HONG Kong had been a British colony a mere six months when the British experienced their first typhoon.
''The wind howled and tore everything away before it, literally sweeping the face of the waters,'' wrote Captain Hall of the gunboat Nemesis.
''The buildings being merely of temporary construction, most of them partly built of bamboo, barracks and all came tumbling down like children's card-houses.'' The two British plenipotentiaries Sir Gordon Bremer and Hong Kong's founder Captain Elliot, were aboard Elliot's cutter, the Lousia, between Macau and Hong Kong, when the typhoon struck.
Elliot took the wheel and managed to beach the little cutter, without loss of life, on one of the Ladrones or pirate islands, south of Lantau.
The next morning they struck a bargain with two Chinese fishermen to convey the party to Macau for $1,000. Just as they were about to set off, another group of Chinese arrived from a nearby village and stole most of their clothes, and medals. The price was then raised to $2,000.
Eventually the sum of $3,000 was agreed upon; but the fishermen would only take four people. Elliot, Bremer and two sailors lay on the bottom of a sampan covered with mats. To their horror a Chinese war junk hailed their fishing boat.