I asked, "What regiment?"
"The Ninety–second, I think," said the General. "But that was in the old times—in the Sixties. I believe they quartered a lot of troops here and built the barracks on the ground; and the fever carried all the men off like flies. Isn't it a desolate place?"
My mind went back to a neglected graveyard a stone's throw from Jehangir's tomb in the gardens of Shalimar, where the cattle and the cowherd look after the last resting–places of the troops who first occupied Lahore. We are a great people and very strong, but we build Our empire in a wasteful manner—on the bones of the dead that have died of disease.
"But about the fortifications, General? Is it true that etc., etc.?"
"The fortifications are right enough as things go; what we want is men."
"How many?"
"Say about three thousand for the Island—enough to stop any expedition that might come. Look at all these little bays and coves. There are twenty places at the back of the island where you could land men and make things unpleasant for Hong–Kong."
"But," I ventured, "isn't it the theory that any organised expedition ought to be stopped by our fleet before it got here? Whereas the forts are supposed to prevent cutting out, shelling, and ransoming by a disconnected man–of–war or two."
"If you go on that theory," said the General, "the men–of–war ought to be stopped by our fleets, too. That's all nonsense. If any Power can throw troops here, you want troops to turn 'em out, and—don't we wish we may get them!"
"And you? Your command here is for five years, isn't it?"
"Oh, no! Eighteen months ought to see me out. I don't want to stick here for ever. I've other notions for myself," said the General, scrambling over the boulders to get at his tiffin.
And that is just the worst of it. Here was a nice General helping to lay out fortifications, with one eye on Hong–Kong and the other, his right one, on England. He would be more than human not to sell himself and his orders for the command of a brigade in the next English affair. He would be afraid of being too long away from home lest he should drop out of the running and … Well, we are just the same in India, and there is not the least hope of raising a Legion of the Lost for colonial service—of men who would do their work in one place for ever and look for nothing beyond it. But remember that Hong–Kong—with five million tons of coal, five miles of shipping, docks, wharves, huge civil station, forty million pounds of trade, and the nicest picnic parties that you ever did see—wants three thousand men and—she won't get them. She has two batteries of garrison artillery, a regiment, and a lot of gun lascars—about enough to prevent the guns from rusting on their carriages. There are three forts on an island—Stonecutter's Island—between Hong–Kong and the mainland, three on Hong–Kong itself, and three or four scattered about elsewhere. Naturally the full complement of guns has not arrived. Even in India you cannot man forts without trained gunners. But tiffin under the lee of a rock was more interesting than colonial defence. A man cannot talk politics if he be empty.
Our one fine day shut in upon the empty plates in wind and rain, and the march across the island began.
As the launch was blotted out in the haze we squelched past sugar–cane crops and fat pigs, past the bleak cemetery of dead soldiers on the hill, across a section of moor, till we struck a hill–road above the sea. The views shifted and changed like a kaleidoscope. First a shaggy shoulder of land tufted with dripping rushes and naught above, beneath, or around but mist and the straight spikes of the rain; then red road swept by water that fell into the unknown; then a combe, straight walled almost as a house, at the bottom of which crawled the jade–green sea; then a vista of a bay, a bank of white sand, and a red–sailed junk beating out before the squall; then only wet rock and fern, and the voice of thunder calling from peak to peak.
A landward turn in the road brought us to the pine woods of Theog and the rhododendrons—but they called them azaleas—of Simla, and ever the rain fell as though it had been July in the hills instead of April at Hong–Kong. An invading army marching upon Victoria would have a sad time of it even if the rain did not fall. There are but one or two gaps in the hills through which it could travel, and there is a scheme in preparation whereby they shall be cut off and annihilated when they come. When I had to climb a clay hill backwards digging my heels into the dirt, I very much pitied that invading army.
Whether the granite–faced reservoir and two–mile tunnel that supplies Hong–Kong with water be worth seeing I cannot tell. There was too much water in the air for comfort even when one tried to think of Home.
But go you and take the same walk—ten miles, and only two of 'em on level ground. Steam to the forsaken cantonment of Stanley and cross the island, and tell me whether you have seen anything so wild and wonderful in its way as the scenery. I am going up the river to Canton, and cannot stay for word–paintings.
No. X
Shows How I Came to Goblin Market and Took a Scunner at It and Cursed the Chinese People. Shows Further How I Initiated All Hong-kong Into Our Fraternity
Providence is pleased to be sarcastic. It sent rain and a raw wind from the beginning till the end. That is one of the disadvantages of leaving India. You cut yourself adrift, from the only trustworthy climate in the world. I despise a land that has to waste half its time in watching the clouds. The Canton trip (I have been that way) introduces you to the American river steamer, which is not in the least like one of the Irrawaddy flotilla or an omnibus, as many people believe. It is composed almost entirely of white paint, sheet–lead, a cow–horn, and a walking–beam, and holds about as much cargo as a P. and O. The trade between Canton and Hong–Kong seems to be immense, and a steamer covers the ninety miles between port and port daily. None the less are the Chinese passengers daily put under hatches or its equivalent after they leave port, and daily is the stand of loaded Sniders in the cabin inspected and cleaned up. Daily, too, I should imagine, the captain of each boat tells his Globe–trotting passengers the venerable story of the looting of a river steamer—how two junks fouled her at a convenient bend in the river, while the native passengers on her rose and made things very lively for the crew, and ended by clearing out that steamer. The Chinese are a strange people! They had a difficulty at Hong–Kong not very long ago about photographing labour coolies, and in the excitement, which was considerable, a rickety old war junk got into position off the bund with the avowed intention of putting a three–pound shot through the windows of the firm who had suggested the photographing. And this though vessel and crew could have been blown in cigarette–ash in ten minutes!
But no one pirated the Ho–nam, though the passengers did their best to set her on fire by upsetting the lamps of their opium pipes. She blared her unwieldy way across the packed shipping of the harbour and ran into grey mist and driving rain. When I say that the scenery was like the West Highlands you will by this time understand what I mean. Large screw steamers, China pig–boats very low in the water and choked with live–stock, wallowing junks and ducking sampans filled the waterways of a stream as broad as the Hughli and much better defended so far as the art of man was concerned. Their little difficulty with the French a few years ago has taught the Chinese a great many things which, perhaps, it were better for us that they had left alone.