boats to ocean liners and war-ships, crowd the waters, for this
is the third greatest port in the world, being exceeded in the
amount of its tonnage only by Liverpool and New York. The
city is very attractive from the water as it lies at the foot and
on the slopes of the famous Peak. The Chinese are said to
number, as in Shanghai, over 300,000, while the foreign population
is only 5,000. But to the superficial observer the proportions
appear reversed as the foreign buildings are so spa-
cious and handsome that they almost fill the foreground. The
business section of the city is hot and steaming, but an inclined
tramway makes the Peak accessible and many of the
British merchants have built handsome villas on that cooler,
breezier summit, 1,800 feet above the sea. The view is superb,
a majestic panorama of mountains, harbour, shipping, islands,
ocean and city. By its possession and fortification of this
island of Hongkong, England to-day so completely controls
the gateway to South China that the Chinese cannot get access
to Canton, the largest city in the Empire, without running the
gauntlet of British guns and mines which could easily sink any
ships that the Peking Government could send against it, and
the whole of the vast and populous basin of the Pearl or West
River is at the mercy of the British whenever they care to take
it. When we add to these invaluable holdings, the rights that
England has acquired in the Yang-tze Valley and at Wei-hai
Wei in Shantung, we do not wonder that Mr. E. H. Parker,
formerly British Consul at Kiung-Chou, rather naively remarks:--


``In view of all this, no one will say, however much in matters of detail
we may have erred in judgment, that Great Britain has failed to secure