HONG KONG.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 8907, 25 September 1889, Page 3

HONG KONG.

(Pall Mall Gazette.) The first sightof Hong Kong, the farthest outpost of the British Empire and the fourth port in the world is disappointing. As you approach it from the North yon enter a narrow and unimposing pass j then you discover a couple of sugarrefineries covering the hills with smoke j and when the city of Victoria lies before you it is only St John's or Vladivostok on a larger scale. It is piled up on the steep sides of the island without apparent purpose or cohesion ; few fine building; detach themselves from the mass j there is no boulevard along the water-front; and the greater part of the houses and offices id the immediate foreground, though manj of them are in reality large and costly structures, look helter-skelter from a littls distance. In one’s disappointment one remembers Mr Howells’ caustio character* isation of the water-front of New York—* that after London and Liverpool it look! as though the Americans were encamped there. The face of Hong Kong is not its fortune, and anybody merely steaming by would never guess the marvel it grows od closer acquaintance. For a few weeks’ investigation transfigures this precipitous island into one of the most astonishing spots on the earth’s surface. By an inevitable alchemy, the philosopher’s stone of a few correlated facts one’s disappointment into stupefaction. Shanghai was a surprise, but Hong Kong is a revelation. HONG KONG “ JUST HUMS.” When you land, the inevitable 'ricksha carries you through a couple of streets, fat from being beautiful or well-managed, but you forget this in the rush of life about you. Messengers jostle you, 'rickshas run over your toes, chair-poles dig you in the ribs. The hotel clerk smiles politely as ha informs you that there has not been a vacant room for a month. Later on yout fellow-passengers envy you the little rabbit-hole of a bedroom you have secured at the top of the Club. When you come down again into the hall you find it crowded with brokers of many nationalities, making notes, laughing, whispering, drinking, but all just as busy as they can be. And on the walls and upon the tables are a dozen printed "Expresses,” timed with the minute at which they were issued, and (ha mail and shipping noon and afternoon “ extras” of the daily papers, announcingtha arrivals and departures, the distribution of cargoes, the sales by auction, and all the multitudinous movements of a great com* mercial machine running at high pressure. For to apply to the Far East the expressive nomenclature of the Far West, Hong Kong "just hums” all the time. Then the chair a friend has sent to take you to dinner arrives, with its four coolies uniformed in blue and white calico, and by another twist of the kaleidoscope you find yourself, three minutes after leaving tho Club, mounting an asphalt roadway at an angle of not far short of forty-five degrees, hemmed in above and on either hand by great green palms and enormous drooping ferns with fronds yards long, among which big butterflies are playing round long scarlet flowers. For as soon as you begin to ascend, the streets of Hong Kong might be alleys in the tropical conservatories at Kew. A TOWN IN THBEE STOBETS. Hong Kong is built in three layers. The ground floor, so to speak, or aea level, ia the commercial part of the Colony. The " Praya” along the water edge is given up to shipping, and is altogether unworthy of the place. It is about to be changed, however, by a magnificent undertaldng, of which more by-and-by. The next street, parallel to it. Queen's road, ia the Broadway of Hong Kong, and all the business centres upon it. In the middle are the Club, Post Office, Courts, and hotels j then come all the banks and offices and shops; past these to the East are the different barracks, and as one gets gradually farther from the centre, the parade ground, cricket ground, polo ground, and racecourse, and the wonderfully picturesque and pretty cemetery—the “ Happy Valley.’* In the other direction you pass all the Chinese shops for foreigners and then get into Chinatown, a quarter of very narrow streets, extremely dirty, inconceivably crowded, and probably about as insanitary as any place on the globe under civilised rule. This is all on the Island of Hong Kong, while across the harbour, in the British territory of Kowloon, a new city is springing up a splendid frontage of wharves and warehouses; a collection of docks, one of which will take any ship afloat except the new 10,000-ton Teutonic, of the White Star line; half a dozen summer houses, a little palace among them; the pleasure gardens and kitchen gardens of the community; and private residences rising rapidly. GOVERNMENT HOUSE. WANTED, A BALL-BOOM. The second storey of Hong Kong, lies ten minutes’ climb up the steep side of the Island. Here nearly everybody lives, and lives, too, in a luxury and ease that are not suspected at home. Here ia Government House, a fine official residence in beautiful grounds, lacking only a ball-room, which compels Sir William and Lady des Voeux to tarn dining-room and drawing-rooms upside down, to build a supper-room in the garden, and even to convert his Excellency’s sanctum into a bar whenever Hong Kong society is invited to dance at Government House, which is very often the case in winter. If His Excellency had not inaugurated so many schemes for enlargement and improvement in the Colony itself, involving, for the moment, all the superintendence and labour and expense that can be spared, he would probably have felt justified in calling upon Hong Kong to build itself a ball-room in which it would be fittingly entertained. On this storey of Hong Kong, too, is Headquarter House, where General Cameron and his family have just been succeeded by General Edwards. And on this level are the wonderful streets I have already described, although one might as propet ly call Windsor a house as to describe these palm-shaded walks and groves as streets. . " THE peak” OP HONG KONG. Finally, there is the third layer, the top storey of Hong Kong, known collectively as “ The Peak.” The Peak itself is one of the highest of the hundred hills of the island, rising precipitously behind the city to the signal station, 1823 ft above the sea, where a gun and a flagstaff announce the arrival of mails and ocean steamers. But "The Peak,” as a residential district means all the hill-tops where cool breezes from the sea blow in summer, where ouo can sleep under a blanket at night, i\ad where, in a word, one can spend a summer in Hong Kong with a reasonable probability of being alive at the end of it. Here everybody who can afford it has a second house, and so many are those fortunate people that the "top side” of the island is dotted all over with costly houses and bungalows; there is one hotel and another building, and a steam tramway runs up and down every fifteen minutes. The fare up is thirty cents—a shilling—and down half as much. This is startling enough, but a better notion of the expense of life here is conveyed by )he fact that to have a second house at " The Peak” for the summer you must rent it for the whole year, as it is uninhabitable in winter, at a rental of 150 to 200 dollars a month—about a sovereign a day all the year round for four or five months’ residence. Besides this, there is the tramway fare, the cost of coolies to carry your chair up and down, and the expense of bringing every item of domestic supplies, from coals to cabbage, a forty-five minutes’ climb up-hill. .