1850s impressions of Hong Kong by English visitors reprinted in "The Chater Collection"

I was interested to read the following the accounts of British visitors to Hong Kong in the 1850s reprinted in "Sir Paul Chater. The Chater Collection. Pictures relating to China, Hong Kong," by James Orange, 1924.

The first is by Laurence Oliphant and taken from "The Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's mission to China and Japan in the years 1857, '58, '59":

"When it was not blowing or raining, the heat was intolerable; and we all suffered more or less from its evil effects. Often for days together we remained sweltering on board. The charms of the Club failed to tempt us. Hongkong boasts only two walks for the conscientious valetudinarian – one along the seashore to the right and the other to the left of the settlement; then there is a scramble to the top of Victoria Peak at the back of it, but this generally involves an early start and a probable attack of fever. The monotony of life is varied with the malady alternating with boils or dysentery."

The second is from  George Wingrove Cooke the Times correspondent:

"Scarcely any English die here. True; but there is an enormous consumption of quinine and blue pill, and when these have their effect, most Englishmen take a Peninsular and Oriental steamer. It is a mere question then, of a preposition, whether they are to be carried off from or on the island. (…)

It is pleasant to be able to rest by that the entomologist and the man curious in reptiles may find constant amusement. The winged cockroach is so finely developed, and so rich in fecundity that the specimens may be seen at all times and in the most handsome drawing rooms crawling over the floors and tables by day, in size like mice and banging against the lamp glasses at night, in size like birds. The spiders are so colossal that you wonder how they can have fed themselves to such a size and yet left so many flies undevoured. The mosquitoes are so clever in insinuating themselves through your fortress of gauze, and they so keenly cut slices out of your fleshy parts that you hail the dawn of day with the sensation of an Abyssinian ox."

Cooke thanks Mr. Walker of the Peninsular & Oriental Company:

“For it was by no common expenditure of time and interest that he obtained for me a single room at a price not much above what a lodging would cost in the London season…"

"The climate of Hongkong has not presented itself to me with a pleasant aspect. The Victoria Peak shuts out the south-west monsoon which blows in grateful breezes upon the southern coast; the heat therefore is stagnant up and down, fierce, often reflected heat – a heat there is no escaping (…) but the climate is not without the charm of variety. Sometimes we wake in the morning to the sound of rushing waters. There is a cascade in the sky. As much water falls as would make wet weather in England in a month.”

Finally Albert Smith in To China and Back also complains on 21 August 1858 about the difficulty of finding comfortable lodgings:

“There are no hotels properly called in Hongkong. A well-conducted house would make a fortune.” Of the Hong Kong  Club he writes:

“This night mosquitoes, cockroaches, small red ants, prickly heat and a rat kept me very lively.”