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EAST 'ASIA.
the channel, owing to a line of hills which run south-west and north-east across the
alluvial soil, and which serve to retain the sedimentary matter brought down by the
stream and washed back by the tides. The northernmost of these ridges consists
of large islands, above some of which rise elevated crests, such as the two peaks of
the island of Wungkum at the entry of the Canton estuary, better known by its
Portuguese name of Montanha. The Ladrones, or " Robber " Islands, like Hong
Kong itself, form portions of an intermediate chain, while still farther seawards
stretches the long archipelago of the La'iping and Lema groups.
CLIMATE OF SOUTH CHINA.
In the Si-kiang basin the torrid and temperate zones are intermingled. With
the alternation of the monsoons, Canton oscillates between the two,
so that its
climate is far less equable than that of Calcutta, Honolulu, Havana, and other
places situated under the same parallel.* During the moist summer monsoon the
southern provinces are as hot as Indian cities equally distant from the equator.
But the temperature rapidly falls in winter, when the dry north-east polar winds
sweep down between the parallel mountain ranges, running mainly north-east and
south-west. Rain seldom* falls in January, when the nights are clear, and even
frosty. At the same time, the regular alternation of moist summer and dry winter
winds is occasionally disturbed by atmospheric currents, deflected in various
directions by the relief and contour of the seaboard. Thus the south-west monsoon
becomes at Canton a south-easterly gale, and the lofty Mount Lantao is daily
exposed to fierce storms for months together.
These climatic disturbances are also reflected in the flora of the southern
provinces. Here the plains are bare in winter, when nature presents the same
bleak aspect as in more northern regions. But all is changed with the return of
the hot moist monsoons, under whose influence the tropical vegetation is revealed
in all its splendour. Now the .palm and camellia flourish by the side of the oak,
chestnut, and sombre pine, while the banana, mango, litchi (Nephelhtm ///