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years. It has, therefore, been necessary to base an estimate of the population on inquiries made from the inhabitants of the villages and on personal inspection of the villages themselves. With these as guides it is estimated that the population of the new territory, including the Sham Chun and Shat'au Kok divisions, and allowing 5,000 for that portion of the Shat'au division, which will most probably be included in the new area, amounts in round figures to one hundred thousand (100,000).
Map VI., giving the population and divisions of the area to be leased, shows how this population is spread over the mainland and islands.
The population is contained a six main divisions, inhabiting 423 villages. These villages vary in population from 10 to 5,000 persons.
The eastern portion of the district, being more mountainous and less fertile, is not so thickly populated as the western portion. The Un Long Tung, or the division in- cluding the fertile valleys and plains of Pat Heung and Shap Pat Heung, is the most populous, its population, amounting to 23,020, being distributed among 59 villages. The Sheung Ü Tung or western division, though much larger in area than the Un Long division, contains a population of only 20,870, distributed among no fewer than 182 villages.
The total area of the territory to be leased being 376 square miles, the population is about 266 persons to the square mile. Though by no means at present thickly populated, it is anticipated that when the new territory comes under British occupation its population will rapidly increase.
VILLAGES.*
The total number of villages amounts to 423. The houses in these villages are, as a rule, well and solidly built. The foundations and lower courses of their walls are, in many cases, of granite masonry, the upper courses being made of blue or of sun-dried bricks. The door posts and lintels are of dressed granite slabs with tiled roofs on rafters made of China fir. The floors are generally concreted, and frequently paved with red brick or with granite. Well built and handsomely decorated temples exist in all the important villages, and in many places large and expensively constructed build- ings, in which the ancestral tablets are kept, were seen.
As usual in China the streets are narrow and paved with large slabs of stone. Such drainage as exists is on the surface, underground drains never being used in Chinese villages.
There are several walled villagest in the territory, which are invariably inhabited by the members of one clan only. They are rectangular or square in shape, and are enclosed within brick walls about 16 feet in height, flanked by square towers, and surrounded by a moat some 40 feet in width. They have one entrance, protected with iron gates.
Within the walls, houses of the usual type are found, built with great regularity. There is one main street from either side of which small lanes branch off in parallel rows. The object of these villages being walled is to afford the inhabitants greater security in case of attack, and to place them in a stronger position of defence in the event of clan feuds, which were formerly very common, and are still not infre- quent. In one of the villages visited was found a temple specially dedicated to the memory of those members of the clan who had fallen in the fights against a neighbouring village. The feud between these two villages, the inhabitants of which are descended from a common ancestor and possess the same surname, extended over many years, during which great numbers were killed. Peace has now been restored, and we had the pleasure of being entertained at the same table by the heads of the two villages which were so long at enmity with each other.
Those who are able to express an opinion on the subject state that the villages in the territory compare favourably with those of Southern India and Ceylon.
Appendix 5 contains a list of the name and population of each village in the area to be leased.
INHABITANTS.
The inhabitants are composed of three races of Chinese, the Puntis, the Hakkas, and the Tankas.
* See Photographs, Album I., Nos. 1, 4, 6, 11, 13, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 27, 30.
"
II., 6, 7, 8, 15, 19, 21, 22.
† See Photographs, Album I., No. 25.
II., No. 8.
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