HAPPY VALLEY
The fever which decimated the white population who attempted to settle in the neighbourhood, we know to be due to the prevalence of Anopheles mosquitoes which bred freely in the paddy fields and associated irrigation works. The following account of the valley as it was two years after the British occupation is from an old chronicle, dated the end of 1843:
"At the eastern extremity of Victoria Bay is a considerable valley, shut up by mountains on every side, except towards the sea. It is laid out almost entirely in rice-grounds; and the waters of a natural stream, descending from the mountains at the end of the valley, have been diverted from their natural channel, and conducted by innumerable streamlets to every part of the valley, for the irrigation of the rice grounds. Several houses have been built upon the declivity of the hills around it, in the expectation that this would be the ultimate site of a second town, as soon as the very limited space between the mountains and the harbour, along the front of Victoria Bay, should be completely occupied, which it bids fair soon to become. The draining of this valley would essentially improve the condition of that important portion of the island. A good road has already been nearly completed across the valley, and over the mountains to the other side of the island, leading down to Tytan Bay, and the important village of Chek Chu" (later named Stanley).
Page 353
The draining has since been accomplished, but for several years the valley remained little more than a Chinese rice-growing area, and when the Government in the Forties was required to assign permanent burial grounds to the non-Chinese inhabitants, it selected Happy Valley as the appropriate place, and thus it remains the location of the Colony's principal cemeteries, the very name of "happy" most probably having originally been given to it for this reason.
Later came the drainage and disappearance of the rice fields, followed by the construction of the race-course. We read in the old chronicles that Wongneichong Valley was drained, and a road constructed round it in 1845, and we know that in 1846 racing had commenced on what must have been the newly constructed course.
The stream (formed by at least two feeders draining Mount Nicholson and Jardine's Lookout, as well as the overflow from Mount Violet through the Wongneichong Gap reservoir), is a perennial one, and has given its romantic name to the old pathway, which only within the past few months has been officially named Blue Pool Road, and which follows the line of the oldest suburban roadway in the island, referred to in the paragraph quoted above.
It may be recalled that Sir Cecil Clementi, who was Governor of Hong Kong at the time, referred in 1929 to the fact that, in the great drought through which the Colony had passed, when most of the streams dried up, this one at the back of Wongneichong had kept up a supply of the previous fluid.
2.
HAPPY VALLEY
The fever which decimated the white population who attempted to settle in the neighbourhood, we know to be due to the prevalence of Anopheles mosquitoes which bred freely in the paddy fields and associated irrigation works. The following account of the valley as it was two years after the British occupation is from an old chronicle, dated the end of 1843:
"At the eastern extremity of Victoria Bay ia a
considerable valley, shut up by mountains on every side, except towards the sea. It is laid up almost entirely in rice-grounds; and the waters of a natural stream, descending from the mountains at the end of the valley, have been diverted from their natural channel, and conducted by innumerable stream- lets to every part of the valley, for the irrigation of the rice grounds. Several houses have been built upon the declivity of the hills around it, in the expectation that this would be the ultimate site of a second town, as soon as the very limited space between the mountains and the harbour, along the front of Victoria Bay, should be completely occupied, which it bids fair soon to become. The draining of this valley would essentially improve the condition of that important portion of the island. A good road has already been nearly completed across the valley, and over the mountains to the other side of the island, leading down to Tytan Bay, and the important village of Chek Chu" (later named Stanley).
353
The draining has since been accomplished, but for several years the valley remained little more than a Chinese rice growing area, and when the Government in the Forties was required to assign permanent burial grounds to the non- Chinese inhabitants, it selected Happy Valley as the appropriate place, and thus is remains the location of the Colony's principal cemeteries, the very name of "happy, most probably, having originally been given to it for this
reason.
"}
Later came the drainage and disappearance of the rice fields, followed by the construction of the race-course. We read in the old chronicles that Wongneichong Valley was drained, and a road constructed round it in 1845, and we know that in 1846 racing had commenced on what must have been the newly-constructed course.
The stream (formed by at least two feeders draining Mount Nicholson and Jardine's Lookout, as well as the overflow from Mount Violet through the Wongneichong Gap reservoir), is a perennial one, and has given its romantic name to the old pathway, which only within the past few months has been officially named Blue Pool Road, and which follows the line of the oldest suburban roadway in the island, referred to in the paragraph quoted above.
It may be recalled that Sir Cecil Clemanti, who was Governor of Hong Kong at the time, referred in 1929 to the fact that, in the great drought through which the Colony had passed, when most of the streams dried up, this one at the back of Wongneichong had kept up a supply of the previous fluid.
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