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Ball in his book “Rambles in Eastern Asia” (James French & Co. Boston 1855). It covers the years 1848-49. Like Hunter, his quotations are generally consistent with other accounts, although he has not adopted any system for spelling. But these people were travelogue writers, not philologists.
We now come to a renowned source which has been widely quoted: Charles G. Leland's book “Pidgin-English Sing-Song, or Songs and Stories in the China-English Dialect with a Vocabulary" published by Trubner at London in 1876.
This little volume of 137 pages contains 22 "ballads”, 10 stories and two parodies of English Romantic verse in China Coast Pidgin. At the end is a vocabulary of about 600 words and a list of Hongkong personal and place names. Leland mentions R. K. Douglas, H. A. Giles as well as Ng Choy in his introduction as having corrected the texts, and gives a basic description of the way Pidgin was spoken. Let me quote a short poem from Leland called “L'Oiseau”
One-tim two precee Flunsee walkee in Canton,
Look-see one piecee culto-shop-first-chop nampa one.
Chinaman he show'um allo pukkha ting,
Birdee paint top-sidee plate-makee fly with wing.
Flunsee look-see birdee-Flunsee talk “oiseau;”
Chinaman he tinkee Flunsee ask "Why so?"
He no savvy Flunsee talk, so he makee tell
To 'um in he English-"Why so? -makee sell."
By'mby on lacker-box all-same birdee playın',
Flunsee-man look-see it, talk "Oiseau” agam.
Chinaman he hear-lo-tink he savvy well,
So talkee all-same pidgin, "why so?-makee sell."
Flunsee tinkee sarıın he hab learnee word,
Talk he flin r'hat maktsel be China for a bird.
Pidgin-English Sing-Song is a very amusing and enjoyable book. But although it contains much that is genuine Pidgin, both in vocabulary and in the manner of expression, it cannot be taken as a reliable source for a historical study.