Directory_and_Chronicle_1927 — Page 997

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HONGKONG

hours 40 minutes. Founded on a solid rock bottom, it has been built of cement concrete and lined with granite throughout. A feature of the dock is the caisson, of the box-sliding type, weighing 400 tons and electrically controlled.

There are three slipways. No 1 slipway is 1,030 feet long and 80 feet wide, capable of taking up steamers 325 feet long, drawing 18 feet, and having a displacement of 3,000 tons. The other slipways are each 993 feet long by 60 feet wide, capable of taking steamers 300 feet long, drawing 17 feet, of 2,000 tons displacement. The building yard is 550 feet long, and 500 feet wide, and has been equipped with a view to the construction of passenger and cargo vessels, turbine steamers, steam yachts, torpedo-destroyers, steam launches, tugs and lighters. The engine shops are most extensive and complete, capable of undertaking the building of all classes of steam engines, including geared turbines. The establishment throughout has been fitted with the latest time-saving appliances procurable. The chief motive power is electricity, generated by gas engines, the gas- producing plant being the largest installed in the Far East. The electric shears situated on the sea wall lift 100 tons at a radius of 70 feet, and wagon and crane roads run the full length from end to end. This sea wall which forms the boundary of the yard is 3,200 feet long and built of concrete blocks of an average weight of 15 tons. There is a depth of 39 feet at high water Spring tides for the greater length of the wall, which will enable ships of any size to berth alongside for the removal or fitting of heavy boilers, machinery, etc. The establishment is known as that of the Taikoo Dockyard and Engineering Co., Ltd., of Hongkong. His Majesty's Naval Yard likewise contains machine sheds and fitting shops on a large scale, and repairs can be effected to the machinery of the British men-of-war with great expedition. A large extension of the Naval Yard, including an important reclamation on the foreshore, the construction of a large dock, and erection of various workshops was completed in 1909.

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THE PEAK DISTRICT

A well-made but rather badly-graded mountain road leads up from the centre of the city to the summit of Victoria Peak, with numerous other paths branching off from it at Victoria Gap along the adjoining hills. A tramway, on the wire rope system, runs to the Victoria Gap, the lower terminus being close to St. John's Cathedral. It was opened to traffic on the 30th May, 1888. Passengers can alight at the Kennedy, Bowen, May, and Plantation Roads, where stations are provided for their accommodation. The Military acquired the commodious Mount Austin Hotel at Victoria Gap for the purpose of a sanatorium in 1897. The Peak Club is domiciled in a neat building at Plunkett Gap near the point of junction with Chamber- lain Road and Mount Kellett road. It was erected in 1902 and enlarged in 1912 by the addition of a second storey. The Peak Church, an unpretending structure after the similitude of a jelly mould, was opened for worship in June, 1883. Extensive accom- modation for visitors is afforded at the Peak Hotel. The Peak Hospital is situated at Victoria Gap, just above the Peak Hotel. The Victoria (Jubilee) Hospital for Women and Children, occupying a breezy site on Barker Road, was opened by Sir Henry Blake on November 7th, 1903, partly as the result of public subscription. A new block was added to it in 1923. Yet another hospital, named "The Matilda Hospital," is situated at the southern corner of Mount Kellett. It was built at a cost of about $350,000 and opened in 1906. The expense of erection and maintenance are borne by the estate of the late Mr. Granville Sharp, who devoted the bulk of his fortune to provide such an institution for the benefit of persons needing it who are of European or American birth.

The road from Victoria Gap westward leads to Victoria Peak, which is 1,823 feet above the sea and rises almost abruptly behind the centre of the city of Victoria, On the summit is placed the flagstaff, from which the approach of the mails and other vessels is signalled. Not far from the summit of the Peak, on a most command- ing site, stands Mountain Lodge, the summer residence of H.E. the Governor, which was erected in 1901. Another road westward from Victoria Gap and known as Lugard Road was completed in 1920, and, with Harlech Road, encircles Victoria Peak. From there a road leads down to the West end of the City. Another road in a directly opposite direction leads from Victoria Gap to Magazine Gap, where a second hill village of foreign residences has been formed on the southern side of the hills at an elevation of about 900 feet above the sea. There is also a path from Victoria Gap down to Pokfolum and Aberdeen, and at the side of this, about half a mile from the Gap, a small granite cross has been erected. This bears the inscription:-"W. W. H., 1869" and marks the scene of a brutal murder there by a Chinese footpad, the victim being

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