Abstract
THE great island of Hainan, off the south-eastern coast of China, is but little known to Europeans, although since 1877 there has been a treaty port there. Mr. Parker, the Consul at Kiungchow, the port in question, lately made a short journey in the interior of the island, of which he gives some account in a recent report. He travelled about sixty miles up the Poh-Chung River, to within a mile or two of Pah-hi, which is, at most seasons of the year, considered the limit of navigation for all but the smallest craft. He walked round the walls of Ting-an city, one of the disturbed districts during the recent rebellions, on New Year's Day (February 9); they are just one mile in circuit, and differ little from those of other Chinese cities. Wherever he had an opportunity of walking diametrically across lengthy curves of the river he found the inclosed area to be extremely well cultivated; though not so flat, its general appearance recalled many features of the Tonquin delta, especially in its great wealth of bamboos. The productions of the soil are much the same, the papaw, areca-palm, sweet potato, turnip, ground-nut, orange-tree, &c.; but a peculiar Hainan feature is the cocoa-nut palm. Another peculiarity of this region is the ubiquitousness of the dwarf Pandanus, probably the same as the P. odoratissima of Fiji, the fibre of which is used in the manufacture of grass-cloth, and is usually known to foreign trade here as hemp. Much of the land was under sweet potato cultivation, and every household seemed to possess a few pigs, of the very superior and stereotyped Hainan variety, black as to the upper and white as to the lower part of the body, with a dividing line of grey running along the side from the snout to the tail. These wholesome-looking pigs are fattened on the sweet potato, and do not rely for sustenance upon precarious scavengering, as is the case with the repulsive and uncleanly animals of North China. Land contiguous to the river is irrigated by enormous wheels, forty feet in diameter, of very ingenious construction, moved by the current, needing no attention, and discharging perhaps one hundred gallons of water in a minute into the trough above, day and night without intermission. He passed several large pottery establishments; but as at the New Year all business and cultivation are suspended for a few days, the opportunity was not a very good one for gathering precise information. The temperature during the week ranged between 50° and 60° F. Game seemed plentiful everywhere, and he mentions that a German resident has recently made a very fine collection of about 400 Hainan birds, embracing 154 species, which will shortly be on their way to a Berlin Museum. One of the commonest birds in the river is a spotted white and black kingfisher of large size. Amongst the trees which attracted his attention was one locally called the “great-leafed banyan,” which looks remarkably like the gutta-percha tree; the natives seem to use its gum mixed with gambier, in order to make that dye “fast”; but there is some doubt whether it is not the sap of the real banyan-tree which is used for the purpose. A very strong silk is made from the grub called the “celestial silkworm,” or, locally, “paddy-insect.” This grub is found on a sort of maple. When full-grown it is thrown into boiling vinegar, on which the “head” of the gut, or “silk,” appears; this is sharply torn out with both hands drawn apart, and is as long as the space between them, say five feet; it is so strong that one single thread of it is sufficient to make a line with which to catch the smaller kinds of fish.
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Hainan. Nature 45, 286 (1892). https://doi.org/10.1038/045286a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/045286a0