crews, of the fish trade and the cattle trade, but unfortunately also of the trade in girls and women. Strange to say, when the settlement was first started, it was estimated that some 2,000 of these Tan-ka people had flocked to Hongkong, but at the present time they are about the same number, a tendency having set in among them to settle on shore rather than on the water and to disavow their Tan-ka extraction in order to mix on equal terms with the mass of the Chinese community. The half-caste population in Hongkong were, from the earliest days of the settlement of the Colony and down to the present day, almost exclusively the off-spring of these Tan-ka people. But, like the Tan-ka people themselves, they are happily under the influence of a process of continuous re-absorption in the mass of the Chinese residents of the Colony.
In addition to this spontaneous influx of Chinese provisiondealers, artizans, labourers and boat-people, there commenced also, early in 1841, a natural trade movement, which, if war-times had been protracted or if the Chinese Mandarins and the policy of the Hongkong Government had permitted its continuance, would have resulted in the gradual transfer to Hongkong of the larger portion of the Macao and Canton junk-trade and made Hongkong the trade centre of the whole coast of the Canton Province and the great depot of the entire China trade. We have on this point the valuable evidence of Mr. A. Matheson (given before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on May 4, 1847). 'Prior to our taking possession of Hongkong, and for some time after, all the native traders between Canton and the East Coast passed through the harbour, and generally anchored there. When the first Europeans settled in Hongkong, the Chinese showed every disposition to frequent the place; and there was a fair prospect of its becoming a place of considerable trade. The junks from the coast made up their cargoes there, in place of going to Canton and Macao; these cargoes consisted of opium, cotton shirtings, a few pieces of camlets, and other woollens, and Straits produce, such as pepper, betel-nut, rattans, &c.' Mr. William Scott, another former Canton
