"From these things," said the Taipan, "comes the wealth of Hong-Kong. Every notion here pays, from the dairy-farm upwards. We have passed through our bad times and come to the fat years."
He told me tales of the old times—pityingly because he knew I could not understand. All I could tell was that the place dressed by America—from the hair-cutters' saloons to the liquor-bars. The faces of men were turned to the Golden Gate even while they floated most of the Singapur companies. There is not sufficient push in Singapur alone, so Hong-Kong helps. Circulars of new companies lay on the bank counters. I moved amid a maze of interests that I could not comprehend, and spoke to men whose minds were at Hankow, Foochoo, Amoy, or even further—beyond the Yangtze gorges where the Englishman trades.
After a while I escaped from the company-floaters because I knew I could not understand them, and ran up a hill. Hong-Kong is all hill except when the fog shuts out everything except the sea. Tree ferns sprouted on the ground and azaleas mixed with the ferns, and there were bamboos over all. Consequently it was only natural that I should find a tramway that stood on its head and waved its feet in the mist. They called it the Victoria Gap Tramway and hauled it up with a rope. It ran up a hill into space at an angle of 65°, and to those who have seen the Rigi, Mount Washington, a switchback railway, and the like would not have been impressive. But neither you nor I have ever been hauled from Annandale to the Chaura Maidàn in a bee-line with a five-hundred-foot drop on the off-side, and we are at liberty to marvel. It is not proper to run up inclined ways at the tail of a string, more especially when you cannot see two yards in front of you and all earth below is a swirling cauldron of mist. Nor, unless you are warned of the opticalness of the delusion, is it nice to see from your seat, houses and trees at magic-lantern angles. Such things, before tiffin, are worse than the long roll of the China seas.
They turned me out twelve hundred feet above the city on the military road to Dalhousie, as it will be when India has a surplus. Then they brought me a glorified dandy which, not knowing any better, they called a chair. Except that it is too long to run corners easily, a chair is vastly superior to a dandy. It is more like a Bombay side tonjon—the kind we use at Mahableshwar. You sit in a wicker chair, slung low on ten feet of elastic wooden shafting, and there are light blinds against the rain.
"We are now," said the Professor, as he wrung out his hat gemmed with the dews of the driving mist, "we are now on a pleasure trip. This is the road to Chakrata in the rains."
"Nay," said I; "it is from Solon to Kasauli that we are going. Look at the black rocks."
"Bosh!" said the Professor. "This is a civilised country. Look at the road, look at the railings—look at the gutters."
And as I hope never to go to Solon again, the road was cemented, the railings were of iron mortised into granite blocks, and the gutters were paved. 'Twas no wider than a hill-path, but if it had been the Viceroy's pet promenade it could not have been better kept. There was no view. That was why the Professor had taken his camera. We passed coolies widening the road, and houses shut up and deserted, solid squat little houses made of stone, with pretty names after our hill-station custom—Townend, Craggylands, and the like—and at these things my heart burned within me. Hong-Kong has no right to mix itself up with Mussoorie in this fashion. We came to the meeting-place of the winds, eighteen hundred feet above all the world, and saw forty miles of clouds. That was the Peak—the great view-place of the island. A laundry on a washing day would have been more interesting.
"Let us go down, Professor," said I, "and we'll get our money back. This isn't a view."
We descended by the marvellous tramway, each pretending to be as little upset as the other, and started in pursuit of a Chinese burying-ground.