upon a detailed examination of the first of these sites, it was found possible by means of two Breakwaters extending from opposite sides of the Island (as shown in the accompanying Survey) to make a Haven of thirty-three acres, well screened against all northerly winds between the North-East and North-West and with good anchorage for lighters and the largest class of sampans, but unfortunately possessing no sloping shore upon which smaller sampans might haul up.
13. As upon the announcement of a typhoon the first anxiety and endeavour of the people inhabiting the smaller craft and constituting the larger proportion of the floating population is to land and haul up their boats out of harm's way, no plan can meet their requirements that does not carry with it as a first essential, adequate beaching facilities, and therefore owing to this want in the Kellett's Island Project, we are unable to recommend it whatever other merits it may possess.
14. Turning to the second site at Causeway Bay, which has also been subjected to a careful and detailed survey, we find a small natural harbour sheltered on three sides by the land, and capable of being closed in on the fourth by means of a Breakwater completing its protection from all points of the compass.