eally no _city_ of Hongkong, though
letters so directed will reach their destination, and even the residents
of the city in whose harbor we were anchored would have spoken of living
in Hongkong. The name "Hongkong" belongs to the small island, ten miles
long by three wide, that lies about a mile from the mainland of China.
Along the north or land side of this island lies the city of Victoria,
with a population of 350,000, commonly known by the name of the entire
island, Hongkong.

Practically the whole island is occupied by mountains of a maximum
height of about 1800 feet, so that the town has only a narrow strip of
level ground along the beach and extends in scattered fashion to the
very top of the ridge.

As we came to anchor the twinkling lights of the streets and houses were
just beginning to appear, and in a little while, when the short tropical
twilight had changed to darkness, the shore line was a mass of lights
which gradually became more scattered toward the hill-tops, where often
a single light marked the location of some isolated residence. Across
the harbor another smaller group of lights showed the position of
Kowloon, a small seaport on the mainland and the southern terminus of
the Kowloon and Canton Railroad. On the water between the two towns,
really one great harbor, were thousands of lights, indicating the
position of invisible steamships, junks, tugs, launches and sampans.
Most of these lights were stationary, showing that the vessels to which
they belonged were at anchor, but some of them were in motion, and
hardly had we come slowly to a standstill and dropped anchor before we
were besieged by a swarm of launches and sampans all clamoring for
passengers to take ashore.

As is customary in the East, steamers usually anchor in the harbor at
Hongkong at some distance from shore, so that the larger hotels, as well
as Cook's Agency, have private launches to take passengers ashore. Since
it was rather late to see anything of the town most of the cabin
passengers preferred to remain on board for the night, and the view of
the lights of the harbor and town as seen from the ship was well worth
enjoying for one evening.

[Illustration: VIEW ON "THE PEAK"; GOVERNOR'S RESIDENCE IN THE LEFT
BACKGROUND.]

The next morning we were able to see the meaning of the lights of the
night before. The business part of the town, with its crowded Chinese
sections and its fine municipal and office buildings, lies as a n