12 THE THOUSAND ISLES. amid the whitening waves. At one time swimming like a fish, and at another seeming to fly like a bird. Oh! there is a strange, a wild, an irrepressible delight in dashing through the foaming billows! Cape Verd is passed, St. Helena is astern, and now you are buffeting the billows in a vain attempt to double the Cape. Cheerly! all's well! Again you are on your way. You have had occasion to touch at the Mauritius, you have reached Penang; you have run through the Straits of Malacca. You are already in the Chinese Sea. At the entrance of the Canton river the islands are more than you will take the trouble to number; the Chinese call them "The thousand Isles." Many people besides the Chinese have a habit of speaking in round numbers, and not being very precise in their descriptions, as though a hundred or two, more or less, would hardly signify. Hong Kong is one of these "Thousand Isles." Look out sharply a-head on approaching Hong Kong. You will see the land some twenty or thirty miles away, and you will see, also, the water covered with a flotilla of two or three-masted boats, with fore and aft sails made of matting. These are fishing-boats in pairs, dragging a net between each pair. Now you may begin to sketch and make notes, to call forth the wonder and admiration of your friends on your return to Old England. You will soon have an outside pilot alongside ISLAND OF HONG KONG. 13 your ship. There are inside pilots as well as outside; they are licensed by the Chinese government to conduct foreign vessels through the Bogue from Macao to the inner waters of the river. The pilotboat will be wedge-shaped, sharp in the stem and broad in the stern, and lying with her head low in the water-with bamboos stretched across the sails, so that a reef may be taken in at once by simply lowering the yard. In front of the main-mast you will see a well containing a fair supply of water; and the Chinese sailors aboard, in their wide blue calico trousers reaching a little below the knee, and their loose jackets, or smock-frocks, as open as they can be at the neck, will remind you of the figures you have seen in china shops in Old England. If you should happen to have your head full of the three hundred and fifty millions forming the population of China, and expect to see one house built on another, and the people almost walking on each other's shoulders, you will be disappointed; the coast is barren, and you may look a long while for a crop of grass or a full-grown tree, without finding them. We often form strange notions of places we have never seen. Hong Kong is, perhaps, between thirty and forty miles distant from Macao, and as much as a hundred from Canton. The island is eight or nine miles in length, and varies from two to five in breadth. I question if the narrowest part of the strait that divides it from the main land, is more 14 BAY OF HONG KONG. than a mile across. The name of Hong Kong is a corruption of Heong Keong, the " fragrant stream." Hong Kong, having so famous a bay and such good and safe anchorage, with water deep enough to float a first-rate man-of-war close to the land, or within a cable's length from it, must rapidly improve, while Macao will no doubt decline. When the British entered on the island, its inhabitants were about four thousand, but it is now getting populous, for the natives from Cowloon, or Kowlung, a town opposite, on the main land, are flocking there in great numbers. The people, some time ago, were thought to be not less than thirty thousand. If you happen to be fond of architecture, you will have a high treat here. People generally think that there are only five orders of architecture; but if you will only stand on a proper spot at Hong Kong, and look keenly round, I will undertake that you will very soon discover fifteen, if not fifty. At Hong Kong you will see godouns or warehouses, in abundance. In the middle of the town is the Government-house on a hill; the Post-office is on another hill. It is said that on Valentine's day last, a hundred and fifty thousand additional letters passed through the London post-officehardly need I say, that the number passing through the post office at Hong Kong on the same day was not quite so great. The buildings |