Approach to Ilong-Jcong. 3^3 



gaze rlvcttcd by a landscape of the most imposing character, 

 and now not owing to the attitude of the hills (for the high- 

 est peak is only 3000 feet), hut to the grandeur of their form 

 and their contour. Here are sharp, needle-shaped pinnacles, 

 their steep rocky cones reminding one of the Sugar Loaf at 

 Rio, and then round shoulders of hills, and far-extending 

 ranges, penetrated by deep defiles, all nearly perpendicular, 

 and without any extent of level land, and rising sheer out 

 of the sea. These mountain-ranges are almost entirely naked, 

 or covered only with a scanty grass or bush vegetation : no 

 tree, no forest hides the majestic groups of rocks and stones, 

 and when the setting sun picked out with dark, well-defined 

 shadows the sharp outline of the granite rock, it was as though 

 there lay before us a '^ bit " of the Swiss Alps, bathed in the 

 sea as far as the limit of forest-vegetation, and our sailors 

 contemplated with redoubled enjoyment a scene which re- 

 minded them of their native Dalmatia. 



As the night was dark, with neither moonlight nor light- 

 house (of which latter there is unfortunately an utter lack 

 here), we could not venture to wind our way through the 

 narrow channel into the harbour of Hong-kong, on the north 

 side of the island, and we anchored therefore about 9 p. m. on 

 the west side, in the Lemmas Channel ; and with the first 

 beams of the sun, on the morning of the 5th July, we stood 

 in to the enchanting harbour of Hong-kong. Where the pre- 

 vious day wo could descry from seaward hardly any traces 

 of human activity in the hills and rocks along the coast, 



VOL. II. 2 A 



