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Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
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73. There must be some still living who saw the island before the British occupation. If one of them, having been absent during the whole interval, were now to return, even the extremely salient and beautiful features of the natural landscape would scarcely enable him to identify with the Hong Kong of to-day what he would remember as a bare rock, with a fisherman's hut here and there as the only sign of habitation, and a great sea-basin only very rarely disturbed by a passing keel.
74. For now he would see a city of closely-built houses stretching for some four miles along the island shore, and rising, tier over tier, up the slopes of the mountain, those on the upper levels interspersed with abundant foliage; while on the opposite peninsula of Kowloon, which was (until very recently) an uninhabited waste of undulating red rock, he would now see, in the distance, prevalent verdure, in the foreground and along the whole sea-board numerous houses, together with docks,* great warehouses, and other evidence of a large and thriving population. Again, the silent and deserted basin has become a harbour so covered with shipping† that, even if he has been round the whole world, he could never before have seen so much in a single coup d'œil. At anchor or moving are some 40 to 50 ocean steamers, including ships of war, large European and American sailing vessels, and hundreds of sea-going junks; while in the space intervening and around are many thousand boats, for the most part human habitations, with steam-launches rushing in all directions.
75. Going ashore, our visitor would see long lines of quays and wharves, large warehouses teeming with merchandise, shops stocked with all the luxuries as well as the needs of two civilisations; in the European quarter a fine town hall, stately banks, and other large buildings of stone; in the Chinese quarters houses, constructed after a pattern peculiar to China, of almost equally solid materials, but packed so closely together and thronged so densely as to be in this respect probably without parallel in the world;§ and finally he would see streets stretching for miles abounding with
* There are several docks, one of them a dry dock constructed entirely of granite, which can take in the largest vessels now afloat in the world, except perhaps the two recently built for the White Star Line. In the Kowloon warehouses of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Wharf and Godown Company, all in immediate contiguity, and for the most part under one roof, may be seen at any time merchandise worth over half a million sterling.
†The tonnage return of Hong Kong shows it to be the third port of the British Empire, and therefore (with the possible exception of New York, of which I have no statistics) the third in the world. The aggregate burthen of shipping is greater than that of all the British possessions on the Continent of America, or than that of the four leading Colonies of Australia.
Apart from those belonging to British and Foreign War Ships, there are 98 steam-launches in the harbour.
§ It is believed that over 100,000 people live within a certain district of the city of Victoria not exceeding half a square mile in area. It is known that 1,600 people live in the space of a single acre.
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Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
PAPERS RELATING TO
73. There must be some still living who saw the island before the British occupation. If one of them, having been absent during the whole interval, were now to return, even the extremely salient and beautiful features of the natural landscape would scarcely enable him to identify with the Hong Kong of to-day what he would remember as a bare rock, with a fisherman's hut here and there as the only sign of habitation, and a great sea-basin only very rarely disturbed by a passing keel.
74. For now he would see a city of closely-built houses stretching for some four miles along the island shore, and rising, tier over tier, up the slopes of the mountain, those on the upper levels interspersed with abundant foliage; while on the opposite peninsula of Kowloon, which
which was (until very recently) an uninhabited waste of undulating red rock, he would now see, in the distance, prevalent verdure, in the foreground and along the whole sea-board numerous houses, together with docks,* great warehouses, and other evidence of a large and thriving population. Again, the silent and deserted basin has become a harbour so *covered with shipping† that, even if he has been round the whole world, he could never before have seen so much in a single coup d'œil. At anchor or moving are some 40 to 50 ocean steamers, including ships of war, large European and American sailing vessels, and hundreds of sea-going junks; while in the space intervening and around are many thousand boats, for the inost part human habitations, with steam-launches rushing in all directions.
75. Going ashore, our visitor would see long lines of quays and wharves, large warehouses teeming with merchandise, shops stocked with all the luxuries as well as the needs of two civilisations; in the European quarter a fine town hall, stately banks, and other large buildings of stone; in the Chinese quarters houses, con- structed after a pattern peculiar to China, of almost equally solid materials, but packed so closely together and thronged so densely as to be in this respect probably without parallel in the world ;§ and finally he would see streets stretching for miles abounding with
* There are several docks, one of them a dry dock constructed entirely of granite, which can take in the largest vessels now afloat in, the world, except perhaps the two recently built for the White Star Line. In the Kowloon warehouses of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Wharf and Godown Company, all in immediate contiguity, and for the most part under one roof, may be seen at any time merchandise worth over half a million sterling.
†The tonnage return of Hong Kong shows it to be the third port of the British Empire, and therefore (with the possible exception of New York, of which I have no statistics) the third in the world. The aggregate burthen of shipping is greater thau that of all the British possessions on the Continent of America, or than that of the four leading Colonics of Australia.
Apart from those belonging to British and Foreign War Ships, there are 98 stcam-launchos in the harbour.
§ It is believed that over 100,000 people live within a certain district of the city of Victoria not exceeding half a square mile in area. It is known that 1,600 people live in the space of a single acre.
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