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ed. Nevertheless, quarrying has occasionally been attempted there since the locality came into British possession.
Chinese history states that, when the Sung Dy-
nasty was overturned by the invasion of the Mongols under
Kublai Khan, who subsequently seated himself on the throne of China (A.D. 1280), the last Emperor of the Sung Dynasty, then a young child, was driven with the Imperial Court to the South
of China and finally compelled to take refuge on board ship, when he continued his flight, accompanied by a small fleet. Coasting along from Foochov, past Amoy and Swatow, he passed (about 1278 A.D.) through the Ly-ee-moon into the waters of Hong-Kong. After a short stay on Kowloon Peninsula, he sailed westwards until he reached Ngaishan, at the mouth of the West River (South-west of Macao). But meanwhile the Mongols had taken possession of Canton and hastily organised a fleet with which they hemmed in the Imperial flotilla on all sides. The Prime Minister (Luk Sau-fu), seeing all was lost, took the youthful Emperor on his back, jumped into the sea (A.D.1279) and perished together with him.
Within a few months previous to this event, the Imperial Court had rested for a while in the little bay of Kowloon,called Matauchung. Tradition says that Kowloon city and the present hamlets of Matauchung and Matauwai were not in existence at the time, and that the Imperial troops were encamped for a time on the hill now marked by the inscription whilst the Court were lodged in a roughly constructed wooden
palace
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