Outside the station is a line of waiting coolies, ready to convey passengers in their open cane sedan chairs with removable hoods. A Sikh policeman standing close by keeps them in order and cuts short their frequent squabbles. The road and paths, which are cemented and provided with well‐made drains running alongside to carry off the torrential rains of the summer and thus prevent the roadway from being washed away, are too steep in their ascents and descents to make the ricksha—Hong Kong’s favourite vehicle—useful up here.
Standing on the narrow ridge of the Peak, we can look down upon the sea on either hand. A wonderful view unfolds itself to our gaze. On the northern side the city of Victoria lies almost straight below us, its streets and roofs forming a chessboard‐pattern. We can easily trace the long, sinuous line of the Queen’s Road. From this height the largest battleships and mail steamers in the harbour look no bigger than walnuts. Beyond, the suburb of Kowloon lies in sharp lines and tiny squares; and behind it rise up the hills of the mainland, dwarfed in size. Now we can see plainly the interminable ranges of mountains—chain after chain—of the Kowloon Peninsula, with the lofty peaks of Tai‐mo‐shan and Tai‐u‐shan over 3,000 feet high. The coastline is straggling and indented with numerous bays, the shores rising up in steep, grassy slopes to the hills or presenting a line of rocky cliffs to the waves. Here and there pretty cultivated valleys run back from the sea to the never‐far‐distant mountains.
Turning round, we look down the grass‐clad slopes of the south side of the island to tiny, sandy bays and out over the broad expanse of the sea, in which lie many large and small islands. Over a hundred can be counted from the elevation of the Peak. Close by, to the west, is the largest of them all—the barren and treeless Lantau, which was once nearly chosen instead of Hong Kong as the site of the British settlement. Below us, on the southern shore of our island, lie the practically abandoned towns of Stanley and Aberdeen.
Along the ridge the road passes by large and well‐built villas, barracks, the Peak Club, a church, and many boarding‐houses. The European inhabitants of Hong Kong are rapidly abandoning the lower levels and taking up their residence here, where the climate, with its cool and refreshing breezes, is delightful in the long summer when Victoria swelters in tropical heat. During the rainy season, however, the Peak is continually shrouded in damp mists; and fires are required to keep rooms and spare garments dry. The saying in Hong Kong is: “If you live on the Peak your clothes rot; if in Victoria you do. Choose which you value more and take up your habitation accordingly.”
The cable tramway is a comparatively recent institution; so that when the houses on the summit were being built all the materials had to be carried by coolies up a steep, zigzagging road from below. Even now most of the supplies for the dwellers on the heights are brought up in the same primitive and laborious fashion. In the morning the trams are crowded with European merchants, bankers, solicitors and their clerks, descending to their offices in the city. In the afternoon they are filled with the gay butterflies of society going up or down to pay calls, shop, or play tennis and croquet at the Ladies’ Recreation Ground, half‐way between the Peak and Victoria. The red coats of British soldiers are seen in the cars after parade hours or at night, when they are hurrying back to barracks before tattoo.
The harbour of Hong Kong is remarkable for the large “floating population” of Chinese, who live in sampans and seldom go ashore except to purchase provisions. Their boats are small, generally not twenty feet in length, with a single mast, decked, and provided with a small well, covered with a hood, where passengers sit. Under the planking of the deck, in a tiny space without ventilation, with only room to lie prone, the crew—consisting, perhaps, of a dozen men, women, and children—sleep. Their cooking is done with a brazier or wood fire placed on a flat stone in the bows. The children tumble about the deck unconcernedly in the roughest weather. The smaller ones are occasionally tied to the mast to prevent them from falling overboard. The babies are bound in a bundle behind the shoulders of the mothers, who pull their oars or hoist and lower the sail with their burdens fastened on to them. Thus they live, thus they die; never sleeping on land until their corpses are brought ashore to be buried amid much exploding of crackers and burning of joss‐sticks.
These sampans are freely used to convey passengers to and from ships or across the harbour. Formerly cases of robbery and murder were frequent on board them; and even now drunken sailors occasionally disappear in mysterious fashion. The hood over the passengers’ seats could be suddenly lowered on the occupants of the well; a few blows of a hatchet sufficed to end their efforts to free themselves; the bodies were then robbed and flung overboard, and their fate remained a secret to all but the murderers. But stringent police regulations now render these crimes almost impossible. At night all sampans must anchor at least thirty yards from the shore. If hailed by intending passengers they are allowed to come only to certain piers where European or Indian police officers take their numbers as well as the names and destinations of those about to embark on them. So that the Hong Kong sampan is now nearly as safe a conveyance as the London hansom.
Communication between Victoria and Kowloon is maintained by a line of large, two‐decked, double‐ended steam ferries, that cross the mile of water between them in ten minutes. The suburb on the mainland is of very recent growth. Ten years ago the Observatory, a signal station, and a few villas were almost the only buildings; and the pinewoods ran uninterruptedly down to the sea. Now Kowloon possesses large warehouses, two hotels, two fine barracks, long streets lined with shops chiefly for Chinese customers, and terraces of houses occupied by Europeans. These are generally employees in the dockyards or clerks, or the families of engineers and mates of the small steamers that have their headquarters in Hong Kong. New streets are continually springing up, connecting it with Yaumati, a large Chinese suburb, or spreading down towards Old Kowloon City, three miles off. Near the ferry pier long wharves run out into the harbour, alongside which the largest vessels of the P. and O. or Norddeutscher‐Lloyd can berth and discharge their cargo. Close by is a naval yard, with a small space of water enclosed by stone piers for torpedo craft. Beside it are huge stacks of coal for our warships. Just above rise the grass‐covered ramparts of a fort. Near this are the fine stone and brick barracks built for the Hong Kong Regiment—a corps raised and recruited in Northern India about ten years ago for permanent service in this Colony. It was recently disbanded when Hong Kong was added to the list of places over‐seas to be garrisoned by the Indian army. Its material was excellent; for the high rate of pay—eighteen rupees a month with free rations as compared with the nine rupees and no rations offered to the sepoy in India—gave its recruiting officers the pick of Mussulman Punjaub, for it was a completely Mohammedan regiment. But it suffered from the disadvantage of being permanently stationed in one cramped‐up garrison with much guard duty, and of being officered by men coming at random from various Indian regiments rarely of the Punjaub, or, worse still, by others from British regiments, who knew absolutely nothing of the sepoy and were attracted chiefly by the higher pay.
On the Kowloon side two companies have built large and ample docks, which can take the finest battleships we have in the China seas. H.M.S. Goliath, Ocean, Albion, Glory; U.S.S. Brooklyn and Kentucky have all been accommodated there. As they are the only docks in the Far East, with the exception of those at Nagasaki in Japan, they are used by all foreign as well as British warships and merchantmen; and the dividends they pay are very large. Small steamers and a yacht for the King of Siam have been constructed in them. In Yaumati and Kowloon many Chinese boat‐building yards have sprung up, where numbers of large junks and sampans are turned out every year.
Past the Kowloon Docks, above which tower a couple of forts, the open country is reached. The road runs down through patches of market‐gardens to Old Kowloon City, a quaint walled Chinese town, with antique iron guns rusting on its bastions. This was the last spot of territory in the peninsula handed over to the British by the Chinese. “Handed over” is, perhaps, hardly an accurate description. Although ordered by their Government to surrender it, the officials refused to do so. A show of force was necessary; and a body of regular troops, accompanied by the Hong Kong Volunteers, marched upon the place. The Chinese, locking the gates and throwing away the keys, disappeared over the walls and bolted into the country. It was necessary to effect an entry by burglary. High hills tower above the city; and just beyond it they close in to the Lyeemoon Pass.