Here occurs the one break in the long line of the Queen’s Road. On the seaward side, fenced in by railings, lies the cricket‐ground with its pretty pavilion. Between it and the harbour stands the splendid structure of the Hong Kong Club, a magnificent four‐storied building. Few clubs east of Pall Mall can rival its palatial accommodation. From the ground‐floor, where billiard‐rooms and a large bowling alley are found, a splendid staircase, dividing into two wings, leads to a magnificent central hall on the first floor. Off this is a large reading‐room, where a great number of British, American, and Continental journals are kept. Electric fans, revolving from the ceiling, cool the room in the damp, hot days of the long and unpleasant summer. On the same floor are the secretary’s offices, a luxurious public dressing‐room, and a large bar, which opens on to a wide verandah overlooking the harbour. From it one can gaze over the water, crowded with shipping, to the rugged hills of the mainland. In front lie the warships of many nations. Close inshore is a small fleet of sampans crowded together, their crews, male and female, chattering volubly or screaming recriminations from boat to boat. From a tiny pier near the Club the steam pinnace of an American man‐o’‐war shoots out into the stream, passing a couple of gigs from British warships conveying officers in mufti ashore.
On the next floor are the dining‐rooms and a splendid library. Above these again are the members’ bedrooms, bath and dressing rooms. Altogether, internally and externally, the Club is worthy to rank with almost any similar institution in the Empire.
On Queen’s Road, facing the cricket‐ground, is a small, square open space below the cathedral, raised above the level of the street, as the ground slopes upward. It is known as the Garrison Brigade Parade Ground. During the recent campaign it was used as the store‐ground of the Indian Commissariat, where huge mat‐sheds covered enormous piles of supplies for the troops in China. Here the hard‐worked base commissariat officer, Major Williams, watched the vast stores arriving daily from India, and despatched the supplies for the army in the North and the Indian brigades at Shanghai and Kowloon. Beside the parade ground a road climbs the hill and passes the station for the cable tramway, which is but a short distance up.
Beyond this one gap in its continuous fencing of houses the Queen’s Road runs on past the Naval Dockyard—where Commodore Sir Francis Powell, K.C.M.G., had such heavy labour all through the troublous time in China—and the Provost Prison on the seaward side, and the barracks of the British troops and the arsenal on the other. Then the military hospital and the ordnance yards, crowded with guns, from the twelve‐inch naval monsters to the stubby howitzers or long six‐inch on field‐carriages. Then more barracks. Then it runs on again into Chinese shops, their upper stories used as boarding‐houses for Celestials; and, turning down to the harbour and following the shore line, it is bordered with coal‐yards, godowns, and warehouses. Near this end are the two open spaces of the island, where the hills, retreating from the sea, have left valleys which the sport‐loving Britisher has seized upon for recreation grounds. The first and larger one, known as the Happy Valley, is a lovely spot. All around the tree‐clad hills ring it in, rising precipitously from its level stretch on which is a racecourse, its centre portion being devoted to other games. A fine grand stand is flanked by a block of red‐brick buildings, the lower stories of which are used during race meetings as stables for the horses and ponies running. The upper, with open fronts looking out on the course, are used as luncheon rooms, where the regimental messes, the members of the clubs, and large hongs (or merchant firms) and private residents entertain their friends during the meetings. Surely no other racecourse in the world is set in such lovely scenery as this in its arena, surrounded by the mountains that tower above it on every side. And that a memento mori may not be wanting in the midst of gaiety, just behind the grand stand lie the cemeteries—Christian, Mussulman, Hindu, and Parsee. Up the sides of the steep hills the white crosses and tombstones gleam amongst the dark foliage of the trees; and the spirits of the dead can look down from their graves upon the scene of former pleasures.
A little farther on is another and smaller valley used as a polo ground. Previous to the advent of the Indian troops in 1900 the game was played here almost exclusively on Chinese ponies. But the Arabs used by the officers of the 22nd Bombay Infantry, by that excellent sportsman, H. H. Major, the Maharajah of Bikanir, and other members of the China expeditionary force, so completely outclassed the diminutive Chinese ponies that a revolution was caused in the class of animals required for the game. Small Walers from Australia and Arabs from India have been freely introduced, much to the benefit of polo in Hong Kong.
At the polo ground the city ends at present; though every day its limits are extending. From here the road runs along close to the sea, protected from the waves by a wall, and clinging to the flanks of the hills. It passes an occasional row of Chinese‐occupied houses, a lone hotel or two, the site of the immense new docks in process of construction, large sugar works, with a colony of houses for its employees, and an overhead wire tramway leading to their sanatorium on the high peak above, until it reaches the Lyeemoon Pass. Here the hills narrow in and press down to the sea, thrusting themselves forward to meet the hills of the mainland on the other side. A strait, only a quarter of a mile broad, separates them; and here on either hand, high above the water, stand modern and well‐armed forts, which, with a Brennan torpedo, effectually close the narrow entrance of the harbour to any hostile ships that venture to force a passage.
Thus ends the northern and more important side of the island. On the southern and ocean‐ward shore lie the ill‐fated and practically deserted towns of Stanley and Aberdeen, where many years ago the British troops garrisoning them were so decimated by fever and disease that this side of the island was abandoned, and Victoria has become practically Hong Kong.
The Peak is altogether another world from the city that lies in the steamy atmosphere below. Let us ascend in one of the trams that are dragged up to the summit by the wire cables. Seated in the car, we are drawn up rapidly at a weird and uncomfortable angle; for the slope of the line is, in places, 1 in 2. Up the steep sides of the hill we go, feeling a curious sensation as we are tilted back on the benches and see the trees and houses on each side all leaning over at an absurd angle. Even such a respectable structure as a church seems to be lying back towards the hillside in a tipsy and undignified manner. This curious optical effect is caused by the inclined position of the roof and floor, as well as of the passengers, with the horizontal. We pass over a bridge across a pretty road lined with stone villas, by large and well‐built houses that grow fewer and fewer as we mount upward. Here and there we stop at a small platform representing a station, where passengers come on or leave the tram. The down car passes us with a rush. The long ridge of the Peak, crowned with houses, comes into view. Turning round in our slanting seats we look down on the rapidly diminishing city and the harbour, now a thousand feet below us. At last we reach the summit and step out on a platform with waiting‐rooms, the terminus of the line. Now we see how the wire cable runs on over pulleys into the engine‐house and is wound round the huge iron drums.
As we stand on the platform there towers above us, on the left, a large and many‐windowed hotel, the Mount Austin. Along the fronts of its three stories run verandahs with arched colonnades. This is a favourite place of resort for visitors; and many residents, unwilling to face the troubles of house‐keeping, take up their permanent abode here.