A succession of disasters swept over the colony in its first year of existence. “Hong Kong Fever,” a form of malaria thought to have been caused by digging up the earth for new roads and buildings, killed hundreds of settlers. Two violent typhoons unroofed practically every temporary building on the rocky slopes and drowned a tenth of the boat population. The wreckage of the ships and buildings had scarcely been cleared away when a fire broke out among the flimsy, closely packed mat sheds. In a few hours, it burned down most of the Chinese huts on the island. The flavor of disaster became a regular part of Hong Kong history. Its own four horsemen—piracy, typhoons, epidemics and fires—raced through the colony at frequent but unpredictable intervals, filling its hills and harbor with debris and death. There is still no reason to assume that they will not return, either singly or as a team, whenever the whim moves them. Even imagining Hong Kong as an island bearing no more than a minimum burden of natural hazards, it is difficult to understand how it became settled at all. The London _Times_ scorned it editorially in 1844 with the comment that “The place has nothing to recommend it, if we except the excellent harbor.” The original colony and the much larger territory added to it in the next 120 years have no natural resources of value, except fish, building stone and a limited supply of minerals. Only one-seventh of its total area is arable land; at best, it can grow enough rice, vegetables and livestock to feed the present population for about three months of a year. There is no local source of coal, oil or water power. Fresh water was scarce in 1841, and in 1960, after the colony had constructed an elaborate system of fourteen reservoirs, the carefully rationed supply had to be supplemented with additional water bought and pumped in from Red China. Hong Kong has an annual rainfall of 85 inches—twice that of New York City—but three-fourths of it falls between May and September. At the end of the rainy season, ten billion gallons may be stored in the reservoirs but by the following May, every reservoir may be empty. Water use, especially during the dry winter, has been restricted to certain hours throughout the colony’s history. Running water, to the majority of Hong Kong’s poor, means that one grabs a kerosene tin and runs for the nearest public standpipe. Those lucky enough to reach the head of the line before the water is cut off may carry home enough to supply a household for one full day.