Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1904-07-01
That Toledo Blueiacket.

Well, We are in Hong Kong at last and
you may imagine we are not sorry to
get away from the blazing sun of the
tropics. We arrived here on the 2lst
of May but did not get liberty until
Sunday. We went into the Kowloon
dry docks Sunday at three o'clock and
came out today. Kowloon is three
miles from Hong Kong proper, across
the bay on the main land, as Hong
Kong is on Victoria Island. We had a
beautiful trip from the Philippines up
mere, the sea was just as calm as the
DAY in front of Toledo and the nights
and nice. We sighted the entrance to
the channel at 11:30 a. m. and were at
anchor at p. M, to get in here ship
has to go through about four miles of
the most beautiful channel you could
ever wish to see and so narrow that a
person could throw stone to the shore
easily.
England has this place very strongly
fortified and no feet could ever take it.
The city is we'll located at the base of
great peak, which must be 5000 feet
high, and the town is built right at the
foot of this hill. and 1 should judge it
extends about fourth of the way up,
although there are houses built at the
very top. From up there one COM
mands beautiful view of the sea and
bay and surrounding landscape. The
buildings are all built on the English
order. with wide balconies. There is
one very level street and that runs east
and west, it is called the "Queen's
Road" and is very nice. 1t is wide,
clean and nice in every way, the whole
town is very clean for that matter, con-
siderng that SO many Chinese are liv-
ing here for they are without any doubt
the dirtiest set of people on earth. The
Chinese women and men all work to-
gether shoveling coal, hauling trucks
and every kind of work, horses are not
to be thought of. They get paid all the
way from 10 to 20 cents (Mexican) per
day, which is ~ and 10 cents Ameri
can or gold. l have seen no beggars
while here the English cops hold them
down too close for that.
The city of Hong Kong has about
100000 Inhabitants and only about nine
or ten thousand of them are white.
They treat an American marine very
nice here, that is, he is not robbed of
everything he has like they do in those
famous american Philippines" In
fact this is is the best place we "struck"
yet. Now l think that is all have to
say about Hong Kong, SO will drift into
other channels.
l heard about the missouri acci-
dent long time ago The Government
cables all that at once to the ships, it
was very bad. OF course you don't
know what Handling room" is like,
and it would be hard for me to explain,
but it is down to the very bottom of
the ship and there is no decks at all to
shut it off from the breach of the gun
in the turret above. The turrets are
all open from the top to the bottom,
Just like big we'll, and there is hardly
any exit from there. I used to work in
the forward handling room on this boat
but was changed to the 6-inch magazine
instead.
May 28, 1904.
1 will now finish this letter which I
started some time ago but since then we
have "coaled ship" taking 1000 tons
from the collier Alexander, and it was
the dirtiest coal ever saw. We played
nine hours yesterday while they coaled
IN all the dirt and dust Today every
thing is full of water and dirt from
cleaning ship
We are having good deal of rain
here at present and it rains harder than
1T did in the Philippines.
believe we are to be here until about
The 18th of June, then we 70 to Woo
Sung. S. w. RosEARooK. ,
U. S. S. Wisconsin.