The roads are finely macadamized, and in the cool of the day there is a great deal of horseback riding. As in all English communities, the races constitute one of the principal amusements of the people; and in order to have a suitable place for this purpose, the surface of a spacious and level vale, called the “Happy Valley,”--which is near the eastern limits of the town, and lies between two beautifully swelling mountains that open upon Sanpan Bay,[11]--has been reclaimed from a state of saltmarsh, and now forms an extensive race-course. At a convenient point well-adapted buildings are arranged, and fitted up with all the necessary appliances for the accommodation of judges and spectators. During the races this place is thronged with gay and busy crowds of fashionable people; but to one newly arrived from the occident there is a strangely odd mixture of the grave and gay, in the surroundings and present use of the valley. The Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Parsee cemeteries are situated at the distance of only about three rods directly in the rear of the covered seats for the spectators, and the stands for the judges. These populous “cities of the dead” are in separate enclosures, although contiguous to each other, and are shaded thickly with evergreens and flowering shrubs. In the Protestant ground we observed single camelias in bloom on shrubs eight or ten feet in height. We also noticed, within the Parsee enclosure, several fresh graves already dug, and learned that it was the custom to have such places ready when called for, as it was often necessary in so warm a climate to bury the dead as soon as possible. This close proximity of a race-course to such an array of burial-places impressed us disagreeably; and we could not but think that so incongruous a blending of the gravely solemn with the gay and boisterously jolly, if met by an Englishman anywhere else than among his own countrymen, would call forth severe animadversion not only upon the community, but upon the nation to whom the people belonged. The graves of the Chinese are also scattered nearly to the top of the mountain slope on the opposite side of the valley; but their resting-places are found on all the hill-sides, as well as on most of the unoccupied ground in China. On nearing the port of Hong Kong almost the first object that meets the eye are the Chinese graves, and the attention is arrested by the peculiar style of some of their tombs, which are in shape like the Omega (Ω) of the Greek alphabet. The graves on the slope of Victoria Mountain, near the water, are very conspicuous.