The only other Chinese towns on the island of any note besides the new one just noticed, are on the south side, and used to be called Little Hong-kong and Chuckehew; their names have been changed lately by the governor, Sir J. Davis, into Stanley and Aberdeen. They are merely fishing-towns; but the government always keeps up a military station at the latter, which renders it of some importance.
Hong-kong is one of the largest islands near the mouth of the Canton river. It is about eight miles from east to west, and the widest part of it is not more than six miles; but it is very irregular, some parts being only three miles in breadth, and the land jutting out here and there, forming a succession of headlands and bays. Imagine, then, an island considerably longer than it is broad, perfectly mountainous, and sloping in a rugged manner to the water's edge, having here and there deep ravines almost at equal distances along the coast, which extend from the tops of the mountains down to the sea, deepening and widening in their course. There are immense blocks of granite in these ravines, which have either been bared by the rapid currents of water in its descent during the rains, or which have tumbled into them from the sides of the mountains at some former period of time. The water in these ravines is abundant and excellent; and hence the poetical name which the Chinese have given our island. Hong-kong, or more properly Heang-Keang, the "Island of fragrant streams." During the wet season—for it rains in torrents then—these little streams swell with the augmentation of fresh water; and rush down from the mountains with a velocity which sweeps every thing before them. In May, 1845, one of these storms of thunder and rain visited Victoria; and the effects produced by it were perfectly astonishing; houses were undermined, roads made at a great expense only a few months before, were swept away; drains were burst open; and many of the bridges and other public works rendered perfectly useless. "The Hong-kong Register" thus notices the storm to which I allude:—"The damage was very great, both to the recently-formed roads and to many buildings in the course of erection; and had the violence of the rain continued an hour or two longer, many houses must have been undermined and destroyed. As it was, much individual inconvenience has been sustained. About 5 o'clock the whole of Queen's Road, from the entrance to the large bazaar to the market-place, was completely flooded, to the depth of from two to four feet. All the streets leading upwards to the hill served as feeders to this lake. In Peel Street particularly, the torrent rushed along, bearing every thing before it, and the street still resembles a dried up water-course, covered with stones and wrecks of buildings. The passages from the Queen's Road to the sea were all full; the one leading through Chunam's Hong for hours presented the appearance of a rapid river, and many of the houses on each side were only saved from the flood by mud walls hastily raised. About 6 o'clock the rain moderated, but for some time after the road was quite impassable. A Coolie, attempting to ford the stream rushing down D'Aguilar Street, was borne off his feet, but saved himself by catching hold of the frame of a mat-shed. The drain lately formed could not carry off the water, which committed great devastation, flooding a new house in its vicinity to the depth of nearly three feet, and destroying some new walls. All the open drains in the upper streets have suffered, many are entirely destroyed, leaving scarcely a trace of the street. A stream from a distant water-course flowed along the road above the bungalow, occupied by the attorney-general, and descending with great fury upon the roof of one of his out-offices, carried away a great part of it. In many places the Queen's Road has been covered with soil, sand, &c., to the depth of more than two feet, and nearly all the cross drains are choked up. The bridge at the Commissariat has been carried away, and that in the Wong-nai-chung has also disappeared. Several lives were lost by the fall of a house in which some Chinese resided; and it is said the stream at Pokfowlum burst upon a mat hut in which were a number of Coolies, employed upon the new road; three saved themselves in a tree, but many more are missing, and are supposed to have been carried out to sea."
There is very little flat ground on the Island capable of being brought under cultivation; indeed the only tract of any extent is the "Wang-Nai Chung," or, as the English call it, the "happy Valley," about two miles east from the town; and even that is not more than twenty or thirty acres in extent. There are several other small plots of ground near the bottom of the hills, and some few terraced patches amongst them, but the whole is of very trifling extent. In former times the Chinese used to cultivate crops of rice and vegetables in the Wang-Nai-Chung Valley, but the place proved to be very unhealthy; and the Government, supposing that the malaria might proceed from the water necessary to bring the crops to maturity, prohibited the natives from cultivating them, and set about draining the land. From this description it will be seen that our settlement on this Island is entirely dependent on the dominions of his Celestial Majesty for supplies, which he, of course, can cut off when he pleases. Shortly after the present Governor, Sir John Francis Davis, took the helm of affairs in China, he, with the advice of the Legislative Council of Hong-kong, passed a law for registering all the inhabitants of the island, English and Chinese, the latter of course being under the rule of Her Britannic Majesty's representative. The Chinese population, ever jealous of foreigners, fancied there was more in this than met the eye, and that it was done for the purpose of squeezing them, and they actually rebelled against the decree. A meeting of all the Compradores and other great men took place, and one of the results was, that the "supplies" were stopped. For several days every thing stood still, the Coolies would not work, the boats would not bring provisions, in fact, the Chinese were in a fair way of starving the "Legislative Council of Hong-kong" into making better laws; and they succeeded at last in making them alter the celebrated Registration Act into one more agreeable to their feelings.
From the tops of the mountains the view is grand and imposing in the extreme; mountain is seen rising above mountain, rugged, barren and wild—the elevation of the highest being nearly two thousand feet—the sea as far as the eye can reach is studded with islands of the same character as Hong-kong; on one side our beautiful bay lies beneath us crowded with shipping and boats, and on the other, the far extending waters of the China sea.
The climate of Hong-kong is far from being agreeable, and up to the present time, has proved very unhealthy, both to Europeans and to the native Chinese. During the months of July and August—the hottest in the year—the maximum heat shown by my thermometer was 94° Fahr. and the minimum in the same time was 80°. The difference between the heat of day and night is generally about 10 degrees. In winter the thermometer sometimes sinks as low as the freezing point, but this is a rare occurrence. Even in the midst of winter, when the sun shines, it is scarcely possible to walk out without the shelter of an umbrella, and if any one has the hardihood to attempt it, he invariably suffers for his folly. The air is so dry that one can scarcely breathe, and there is no shade to break the force of the almost vertical rays of the sun. At other times in winter, the wind blows cold and cutting from the north, and fires are necessary in the houses; indeed, at all seasons the climate is liable to sudden changes of temperature.
The botany of the island possesses a considerable degree of interest, at least would have done so some years ago, when the plants indigenous to it were less known than they now are. By far the most beautiful plants met with on the low ground, are the different species of Lagerstrœmia. There are two or three varieties, having red, white, and purple flowers, and in the summer months when they are in bloom, they are quite the hawthorns of China; surpassing in their gorgeous flowers even that beautiful family. I have generally met with them in a wild state, very near the sea shore. A little higher up we find the beautiful Ixora coccinea flowering in profusion in the clefts of the rocks, and its scarlet heads of bloom under the Hong-kong sun are of the most dazzling brightness. The ravines are crowded with ferns and creeping shrubs of different kinds, not however of much interest to the lover of ornamental flowering plants. Here, however, under the ever-dripping rocks, we find the beautiful Chirita sinensis, a plant with elegant foxglove lilac flowers, which I sent to the Horticultural Society soon after I arrived in China, and which is now to be found in many of the gardens of England.
It is a curious fact connected with the vegetation of Hong-kong, that all the most ornamental flowering plants are found high up on the mountains, from a thousand to two thousand feet