Shanghai people who rik they kno} Hongkong must not put* too much faith in the impressions of years ago. The Hong-Kong of the eighties and ey of the early nineties was one thing, the Hongkong of to-day is another. Nature sometimes quets herself, and, as in the case of the cast coast of England, allows water to encoach upon land, or as on the south coast Snakes land at the expense of water. In Hongkong 'Art and Science have usurped the role of nature and old visitors are no' surprised to find that the land mai of earlier days are not. in all cases relia, 10 just now. When I knew Hongkong first the Queen's Road was within hail of Sampan, and the clock tower rose so to speak out of the water, put he who expects them there to-day will look in vain. The reclamation that hi as been going on of late 'a foreshore of which years has given Hongkong has taken and is taking every advantage. The b first building to catch the eye now on getting into the middle of the harbour is the pile of many-ston Queen's and Prince's buildings let out for offices, chambers, ete. Near by is the nes 6 Hongkong Hotel, a tall, fine building, in which are located stores, the C. P. R.., et: Then there is the new Club, a superb building in modern classical style, 1 think. of which Honkong people ha be proud. We have no buildings i Shanghai that cap fitly be compared to either of these.
Then there is the re-built Hongkong and Shanghai Bank also an extremely nice building. Dressed stone. which is so much used down here, is to brick what velvet ig. to velveteen, The one is art, the other, imitation. The one is adop: nature, the other artificiality. There is in consequence, a tone about the Hongkong structures of the better sort that is lacking in our Shanghai buildings. It would be possible to pursue this subject at considerable length, since the greater part of the Praya running along the new front is occupied by buildings of the description just outlined.
The same may be said of the Higher Level. Wherever one goes in Hongkong just now there is building, building, building. This points to a lack of accomodation similar to that from which snanghar has suffered, and to exorbitant rent for what there One hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars a month are the ruling rates for any thing approaching modest comfort in the matter of dwelling houses, and these are but little lower on the Kowloon side. I have said that the Praya has brought Hongkong well out into the water. It is none the less true that the Tramway has brought the Peak down to the Praya. While Shanghai has shilly-Shallied over the vital question as to the Annihilation of the space between town and country. Hongkong has acted. Her tram may at times be literally in_nwbibus Dut it is none the less real. A trip up it fils wondrous gaps in one's imagination, and suggests constant comparisons—between the enterprise that acts and the garrulity which talks. Personally I Hcline to the belief that he who does things is the better man. We have some pretty country houses of our own, but Rlonesty compels the admission that they are few and far between, whereas it is trae of the great majority of the modern Hongkong houses that each in its way is fa Ittle gem—little in comparison only ith the mountain I should say, for many ire mansions of very considerable size, and covering more ground than any except the biggest in Shanghai. Bach has, its own Tosslled space, at times cut out of the side dhe billond in many cases supported ite outer edge by a wall thirty or forty feet high composed of the rocky debris of the excavation. On the levelled terrace round the house there is a garden and a tennis court, sometimes asphalted, sometimes grass or an apology therefor. The trams run at regular and frequent inter-Vals, one up, one down at the same time, passing each other at the only point where The line is doubled. The sensation to some is like that. of being hauled up a Chips side or of going down a roborean as the case may be, and it is distinctly curious to see the houses leaning well backward as they seem to do. The pace upward varies from a crawl to a rush, the Intter sometimes occurring at the steepest point, and apparently depending (Iam not Tuite'clear on this point) upon the rate at Ghich the downward car assists in the Jrauling up of its ascending companion. Of course people in Hongkong have the well-Kmown story of the old lady who, being droalfully nervous about the ascent, asked the conductor what. would happen cable broke. He told her of the vations Safeguards, but she still persisted." Suppose all these were to fail, what would happen to me then?"
Phot. madam," replied the polite conductor, "would depend entirely upon (chat your previous life had been!"
There is hardly time as the tram ascends to admire the Luxuriance of the under-Ferns nestle in every shady Took, and though when T saw {hem there had been no rain for months.
ther still, remained creen and fresh owing. I should imagine, to the nightly mists. These only too often persist throughout day as well, but though ther do nothing to fill the reservoirs they iva life to vegetation.
"Arrived at the Peak Terminus you have 'a choice of exercise. Given a pair of cood understandings " the best thing by far is to leave chairs to cripples and walk. You may then go upwards till you come to the observatory and flagstaff, or you may go along the narrow roads which seem now to Tun in every necessary direction along the face of the mountain. If the former, you will soon come to Mount Austin and the red-looking building that was formerly a hotel but is now a barracks, where Thomas Atkins, Esq., good fellow and brave man, lives untroubled by the heat and the disagreeables of life on the lower level. Then on again, past mountain homes and bungalows till the flag state is reached. There are halting places by the way where you may sit and admire the prospect while resting. But the grandest View of all is of course from the top, since thence may be seen not the island only, but the archipelago surrounding it on the one side, and the Kowloon portion of the mainland on the other, stretching away in 'a northerly direction with an almost Saharatike expanse of sandy hills and barren slopes, disintegrated granite being the common outcrop, and giving appearance of red gold to the country generally. It isa wondrous scene, this view from the Peak. One finds it difficult to apportion one's admiration justly between the stumendous work of Nature, and the propor-Tionally equal energy of man. There lies the harbour, laid out as a gigantic contour map might be on a schoolroom floor. Being at the highest point one looks down on evcry thing. There is the city of Victoria itself, a wonder in itself, and a growing wonder too, There are the Kowloon ranges, ridge after ridge, covering the peninsula and stretching away into the New Terri tory. Islands everywhere, islands that with the money and the enterprise shown on the larger one might be made each into a little paradise. Then there is the harbour. No words can do justice to the life and bustle of the scene. It must be seen to be believed. One simple fact will do more to bring home to. the Shanghai community the actual condition of Hong-Kong trade than reams of verbal deseription.
There are over a thousand steam launches and tugs at work in the hark sur.
Wo know what steam launches are, and how their presence in our own river beto-Kens a kind of enterprise that we should be sorry to sce absent, but I doubt. very much if we could make up a hundred or "anything approaching a hundred. What ithe constant employment of ten times that number means will therefore bring Theme to the Shanghai mind a closer appreciation of the extent of the Southern Colony's business than anything else I could have written, for these hurry-scur-tying little midgets of the sea are not built to be laid up. Here and there they dart, backward and forward, until one fancies that to the steadfastness of John Bull, Hongkong has added the restlessness' of Brother Jonathan. Look-straight ahead as we—were the harbour I counted nearly a. score of launches at one time cutting across the steamer's track.
But these are facts which one does not pick up all at once on the Peak. There are bigger t* fags than launches to attract attention irom that height. First in point of size is the Terrible, which looms fike an immense merchant ship at a distance and shows no teeth till one is closer. Then come the battle-ships—four of them—all of the latest construction, vessels {hat need not show their heels to anvthing anywhere. They look very peaceful lying off the Braga, and from our point of vantage they to size. Only a nearer inspection shows shore the ten, eleven, or more thousand tons is hidden. There has recently issued from the Admiralty an order that the hips on the various stations shall experi-
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Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.