XIV.
Hong-kong.
Duration of Stay from 5th to 18th July, 1858.
Rapid increase of the colony of Victoria or Hong-kong.—Disagreeables.—Public character.—The Comprador, or "fac-totum."—A Chinese fortune-teller.—Curiosity-stalls.—The To-stone.—Pictures on so-called rice-paper.—Canton-English.—Notices on the Chinese language and mode of writing.—Manufacture of ink.—Hospitality of German missionaries.—The custom of exposing and murdering female children.—Method of dwarfing the female foot.—Sir John Bowring.—Branch Institute of the Royal Asiatic Society.—An ecclesiastical dignitary on the study of natural sciences.—The Chinese in the East Indies.—Green indigo or Lu-Kao.—Kind reception by German countrymen.—Anthropometrical measurements.—Ramble to Little Hong-kong.—Excursion to Canton on board H.M. gun-boat Algerine.—A day at the English head-quarters.—The Treaty of Tien-Tsin.—Visit to the Portuguese settlement of Macao.—Herr von Carlowitz.—Camoens' Grotto.—Church for Protestants.—Pagoda Makok.—Dr. Kane.—Present position of the colony.—Slave-trade revived under the name of Chinese emigration.—Excursions round Macao.—The Isthmus.—Chinese graves.—Praya Granite.—A Chinese physician.—Singing stones.—Departure.—Gutzlaff's Island.—Voyage to the Yang-tse-Kiang.—Wusung.—Arrival at Shanghai.
Victoria, the name by which the settlement situate on the north side of the island of Hong-kong is known in official
documents, strongly recalls another renowned British possession, Gibraltar. A mere uninviting granite rock of about 9 miles in length, 8 in breadth, and 26 in circumference, Hong-kong, situate as it is at the mouth of the Canton River, is one of the best harbours in the Chinese Empire. Owing to the barren, treeless surface, which consists for the most part of chains of hills, the highest point of which is 1825 feet above sea-level, with narrow valleys between, and a small extent of level ground around the bay, hardly a twentieth part of its surface is adapted to agriculture. The modern cheerful town, thoroughly European in character, has within these few years rapidly attained large dimensions, and its numerous palatial structures speak volumes for the wealth and prosperity of the residents. The buildings of the colony rise terrace-like one above another, and extend in rows all along the steep slope of the granite, for a distance of nearly three miles. Besides the population inhabiting the town, many thousand Chinese of the very lowest class with their wives and children live here in small boats year after year, so that the total population of the island amounts to about 80,000 souls.
Twenty years back Hong-kong was but an insignificant place. Only since the peace of Nangking in 1842, which shook to its foundation the exclusive system till then prevalent, and among other important advantages secured the island of Hong-kong to the English, besides bringing into the community of nations the huge unwieldy empire with its
400,000,000, occupying 78 degrees of longitude and 38 of latitude, has it been developed into the most important business centre of China. It became an emporium for all European manufactures, as well as for all produce from the interior, which is shipped hence to the various marts of the world. Unfortunately the period at which the flag of the great Mandjing, or Double Eagle, as the Chinese call Austria, was for the first time unfurled on the shores of the Celestial Kingdom proved most unsuitable for scientific observation. While in the interior a variety of circumstances seriously threatened the stability of the throne of the reigning dynasty, the flames of war were once more breaking out along the coast also, and adding to the confusion and distress of the Chinese diplomatists. In the present war the English were for the first time in these waters fighting side by side with the French, while the Russians and North Americans were cautiously maintaining an observant, but none the less on that account menacing attitude. The hatred and animosity of the Chinese populace, stirred up by their own authorities, was continually goaded to increasing fury with each new victory of the "red-haired barbarians." The Chinese bakers in Hong-kong had devised the cruel expedient of poisoning the bread purchased by the English, and thus avenging themselves on the foe more fatally and more certainly than by Chinese weapons. Even while walking in the neighbourhood one's life was not safe, and even the usually not very easily terrified Englishman was now begirt with "revolvers," when
he rode forth of an afternoon with his wife, or was taken in a sedan-chair to a friend's house of an evening.
Shortly before our arrival, the captain of a merchantman, while taking a walk outside the city, was set upon by some Chinese, robbed, and so severely maltreated that he expired of the injuries he received. So too the clerk of a mercantile house had been picked up just outside the city weltering in his blood and pierced with a number of wounds from a dagger, the murderer in this case also evading detection. An attempt was even made against the life of the Governor, Sir John Bowring, which was only frustrated through the vigilance of the sentinel, who discharged his piece at the scoundrels just as, favoured by night, they were stealing over the walls of the Government-house, with the view of creeping through the garden as far as Sir John's cabinet.