crowded with inhabitants, in a place less than two acres in extent, have been known to draw their entire sustenance day after day from this little lot."

REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE

After the many years of anxiety through which the Company has passed, it is very satisfactory to know that after the spirited manner in which they have persevered, in face of great difficulties, their efforts to establish the government, and to develop the resources of the country, now show results from which success may be confidently relied on.

The railway through the Penotal Gorge is no sooner shown to be a feasible project, promising to open up countries of great value, than a large subsidiary enterprise is undertaken with the view of developing the timber trade along the line, and working the mineral oil springs existing in the neighbourhood; while the New Central Borneo Company are achieving a success in working the valuable coalfields of Labuan which could never be attained in the earlier history of the colony.

The revenue of the State up to the year 1894 had always shown a deficit as compared with the expenditure, the figures for that year having been

The turning-point, therefore, took place in 1895.

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS

The total value of imports for 1894 was 1,329,066 dollars, and the exports 1,698,543 dollars. For 1895 the imports were 1,663,906 dollars, and the exports 2,130,600 dollars, giving an increase in the value of the imports for 1895 as compared with 1894 of 384,840 dollars, and an increase of exports of the same years of 732,057 dollars. It will thus be seen how complete and effectual was the change.

HONG-KONG

BY DR. JAMES CANTLIE

THE Crown colony of Hong-kong consists of the island of Hong-kong itself; of several small adjacent islands; and of the peninsula of Kowloon, about three square miles on the mainland of China, immediately opposite the main island. All except the last-named were ceded to Britain in the year 1841; but it was not until the year 1860 that Kowloon became part of the colony. The island, which gives its name to the colony, is in length eleven miles from east to west, and varies in breadth from two to five miles. It occupies an area in all of twenty-nine square miles.

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Hong-kong consists of a chain of granite peaks rising abruptly from the sea to a height of over 1500 feet in several instances, and attaining an altitude of 1820 feet at the highest point-the "Peak." The name Hong-kong" in Chinese means Fragrant Waters," a name bestowed upon it presumably on account of the excellent quality of the water and the abundance of the mountain streams. The granite of which it is composed forms part of the great granite stratum which extends throughout the province of Kwantung, of which Hong-kong is geographically a part. The granite is grey in colour, and presents the peculiar feature of undergoing gradual decay, causing it to crumble down and form a gravel of a reddish colour, which gives to the landscape, especially during the wet season, a bright red colour to those parts bare of vegetation. The vegetation natural to the soil is, how

ever, of the poorest description; consisting of a coarse grass, with dwarfish shrubs of but little pretension. Only during the early spring can there be said to be any attempt at profusion of verdure; it is during the spring that the azalea, which seems indigenous to the island, flowers. At that season the hill-slopes are covered with a fairly profuse blush of pink azaleas, affording for the space of some six weeks a pleasing, but all too short, evidence of tropical verdure. But although nature has done little to beautify the island, the Colonial Government, since the island has been acquired, has devoted laudable pains to make up for the defects in natural afforestation, by planting trees in profusion, so that now there is an arboreal clothing of no mean extent. The height attained by the imported trees is not, nor does it promise to be, other than disappointing; at the same time, although not robust, the plantations serve to beautify the island to a very marked extent.

The acquisition of Hong-kong was an act of political and commercial necessity, if the British meant to retain a hold upon the trade of China. The Chinese were, when they first began to trade with Western nations, even more exclusive than they now are, and it was only at the point of the bayonet, so to speak, that they were compelled to allow trade to be opened with them. Ever since the year 1613 had the British been attempting to acquire the right to traffic with the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire, and from that date onwards to the cession of Hong-kong there were constant bickerings, and occasionally open warfare, between the two peoples. But the British were not the first of the European nations to reach the fardistant land of Cathay. The Portuguese had not only found their way thither, but had acquired a foothold in China in 1557, and established themselves in Macau. Macau is a small peninsula jutting out from

the mainland of China at the mouth of the Canton River, and situated some thirty miles by sea from Hongkong. When the British began to trade with China they were anything but encouraged by the Portuguese, who looked upon them as formidable and powerful interlopers in what they considered to be their exclusive prerogative. It is the old East India Company that we have to thank for opening up the country. It was the merchants of this famous Company who first sent their ships to Chinese waters to barter goods with the natives; and after a few voyages thither the results were found to be so encouraging that they resolved in the year 1627 to open up trade with Canton by way of Macau. As strenuous opposition was offered by the Portuguese to this arrangement, the commander of a British ship, the London, determined to force the way to Canton himself. This he boldly did by sailing up the Canton River, bombarding the Bogue Forts on the way, and astonished the Cantonese by demanding an interview with the Viceroy. Thus was intercourse with Canton begun, but it took many weary struggles, and the waste of much powder and diplomatic wrangles, to teach the Chinese that the British were not to be thwarted in their desire.

It is impossible in the short space at my disposal to recount a tithe of the fights, the international ruptures, the dissensions, and the intrigues by which the trade was interrupted during a period of well-nigh two hundred years. It must be remembered that our relations with China began in the reign of James I.; and Oliver Cromwell, in the year 1654, concluded a treaty with King John IV. of Portugal, whereby the two countries had free access to all ports of the East Indies. About the time the British began to trade with China the ruling dynasty of the Empire was changed from the Ming to the present Tatsing or Manchu. These interlopers, small crofters from the Ultima Thule of