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EAST ASIA.
a hand, whose fingers " play with the clouds by day, and at night gather the stars
of the milky way." They also speak of snow-clad crests, although in this tropical
climate peaks less than 16,500 feet high could not remain covered with snow
throughout the year. Even an occasional full of snow would imply an elevation
of about 6,000 feet. But whatever be their altitude, these central highlands send
down numerous torrents in all directions to the coast, which forms an irregular
oval 480 miles in extent.
Hainan is one of the least-known parts of China. The rivers have been traced
on the maps either from old Chinese documents or from native reports, while even
the seaboard has been carefully surveyed only on the north ^side.
whether the Nankien-kiang, flowing north-west, really
navigable rivers, Peimen-kiang and Kien-kiang, or Ta-kiang,
It is uncertain
ramifies into the two
with a total
development of 180 miles. It is even said to throw off a third branch, also
navigable, directly to the Gulf of Tonking, forming altogether a disposition of
running waters in a hilly island elsewhere unparalleled.
Hainan abounds in natural resources of all kinds. Its mountains contain gold,
silver, copper, iron, and other metals ; hot springs bubble up, especially in its
western valleys ; the hillsides are clothed with dense forests, supplying excellent
building material, and still harbouring the tiger, rhinoceros, a species
of ape
Lower down flourish the coco,
resembling the orang-outang, deer, and wild goats.
while pine-apple hedges line the fields under the sugar-
areca, and betel-nut palm ;
cane, mango, banana, litchi, indigo, cotton, tobacco, rice, potato, sesame, and tropical
fruits. Here is also the Coeetarpela insect, which yields the vegetable wax of com-
merce, and the surrounding waters abound in fish, the turtle, and pearl oyster.
Lying in the track of the south-west monsoons, the island is abundantly watered,
while the tropical heats are tempered by cool sea-breezes from the north-east.
Although within the zone of the typhoons, Hainan suffers much less than Formosa
from these fierce whirlwinds.
When speaking of its inhabitants, Chinese writers compare the island to a circle
enclosing two concentric rings. In the centre live the wild aborigines, in the
outer zone the Chinese settlers, and between the two the civilised natives. The
various tribes that have withdrawn to the valleys of the interior are collectively
known by the name of Li, or Lo'i, and speak a 'language akin to that of the
continental Miaotze. Some of the Song-li, as the more savage tribes are called, go
almost naked, d-\yelling in caves or narrow retreats covered with a straw roof, and
split up into numerous hostile septs, with different dress, arms, and customs. The
Nawtong wear the hair gathered in curls on the forehead, while the Kac Miau
plant bits of bamboo like horns on the top of the head. The Shuh, or " Ripe "
that
is, settled and civilised Li have been joined at various times by Miaotze refugees from
Kwangsi and West Kwangtung, whom they resemble in speech and habits. But the
dominant race have long been the Chinese, of whom 23,000 families colonised the
coast lands some two thousand years ago.
In 1835 they numbered 1,350,000, and
are now said to exceed 2,500,000. Mostly from Fokien and Kwangtimg, they
have suffered much from the pirates formerly infesting these waters, but they