Directory_and_Chronicle_1935 — Page 919

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HONGKONG

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Peak. From there a road leads down to the West 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 area of about 900 feet above the sea. There is also a road from Victoria Gap down to Pokfulum and Aberdeen.

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A second road to the Peak district was completed in 1922. Starting from Morrison Hill Road, it runs from Happy Valley and traverses the face of the hills to Wanchai Gap and Magazine Gap to the south of the cemetery. From Wanchai Gap. also, it has been continued, along the southern face of the hills, to the Peak. It has an easy gradient and was constructed for motor, traffic. A branch of it runs in an opposite direction to Wong-Nei-Cheong Gap and along the South side of the hills until it joins the motor road which en- circles the island. Houses are springing up rapidly along the road, and, adjacent to it...

Magazine Gap is also approached from the lower levels by an excellent and well-graded road, commencing on the Bowen Road, which is now a motor road as far as May road.

THE RURAL DISTRICTS.

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There are several villages on the island, the largest of which is Shau-ki Wan, situate in a bay in the Ly-ee-mun Pass, a centre for Chinese fishing craft. Aberdeen, known to the Chinese as Shek-pai-wan, on the south of the island, possesses a well sheltered little harbour, also much frequented by fishing craft. Two large docks of the Hongkong and Whampoa Dock Company are situated there. Pokfolum, on the road to Aberdeen, about four miles from Victoria, is also a residential district and many residences have been erected in pleasant and picturesque situations, commanding fine sea views and cool breezes, but for some years after the development of the Peak district Pok- fulum remained comparatively neglected,' when the difficulty of finding addi tional sites on the higher levels again brought it into notice. The sanitorium of the French Missions is located at Pokfulum, and is a fine building with an elegant chapel attached. The Dairy Farm is also situated there. Some distance beyond Aberdeen are two excellent bathing beaches known as Deep Water Bay (where there is a 9-hole golf-course and club-house) and Repulse Bay (where a popular hotel has been erected by the Hongkong-Shanghai Hotels Co., Ltd.). Wong-Nei-cheong is located at the head of the valley of that name.

A motor-road has been constructed from the Morrison Hill district via Wanchai Gap to Wong-Nei-cheong Gap and to the Peak, and a tramway was considered for the purpose of rendering building sites in the Mt. Cameron district accessible to residents. Stanley, situated in a small bay on the south- east of the island, was once the site of a military station, but the barrack buildings have been pulled down, and the village is now stationary. A modern school named St. Stephen's College has been erected nearby. A cemetery on the point contains numerous graves of British officers and soldiers. There is an excellent motor road round the Island by way of Pokfolum, Aberdeen, Stanley, Tytam and Shaukiwan. This was commended as a memorial of the Jubilee of Queen Victoria and completed at the end of 1919. Saiwan is a small village picturesquely situated in Saiwan Bay, just outside the Ly-ee- mun Pass, and is much frequented by picnic parties. In the belief that it was a healthy locality, small barracks were erected: there early in the forties, but the experiment proved most disastrous, for in five weeks out of a detach- ment of 20 English soldiers five died and three more were removed in a dan gerous condition. The buildings were therefore soon abandoned. Shek O is a small but prettily-located village occupying a small valley shut in from the water on the eastern coast, not far from Cape D'Aguilar. This district is being developed as a European summer resort and a Country Club has been established. Near here a wireless station has been erected.

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