Ch. II.] HONa KONG. 2] 



account, and the compradores of the large European houses 

 are often highly respectable men ; but the majority of the 

 Chinese population are of an inferior class. Nearly all of 

 them imderstand enough English to carry on a tolerably free 

 iatercourse with their masters, though this EngHsh is of 

 that mongrel kind known as pidgin (or business, pronounced 

 by them hidgness) English, which it is not only necessary to 

 understand as spoken by them, but also to speak freely in 

 , order to be intelligible to the Chinese. 



The island is syenitic granite, of a kind which very readily 

 .decomposes upon the surface where exposed to the weather, 

 and the water which percolates from this disintegrated rock 

 appears to have deleterious properties, to which the im- 

 healthiness of some parts of the island would seem to be 

 mainly due. Irruptions of trap are visible in some parts, 

 and the whole island partakes of the characteristic barren 

 aspect of the greater part of the Chinese coast, and, except 

 in sheltered situations, as in the part called the Happy 

 Valley, is for the most part destitute of any trees, except a 

 stunted pine. Good roads are constructed round the greater 

 part of the island, often high up the lull side, which com- 

 mand glorious prospects over the sea, and the rocky and 

 elevated mainland of China ; which, with the ever varying 

 appearance of the harbour crowded with shipping of every 

 nation, render a walk upon the upper road one of the most 

 picturesque and grand that can be anywhere met with. 



There are no Chinese features, however, observable about 

 Hong Kong, which are not seen better in other and less 

 hybrid parts of China. Everything is more or less diluted 

 with the European element ; and I was much struck, when 

 I first observed a smaU-footed Chinese woman of superior 

 class meandering with painful steps through the street, ac- 



