Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-07-06


man has his cholera-belt on. The down side
Of Hong Kong 10 damp and hot; the sstop side"
II damp and cool That 10 the difference for
which people are prepared TO pay so heavily.
round the house a number Of large stoppsred
bottles, such as you see In druggists' windows,
prettily encased in wicker-work. On inquiriug
OF my host he showed me that one contained
and 80 on, each hollow stopper being filed With
unslacked lime In altering paper, to absorb any
damp that might penetrate inside. These bottles
tell the whole tale. People run over to Macao,
that Lusitanian Thule. four hours stesming
proving too much for them and their thoughts
begin to run on "Happy Valley" and grave
| there. like that Of Martha's husband in Padua,
.'well-placed for cool and comfortable rest"
| they just 60 on board q steamer and disembark
at Nagasaki or Yokohama. Japan is the santa
| rum of the far east.
CUr-THRoATs AND SIKH POLICEMEN,
A striking feature Of Hong Kong il the ele-
| gance and solidity Of its public works. Its
waterworks at Tytam, on the other side Of the
island, are almost picturesque, and the aque-
duct which supplies the city is the basis of Q
| foot-way miles long, called the Bowen road,
| OF asphalt and cement, as smooth and solid
as billiard-table, and which laughs at the
! tremendous downpours Of the rainy season.
! Happy Valley" is the pride of Hong Kong
and the palm-shaded road / described above
was dangerous and ugly ravine called "Cut-
throats' Alley" few years ago. All this the
the colonial surveyor-general. and it considers
the c. M. g. just given to him his retire.
| ment as by no means a too generous recogni-
ton OF his services. Speaking of cutthroats
reminds me that Hong Kong even now is not a
particularly safe place. People avoid walking
alone at night in one or two directions; every
Sikh constable carries q rifle at night and sew
eral rounds of ball cartridge, and If you hail
a sampan at night to go to dinner on board
some ship in the harbor, the constable at the
pier makes note of its number, in case
you should be missing the next day.
For these sampan people used to have
a pleasant habit of suddenly dropping
the mat awning on the head of a pas
gle and dropping his pillaged body overheard.
The Sikhs make admirable policemen obe-
dent, trustworthy and brave, and are corre-
spondingly detested by the Chinese. If they
SIN at all, it is from two much zeal, and be-
lieve they take keen personal pleasure in
whacking Chinaman. There is story to the
effect that during an epidemic of burglaries
general orders were issued to them to arrest
all suspicious-looking people who did not halt
when challenged at night, especially il thew had
ladders Next night Sikh on duty saw a
Chinaman on the top of a ladder. Nothing
could have been clearer, SO he called to the
man. who paid no attention, and then fred and
brought him down. 1t was the lamphghter.
1
after 8 p. IN. without pass.
WONDERFUL SIGHT.
doubt II there can be a more remarkable
view in the world than that of the City of Vic
toria and Hong Kong harbor from the Peak.
| Or at least to get such a view elsewhere one
must be in balloon. At night it is as if you
had mounted above the stars and were looking
down upon them, for the riding lights of the
ships seem suspended in an infinite gulf of
darkness, while every now and then the white
beam of an electric search-light flashes like the
| track OF a meteor across a midnight sky. BY
day, the city Is spread out nearly 1900 feet d.
| rectly below you, and only the ships decks and
their foreshortened masts are visible, while the
whole surface OF the harbor is traversed con-
tlnually in all directions by fast steam launches
making network of tracks like lacework upon
1t, as water-spiders skim over Q pool in summer
time. For Hong Kong: :harbor is the focus of
the traffic Of the east and what this means one
cannot realize until one has looked down many
| times into its secure blue depths and noted all
that is there-the great mail liners, the P. 4 O.,
the Messageries Maritimes, the North German
Lloyd, the Austrian Lloyd, the Occidental and
Oriental, the Pacific Mail, and the Canadian
Pacific; all the smaller mail packets to Tong
Siam; all the ocean cramps" ready to get
| up steam at a moments notice and carry any
thing anywhere; all the white winged sailing
| vessels resting after their long flights; the
innumerable high-sterned junks plying to
every port on the Chinese coast; and all the
mailed host Of men-of-war flying every flag
under heaven, from the white ensign OF the
Imperieuse and the black eagle Of the Admiral
Nachimof, to the yellow crown of the tiny Por-
tuguese gunboat or the dragon pennant of
China. A week or two ago, the governor told
me, no fewer than $40 guns were fred in salutes
| in the harbor in one day. All these vessels
cross and recross ceaselessy in Hong Kong
harbor, living shuttles in the loom Of time,
bearing the golden strand of human sympathy
and cooperation between world and world or
like the Zeitgeia in Faust" weaving the gar
| say that divinity would always find itself com
Portable In the garment that is woven in Hong
Kong; but one thing I can affirm, and that Is
that visit to Hong Kong makes one proud to
belong to the nation that has created it from
nothing;it fills the word empire with a new
porn meaning, and crystallixes around IL set
| Of new convictions and resolves. In this letter
l have only tried to sketch lightly the place
and its people. full-length picture must be
for another time HENRY NonMAN