______________________________________________________________________________________________

10 Apr 59 Peter Hong Kong Mother ______________________________________________________________________________________________

Hong Kong

10th April 1859

My dear Mother

I didn’t like to let the mail go without writing to you, otherwise I fear I should not have written to you this time as nothing worth mentioning has happened. The mail has not yet arrived altho’ our own private Calcutta steamer which was at Singapore with the mail steamer has been in four days & brought us all the English news as usual but not the letters.

Just fancy what a tremendous command of business this gives us – our steamer arrives off the island & sends all the house letters on shore in a boat, then hovers about outside, out of sight & does not come in until there is a prospect of the mail steamer arriving, some days after, & all this time we are able to play with the markets.

I forgot to tell you in my last letter about an excursion I made to Aberdeen,* a village over the other side of the island where, under our auspices, the finest docks this side of the Cape are being built & how fearfully we desecrated the Sabbath.

We started on Saturday, walking over the most precipitous hills along a narrow ledge cut in the side for a footpath which made me quite giddy. This was one of the chief places where the supposed Braves who used to waylay Europeans about 6 months ago worked, but as we were 4 in number we considered ourselves enough for any numbers of Braves.

Our things were sent round in a boat & some of the more immediate requirements such as eatables followed us suspended to bamboos & borne by indefatigable coolies. We put up at night on board an old hulk laying in the Bay, on board of which the party superintending the building of the docks dwells.

This old gentleman was formerly a ship carpenter & is to all intents & purposes the same now, only that he is worth £50,000 which is no earthly use to him, except for the education of a family who are most probably being educated at home as the most finished gentlemen.

The consequences are therefore something fearful to anticipate when the highly polished children shall find the father of their dreams a plain, honest, hard-working carpenter, regardless either of the Queen’s English or of any strong language in particular.

The following morning we started off at an early hour to survey the country & discover a splendid sort of natural basin in the midst of a watercourse which, had it not been so cold, we should certainly have availed ourselves of for a bathe.

This island abounds in these watercourses all on a granite surface & these small basins which are of very frequent occurrence make capital bathing places – the bottom being of sand & the granite forming round them just like a wall. The only thing that I object to is that sometimes they abound with small scorpions.

Having surveyed the country we returned about 8 o’clock to the hulk to breakfast & after that proceeded dogs, & all with our guns, expecting to find some deer known to be thereabouts. There is a small house called a pic-nic house where we sent our comestibles & domestics & in the whereabouts of this we spent the whole day shooting & clambering hills & all sorts of amusement which (as Pepys, whose diary I have just been reading, would say), ‘do occasion us much sport’ but as tho’ it were a sort of judgement upon us for so desecrating the Sabbath, we did not get a single bird. Or when we did shoot them, never could find them.

My wads were too small for the gun I had & the shot must all have rolled out on one occasion, for observing a beautiful little bird sitting peacefully upon a branch of a tree, I took deliberate aim – ‘pot’ shot as it is vulgarly termed – fired – & he never moved. I fired the second barrel & he flew up in the air with a sort of chirrup, as much as to say ‘all right, better next time’.

I haven’t spent a more pleasant day since I have been here but we are all such strange unsociable people in this house, that it may be long before it may occur again. It is excusable to be doing this once in a way on a Sunday, as they would no more think of letting us do it on a week day than they would of jumping over the moon if any one wished so to peril himself.

I send you a plan of our fortress as it was during the war. Many of the guns are now being removed. In those days we had besides a gunboat at our disposal & a party of French marines in addition to our own private body of Sepoys. You have little conception I daresay, notwithstanding all I have told you of what a real fortified stronghold this is, & how its isolated position & the immense accumulation of wealth on the spot would make it just the place for an attack.

Last year about 1,000 men with gingalls* & every thing correct attacked the bazaar in our neighbourhood & had it not been for us I don’t know where they would have been. We killed a good many of them & when they saw two field-pieces being brought out upon them, they were off. If they had only attacked us here instead of the bazaar, we might have given them a little lesson.

The mail just arrived (12 April) brought me lots of papers but unfortunately they were all old ones – even the Observers, or at least one of them. The Punchs were old; the Illustrateds were old, so that instead of being quite a treat, they were utterly useless. However you will have had my letters on that subject ere this & will no doubt have made arrangements for the Illustrateds & Punch to be sent to me from the newspaper people & send me some Times instead of the Observer. At least I don’t care a bit about the Observer & never read it whereas there is nothing I like so much as the Times, only they mustn’t be old ones.

Sir Peter’s promised Saturday Review appears a myth which I am sorry for as I read it with a great deal of interest. You will doubtless observe I write in great haste as the mail is just closing.

Do leave off addressing as Peter George. It is such a ridiculous name that it has been turned into a nickname here – a thing I strongly object to. Two Christian names together never do & those two in particular, I am sorry to say, are sadly ill matched altho’ doubtless, from being accustomed to them, you don’t think so. Call me Peter G., or P.G. – or anything you like but Peter George.

Tell the Mr Lauries I was exceedingly glad at receiving their letter & that I hope by following in the same path in which they trod before me, to raise myself to the same happy independent position.

In great haste

Your affect. Son

Peter G. Laurie

Kiss little Helen for Brother

* Aberdeen – Aberdeen was named in 1845, after the British Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, George Hamilton-Gordon, 4^th Earl of Aberdeen. It is indigenously known as Heung Kong Tsai, believed to be the origin of the name Hong Kong

* Gingalls – Gingall, a type of musket from India, usually mounted on a swivel. The Chinese version was the taiqiang