HOI -HOW, THE PROPOSED NEW TREATY PORT, ISLAND OF HAINAN.
HAINAN is an island off the southern const of China, and forms part of the province of Kwang-tung. Hoi-how, the chief port there, was first thrown open to foreign trade during the middle of 1872, and an English consul was thereupon appointed to reside at the post. According to the Chinese annals of the Kwang-tung province, Hainan was first occupied by the Chinese a.d. 654.' It was celebrated at an early period for its pearl fisheries, and is the place to which Su-Tang-po, a distinguished statesman and scholar of the eleventh century, was banished. Here, too, as in Formosa, the Chinese authorities have been put to trouble in keeping the independent tribes in check, and in both cases the aborigines have been driven back from the sea-board, to find shelter in the mountain fastnesses of the interior.
Hoi-how is situated on the north-west of the island, and the two forts shown in the photograph protect the approach to it from the river. The distance from Hong-kong is about one-and-a-half or two days' steam. The channel at the mouth of the river is a shallow and dangerous one, owing to numerous sand-bars, which are said frequently to shift. The anchorage for trading vessels is at present four miles from the city, to reach which place one must resort to small passenger-boats, which flock to provision the vessels, or to convey their passengers to Hoi-how.
The town is well-built, and, in common with many other cities of China, is surrounded by a massive wall. Its streets also appear cleaner and better kept than those on the mainland. The country, for about twenty miles inland, is flat, diversified here and there with insignificant hills. Beyond these low bill-ranges a chain of mountains appears, presenting a number of irregular peaks. Mr. Swinhoe has estimated the loftiest of them to be 7,000 feet above the sea-level." The hills we traversed were very lovely — green, chequered by lines of trees crossing one another, like a park at home in a hilly country."
The plain is well-cultivated with rice, millet, sweet potatoes, ground-nuts, and sugar, all of which are grown with great success, having every advantage of soil and climate to assist them. Rice, however, may be regarded as the chief article of produce. The island being further south, is naturally more tropical than any other part of the Kwang- tung province. The cocoa and arcca-palms here grow to great perfection, and the oil of the former supplies an important article of exportation. The fruits, with the addition of the Lichee, arc similar in kind and variety to those of Singapore or Malacca. The trade of the island has hitherto been entirely in the hands of native merchants.
From what little we know of the Li, or aborigines of Hainan, they appear to resemble the hill-tribes of Formosa and the " Miau-tzu " of the mountains of the mainland of China ; but our information as to their habits and language is too slender to form the basis of any definite conclusions. I had two Hainan Chinamen in my employment for upwards of six years, and from them I have heard many stories of the wild mountain-tribes of their native land ; but these were evidently too untrustworthy to be seriously taken into account, if we may judge by the persistence with which they affirmed that the wild mountaineers were closely allied to apes, and carried short, stumpy tails appended to their persons.
"A History of the Kwang-tung Province, Bowra," p. 19.
" Shanghai Courier," paper by Mr. Swinhoe.
