s leading to
them. A railway scaling the mountain height at a topsy-turvy angle did
the rest. Hong Kong is a splendid example of what determined men
possessed of the colonizing spirit may accomplish. The founders of
Venice did no more in the lagoons of the Adriatic. A man responsible for
much of Hong Kong's filling in and excavation is Sir Paul Chator, a
British subject of Armenian birth, gifted to an unusual degree with
foresight. He has done more for the colony than any other person--and
Hong Kong has made him a millionaire.

The legal name of the city is Victoria, but this fact apparently is
known only to the postmaster and at Government House. Were a visitor to
speak of Victoria, the dweller would believe that something back in
England, or in Australia, was meant. When China ceded the rocky isle of
Hong Kong to Great Britain in 1842 it was the haunt of fisherfolk and
pirates prosecuting their callings in the estuary of the Canton River.
The acquisition of Hong Kong was due to the refusal of the Chinese to
allow British traders to live peaceably at Canton. Driven out of the
city, they took temporary refuge in the Portuguese settlement of Macao;
but, being pursued by Chinese hostility, the official trade
superintendent transferred the English depot to Hong Kong, which was
forthwith occupied by a British expeditionary force, and, at the end of
the Opium War, finally ceded to Great Britain by the treaty of Nankin.
The name "Hong Kong" is variously interpreted, but the generally
accepted meaning is "Fragrant Streams."

Just as Singapore guards the south entrance into the China Sea, so does
Hong Kong, fifteen hundred miles away, guard the north. On the south the
entrance is through the Straits of Malacca, on the north through the
Straits of Formosa. Had Great Britain, according to the usual custom of
war, retained possession of Manila, which she had conquered in 1762,
instead of giving it back to Spain at the end of the Seven Years' War,
her hold of the China Sea would have been as firm to-day as is her hold
of the Mediterranean. As the situation now stands, the acquisition of
the Philippine Islands gives Uncle Sam a fortified naval base on the
flank of the British line of communications between Singapore and Hong
Kong. Based on Manila, and given the possession of sufficient naval
force, an American admiral can strike right or left, compelling his
opponents to fight where it best suits his own purposes. England and
Amer