Looked at from other than a military point of view, Hong Kong is an object‐lesson of our Empire that should fill the hearts of Imperialists with pardonable pride. A little more than half a century ago it was but a bleak and barren island, tenanted only by a few fisherfolk. It produced nothing, and animal life could scarce be supported on it. But now, touched by the magic wand of British trade, how wonderful is the transformation! A magnificent city, with stately buildings climbing in tier after tier from the sea. The most European town between Calcutta and San Francisco. The third, some say the second, largest shipping port in the world. The harbour to which turn the countless prows of British, American, German, French, Austrian, and Japanese vessels; where the vast current of the trade of the world with the Far East flows in, to issue forth again in an infinitude of smaller streams to every part of China and the Philippines.
Yet, though the barren hillsides are covered with houses, though a large population of white men and yellow inhabit it, and its harbour is crowded with shipping, the island itself is still as unproductive as ever. Not merely is mineral wealth unknown and manufactures practically nil, but Hong Kong cannot provide enough of foodstuffs to support its inhabitants for half a day. From Canton, almost a hundred miles away up the Pearl River, comes everything required to feed both Europeans and Chinese. Each morning the large, flat‐bottomed steamers that ply between the two cities carry down meat or cattle, fish, rice, vegetables of all kinds, fruit, even flowers; and were communications interrupted by storm or war for a few days, Hong Kong would starve. For neither the island nor the couple of hundred square miles of adjacent mainland, the Kowloon Hinterland, which we took over in 1898, could produce enough to feed one regiment; and although two months’ supply of provisions for the whole population, white and yellow, is supposed to be stored, it is never done. Therein lies Hong Kong’s great danger. Let Canton refuse or be prevented from feeding her, and she must starve.
The secret of her rapid rise and present greatness lies in the fact that she is the great mart, the distributing centre, whence European or American goods, arriving in large bottoms, are sent out again in small coasting steamers or junks to reach the smallest markets for Western commerce. And her prosperity will continue and be vastly increased if the long‐projected railway to Canton, to meet another tapping the great inland resources of China, is ever built; although the Americans fondly hope that Manilla under their energetic rule will one day rival and even excel her.
Hong Kong is an island of irregular shape, about nine miles in length and six miles broad in its widest portion, and consists of one long chain of hills, that rise almost perpendicularly from the sea. Scarcely the smallest spot of naturally level ground is to be found. Around are countless other islands, large and small, all equally mountainous. It lies close to the Chinese mainland, the Kau‐lung, or Kowloon Peninsula; and the portion of sea enclosed between them forms the harbour. At one extremity of the island this is a mile across; and at the other it narrows down to a strait known as the Lyeemoon Pass, only a quarter of a mile broad. In the centre the harbour is about two miles in width. The high hills of island and mainland—for the latter is but a series of broken, mountainous masses rising two or three thousand feet—shelter it from the awful typhoons that ravage the coast.
Approaching Hong Kong by steamer there lies before us a confused jumble of hills, which gradually resolve themselves into islands fronting the mountainous background of the mainland. All, without exception, spring up from the water’s edge in steep slopes, with never a yard of level ground save where an occasional tiny bay shows a small stretch of sparkling sandy beach. Granite cliffs carved into a thousand quaint designs, or honeycombed with caverns by the white‐fringed waves; steep grassy slopes, with scarcely a bush upon them, rising up to a conical peak; here and there a fisher’s hut, the only sign of human habitation—such are they almost all. At last one larger than the others. On the long ridge of the lofty summits of its hills the slated roofs and high walls of European buildings outlined against the sky, and we know that we are nearing Hong Kong. Swinging round a bluff shoulder of this island, we enter the land‐locked harbour. On the right the myriad houses climbing in terraces above each other from the water’s edge, long lines of stately buildings, the spires of churches come into view. It is the city of Victoria, or Hong Kong. The harbour, sheltered by the lofty hills of island and mainland, is crowded with shipping. The giant bulks of battleships and cruisers, the tall masts of sailing vessels, the gaily painted funnels of passenger and merchant steamers, the quaint sails and weird shapes of junks, the countless little sampans or native boats, a numerous flotilla of steam launches, rushing hither and thither. Ahead of us the hills of island and mainland approach each other until they almost touch, and tower up on either hand above the narrow channel of the Lyeemoon Pass. On the left a small, bush‐clad, conical isle, with a lighthouse—Green Island; another, long and straggling—Stonecutters’ Island, with the sharp outlines of forts and barracks and the ruins of an old convict prison.
Behind them the mainland. A small extent of comparatively level land covered with houses, the curving line of a pretty bay, low, pine‐clad hills. This is the very modern suburb of Kowloon, which has been created to take the overflow of European and Chinese population from Hong Kong. Here will be the terminus of the railway to Canton—when it is built. And behind, towering grim and dark to the sky, stands a long chain of barren mountains that guard the approach from the landward side. Behind them range upon range of other hills. Such is the Kowloon Peninsula.
Hong Kong, with the blue water of its harbour, the dark hills towering precipitously above the town, the walls of whose houses are gaily painted in bright colours, is one of the loveliest places on earth. After long days on board ship, where the eye tires of the interminable monotony of sea and sky, it seems doubly beautiful. And one marvels to find this English lodgment on the coast of China a city of stately buildings, of lofty clubs and many‐storied hotels, of magnificent offices and splendid shops, of well‐built barracks and princely villas.
The town of Victoria—for Hong Kong, though used for it, is really the name of the island—stretches for miles along the water’s edge, being for the most part built on reclaimed ground; for the hills thrust themselves forward to the sea. Up their steep sides the houses clamber in tier upon tier until they end under the frowning face of a rocky precipice that reaches up to the summit. And there along its ridge, which is called the Peak, 1,800 feet above the sea, are more houses. Large hotels, villas, and barracks—for it is fast becoming the residential quarter for Europeans—are perched upon its narrow breadth, seemingly absolutely inaccessible from below. But a thin, almost perpendicular, line against the face of the hill shows how they are reached by a cable tramway, which, in ten minutes, brings its passengers from the steamy atmosphere of Victoria to the cool breezes of the Peak—another climate altogether.
The city practically consists of one long street, which runs from end to end of the island and is several miles in length. On the steep landward side smaller streets run off at right angles and climb the hills, many of them in flights of steps. On the slopes above the town are one or two long roads parallel to the main street and consisting altogether of residential buildings, churches, convents, and schools.
But this main street—Queen’s Road as it is named—is wonderful. At the western extremity near Belcher’s Fort, the end of the island round which our steamer passed, it begins in two or three‐storied Chinese houses, the shops on the ground floor being under colonnades. Then come store and warehouses, offices, and small Chinese shops where gaudy garments and quaint forms of food are sold, interspersed with saloons, bars, and drinking‐shops of all kinds, which cater for merchant sailors, soldiers, and bluejackets of every nationality, the well‐paid American tars being most in evidence among their customers. Beyond this the Queen’s Road is lined with splendid European‐looking shops with extensive premises and large plate‐glass fronts, finer than many in Bond Street or Regent Street, though not as expensive. Some of them, mostly kept by Chinamen, sell Chinese or Japanese curios, silver‐work or embroideries, pottery or blackwood furniture. Others, generally, though not always, run by Europeans, are tailoring and millinery establishments, chemists, book or print shops. The side‐walks run under colonnades which afford a grateful shade. Here are found a few of the smaller hotels; and the magnificent caravanserai of the high Hong Kong hotel stretches from the harbour to the street. Then come some fine banks, the building of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation being a splendid piece of architecture. Opposite it a sloping road, with lovely fern‐clad banks and trees, leads upward to the cathedral and to Government House. Past the banks, a little back from the thoroughfare, is the fine City Hall, which contains a museum and a theatre, as well as large ball and concert rooms, in which most of the social gaieties of Hong Kong take place.