The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-08-06
HONG KONG AT NIGHT.
Some Queer Street Scenes of a Queer
 City.

Some Queer Street Scenes of a Queer
 City.
 Correspondence in London Pail Mall
 A moment ago the peak was blanket cd with a dense fog. It was as If the ebon wings of death lowered over the island. But now the Chinese mainland reveals itself and beyond the harbor and beyond Kowloon, and beyond the paddy fields, the great mountains stand out black and wonderful against the sky. The moon is racing between the cloud gaps and burnishing the face of the waters and gleaming on the wetted sides of the steamers. Far to south you can just see the light house, the one-eyed sentry of Gap Rock. blinking it the masthead lights of the ships that pass in the night. Between the light and Hongkong Is the China Sea studded with islands. and in and out among the Islands great junks with bat-wfng sails move like phantom things over the leaden sea.
 Far below the peak is the harbor. lit up by the liners and the cruisers and the junks and the sampans that lie as thick as ants on a honey-pot. It is the harbor of a million eyes, and a coolie leaning against rickshaw lik- ems 1t unto Heaven, top-side up. De- scending the mountain side brings you to the harbor Here is a little knot of
 
 them a chow squatting on his haunch- es with a bamboo sticking out over the water. From the end of the bamboo four strings run down and out, pyramid fashion, into the water. The bamboo bends and the putty faced man on the quay rises and lifts the bamboo over his head. The four strings become ltaut. and out of the black water a net appears swarming with small fry. and fine putty-faced man Is pleased. l fish ed all day over the side of tramp and caught nothing. The Chinese firemen, coming out of the blackness of the Stokehold, their bare backs streaming with ink. looked at me with utter con- tempt. Yet here Is this grinning coolie xinking his ragged net anywhere in the harbor and performing miracles. His ancestors must have dwelt on the shores of Galilee. :
 The sannpons and the junks have all anchored off some distance from the quay. This is the law of Hong Kong, for otherwise the army of sampan men might step ashore and seize the island 1n the dark watches of the night. The quay is full of life. for the night is warm and the merchants, arrayed in purple and fine linen, are strolling in the moonlight. MT. Wokes is attired in a flowing robe of white and pale blue baggy trousers. Trotting beside him Is uttle Wokee junior, arrayed in splen- dor gaudy as a butterfly. The children are racing up and down, their rat-tailed queues tied with bows of pink and blue. Over the water from the lined-up sam pans comes a woman's voice. She Is droning a Cantonese love song. There is feet of Sikh police in khaki uni- form. His beard Is shining in the lamp light; 1t is well trimmed and black as 1et. Around his left wrist are two half httches of pigtail. and on the end of the pigtail is a coolie revolving and wriggling like a kangaroo rat in a trap. The coolie Is a desperate fellow; you can see that by his face, a face that must have broken all the command -xnents of the East and West. There Is Q huge crowd following. 1t looks as If every cooIie In Hong Kong had form led up in the serum behind the Sikh. , Stray pieces of road metal strike him.