Once the British held exclusive title to the foggy heights; in the days before auto roads were built to the top, they chartered the Peak Tram to carry their party guests to its upper end, where they were met by sedan chairs which took them the rest of the way. Now Chinese millionaires share the majesty and the mist of the Peak, and there are tall apartment buildings for more exalted government employees and prosperous civilians.
To tourists and Taipans, the heights of Victoria Peak offer a matchless view of the harbor. The distant deep-blue water crinkles in the wind as the sun glints on its surface. Dozens of ferryboats point their arrowhead wakes at Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, or head outward for the coasts and islands of the New Territories. An American aircraft carrier rides at anchor off Wanchai with its escort vessels near at hand.
West of Kowloon Peninsula, a triple line of cargo ships turn lazily around their anchor buoys; each one having enough room to make a full circle without touching another ship. Six rows of junks and sampans, each row lashed to the sides of a freighter while they transfer its cargo, move in unison with the freighter’s slow swing, looking like a gargantuan, improvised raft. Unattached junks duck in and out, anywhere and everywhere, clearly with the special blessings of T’ien Hou, for they rarely collide.
North of the harbor, beyond the wedge-shaped outline of Kowloon, past the Kai Tak airstrip that cuts through Kowloon Bay like the white streak of a torpedo, is Hong Kong’s “Great Wall”—a line of hills that looms jagged and forbidding across the southern fringe of the New Territories. These are the “nine dragons” from which Kowloon got its name, but they are difficult to single out, except for unmistakable ones like Lion Rock and Kowloon Peak, because they are so tightly packed together.
Even Ti Ping, the Sung Emperor who was prodded into naming them the Nine Dragons, complained that he could find only eight, until an obliging courtier reminded him that the dragon is the symbol of the Emperor, thus making him the ninth peak. Ti Ping, quite young at the time, was placated by this rationalization.
Due west of Victoria Peak, small islands string out like steppingstones until the eye stops at the ridge-backed mass of Lantau, largest island in the colony and nearly twice the size of Hong Kong Island. Some of the defeated followers of Ti Ping are reported to have settled there after the death of their Emperor, but until a few years ago it was a barren and remote isle, inhabited only by a few thousand farmers and fishermen and a few monasteries.
Halfway down the western slope of Victoria Peak, a small mound of earth thrusts itself against the mountainside. Dong Kingman, the Chinese-American watercolorist who grew up in the crowded tenements at the foot of the Peak, recalls that he and his young friends used to watch that mound with considerable apprehension. From where they stood, it looked exactly like a turtle climbing the mountain. The Chinese consider it to be a real turtle, and believe that when the turtle reaches the summit of the Peak, Hong Kong will sink into the sea. Dong and his fellow-watchers made regular checks to see that the turtle hadn’t stolen an overnight march on them.
The most beautiful side of Hong Kong Island lies to the south and east of Victoria Peak, with forested hillsides and a green valley that slopes down to Pok Fu Lam, the colony’s first reservoir. Lamma Island, a favorite digging ground for colony archaeologists, looms large to the south.
When visitors grow squint-eyed from the panoramic view, they often wind up their excursion by stopping at the little restaurant near the Peak Tram terminus to eat a sandwich or some Chinese small cakes. Spirits revived, they linger on the breezy terrace to watch the sun go down beyond Lantau.