RICH veins of silver ore, fabulous riches. Such are the myths and such is how Silvermine Bay (Ngan Kwong Wan) gained its name. In fact, Pak Ngan Heung, once the bay's dominant village, translates as ''white metal village''.
For a few decades in the 19th century, it lay alongside a commercial mine exploiting the veins of silver which gave the bay and village their names.
Legends claim the mine was either a joint venture by Portuguese and Japanese interests, inaugurated in the 1860s, or a project started in the 1870s by Westerners, probably Portuguese.
The Islands District Board ignores all legends and merely says ''an English newspaper'' reported the existence of the presumably semi-secret mine on March 29 1886. That is one of the mine's few recorded facts, engraved on the commemorative plaque which the board's tourism development committee erected beside the mine's main entrance.
To reach it, take either of the lanes leading from the beach to Pak Ngan Heung. The northern lane wends around Butterfly Hill, whose eucalyptus trees attract butterflies. They flutter past one of three watch towers erected around the valley by a gang of brigands.
The southern lane meanders through Hakka villagers' fertile fields before rising on to Pak Ngan Heung's village-length concrete forecourt. Nearby, the village's Man Mo Temple, built in the mid 18th-century and dedicated to the gods of war and literature,surveys the valley from its terraced courtyard.
