The Hong Kong Region
125
the inhabitants were less fortunate and had either to flee into the hills or stay to oppose or meet the pirates' demands. Walls were built or repaired, and a defence by desperate men of even these not very imposing defences might help to stave off an attack. Village refuges, into which cattle and livestock, valuables, women and children and old people were put, were also utilised. One of these places existed at Shek Pik, but was already in ruins by about 1900.1 Most villages kept arms and even cannon available for use up to 1899 and some of these remain to this day.2
Nonetheless, the villagers' position was pitiful in the event of attack, and their attitude towards pirates was probably too often similar to that recorded by Commander Vansittart of H.M.S. Bittern from the River Min in March, 1855:
+ miserably poor boats followed the Brig begging assistance; one Village sent me a well drawn up petition; another a present of waste paper and Joss-stick; fishermen, and passage boats, small Traders, all telling the same pitiable story; landing on Hootow, I was quickly surrounded by Peasantry; desiring the Interpreter to ask them why so many fine looking fellows permitted strangers to molest them; they declared it was useless to resist Pirates, and so whenever Pirates came the villagers hid themselves and cried.
This extract, quoted from Miss Fox's book,3 shows how Chinese on land and sea suffered at the hands of their less scrupulous fellow countrymen.
Things were no better on the sea at the end of the century. L. C. Arlington of the Chinese Maritime Customs, who spent six years 1893-1899 in charge of the Customs station at Cheung Chau, says;
'as well as other numerous islands forming the Ladrones, [it] was the rendezvous of pirates, who kept all of us on the qui vive, foreigners and natives alike. Gangs of pirates would get together and attack the villages, even in broad daylight, and after looting and killing, escape either to Macau or Hong Kong, where they disposed of their booty. The Customs Officers had many tussles and narrow escapes from these pests of the sea.
1 The elders told me about it after I had come across a reference to it as a place name in an old deed of sale of fields in the valley.
2 R. L. Ozorio, personal communication on the village armoury of Kak Tin, Shatin Valley, 1973. These arms were, of course, sometimes used against other villages.
3 Fox, p. 130.
THE HONG KONG REGION
125
the inhabitants were less fortunate and had either to flee into the hills or stay to oppose or meet the pirates' demands. Walls were built or repaired, and a defence by desperate men of even these not very imposing defences might help to stave off an attack. Village refuges, into which cattle and livestock, valuables, women and children and old people were put, were also utilised. One of these places existed at Shek Pik, but was already in ruins by about 1900.1 Most villages kept arms and even cannon available for use up to 1899 and some of these remain to this day.2
Nonetheless, the villagers' position was pitiful in the event of attack, and their attitude towards pirates was probably too often similar to that recorded by Commander Vansittart of H.M.S. Bittern from the River Min in March, 1855:
· +
miserably poor boats followed the Brig begging assistance; one Village sent me a well drawn up petition; another a present of waste paper and Joss-stick; fishermen, and passage boats, small Traders, all telling the same pitiable story; landing on Hootow, I was quickly surrounded by Peasantry; desiring the Interpreter to ask them why so many fine looking fellows per- mitted strangers to molest them; they declared it was useless to resist Pirates, and so whenever Pirates came the villagers hid themselves and cried.
This extract, quoted from Miss Fox's book,3 shows how Chinese on land and sea suffered at the hands of their less scrupulous fellow countrymen.
Things were no better on the sea at the end of the century. L. C. Arlington of the Chinese Maritime Customs, who spent six years 1893-1899 in charge of the Customs station at Cheung Chau, says;
'as well as other numerous islands forming the Ladrones, [it] was the rendezvous of pirates, who kept all of us on the qui vive, foreigners and natives alike. Gangs of pirates would get together and attack the villages, even in broad daylight, and after looting and killing, escape either to Macau or Hong Kong. where they disposed of their booty. The Customs Officers had many tussles and narrow escapes from these pests of the sea.
1 The elders told me about it after I had come across a reference to
it as a place name in an old deed of sale of fields in the valley.
2 R. L. Ozorio, personal communication on the village armoury of Kak Tin, Shatin Valley, 1973. These arms were, of course, sometimes used against other villages.
3 Fox, p. 130.
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