CHAP. XIX.] 
. ARRIVAL AT HONG KONG. 
397 
delay was longer than had been intended. This indeed was 
caused in some degree by the difficulty of tearing ourselves 
away after only a few days’ stay from a people so remarkable, so 
lovable, and so hospitable as the Japanese, and from a land so 
magnificently endowed by nature. Besides, when the Vega was 
again ready for sea, it was so near the time for the change of 
the monsoon, that it was not advisable, and would not have been 
attended with any saving of time, to sail immediately. For at 
that season furious storms are wont to rage in these seas, and 
the wind then prevailing is so unfavourable for sailing from 
Japan to the southward, that a vessel with the weak steam- 
power of the Vega cruising between Japan and Hong Kong 
in a head-wind might readily have lost the days saved by an 
earlier departure. On the other hand, in the end of October 
and the beginning of November we could, during our passage 
to Hong Kong, count on a fresh and always favourable breeze. 
This took place too, so that, leaving Nagasaki on the 27th 
October, we were able to anchor in the harbour of Hong Kong 
as early as the 2nd November. 
There was of course no prospect of being able to accomplish 
anything for the benefit of science during a few days’ stay in 
a region which had been examined by naturalists innumerable 
times before, but I at all events touched at this harbour that I 
might meet the expressed wish of one of the members of the 
expedition not to leave eastern Asia without having, during the 
voyage of the Vega, seen something of the so much talked of 
“ heavenly kingdom ” so different from all other lands. 
For this purpose, however, Hong Kong is an unsuitable place. 
This rich and flourishing commercial town, which has been 
created by England’s Chinese politics and opium trade, is a 
British colony with a European stamp, which has little to show 
of the original Chinese folk-life, although the principal part of 
its population consists of Chinese. But at the distance of a 
few hours by steamer from Hong Kong lies the large old 
