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NOTES AND QUERIES
In talking about his literary works, it should be noted that the general wrote two books; one being Poems Composed at Leisure (2 volumes), and the other being Journal at Leisure (one volume only). Moreover, as a calligrapher, the general was noted for his fist-writing (*) as well as finger-writing (#). According to his Diary, the method he adopted for fist-writing was to wrap his fist with damp cotton. There still remained, on a big rock at the Ma Kok Temple (M) in Macau an inscription of two big Chinese characters each ten feet in width, with the literal meaning "the Mirror of the Sea". In addition, there were also inscriptions there of two poems composed and written by him; one in the autumn of the 23rd year of Tao Kuang reign (✯✯) (1843) and the other in the spring of the same year. In another Buddhist Temple in Macao, the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy by name (***) there was also an inscription of one of his poems, în a special style, of a stanza of 4 lines with 7 characters to a line.
It is said that his grandson, Ching-san, still kept a scroll written by his grandfather, and that this scroll had been returned to him by an aged gentry in Kowloon Walled City. In the spring of the 29th year of Tao Kuang reign (1849) General Cheung had also written a scroll, a duplicated copy of which is still now hung in the Lok Sin Tong School in Kowloon.
As far as the calligraphy is concerned, the General wrote in a style that was a combination of two famous schools—the Au-Yeung Sau (1) school and Lau Chung-yuen (#) school.* Although each character was usually as large as 4 to 5 Chinese inches in size, they appeared both energetic and elegant; and if one does not pay attention to what he mentioned by himself in his note, one would hardly know it was written with the fist. It is really a great pity that the original piece of writing was destroyed by fire during the foreigners' invasion into his home town.
The old residence of Cheung's family was in Wai Yeung District, but it was not named "Peach Garden” until his grandson Ching-san, in the middle of the Kuang Hsü reign (4), spent a lot of money to renovate and develop the place. According to Ching-san's self-explanation, it had been more than 900 years since their ancestors immigrated from Ku Kiang District (1) and settled down
* 1007-1072 and 773-819 respectively: see Herbert A. Giles, A Chinese Biographical Dictionary (London and Shanghai, 1898) pp. 524, 606-607 for these famous literati.