Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/155

Rh Captain Elliot, the representative of the British Government in China, considered the anchorage unsafe, as being "exposed to attack from several quarters," and, regardless of the petitions of the shipping community, he insisted upon the removal of the merchant vessels to Tong-koo. In the following year, however, a British expedition arrived to settle by the arbitrament of arms the long-standing grievances against the Chinese, and Hongkong became its headquarters. In January of 1841, after Canton had been menaced with capture, the island and harbour were ceded to Great Britain by the Treaty of Chuenpee. Formal official possession was taken in the name of Her Majesty Queen Victoria by Commodore Sir J. J. Gordon Bremer on January 26, 1841. Captain Sir E. Belcher, R.N., who had landed the previous day with the officers of his ship, ascertained the true position of Hongkong to be 22° 16' 30" N. Latitude, and 114° 8' 30" E. Longitude, and determined the names and heights of the principal peaks as Victoria Peak (1,825 feet). High West (1,774 feet). Mount Gough (1,575 feet). Mount Kellett (1,131 feet), Mount Parker (1,711 feet), and Pottinger Peak (1,016 feet). The cession was confirmed by the Treaty of Nanking in 1842.

Despite the assurances of friendship contained in this Treaty, the Chinese authorities consistently maintained an attitude of overbearing arrogance and ill-will towards the British, and a long series of insults culminated in the arrest of the Chinese crew of the Arrow, a small coasting vessel, sailing under the British flag, in October, 1856. Hostilities, long withheld, then broke out, and resulted in the capture of Canton in the following year by the British and French troops, who remained in occupation of the city for four years. In the meantime the importance, from a military point of view, of acquiring the Kowloon Peninsula—a small tongue of land, with an area of about 4 square miles, on the opposite side of Hongkong harbour—became evident, and on March 21, 1860, a perpetual lease was obtained from the Cantonese Viceroy, Lao Tsung Kwong. In the following October the peninsula was ceded to the British Crown under the Peking Convention, and, in 1898, at the suggestion of Sir Paul Chater, a 99 years' lease was obtained of the territory stretching behind it to a line drawn from Mirs Point, 140" 30' East, to the western extremity of Deep Bay, 113° 52' East, together with the islands of Lantau, Lamma, Cheung Chau, and others. The whole of this territory, embracing some 376 square miles, is now comprised in the Colony of Hongkong, which takes its name from the anchorage of Aberdeen, on the south of the island, known to the native fishermen as Heung-kong, signifying "good harbour." The European mariners who were in the habit of putting in here to obtain supplies of water from the stream which falls into the sea at Aberdeen village mistook the name of the anchorage for that of the whole island, and marked their charts accordingly. The name first appeared as one word in the Royal Charter published in the Government Gazette in 1843, and by the same instrument the city of Victoria received its present appellation. The word Kowloon is derived from the Chinese words Kau-lung, signifying "nine dragons," in reference to the nine hills which form the background of the peninsula.

Prior to the arrival of the British, the population of the island probably never exceeded 2,000. The ostensible occupation of the inhabitants was fishing, but the term Ladrones (robbers), by which this and the adjacent islands were known to the Portuguese, shows that they practised something else besides "the gentle art"; indeed, piracies were a source of infinite trouble to the British settlers for many years. In October, 1841, the population of Hongkong, including both the troops and residents of