Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/373

Rh I cannot say I ever heard it called Victoria, as people merely speak of Hong-Kong.

How proud one feels when one remembers that this was once merely a barren, fever-stricken rock; and behold what the British have made of it— a healthy, very beautiful, and most imposing place! I had not realised that it was really as beautiful as I found it to be.

I was soon installed in a large room in that well-known huge caravanseri, the Hong-Kong Hotel, with three sprightly Chinese "boys" in attendance. One "boy" was about sixty, the others not quite so ancient. The town was full of animation, people in "chairs" and rickshaws trotting about in every direction, crowds of blue jackets and our Indian soldiers—there was no end to the variety of costumes or the play of light and colour. There are very handsome buildings and private houses. There is a railway up to the Peak, but I liked toiling up the steep, winding ways, watching the people and the lines of coolies carrying up bricks on slings across their shoulders. What loads they carry, men and women, and how ceaseless the movement. I amused myself very well, and explored as much of Hong-Kong and the Kowloon mainland as I had time for. When out in the country I once met a Chinaman tearing along with a rickshaw in which lolled a dead - drunk and sleeping bluejacket, whose face and clothes gave evidence of a battle. As I could not see where the Chinaman could be taking him in such a condition out of Kowloon, I stopped him, woke up the bluejacket, who was quite incapable of understanding anything, and insisted on their returning to the town, and had the satisfaction later of seeing the sailor being safely convoyed by some of his own comrades.