the early morning light we steamed up to the magnificent harbor, surrounded by a range of lofty hills, rendering it a shelter and affording depth of water sufficient for any known tonnage. Its extensive area was well covered with ships of war and merchantmen, bearing the flags of all nations, among which the Stars and Stripes gladdened our eyes. Hong Kong signifies "good harbor" in Chinese, and the name is well applied. This is the most easterly possession of Great Britain, which she has taken care to render very strong in a military point of view, and where a large number of troops are constantly kept. The scarlet uniforms of the garrison form a striking feature of the busy streets, at all hours of the day. The houses in the European section of the city are large and handsome structures, mostly of stone, rising tier upon tier from the main street to a height of some hundreds of feet on the face of the hill immediately back of the town. On and about the lofty Victoria Peak are many charming bungalows, with attractive surroundings, and a noble prospect of the harbor and country. The streets appropriated to the occupancy of the Europeans are spacious and clean, but the Chinese portion of Hong Kong is quite characteristic of the race, – very crowded and very dirty, seeming to invite all sorts of epidemic diseases; and consequently the mortality is very great and sweeping at times, promoted by ignorance and excess among strangers and seamen.
One soon learns to detect an opium-eating people, and here we found examples all about us in every relation of life. It is a vice nearly always pursued in secret, but its traces upon the heavy, bleared eye and sallow features are plain and disfiguring enough. The disgraceful trade in the fatal drug, forced upon China by the English at the point of the bayonet, flourishes and increases, forming the heaviest item of import. It seems almost incredible that a people can long exist and consume such large quantities of this active poison. Other forms of stimulants are seldom resorted to by the natives, and an intoxicated person is scarcely, if ever, met with among the Chinese population. As to Europeans, it is the same here as it is in India, the habit of drinking freely of spirituous liquors is universal, and one half the invalidism which is attributed to climate should be ascribed to indulgence in hard drinking.
The streets of Hong Kong afford strange local pictures. The shoemaker industriously plies his trade in the open thoroughfare; cooking goes on in the gutters beside the sidewalks filling the atmosphere with greasy odors; the itinerant peddler, with a wooden box hung from his neck, disposes of food made from mysterious sources; the street barber is seen actively employed out of doors; the milkman drives his goats to the customer's door and there milks the required quantity; the Chinese themselves ignore the article altogether. The universal fan is carried by men, not by women, and when the owner is not using it, he thrusts it in the back of his neck with the handle protruding. Sedan chairs are rushing hither and thither, borne upon men's shoulders, transporting both natives and Europeans on business errands. Here, as in southern Italy, one observes a propensity to eat, sleep, live, and die in the streets, exhibited by the mass of the population.
Imagine a short, slouchy figure, with sloping eyes, a yellow complexion, features characterized by a sort of low cunning, a shaved head with a pigtail, clad in a loose cloth blouse, half shirt and half jacket, continuations not exactly pants nor yet a petticoat, and shoes thick-soled and shearing upwards like a Madras surf-boat, and you have John Chinaman as he appears at home. The portrait is universal. One Chinaman is as like another as two peas, – a uniformity often leading to ludicrous mistakes. John eats principally rice. It is in fact the basis of all his dishes, which are varied by the addition of dried fish and vegetables, adding occasionally such portions of animals as are usually thrown away by civilized people. Rats, cats, and dogs are not declined by his omnivorous appetite, and he is charged with craving nearly all sorts of vermin, such as snakes, slugs, scorpion's eggs, and caterpillars, which he complacently adds to his stews. Without the physical strength or size of Europeans, he makes up in industry what he lacks in muscle; and as his food costs about one fifth the sum which we generally calculate necessary for a common laborer, he can work much cheaper, and still lay up money from his wages.
Certain peculiarities challenge our observation. The Chinese mariner's compass does not point to the north pole, but to the south; that is, the index is placed on the opposite end of the needle. When Chinamen meet each other in the street, instead of mutually grasping hands, they shake their own hands. The men wear skirts and the women wear pants. The men wear their hair as long as it will grow, the women bind theirs up as snug as possible. The dressmakers are not women, but men. The spoken language is never written, and the written language is never spoken. In reading a book the Chinaman begins at the end and reads backwards; all notes in the books appear at the top of the page in place of the bottom, as with us. White is the mourning color, not black; surnames precede the given names; vessels are launched sideways, not endways; in mounting a horse the Chinese do so from the off-side. At dinner we commence the meal with soup and fish, they reverse the order and begin with the dessert. Grown up men fly kites, and boys look on admiringly; our bridesmaids are young and dressed in white, theirs are old women clad in black; and so on.
From its special position in the East, Hong Kong is the resort of all sorts of people, from all quarters of the globe. England is of course the most strongly represented. There are comparatively very few Americans, but plenty of French and Germans, the latter mostly Jews and money lenders. There are numbers of East Indians, Italians, Portuguese, and Spaniards, with here and there a Parsee, making altogether a population which reminds one of Marseilles in its conglomerate character. These several races, mingling with the Chinese, make up an incongruous community. An early morning visit to the water front of the city affords much amusement, especially at the hour when the market boats arrive from the country, and from along shore, with fish and vegetables. Here the people swarm like ants or bees more than like human beings, all eager for business, all crowding and talking at the same time, and creating a confusion that would seem to defeat its own object, namely, to buy and to sell. The vegetables are various and good; the variety of fruit limited and poor in flavor; but the fish are abundant and various in shape, size, and colors. Nine tenths of the business on the river front is done by women, and nearly all have an infant strapped to their backs, while they carry heavy burdens in their hands, or are engaged in rowing or sculling their boats. They carry on trade, make change, clean fish, and the like, quite oblivious of the infants at their backs. Babies thus managed are often shaken about most unmercifully, and among Europeans would assert themselves by the loudest screeching; but who ever heard a Chinese or Japanese baby cry?
The environs of Hong Kong are extremely interesting, and the roads are kept in most admirable condition. The jinrikisha is the common mode of conveyance, though the palanquin is perhaps nearly as much used. The introduction of the former vehicle into both China and Japan is of quite recent date. We enjoyed several expeditious in the suburbs by both means of transportation, the charges being extremely moderate. The Japanese jinrikisha men seemed lighter, yet more muscular, than do their Chinese brethren when between the shafts; and the latter, after a few miles, exhibited symptoms of fatigue, whereas, on a long thirty-five mile trip, this was never observed in a Japanese: either he was superior in pluck or muscles, or both, to John Chinaman.
The English burial-ground, located about three miles from the town, is a very beautiful cemetery, and is to Hong Kong what Mount Auburn is to Boston, – not quite so extensive, but superior in its collection of flowers and trees, which must have been gathered and naturalized here at a great cost. The varieties of the cactus family are remarkable in numbers and mode of training. The same may be said of the camphor-tree, the aloes, tall and graceful cypresses, mingling with which are Cape jasmines, hydrangeas, magnolias, and the scarlet geranium, tall and hedge-like, barked by white, variegated, and scarlet camellias. Everything indicated a semi-tropical climate. These Chinese gardeners exhibit great skill and genius in the cultivation of all plants, and landscape gardening is carried far beyond our ideas of the art in America. Some flowering shrubs, on close examination, proved to be old friends, but so trained and developed as to be hardly recognizable. We observed a curious mode of grafting plants so as to cause several species to blossom on the same branch, thus forming, as it were, a glowing bouquet. The samples of dwarf trees were also very singular, – a little orange-tree, for instance, bearing an orange weighing more than itself, and lemons so arranged as to grow by grafting in and with an orange. It was an agreeable sight to see choice bouquets for
