JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
156 
[ August 18, 1881. 
cutting under a leaf joint. None of the leaves are removed, 
as I find this unnecessary. The layers are then pegged firmly 
into the ground. Plants lifted and potted are given a rich com¬ 
post to grow in. The soil is pressed in very firmly, and there 
is no danger of the plants making a quick tender growth, as they 
would do were the soil loose. Our plants are plunged amongst 
ashes in cold frames, and keep moist enough in this material 
through the winter without having to water them. About Feb¬ 
ruary they begin to require attention in the way of water, and 
have then a mass of feathery roots. In March they are either 
shifted into larger pots or planted out in beds or borders. 
The most useful of all summer-flowering Carnations are doubt¬ 
less those known as Cloves. Ours are of two kinds of white, a 
purplish crimson variety, and two dark crimsons, one with 
fimbriated petals, the other plain. Later, we have one of the 
finest of hardy flowers in the Duke of Wellington, a scarlet dwarf 
variety, and a most profuse bloomer. I believe there is a rose- 
coloured companion to this named Countess of Manvers, but I 
have not seen it. The large-flowering Souvenir de la Malmaison 
is a good border variety. I have also a pink variety which some 
like better than the cream-coloured, sort, and there is also one 
with the pink and white in stripes on the same flower ; it is named 
Lady Middleton, and is yet very scarce. I do not think it so 
good as either of the two first named varieties. Autumn-layered 
plants of these we find useful in 4^-inch pots in spring. They 
are kept growing gently through the winter. After flowering 
they are planted out and the young growths layered.—R. P. B. 
HONG KONG. 
Having in an Anglo-American tour spent some time at Hong 
Kong and found the Journal has penetrated even there, some 
notes, although not exclusively botanical or horticultural, may be 
acceptable for its pages. Even gardeners require a change of 
literary fare occasionally ; and I will not therefore limit myself 
to the mere gardening aspects of this in many respects strange 
and interesting dependency of the British Crown, but will assume 
that the narration of what proved interesting to me may have at 
least a measure of interest to others. 
At a time like the present, when there is such an outcry being 
raised against the imperialistic policy of the late administration, 
and a tendency to renounce all the so-called “ white elephants ” 
with which they are accused of having burdened the country, it 
will be encouraging for English people to know that there is at 
least one “ white elephant ” of the past which has really turned 
out a success and a credit to the nation. It is very remote, and 
still labours under the false imputation originally thrown upon it ; 
but it is truly very beautiful and by no means fatally unhealthy ; 
so I think I cannot do better than try to dissipate some of the 
ignorance that exists about it at home, and thus do justice to us 
and to the memory of those who are responsible for its acquisition. 
Persons of middle age will probably remember that when they 
were in their teens there was a certain phrase borrowed from a song 
called “The Gay Cavalier” which was in almost everybody’s mouth, 
and was used politely to intimate to another that you preferred his 
room to his company. In that song the heroine, annoyed at the 
persistence of an unwelcome suitor, and being denied the grati¬ 
fication of giving him his conge in language of masculine vehe¬ 
mence, contents herself with relegating him to Hong Kong, that 
being according to the notions of the time the nearest earthly 
equivalent of a place we all have heard about but never hope to 
see. “ You may go-o, you may go-o, you may go to Hong Kong 
for me,” was the euphemism to which I refer; and its discon¬ 
tinuance is, I believe, less due to a better knowledge of Hong 
Kong than to the decay of the political excitement which forced 
Hong Kong into notice, and to a belief that after all the good 
round Saxon terms are the best for securing the end desired by 
that periphrasis. 
Hong Kong was the Cyprus of that period, and to judge from 
its rocky barren nature and limited extent must have seemed then 
a very much less promising place for a European colony than 
Cyprus does now. Accounts written thirty-five years ago describe 
it as looking gloomy, bare, desolate, and as being terribly un¬ 
healthy. These accounts, after making some allowance for the 
writer’s bad spirits at finding himself in such then remote parts 
with a damp relaxing climate, were no doubt tolerably correct; 
but to one who now takes his stand by the City Hall at Hong 
Kong and looks around him they appear strangely like libels. The 
difference, however, between then and now is, I believe, a real one, 
and it must be as thorough a transformation as if an enchanter’s 
wand had been waved over the quondam pirate’s lair, over the 
discoloured unsightly excavations, the scattered timbers, and the 
tiny tents at the foot of those bleak hills round which in 1844 a 
few men of war and merchantmen were watching. The magic 
power which has effected the transmutation is that same Anglo- 
Saxon energy which during the same period has built up Melbourne 
and San Francisco, assisted by an unlimited amount of Chine;e 
labour. For the number and nature of its population Hong Kong 
is inferior to its two contemporaries ; but in solidity of construc¬ 
tion, in the perfection of its finish, and in the precipitous beauty 
of its site it is superior. Probably for Europeans it will never 
possess the same interest that these other towns do, as it lies in 
tropical climes and is mainly inhabited by that race which inclines 
least to the Caucasian. Possibly it will be quite outstripped by 
its contemporaries, but the beauties of its situation and construc¬ 
tion will always be undeniable, and the consideration of its rise 
astonishing among the many marvels of a wondrous age. 
Hong Kong, the island of “Fragrant Streams,” or, as some will 
have it, “ Good Harbour,” was ceded by China to the British 
Government after the opium war in 1841 to serve as a vantage 
point from which to invade the Celestial Empire with our goods, 
and, if any protection were necessary for these, with our arms as 
well. Seventeen years later, when Sir John Bowring picked a 
quarrel with Governor Yeh, it served for this latter purpose ; and 
afterwards in 1861, at a general patching-up of old sores, in con¬ 
sideration of China consenting to renew amicable relations with 
us, we took as an earnest of its sincerity the small peninsula of 
Kowloon facing Hong Kong from the mainland. Tennyson sings, 
“ Saxon, and Norman, and Dane are we and our dealings with 
China show that if we still possess the stubbornness of our Saxon 
and the fierce enterprise of our Danish ancestors, the strain of 
Norman blood in our veins has lost none of its spirit of high- 
handedness by transmission through thirty generations. How¬ 
ever, if our action has not been unimpeachable, it may be fairly 
urged that it has redounded even more to the advantage of the 
people who resisted us than it has even to ourselves. At the time 
we took it Hong Kong was a perfect Alsatia, round which all the 
disreputable and restless spirits of the neighbourhood used to lurk 
and make piratical descents upon the Chinese and European 
shipping far and near. Now it is a magnificent emporium, 
almost entirely inhabited and kept going by the Chinese them¬ 
selves, but governed and garrisoned by the irresistible naval 
power of England, which is the terror and repressor of evildoers 
along the whole length of the Chinese coast. 
In its reputation Hong Kong has suffered a peculiar fate. 
Before it was reclaimed—when it was unkempt, undrained, and 
uninviting—it was thrown to the attention of an excited English 
public, distracted with the vague romantic hallucinations pro¬ 
voked by the opening-up of the Flowery Land, and intoxicated 
with expectations which were never destined to be realised. The 
report went abroad that Hong Kong was a deadly pestilential 
place, and insurance offices forthwith put up their premiums on 
the lives of those unfortunates ordered thither, and perplexed 
uncles hastened to apprise shiftless nephews of the golden oppor¬ 
tunities which the newly opened region afforded to young men of 
energy and enterprise. Now, when it is magnificent, a model of 
finish and cleanliness, and not less unhealthy than Manchester, 
the English public know of it only as a detestable place, at the 
very name of which their parents and grand-parents used to 
shudder. 
The mortality which originally gave Hong Kong such a bad 
name arose, as in the case of Cyprus lately, among the naval and 
military forces hurried in to take possession of it. Soldiers and 
sailors were in those days the most heedless and ignorant of men, 
and what the soldiers and sailors were in ordinary affairs their 
officers were in sanitary matters. They did not reflect as to the 
safety of disembarking their men upon a strip of steamy soil 
soddened with the water of the numerous streams tumbling down 
from the overhanging hills ; still less did it occur to them that 
the soil, like other soils in hot climates, when broken ud every¬ 
where for building purposes might become ten times more deadly 
and malarious in its effects. Such, however, was, and is even 
now, the tendency of newly-disturbed soil in Hong Kong, and 
this, combined with the reckless habits of the troops and tars, 
caused the decimation of whole regiments and ship’s companies ; 
consequently many valuable lives were sacrificed, as the obelisks 
in the cemeteries still show, and Hong Kong acquired a reputation 
for unhealthiness which it is far from deserving. 
The island is about the size of Jersey—eleven miles in length 
by from two to five in breadth, and some twenty-seven in circum¬ 
ference. It is as rugged as many of the western isles of Scotland, 
which it somewhat resembles, and is composed entirely of igneous 
rocks—viz., granite, felspar, and a very little trachyte. In shape 
it is not so very unlike the model of a gouty foo ! viewed laterally, 
with the instep swollen and knotty, and a cleft extending from 
the direction of the shank-bone towards the heel. It lies with its 
