🚀 go-pugleaf

those of an aboriginal African, and like a pendant from the
eastern lip hangs the Island of Hong Kong, separated from the mainland
by water only one-fourth of a mile wide. From the opposite or western
lip hangs another pendant, a small island upon which is situated the
Portuguese city of Macao. The mainland adjoining Hong Kong is the
peninsula of Kowloon, ceded to the British with the island of Hong
Kong. Well up in the mouth of the river on its western bank, some
eighty miles from Hong Kong, is the city of Canton.

Let us imagine for a moment that the on-coming civilization of our
country pushed the American Indians not westward but southward toward
the Gulf of Mexico and along the banks of the Mississippi, and
compressed them on every side until at last they were obliged to take
to boats in the mouth of the Mississippi and live there perpetually,
seldom stepping foot on land.

Now we are the better able to understand exactly what took place with
an aboriginal tribe in China. These aborigines were, centuries ago,
pushed southward by an on-coming civilization until at last, by
imperial decree, they were forbidden to live anywhere except on boats
in the mouth of the Canton river, floating up and down that stream,
and sailing about Hong Kong and Macao in the more open sea.

They must have been always a hardy people, for the river population
about Canton numbers today nearly 200,000 souls. In 1730, the severity
of the laws regulating their lives was relaxed somewhat by imperial
decree, and since then some of them have dwelt in villages along the
river bank. But to the present day these people, known as the Tanka
Tribe, or the "saltwater" people, by the natives, may not inter-marry
with other Chinese, nor are they ever allowed to attain to official
honors.