Directory_and_Chronicle_1925 — Page 1061

HOIHOW (IN HAINAN)

州瓊 Kiung-chau 口海 Hoi-hau

Hoihow is the seaport of the prefectural city of Kiungchow, the capital of the Island of Hainan. The two towns are separated by a distance of some three miles of low hills dotted with graves; and across these lies a semi-macadamised road. This highway was originally constructed by the Kiungchow Horse Carriage Co. in 1915, and was considerably improved by General Lung Chi-kwang during his rule over Hainan in the middle of 1918. At the present time it serves the purpose, also, of two or three decrepit Ford cars, which the Carriage Co. utilise as well as their plucky little underfed and overworked ponies.

The

The port of Hoihow was opened by the establishment of a branch of the Chinese Maritime Customs in April, 1876. During the latter nine months of that year foreign tonnage to the extent of 36,672 tons entered and cleared at the Custom House, this representing 54 British, 10 German, 2 French and 4 Danish steamers that entered from, and cleared for, Singapore, Bangkok, Saigon, Annam, Hongkong, etc. situation of the port of Hoihow before and at its opening in 1876 was considered favourable more from the political than the geographical or topographical point of view. The Foreign Consuls at Hoihow were in close touch with the Taotai at Kiung- chow, and thus, as may be seen at so many of the Treaty Ports on the mainland of China, trade interests were sacrificed to save the amour propre of one or two individuals, There is no doubt that had a port, such as Chinglan, been chosen on the east coast. many a total wreck upon the dangerous sandbanks in the Straits of Hainan would not have occurred. Moreover, such a port would be in the centre of the produce-bearing districts, which Hoihow most emphatically is not.

The harbour of Hoihow is an open roadstead, unprotected against the North-east monsoon, which blows here with undisturbed vigour from September to April. The working of cargo is, therefore, normally difficult during those months, and at times im- possible. In addition to the above disadvantages those months are also the dry months when no rain falls up-country, and consequently no water comes down by the Po Chung River to the sea. Again, the tides are more erratic in the winter than they are in the summer: sometimes there are two tides during the 24 hours, sometimes one, and sometimes none. Cargo then, having heen loaded with difficulty into a cargo- boat alongside the importing steamer, has to face a stormy passage of two to three miles to the spit, which runs parallel to the town of Hoihow and a mile distant from it. Once at the spit the cargo-boat may be able to pole up the two miles of shallow muddy water which separates it from Hoihow-to sail is impossible, as the wind is always dead ahead-or may have to wait for hours until there is sufficient water, a few feet only, to enable it to continue its drawn-out voyage from ship to shore.

As regards health, there is less fever in Hoihow than anywhereelse in Hainan. There is excellent water to be had by the sinking of artesian wells, but so far few for- eigners have had sufficient energy to do this, owing to damage from typhoons, and prefer to follow the old method of sending a woman with a couple of buckets to fetch pure drinking water, at a long distance, from a well, the contents of which are kept pure by the innumerable little fish that dart hither and thither across its stoneflagged bottom. The water in the actual wells at Hoihow is brackish, partly from seawater that filters into the wells and partly from the alkiline condition of the soil.

The trade of Hoihow remains more or less stationary. The native commercial com- munity of Hoihow is one that is always being drawn in different directions by op- posing interests. There is a Chamber of Commerce, which works in conjunction with the Five Guilds, representing the merchants of Canton, Swatow, Kochow, Fuh- kien and Hainan.

No foreign settlement has been formed at Hoihow for the very excellent reason that there is no space for such a settlement, unless the foreigners concerned were to see their way to disburse large sums of money in reclaiming the swamp on the verge of which the town of Hoihow stands. From Hoihow itself a tongue of dry land, known as the Tê Shêng Sha, or Victory Spit, runs westward for a distance of about a mile until it loses itself in the morass which there encompasses it on three sides. This strip of dry land is very narrow and has been entirely taken up. The consequence is that any future development, if any, must be out into the marshy ground that borders the Victory Spit.