File:Wanderings east of Suez in Ceylon, India, China and Japan (1907) (14766155572).jpg

Identifier: wanderingseastof00penf (find matches)
Title: Wanderings east of Suez in Ceylon, India, China and Japan
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Penfield, Frederic Courtland, 1855-1922
Subjects: East Asia -- Description and travel India -- Description and travel Sri Lanka -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : George Bell and Sons New York : Century co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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aded withAmerican flour, vainly sought wharfage), and thatshe possesses the largest sugar refinery in theworld. But these circumstances are subordinateto the British governments real interest in HongKong—to make it the base of naval power inAsia, with dockyards and repair-shops equal toany demand, and with coal-bins stacked with theprerequisite to sea-power. The horse is included in no grouping in HongKong, where coolie takes its j^lace as bearer ofburdens and hauler of vehicles. The sights of theplace are so strange and interesting that a trav-eler is sometimes there for days before the factdawns upon his vision that it is a city innocent ofhorse-flesh. True, there are the runners and poloponies at Happy Valley race-course. Wherever theBriton plants his abiding-place, there the horseand dog are brought—but in Hong Kong the for-mer requires a deal of attention, for it is only usedin making a Britons holiday. The race-course isset in an intervale, and has cemeteries overlooking 238
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•I Island Links grand-stand and entrances. A transplantedsportsman whose every effort to name a winningsteed at a Happy Valley meeting has failed sig-nally, finds superabundance of food for introspec-tion as he runs the gauntlet of cemetery portals onthe way back to the city, and very likely indulgesin mental speculation as to the purpose in givingthe name of Happy Valley to a race-track whosebetting ring is overshadowed by burial grounds. The ^^chit as a moral pitfall is more potent inHong Kong than in India or other Eastern landspossessing a sprinkling of Europeans. A new-comers ears hear little but chit. Every sen-tence uttered by friends, every proposal of obse-quious native merchant, is freighted with the lit-tle word. You decide at last to cast off your ig-norance and be of the elect—to know what chitmeans and if possible become a chitter. Very dis-appointed are you when told that chit is simplyAsian for memorandum, in popular phrase, an IO. U., hurriedly penciled and given

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