[ { "id": 204980, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1965", "page_number": 88, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\n79\n\nwith sufficient knowledge of navigation and engineering for this. When Bias Bay or Mirs Bay was reached one or more of the ship's lifeboats might be used to take the pirates, their loot, and their prisoners ashore. Sometimes junks were used for this, which might be innocent junks which had arrived fortuitously, or pirate junks which had arrived by prior arrangement. Invariably at least one of the ship's officers would be held as a hostage during this operation, being released when it was completed.\n\nIf everything went smoothly in a piracy of this kind, no lives would be lost. But the pirates were ruthless if they encountered any opposition or if a hitch occurred. A few shots were usually fired in the opening exchanges, perhaps causing a few injuries, but this made the rest of the crew and passengers more co-operative. Towards the end of this era of modern piracy, when the Hong Kong Government and the shipping companies had adopted more effective anti-piracy measures, casualties became more common, as the pirates intensified their resentment to these measures.\n\nOne important anti-piracy measure was the isolation of the centre part of the ship—bridge, engine room, and saloon accommodation—from the rest of the ship by steel grilles. Access was by a steel door, locked and under constant guard. The guards were usually Chinese or Sikh policemen, under White Russian officers; but on special occasions, British soldiers from the Hong Kong garrison were employed. In spite of all these precautions, piracy continued to flourish along the South China coast right down to the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. However, there were no attempts on ships with British soldiers as guards.\n\nThere were fifty-one major cases of piracy on the China coast in the years between the two World Wars. The great majority involved British ships, and twenty British Merchant Navy officers were killed. There were also many Chinese casualties, and many Chinese kidnapped and never heard of again. There were also many cases involving Chinese junks which received little publicity in the foreign press. The worst years were 1922, 1927, and 1928, in which there were five, six, and eight piracies respectively. A few of the most famous cases of this period are described below.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205102, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 58, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS\n\n53\n\nbeyond China's borders. A Sino-Korean world map going back to the fourteenth century has been discovered where not only Asia but also Europe and Africa are shown, the latter continent even in a triangular shape that is comparatively close to geographical reality. Not less than 100 place names are given for Europe and about 35 for Africa. It must be hoped that the Western parts of this world map will be studied in the near future because this will furnish valuable evidence for the incorporation of Arabic and Persian geographical knowledge into Chinese geography. But it does not seem that this knowledge, restricted as it certainly was to a few geographers, was ever assimilated with the Chinese world conception which continued, in spite of this geographical information, on entirely traditional lines. The idea of China as the Middle Kingdom and center of the world was not really challenged, and not much curiosity on what lay beyond China was aroused among the Chinese intellectuals. What Chinese texts of the Yuan period have to say on countries beyond the sea is usually a poor extract from an earlier work of Sung date (ca. 1225), the Chu-fan chih \"Description of Barbarians\" by Chao Ju-kua. The foreign domination of China by the Mongols did not stimulate interest in foreign countries but rather encouraged a latent tendency of xenophobia.\n\nThere is another passage in a Chinese text which should be mentioned briefly because it concerns the first Europeans who came to China in the Middle Ages. This was some years before the Polos reached China, which was in 1265 or 1266 if we are to believe that they ever were in China at all, a question which is not yet settled. It has been suggested that in Polo's description of China there are some unsupported boasts about his having been governor in Yang-chou and his taking part in the siege of Hsiang-yang as artillery engineer. It is true that the Chinese sources mention foreign engineers who built stone catapults for attacking the city, but their names are Arab and they came from Baghdad. No Po-lo mentioned in the Yuan-shih or other sources can be identified with the Italian Polos; all the Po-lo's of the sources have had a good Altaic name, Bolod (“steel”), because they were of Mongol or Turkish extraction. And there are also a few glaring blanks in Polo's otherwise very detailed account. He never mentions tea, but this may be because he did not like tea or the Mongols in China never offered him any. He never mentions the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205403, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 165, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "158 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nTHE CHAN FAMILY OF TSEUNG KWAN O \n\nThe village of Tseung Kwan O (4) is situated in the Hang Hau sub-district of the New Territories. It stands at the head of the bay of the same name, which is the northern inlet of Junk Bay. The village is said to derive its name of \"a general's bay\" from its resemblance to a general's armour in a geomantic sense.\n\nThe village is a small one; two rows of houses of the single room type. It is surrounded by padi fields, which in front stretch down to the sea, and behind climb up the stream valley in many terraces to the Clear Water Bay Road and the village of Tseng Lan Shue (##). Although the village is but a short distance from Kowloon as the crow flies, it was, until recently, difficult to reach and thus remained largely unaffected by urban influences. Now, however, the bay has been made the home of the Colony's ship breaking industry and both shores are being reclaimed for steel rolling mills.\n\nThe village itself is compact and was perhaps originally walled. Because of this, the fact that it is situated at the mouth of the stream, and because it possesses a large area of fields, it is not surprising to find that the village is inhabited by Cantonese (or Punti) in an area where most of the other villages in the highlands are Hakka. It is also not surprising that this village was founded at an earlier date than the Hakka villages in the same district.2\n\nThe village includes a number of surnames, but the main clan is the Chan (陳). Although this clan does not now possess an official genealogy or tsuk po (族譜), having destroyed it during the Japanese occupation, they maintain records of their family for 26 generations, dating back to the Southern Sung dynasty (1127-1279), the first recorded ancestor being reputed, as is usual, to be a successful scholar and official. During the Sung, this branch moved from Kiangsi to Nam Tau, the district capital of the present Po On district. In their travels, they followed the route of many of the old Cantonese families of the New Territories area. The village itself was founded by the 16th generation at the beginning of the Ching dynasty (1644-1911), approximately the same date of foundation as the other large Cantonese villages of the Sai Kung district.4\n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206014, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 94, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 89\n\nmaking their first venture abroad in those years were joining relatives or friends, and had been able to borrow enough on future earnings to ensure a comfortable passage. There were always a few unfortunates, however, who, in their anxiety to escape from the poverty and misery of their native village, had borrowed their passage money from money lenders or their tongs at ruinous rates of interest.\n\nConditions for most of this century were certainly vastly changed from the middle decades of the 19th century. Prospective passengers lived in boarding houses in Amoy or Swatow when waiting for a ship, and the ship's compradore often had a financial interest in these boarding houses or worked in close co-operation with their owners. As there was keen competition in the 20th century emigrant trades, not only between different shipping companies, but under the compradore system — between different ships in the same company, the prospective passengers were well treated in the boarding houses, which bore little resemblance to the barracoons of the 'bad old days'.\n\nBeside the China coasters, overseas ships on the Far Eastern run also took part in the emigrant trade, especially to the Straits and Bangkok, as this could be fitted into their wayport schedule; and even the large and luxurious Canadian Pacific liners were not above carrying a few hundred deck passengers from time to time. Ben Line steamers, too, sometimes called at Amoy and Swatow and took up to two hundred deck passengers to the Straits or Bangkok or vice versa, but on many overseas ships the passengers had to supply and cook their own food, and sleep on wooden planks laid over steel decks. The overseas ships were not normally so well suited for deck passengers as the regular coast ships, and by the First World War the latter had captured the cream of the trade.\n\nIn the South-east Asian trades south-bound traffic normally exceeded north-bound, but not to a disproportionate extent. Many overseas Chinese returned home, either for a holiday or to retire, and north-bound ships were especially busy just before Chinese New Year, and south-bound just after this important festival. These north-bound ships, where many passengers were carrying the savings of a few years or even of a lifetime, were the most tempting for pirates, and were specially equipped to deal", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206885, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1973", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "156\n\n6. 1828 June 23\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nPENANG MERCHANT\n\nJ. Mitchinson\n\nPenang to Lintin: C. Galastauro to Magniac & Co.\n\n652 baskets of cutch\n\n11,600 bundles of rattans\n\n“17 bdls and 3 baskets in dispute if found to be deld.”\n\n7. 1828 Sept. 2 CUMBERLAND\n\nA. Steel\n\nSingapore Roads to Canton: Charles Thomas & Co. to Magniac & Co.\n\n665 pieces of ebony about piculs five hundred\n\n8.\n\n1829 Feb. 7 EPHEMINA\n\nN.M. Harper\n\nManilla Bay to Lintin: N.M. Harper to Magniac & Co.\n\n2004 bags rice weighing about 1080 piculs\n\nPaddy in bulk about 1950 piculs\n\n9.\n\n1829 March 10 FALCON\n\nS. Moore\n\nRoads of Singapore to Lintin: Guthrie & Clark to Magniac & Co.\n\nTwo chests Patna opium\n\nFive chests Benares opium\n\n10. 1829 May 14 PENANG MERCHANT\n\nJ. Mitchinson\n\nRiver Hooghly to Lintin: Nanjie Tacoran for Jamseljie Jyiebhoy [?] to Magniac & Co.\n\nTen chests Patna opium\n\n+\n\n+ +\n\nshall not be subject to any demurrage until thirty days after the arrival of the ship at Lintin.”\n\n11. 1830 April 23\n\nCONDE DE RIO PARDO\n\nL. d'Encarnacão\n\nDamão to Macao: [?] to Magniac & Co.\n\n20 cases of Opio de Malva\n\nIn Portuguese\n\n12. 1830 May 24\n\nCASSADOR\n\nJ.A. da Silva\n\nDamão to Lintin: Sr Caramachande Arcachande to Magniac & Co.\n\n5 boxes Aufião de Malva\n\nIn Portuguese\n\n13. 1850 Aug. 13\n\nARIEL\n\nJ. Burt\n\nRiver Hooghly to Cumsingmoon: Moolchund Premjee on acct of Oomedchund Hookumchund of Bombay to Jardine Mathewson & Co.\n\n10 chests Patna opium", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206891, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1973", "page_number": 168, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "162\n\nRattans\n\nRice\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n6 SUWONADA 29, 30, 31, 33, 34\n\n8, 20\n\nRouth (F.R. & D.)\n\n35\n\nTacoran, Nanjie\n\nRussell & Co.\n\n16, 29, 33\n\nTaria, J.M. de\n\nTaylor, P.\n\nSACRAMENTO\n\n22\n\nTea\n\n14, 30\n\nSafflower*\n\n33\n\nThomas (Charles) & Co.\n\nSalmon\n\n38\n\nTongues\n\nSan Francisco\n\n15, 22, 24\n\nTrautmann & Co.\n\n25, 38\n\nTurpentine\n\nSelzer water\n\n34\n\nShanghai\n\nSHERBURNE\n\nSilva, J. A. da\n\nSilver bars\n\nSemechand, Caramichand [?] 4\n\n29, 30, 31, 33, 34\n\nUpton, W.F.\n\nVALETTA\n\n1\n\nVENUS\n\n4, 12\n\nVermicelli\n\n22\n\nSingapore Roads\n\nSmith (W.H.) & Son\n\nSorabjee & Simjee\n\n7, 9\n\nWHEELER, W.E.\n\n23\n\nWhiskey\n\nAnagrada 2, 28\n\n10\n\n5\n\n7\n\n38\n\n31\n\n21\n\n18\n\n24\n\n37\n\n24\n\n15\n\n38\n\n2 White, G.\n\n1\n\nSteel, A.\n\n7\n\nWild (Aaron D.) & Sons\n\n16\n\nStephen, S.\n\n38 Williams, Blanchard & Co.\n\n38\n\nStone, Bombay\n\n37 With, M.C.G.\n\n28\n\n*See notes below.\n\nNOTES\n\nThe following notes relate to the more obscure items in the foregoing index.\n\nAnfião de Malva-Opium from Malwa, an area in W. Central India, which together with Benares and Patna were the main opium growing areas. I am indebted to Mr. J. M. Braga for this identification, which defeated students of Portuguese in Hong Kong.\n\nCumsingmoon-Kap Shui Mun, the straits between the N.E. point of Lantao Island and Tsing I Island.\n\nCutch=The commercial name of the catechu obtained from Acacia catechu, used in tanning (O.E.D.)\n\nNankeens-Either a kind of yellow cotton cloth, originally made in Nanking, or trousers made of this material.\n\nSafflower=Dried petals of Carthamus tinctorius, a thistle-like plant cultivated in the Mediterranean region, India and China for the red dye obtained from the flowers, also used in the making of rouge.\n\nHong Kong June, 1973.\n\nH. A. RYDINGS", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206947, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 18, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "THE PAPER CHASE—ARCHIVES AND\n\nTHE PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE OF HONG KONG\n\n[“It is to be noted that when any part of this paper appears dull there is a design in it”— The Tatler]\n\nA. I. DIAMOND *\n\nThis evening I propose to tell you something about the development of the Public Records Office of Hong Kong, and about the role which it can or should play in the conservation and use of Hong Kong’s archival resources. But before doing this I think that it may be worthwhile to spend some time talking about archives as such—about what archives are and how modern archive institutions operate.\n\nMany of you may be quite knowledgeable on this subject already, and if you are I apologise for seeming to assume otherwise. But some quite astonishing misconceptions exist about archivists and their profession, as all archivists know, and when we are asked to address a general audience few of us can quell the thought that at least some present may be harbouring what we have come to recognise as the classic delusions about us. And what are these:\n\nWell, the other evening, for example, my hostess at a dinner party said to me “What a wonderful job you must have. Fancy being able to sit all day reading through all those fascinating old papers”. There it is, you see, one of the archivist’s main preoccupations, apparently, is reading through all the documents in his care—and mark you, they’re bound to be old and fascinating. She was just being polite of course, but I realised at once that here was someone with a full quiver of misconceptions about us. I could guess that in a moment she would tell me that I do not really look like her idea of an archivist. She would not have had to explain what she meant by that. I know already. I should be old and leathery looking with a beard and long grey hair and wearing steel-rimmed bi-focals. In fact I should look like a cross between Charles Darwin and Karl Marx in their old age. And what else do I do? Well, when I am not poring over fascinating old documents in my\n\n* Mr. Diamond is Government Archivist, Hong Kong. He is also the Hon. Secretary of the Hong Kong Branch, R.A.S. This paper was delivered to the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society on Monday, 7th January, 1974,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207336, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 104, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "96\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nand China Gas Company, the Hong Kong Electric Company, the Hong Kong Distillery Company, all needed skilled European labour.\n\nThe Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company employed European foremen, clerks, book-keepers, shipwrights, engineers, boiler-makers, storekeepers, and superintendents. 'Where the eastern seas', J.S. Thomson enthuses, 'bubble up hot to the flame of an equatorial sun, Chinese workmen, with Scotch overseers, turn out six thousand ton steel ships and do battleship repairing worthy of Woolwich or Devonport.' The skilled British mechanic experienced a degree of upward social mobility in Hong Kong: the skilled worker became an overseer, with all the compensations of improved status and salary.\n\n13\n\nApart from any non-qualified engineers, mechanics and artisans, there were a number of Europeans employed in other low status occupations. We should mention lighthouse keepers, employed by the Harbour Master's Department (later Marine Department), tide-waiters in the Chinese Maritime Customs, whose duty it was to board ships and junks at the various treaty ports, some of whom were domiciled in Hong Kong. They were, like the skippers and engineers of the vessels owned by the Hong Kong, Canton, and Macau Steamboat Company, mostly retired A.B.s from the Royal Navy and non-commissioned officers who had served their time. Lastly, there was a sprinkling of European tailors, hairdressers, milliners, confectioners, bakers, booksellers, printers, photographers, owners of sporting-goods shops, livery stable keepers, and gunsmiths. Most bars and tap-rooms employed Europeans as managers and barmen, though many were not of British nationality. As Macmillan concludes:\n\nThe bulk of the foreign population is employed in commerce, but the police, revenue, and sanitary staffs, schools, public works, docks, etc., give employment to a large number of overseers and supervisors, mostly engaged direct from home or from military and naval men whose service with the garrison is completed.1 Macmillan, however, forgot to mention the important beachcomber element in the overseer force.\n\n14\n\nEuropean outcastes were mainly prostitutes, nearly all of whom were of working class origin. Many of these women were professionals from the red light districts of San Francisco, Honolulu, Sydney, and Melbourne, who, for one reason or another (usually", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207712, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 100, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "\"PATTERNED BANDS\" IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG\n\n85\n\ncut grass for fuel, carried firewood, and farmed. The housework and cooking were done by my mother-in-law, who also helped me in the fields. After she died, I took over all the responsibilities myself. No men helped me with the farm work, and we did not have the money to hire labourers. I did the plowing myself, even with a baby on my back. I cut grass and sold the grass and vegetables. I worked and struggled hard. I also worked for the Texaco company carrying steel and kerosene. In the evenings I wove patterned bands. I could weave one in two or three nights, but I never had time during the day.\n\nOther women stated that they had worked at weaving patterned bands in the evenings when they had time, during bad weather and the agricultural slack season, and at festivals.\n\nGirls learned to weave the bands while in their teens. They were taught by their mothers or by other village women. They wove bands for their own use, as well as for those friends and lineage sisters who were unable to learn the complex technique. They were sometimes even woven for sale.\n\nThe technique of weaving patterned bands is complex and difficult to learn, although the loom itself is extremely simple, with no frame. It would not doubt take some years for girls to learn well, when they were doing other work in addition. Those who became good weavers were able to imitate patterns on sight, and to devise their own patterns.\n\nThe bands are woven on a simple backstrap loom: see Plate 1.* The warp is a continuous circle, one end of which passes over the corner of an ordinary square wooden stool, the other end being fastened to a belt which is tied around the weaver's waist. The warp is held taut by the distance which she sits from the stool, on another stool. The weaver prepares the warp by winding a series of circles, half the length of a finished band in diameter, between a finger of her left hand and the corner of the stool, holding the thread taut at all times. If the warp is to have, for example, red even threads () and white odd threads (*), she carefully winds nine pairs of red circles, then ties white thread to the end of the red and winds nine pairs of white circles. If the edges (i) of the band are to be narrow stripes of different colours, she might then wind four pairs each of red, yellow, and green. After tying the ends of the threads so that a continuous circle is formed, she then inserts\n\n* Plates 1 - 14 illustrate this article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207749, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 137, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "CARL T. SMITH\n\n122\n\nKwun.\" In September there is an entry for \"Li Khi Sen, from Tseang ye\". This is probably the friend Khi-sem who was one of Tsin-kau's travelling companions.\n\nThe Hong Kong missionaries were delighted with the arrival of these refugees who were willing to receive Christian instruction and baptism. They seized upon their desire to join their relatives and friends in Nanking as a God-given opportunity to put the Taiping movement upon a more solid Christian foundation. There had been much discussion regarding the type of religious belief held by the Taiping leaders, and serious doubt had arisen regarding their interpretation of Christianity. The Rev. Hamberg hoped to raise sufficient funds through his publication of The Visions of Hung Siu-Tschuen to finance Hung Jen-kan's trip to Nanking. In reporting to the Mission Society he states:\n\nI have spent much on Fung [the Hakka version of the surname Hung] and his friends, and in order not to put a burden on the Mission have translated into English the account of the first [i.e. Hung Jen-kan] and written a small book which is now ready to be printed. Fung and his two friends left today for Shanghai. I have furnished them with the three different translations of the Old and New Testaments, Barth's Biblical History, Genahr's Catechism, a calendar and other writings, also a map in Chinese of the world, a map of China and one of Palestine, a model of a steel punch, copper matrices and the usual types, in order to show how Chinese characters can be printed in the European manner. In addition a few trifles, such as telescope, compass, thermometer, knives, etc. I am often asked if I will go to Nanking, however I have decided, and will not change my mind, that I will not go until I have received a regular and definite invitation to go. I have sought to establish what my obligations and duties are in this matter. The people who were brought to me I have baptized, instructed and assisted them on the way insofar as I was able. I believe that Fung respected me and would like to see me in Nanking, as he so often said. However, we cannot be definite about it, because we do not yet know if he will be successful in arriving at Nanking, and further, we cannot be sure that his friend there will welcome the idea, or that no obstacle will be placed in the way of foreigners, or that they have a real desire to be led deeper into the truths of God's words.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207768, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 156, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "A ROAD TRANSPORT SYSTEM IN WEST CHINA 1942-46 141\n\nloading and unloading, a week-long trip and turn round with a 24 ton payload. Charcoal powered trucks would, on average, cover 100 km. per day with a payload of 2 tons. One experimental charcoal powered truck took 5 weeks to cover the 500 km. from Kutsing to Kweiyang but, as a contrast, on one occasion Chungking to Kweiyang (490 km.) was covered in 24 days with a full load on charcoal.\n\nIn addition to cargo, passengers were carried. This was done by all transport organizations since there was no public road transport. Passengers were of three varieties: official, ones who were on the manifest and had paid the organization; unofficial or huang yu (★★) who had paid the driver, and other drivers or mechanics whose truck had ‘pie mao'd' () and were going for spares etc.\n\nThe Unit endeavoured to carry 'variety one' passengers only. These might be missionaries travelling to or from station, officials of cooperating or friendly organizations such as IRC, CIC, NCC, YMCA and YWCA, and also refugees. In 1942 these included Professor Gordon King and numbers of H.K. University students (including the present Vice-Chancellor) travelling to continue their studies in Szechuan. Passengers, unless with a child or otherwise privileged, rode on top of the load. Plate 19 shows the two Sentinel-HSG trucks on route to Chungking with cargo and the entire staff of the IRC Kweiyang office aboard.\n\nThe normal procedure on main routes was to run trucks in convoys. This reduced the number of spares which had to be carried and ensured that help was available for extraction from ditches and repairing breakdowns. However, the speed of a convoy is that of the slowest member and optimum results for liquid fuel trucks were obtained with 2 or 3 in each convoy. With charcoal power, because of the variation in performance between trucks and the skill of drivers, single truck operation with a crew of two or three was eventually found best. For long range convoys, on liquid fuel, such as the 5,000 km. round trip to Suchow, there were a minimum of two men per truck.\n\nEquipment\n\nThe original transport equipment, purchased in USA, was 20 Chevrolet trucks with a normal load capacity of 3 short tons. These came equipped with steel cabs and had wooden bodies with hoop", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207773, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 161, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "146\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\nof which there were only 2 very worn out ones left by mid-1944.\n\n2) increased availability of liquid fuel from Kansu from mid-1943. This was used for starting charcoal burners and supplementing their power over steep hills.\n\n3) new trucks and US Army petrol in mid-1945.\n\nIt will also be noted from the Table that the medical and relief supplies, made up only 42-47% of the total load. In a system where the primary objective is a one-way movement of goods, this is inevitable. The balance was made up of return cargoes as mentioned, fuel and maintenance supplies for the trucks themselves. This latter was usually between 10 and 20% of the total.\n\nThe manpower required to keep the system operating is shown in Table VIII. Some of the garage employees were engaged in cargo handling rather than maintenance and driving, but it is not possible to separate these from the figures available. These figures included all the auxiliary staff of cooks, storekeepers, watchmen, and apprentices. This also shows the km. tons per man employed.\n\nIt will be seen that the efficiency in these terms rose steadily with the increased number of people supporting each truck. The scarce resources at this period were trucks and their engines, therefore investment of manpower in preventive maintenance and overhaul was considered necessary. The figures show that it was well justified.\n\nIn considering these figures for 1943 and 1944 and early 1945 it must be remembered that:-\n\n1. The trucks on charcoal had heavy engine wear and it became standard practice to remove engines for top overhaul every 1,000 km, and major overhaul every 2,000 km.\n\n2. All adaptation of the original and manufacture of new charcoal units was done at the garages using old petrol drums as the major source of sheet steel.\n\n3. Most of the trucks had new box bodies built on them in 1943 and 1944, hence the number of carpenters.\n\nIn human terms, the cost was fairly heavy. Of those engaged in transport work, one member was invalided out with sword wounds after being attacked by bandits (the only occasion on which this", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208027, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "50\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\nLiu-Chi. The group we met were lively and interesting, many having been expelled from universities under Kuomintang control. Another evening we were invited to see a film at the American Army Observer Section which was established there under Colonel David Barrett in July 1944. There was also an invitation to mid-day meal with Marshal Chu Te. My memory is that there was not much conversation as Yu Chin-lung found him taciturn, my Chinese was inadequate, and the others were tongue-tied in the presence of the famous soldier. On leaving Yenan we were each presented with a warm woollen blanket of local manufacture (I still have mine) and I was given a painting, which I had uncautiously admired, by the Bureau chief of the Medical Service. I was also presented with a made-to-measure Army uniform complete with cap and badge.\n\nMedical Work in the Border Region\n\nThe day after unloading we were taken to see the hospital named after Doctor Norman Bethune. Plate no. 17 shows the operating theatre. One of the famous 'three constantly read articles' of Chairman Mao Tse-tung is a eulogy of Bethune, delivered on December 21st 1939 soon after his death.\n\nAt the Bethune Memorial Hospital we were shown how supply difficulties had been overcome, including steel dental picks forged from railway line. We asked about medical supplies from the USSR since 1941 and were told that there had been some, perhaps five, plane loads (say 15 to 20 tons). The supplies we had brought included a portable X-ray with a petrol-driven generator.\n\nThe problems of civilian and military medical work in the Border Region are fully described by Margaret Stanley in a current series of articles in Eastern Horizon*. She was a member of the Friends Service Unit (the successor organization in China to the Friends Ambulance Unit) Medical Team 19 which went to work in the area in 1947. She revisited Yenan in 1972 and writes not only of her memories of the medical work but also the contrast between then and now.\n\n* Vol. XVI No. 3, March 1977 & No. 4 April 1977 onwards. There is also a good picture of what life in the Shensi countryside was like to be gained from the accounts given in Gunnar Myrdal's book Report from a Chinese Village. Penguin.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208029, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 68, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "52\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\nMethodist missionaries travelled with us to Pao-chi and we sat together against the front of one truck singing quietly as the train rumbled onwards through a star-lit night.\n\nSo we travelled through Shensi into Szechuan, our passengers making themselves comfortable with bedding rolls in the back of the trucks (Plate no. 18). Both girls had learnt English at University but considered my Chinese needed improving. Plate no. 19 shows Comrade Hu-nan at a roadside stop cuddling a small child who had been frightened. Interestingly the other, Comrade Yang, turned up in Chengtu a week after we reached Chungking and spoke to a left-wing group meeting in the dark in the Women's Dormitory of West China Union University of which my future wife was then Warden.\n\nTravelling Arrangements\n\nAt meal times we distributed ourselves among the different fan tien at our stopping place. Our passengers slept at inns or in the back of the trucks while the crew slept in or on top of the cab. This latter was the best position.\n\nAfter some years of experience as a transport organization the Unit had developed a relative sophistication in sleeping arrangements. The trucks used on this trip were, as mentioned, Canadian WD Dodges. These were adapted from commercial models and had heavier springs and bumpers and towing hooks. They were equipped with a steel and timber body with three-foot high sides, steel hoops and canvas cover. We fitted a wide board hinged to the front of the body which was kept in an upright position during the day and covered by the tarpaulin to which it formed a solid back. At night the front of the cover was cast loose and the board folded down on to the top of the cab forming a flat platform. There were also three or four loose boards laid along the hoops and these helped to support the canvas. When the front board had been folded down these roof boards were pulled forward three or four feet and a canvas roof was formed over the platform. There was thus a flat floor, two foot by six foot six, with two feet six of headroom above it and something to hang a mosquito net from. Here the taller members of the crew slept at night. The shorter members usually slept in the cab or found a reasonably flat place on top of the cargo. Sleeping on the truck was standard procedure for crew;", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208155, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 194, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "178\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n29. Yet another bridge, in Central Tsuen Wan, still has its protecting shrine in place, with a stone tablet inscribed to the Fuk Tak Kung (福德公) of the Wing Fuk Bridge (#). The cyclical date would make it 1945 (which is obviously too late) 1885, 1825 or earlier. There is no means of telling which it is, but its style and appearance indicate an early date. Incidentally, all three bridges noted above have lost their original appearance, having been repaired post-war with concrete and reinforcing steel bars.\n\nConclusion\n\n30. A recent visit to the mountain took me from Lead Mine Pass, above the head of the Shing Mun Reservoir, to a point east of Chuen Lung, along paths formerly opened by villagers but in most cases now widened by the Agriculture & Forestry Department of the Hong Kong Government to assist their fire prevention and fire fighting activities.\n\n31. The route ran through the Sei Fong Shan area, where there are many graves: so named (四方山) because there is access to it from four sides i.e. Tai Po, Pat Heung, Kwai Chung-Tsuen Wan and Chuen Lung (on Route TWSK). Then through the abandoned fields and village site of Nam Fong To, a single lineage village of the Law family (羅氏), evacuated in 1928 to Wo Hop Shek near Fan Ling (NT) for the construction of the reservoir. The site was enclosed by a thick low rubble wall and stands amid large boulders and (now) many trees. From the Tsuen Wan side the last stage of access was across a large stream and up a steep flight of stone (boulder) steps. West of the village the hills on both sides, but especially the opposite side of the valley, were marked by steep slides of water that became water-falls in places. Further on, the path overlooked the valley of Wu Yeung Shan (烏羊山) with many abandoned fields. The village of that name, on the main lower path to Wo Yee Hop village (*) and Kwai Chung, was inhabited by a branch of the Chengs (鄭氏) from Shing Mun Tai Wai. Moving SW and passing along the slopes of the mountain above Wo Yee Hop and Lo Wai well above catchwater level we encountered a few more graves placed in good locations. Also patches of abandoned cultivation built up here and there on stone-walled terraces above the path.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208635, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n65\n\nup-country missioners had their personal trunks and camphor boxes, there was also confusion. Trunks and boxes had been broken open and those of their contents which had not been carried away were strewn all over the attic floor, in some places two feet deep. As for cleaning up, we really did not know where to begin, and after working all day, we had apparently made little progress. Fortunately, the city water was turned on again, for we needed plenty of that in places, as the floors in spots were covered with filth. Someone remarked that pigs would have been cleaner.\n\nPersonally, my chief concern was for my language notes, the work of over a year, and of which I had only one copy. However, upon returning to my room, there, in the midst of scattered effects, were the notes on my desk just where I had left them! I breathed a fervent prayer of thanksgiving. Only recently I had had my eyes re-examined and had gotten a new pair of glasses. These were missing, but I still had my old ones. And each one had his own particular tale of woe.\n\nThe thirty-first found us continuing our work of cleaning up. The outside of the house was just as much of a mess as the inside, the front and rear lawns being strewn with empty tins and bottles. Our Ford V-8 still stood on the front lawn and the Japanese had evidently tried to start it, but someone had previously subtracted an essential mechanism from the motor and their efforts were baffled. Around the house, too, were many reminders of the battle—soldiers' overcoats, steel helmets (in fact, in addition to the many strewn around on the ground there was a whole big unopened case of these near our garage); hand grenades, parts of machine gun outfits and debris of every description, much of which had been thrown out of our windows. On our south lawn there was also a number of shallow pits and some mounds. Whether the latter are graves or not we do not yet know, but we filled up the pits with debris and levelled off the mounds. Near our garage, too, was an immense pile of miscellaneous boards and strips of wood, these evidently having been brought from the wreckage of the Repulse Bay matsheds to Stanley for firewood, and as our kitchen range was out of the question, we having neither electricity nor fuel oil, this wood came in very handy.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211520, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 237, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "213\n\nThe bracelet itself is made of three silver wires, each about 2 mm. diameter, braided together. One of the ends is welded to a small cylindrical silver box while the other is free. Part of the free end has been cut off and what remains is 17.50 cm. long. The box is flat, about 2 cm. across by 8 mm. thick. On the upper surface is framed a silver coin with, in relief, a Greek head or bust, the Greek letters T A PA (Tara) and a zoomorphic figure representing a dolphin. On the opposite side of the box, the disc is plain except for the letters G.A.S. in a central cavity. Three scars are visible on the surface, caused by three pins welded to the coin below. Opposite to the joint of the wire, the box has a small opening obviously allowing the free end of the bracelet to be inserted into the box and locked. The box and bracelet are of recent, probably Indian manufacture, and the letters G.A.S. appearing in the box probably appeared in the scrap silver from which the box was made.\n\nA circular frame closes the box and keeps the coin in position. This ring can be removed, setting the coin free. On the back of the coin is, in relief, the figure of a riding horseman. In front of the figure is a sign like a thunderbolt with, below, the Greek letters AПOA. The coin, relatively well preserved, has been damaged by several incisions made with a sharp steel point and the welding of three pins at three equidistant points from the perimeter of the coin to keep it level with the surface of the box. There is also welded on the side of the coin, corresponding to the opening on the box, a small flat piece of silver with a little notch at the middle for the purpose of locking the free end of the bracelet. The clear centre of the disc inside the box may indicate that it contained some relics. At the centre of the disc the letter θ (th) seems to appear but it may simply be the ghost of the impression on the other side.\n\nThe Coin\n\nAccording to Mr. John P. Sharpley, Curator of Numismatics at the Museum of Victoria, \"The coin appears to be a very good silver copy of the gold stater* of Tarentum, Italy. It is believed that the original coins were struck between 344 and 334 B.C\".\n\n1\n\n* Stater or Sesterce, Sestertius: Contraction of semi-tertius i.e. 21⁄2 asses; a Roman silver coin equal to 1⁄4 of a denarius. Also Persian coin (stater), From ETATHP (ETA = base, to stand). See Plates 9 and 10.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211612, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 27, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "2\n\nfor 1959 and 1972 when he was on leave). After the Kwong Chow was demolished, these events were held in the Ying King Restaurant, in Wanchai. Many architects, engineers, surveyors, Public Works Department staff, and contractors attended these functions. Speeches were made, and all present, at a given moment, paid their respects by bowing three times to a portrait of Lu Pan.\n\nBut a builder's life is not all brandy and shark's fin soup. Steep, rugged, rocky Hong Kong is not ideal terrain for many projects. In the early days of the Colony, when roads and reservoirs were built (the first reservoir, at Pok Fu Lam, was completed in 1864), there was little in the way of mechanical equipment. It was not until 1962 that the first crane was used to construct a building, the Hilton Hotel (originally named the American Hotel).\n\nEven today, for structures up to 150 metres high, the ubiquitous bamboo, which typifies an exemplary man's life in that it grows tall, straight, and yet is flexible and versatile, with rings marking important achievements in a person's career — is still used for scaffolding. It bends rather than breaks and is about one-third the price of steel. Bamboo is, or has been, also used for making (among other things) chipboard, woven bed mats, furniture, water pipes, fishing rods, summonses for secret-society meetings, and Chinese medicine. In addition, bamboo shoots provide a tasty dish.\n\n10\n\nAlthough some old building techniques, like bamboo scaffolding, are still in use, many have long since disappeared, along with the ancient structures built using them.” A few of the latter are, however, still left.\" These include \"walled\" villages, such as Kat Hing Wai at Kam Tin, and the 600-year-old, three-storey Tsui Shing Lau at Ping Shan in the New Territories. This was built in a geomantically favourable location to placate the God of Literature and originally had seven floors. But the upper part was damaged in typhoons. This Man Pat (its local name) Pagoda was built to improve the performance of the Tang clan of Ping Shan in the imperial examinations. Academic results indicate the edifice proved effective.\n\nIn the urban area, Victoria Prison, off Arbuthnot Road in Central, which was completed in 1843, is said to be the oldest jail still in use for that purpose in the Commonwealth. Hangings used to take place there (the last in Hong Kong was at Stanley Prison on November 6, 1966),", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211677, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "67\n\nanti-British propaganda, which the facile Eugene Chen* was then addressing to a gullible American press.\n\nSet back from the Bund behind a heavy hand-wrought iron fence of ugly design, the Consulate building was typical of those erected in the 1860s, when the Concession was first opened. The two-storied thick brick walls, shaded all round by wide arched verandahs, in the style affected in India, housed both the office and the residence of the Consul. Upstairs, parts of the verandah had been boarded in to provide bathrooms in accordance with modern practice. From the bedroom windows the view carried across the Yangtze to the flat north shore, a mile away, where the farmers were already cutting down for fuel the tall reeds, which yearly grew along the banks of the river. We would often cross over at this season with our guns and our dogs to beat the pheasant out of the smaller clumps left by the reed-cutters.\n\nHaving completed their inspection, the plotters moved on down the Bund, past the godowns of Messrs. Butterfield and Swire, past the Customs House, past the Roman Catholic Church to the Bund gate, through which they trouped a little self-consciously under the eye of the steel-helmeted gentleman, who stood there with his rifle at the slope, in the blue uniform, the khaki webb equipment, and the spats of the Royal Navy.\n\nTheir plans soon matured. Some afternoons later a political meeting was called on the foreshore outside the Bund gate, which the Navy had left open to avoid any accusation of provocation. By the offer of a ten cents inducement to the loafers and riff-raff of the Chinese city an adequate attendance was ensured. Orators stood on the Bund wall whipping up the temper of the crowd: they shouted slogans in which the words \"Beat down” and “Kill\" echoed frequently. The crowd soon responded and parties began trickling into the Concession. Stones flew through the air. The sentry at the gate discreetly withdrew and sounded the alarm. The British Naval guard turned off: they had strict orders not to fire, but to protect themselves by dropping their rifle butts on the toes of any rioters who pressed them too closely. This method of defence is not very effective against stones. Reinforcements were brought ashore from the meagre crew of the destroyer; they were joined by some dozen\n\n* (Trinidad born journalist. At this time Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Kuo Min Tang Revolutionary Government.)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211679, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 94, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "69\n\nThe embarkation took place at midnight. It had begun to rain. There was no street lighting; the night was very dark and the gangway up to the hulk was slippery. These hulks were great steel pontoons, two hundred feet long, with a large deck house, in which were located the shipping company's office and some residential quarters. Wide stairs led down to the holds below, where the inward and outward cargoes were stored pending transfer elsewhere. To approach the ship you had to walk round outside the hulk along a gangway, about three feet wide, left between the deckhouse and the edge. To facilitate the movement of cargo no railings were put along this edge. I was carrying our younger child and I remember the feeling of horror when our other child, at a moment when the amah's attention was attracted elsewhere, toddled along to the edge to look over at the black tide rushing between the steel sides of the ship and hulk. My wife just in time snatched him back from the wet slippery edge.\n\nThe steamer was of the usual river design, like any small sea-going merchantman, but with more super-structure and a flatter bottom. There were not berths sufficient for all the refugees, who began to sort themselves out, some in the saloon and others in the smoking room. A wild alcoholic glow added to the sociability induced by the common dangers of the situation and I regret to say bets were taken whether one of the refugees, who was conspicuously expecting a baby, could last out till the ship reached Shanghai. When the Captain decided to start, husbands and bachelors were reluctantly persuaded to go ashore to return to their solitary and darkened houses.\n\nNext day the Consul decided to get in touch with the Chinese general who held the appointment of Garrison Commander at Kiu Kiang. This official was elusive but he eventually agreed to come to the Consulate for a conference. The safety of the foreigners in Kiu Kiang was really his responsibility and after some pressing he undertook to furnish protection. The British guards were consequently withdrawn from the Concession gates to the two hulks.\n\nDuring times of civil commotion respectable and well-to-do Chinese would bolt their doors or put up the shop shutters, as the case might be, and remain inside; but in any Chinese town there would also be an unruly element of loafers, pickpockets, thieves, and toughs, as indeed in any western city. Now was the opportunity for these hooligans. By midday the streets of the Concession were filled with a seething mob", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211722, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 137, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "The press stands 60\" high, its primary member being a wooden post 8\" square braced at the base by a plank which is 100\" long, 15\" wide, and 3\" thick. Resting on a wood block, the tube, which is 12\" high and 5\" in diameter, contains a piston made of leather disks with a steel disk on top, all with a hole in their centres, then a cylindrical piece of wood about three inches in diameter with a metal piece on the bottom and a vertical pin to penetrate the holes of the disks and, at its other end, a wood crosspiece. Resting on this crosspiece and inserted in a slot of the 8\" square post is a lever arm of wood which is 4\" x 3.5\" and 107\" long. Above it are wedges which are added as the contents of the tube are squeezed.37\n\nThe wedges referred to are step-like wooden blocks so that pressure could be exerted onto the piston step by step. When the dough was of the right consistency, it was put into the metal tube of the press until it was almost filled. Then the piston was inserted into the tube and pressure applied by a person standing on the lever arm. Such forces squeezed the incense paste through the two holes at the bottom of the metal tube, forming incense strings.\n\nIn the 1940s, a new machine was adopted in the joss stick industry to make incense coils, rendering the production of incense coils the only half-mechanized process of the joss stick industry. The procedure of squeezing, though remaining unchanged, was done much faster by mechanical power and production increased. In the 1960s, electric churns and electric presses were introduced, making the production of incense coils neater and much more agreeable for the workers.\n\nPacking\n\nAfter the incense products are dried, they are ready for packaging which is done in the same shed as the manufacturing processes. The most common type of packaging is by wrapping in transparent plastic. Sometimes, some joss sticks are put into plastics bags, paper bags or paper boxes. Joss sticks which are exported are packed into cardboard boxes.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211990, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 405, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "380\n\na. Hart to Geo. McAnliffe Esqre, 7 Aug 1880\n\nb. Hart to Association of Ulster-men-in-London, 22 Jan 1909 (draft)\n\nc. Hart to Nellie (?), 18 April 1897\n\nd. Hart to (?) [only postscript]\n\nReceipt of £146 3s. 9d. bequeathed to Hester Jane Bredon (Hart)\n\nDocuments to Bond and Stockholders, National Consolidated Wire and\n\nCable Co.\n\nLetters, Evy to Mabel (7)\n\nSheets of paper with Evy's German? School exercise\n\n1 photograph\n\nCongratulations on birth of child, 8 July 1873\n\nBOX 6\n\nBundles of telegrams to Hart and Lady Hart\n\nBundle of Lady Hart's papers re her investments, esp. National Steel\n\nand Wire\n\nLetters to Lady Hart from various institutions and persons, mainly\n\ncondolences for Hart's death\n\nLetters to Bruce Hart, condolences for his father's death\n\nBOX 7\n\nChinese despatch, Hart to Prince Ch'ing, Kuang-hsu 26.8.22 (15 Sept\n\n1900)\n\nChinese despatch from the Grand Councillor to Hart (received, 1 Sept\n\n1900)\n\nBundle of 24 Chinese documents (folded scrolls) marked \"Various proposals of mine 1900 1908, R. Hart\", on mint, currency, reforms, land tax, gold tariff and other subjects\n\nBundle of 11 Chinese documents, unmarked, but similar to above, 1904\n\n- 1906.\n\nBOX 8\n\nRobert's (Robin) letters, mostly to his mother. This is a very large\n\ncollection.\n\nPage 405\n\nPage 406", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212189, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 131, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "108\n\nChina, not to be heard of again. Some of the ships were left so short-handed that they were not in a position to raise steam, if required.\n\nIt was with mixed feelings at about half past ten that morning that we saw a Japanese infantry patrol approach along the shore and enter the first of the moored launches. They were then seen to get down under cover and examine the foreign ships through their glasses. That scrutiny was returned with intense interest, but presently they waved a handkerchief and, when approached, appeared friendly. They requested that a message should be sent off to the two gunboats anchored in the river to say that a detachment of motor craft would be proceeding down river and asking that the gunboats should not open fire on them. Later contact was made with the Japanese officer commanding the considerable detachment, and he expressed sympathy when he heard that the ships had been repeatedly bombed the previous day. He did not mention that his detachment was the one that had fired on the \"Panay\" and the other American ships as they were sinking.\n\nThe Japanese passed on their way, and soon we noticed other things passing too. There was a thick scum of oil going down with the tide all that day. Wireless messages came in asking for information about the American ships, whose signals had suddenly stopped in the middle of a message during the previous morning. It was only now beginning to be realised that all the American ships had been sunk. A small Standard Oil steel lighter drifted by; and shortly after, the derelict motor-boat of the \"Panay\". These were rescued and made fast alongside the gunboat. American equipment in those days was lavish, I remember the hopeful glint in the eye of a C.P.O. stoker in the \"Scarab\", as he suggested to his Captain that, perhaps, the Americans would not miss the motor-boat's engine, if it were \"borrowed\". He did not get his way, but the \"Panay's\" life-belt, rescued at this time, was kept as a souvenir and in 1941 could still be seen in the wardroom of one of the river gunboats. I think she was H.M.S. Peterel. If so, the souvenir was presumably lost when H.M.S. Peterel was sunk at her moorings off Shanghai, with flag flying, after refusing to surrender to overwhelming Japanese forces which suddenly treacherously attacked her at dawn on December 7th, 1941.\n\nLater a report went round that the Japanese were mounting a battery on the south bank, that opposite to which the ships were moored,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212588, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 142, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "122\n\nwas held by the eldest daughter. The spirit had to pay spirit money and cross the 'demon gate barrier'. Six weeks after death the 'gold and silver bridges' spanning rapids and whirlpools, with enormous snakes in the water, had to be crossed. The deceased was placed on a pair of scales. The good person is 'as light as air': the sinner 'weighs the balance down'. While all this was staged the son-in-law held a lantern and a granddaughter fingered her Buddhist prayer beads. All the time mantras were chanted, cymbals clashed and a flute was played. There was a paper bath house: the dead woman's spirit entered: the second daughter went through the motions of bathing her. This whole charade lasted about 20 minutes.\n\nAt seven o'clock everyone went up to the roof to burn the addressed, paper trunks, containing paper money, in a steel incinerator. 'Good' and 'silver bars' were also sent to long dead relatives. In addition effigies, made of coloured paper and cardboard stretched on bamboo or rattan frames, of a maid, a driver, a car (with lucky registration number 888), a house and furniture, and little black mourning strips which had been pinned on jackets, were burned. The names and messages of all donors were also burned so the dead person would know who had sent her presents. A Japanese business associate of the eldest daughter donated $1,000 'condolence money' (##) to purchase offerings. In 1988 an ordinary paper car was $350-1500, a Rolls Royce $2,000 and gold and silver bridges $500 each. A television set cost $100. It takes about two days to make a paper car. The middle-aged and elderly craftsmen who made them had served apprenticeships.\n\nA young Chinese friend of the deceased had sent her a doll from Canada two years earlier. She had become very fond of this. It was therefore burned and ‘dispatched' to her. But the donor telephoned from Canada to say the deceased had asked her in a dream, days after the doll had actually been burned, for it to be 'sent'. Everyone wondered what had gone wrong with communications.\n\nThis custom of burning offerings stems from earlier times when live slaves (later terra cotta warriors replaced them), sets of household utensils and elaborate paraphernalia were buried in tombs to ‘serve' the dead.\n\nIn this study, at the end of this fifth tsat, all immediate family members kowtowed three times and received lucky packages. The picture of the deceased's mother, who had died earlier in Canton, was also placed in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212601, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 155, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "Maymyo 1941 \n\nGUERILLA TRAINING* \n\nP. H. MUNRO-FAURE \n\n135 \n\nThe shortage of British shipping along the China coast became more marked during 1940 and 1941. The vessels built for this traffic, generally between three and four thousand tons in measurement, with comparatively shallow draft, were particularly suitable for use in the Persian Gulf and along the shores of North Africa. Many had been taken to serve as transports in those seas. Moreover, the Admiralty, sensitive to the dangers threatening the peace of the Far East, had directed such larger ocean-going vessels as still were available not to proceed west of Singapore. Consequently there was pressure on the remaining cabin space, and I was fortunate to obtain a berth in a small coaster, which took seven days to reach Hongkong from Shanghai, as against the usual four.\n\nHongkong was very quiet, a state of affairs not to be attributed to an entire absence of females. It was remarkable how many had succeeded in avoiding the order to leave the Colony. I had to wait a whole week for a passage to Singapore, where formerly berths on a dozen different ships would have been offered in the time. This gave me an opportunity to look around. Friends took me out to Deep Water Bay, where we sunbathed on the beach, and drank our tea on the club verandah, looking out over the little golf course. High up on the hill towards Wong Nei Chong Gap I could see the green tiled roof of the house where my wife and I, only three years previously, had been caught in the rain. I wondered whether the lady of the mansion was one of those who had contrived to remain behind. In the evening we drove round to the next bay and bathed from the Lido, a steel and concrete building of pleasing design housing a restaurant, and bathing booths. The hot weather had set in, but here a cool breeze blew down a gully on the hillside into the windows. I had always liked the place because of its informality. You could eat your dinner, and dance and talk, in shorts, and so keep cool, as compared with the stricter etiquette of the Gloucester and Hongkong Hotels, or the Repulse Bay Hotel, or even the Peninsular Hotel across the harbour, where several nights a week you were required to don “black ties”.\n\n*This is the third part of the Memoirs of Col. P H. Munro-Faure. See Editor's Note, p 61, vol. 29, and Plate I", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212602, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 156, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "136\n\nThe charming English custom of dressing for dinner is ill adapted to the perspiring tropics.\n\nWhen the walla-walla boat took me out to the coaster anchored in the harbour, I found she was even smaller than the ship I had come on from Shanghai, and slower. The run to Singapore, which the larger ships cover in a little over three days, again took a week. It is true we had to make a considerable detour to avoid the extensive belt of mines laid round the Singapore harbour, and we were kept waiting outside pending permission to enter.\n\nWhile anchored there, I was astonished to observe a launch, flying the Japanese flag, and towing a string of fishing craft, steam in over the minefield. On enquiry I was told that Singapore could not do without fish. It later transpired that many of the fishermen were Japanese naval officers in disguise, and that there was little they did not know about the British minefields. Only a few months previously, while undergoing cross-examination in court, a Japanese consular official detained on a charge of espionage had swallowed poison to avoid having to give evidence; but, presumably in the interest of the breakfast table, the Japanese fishermen continued to receive the benefit of the doubt. The big talk of the moment was the scandal of the bribes which had been paid on large contracts for the construction of the new concrete pill-boxes, which were being erected around the island. It was alleged that the quality of the concrete supplied was sometimes little better than plaster, and that some of the leading British firms were implicated. It was all a trifle disturbing.\n\nThe further you got from Shanghai and the nearer to India the worse the plumbing. In Shanghai, American influence had overcome British conservatism with happy results. In the foreign home there was generally a bathroom to each bedroom, and the fixtures were as pleasing to the eye as in use. Stainless steel vied with coloured plastic and the right use of glass to gratify the visitor. In Hongkong the standard lagged a bit. In Singapore it was a long way behind. The bathroom floor might be mere wood, and the walls just homely white tiles. No incentive here to dawdle in delectable contemplation. Even in the famous Raffles Hotel, a barrack descended from earlier times, the bathroom, though no doubt sumptuous enough by English standards, left much to be desired. If I remember rightly it even contained a primeval article of furniture called a \"wash-hand stand”.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212610, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 164, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "144\n\nand insert the detonator into it.\n\nThe demolition expert is provided with a number of formulae, by means of which he calculates how much explosive is required for any particular job. He has, therefore, to ascertain the exact dimensions of the bridge, wall, ship's side, rail, stone pier, tree, or whatever it is he wishes to cut; and having obtained these, he looks up his formulae, which vary for each type of material to be demolished and each kind of explosive to be used, and works out the correct amount. It is essential that the charge shall be placed in close contact with the surface to be cut. That means in the case of a steel girder of H section for instance, you will require three separate charges, one for each of the three surfaces. The top and bottom faces of the girder are called the top and bottom flanges, and the connecting piece is the web. They will all vary in thickness. If the top flange is 2\" thick, the web will probably be 1\" thick, and the bottom flange 2½\" or 3\" thick. A flange 3″ thick and 2 feet wide requires 36 lb of 808 to cut it. You take your 144 × 4 oz. cartridges, remove the wax wrapping, roll them all up together packed in cloth to make one sausage 2 feet long, and apply it to the surface of the flange. If it is the top flange you can hold it in position by resting some bricks or other heavy substance on it; but if it is a bottom flange you must tie your sausage to a board, cut about 2 ft. 6 in. long, lower the board below the girder, and lash it on by passing a rope round the 3\" protruding from each side. The simplest type of bridge has one girder on each side; that means 6 charges. In a bridge of any size at all however the girders will themselves be built up of various steel angle-irons and cross pieces, so that to cut the bridge through at one cross section, and drop it, may call for twenty or more charges.\n\nto ensure that the charges shall go off simultaneously - and that is important, because if one charge were to go off even a fraction of a second before the others the blast would blow them off their lashings and they would either drop into the water below, or explode harmlessly in the air - a special detonation fuse is used. Lengths of this are led from the primer placed in each charge to a central point, where they are all tied together and to the detonator. The safety fuse will set off the detonator, the detonator will fire the detonating fuse, which is so fast that it will reach the charges simultaneously and they will all go off as one.\n\nWhat we were chiefly interested in was the rapid sort of demolition, that might be useful in guerilla work. It meant first reconnoitring your bridge to obtain all the necessary dimensions; no easy feat, if enemy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212616, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 170, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "150\n\nand the 3rd War Zone branch of the Central Military Academy, where the junior officers of the Chinese army are trained.\n\nThe outbreak of war between Britain and Japan had altered the nature of my visit. It was agreed that a British party would be sent to the 3rd War Zone to assist in guerilla warfare, and shortly afterwards I left for a reconnaissance of the forward areas where the school, which was to be the central feature of our assistance, would be established.\n\nThe lower Yangtze delta is the most densely populated and the wealthiest region in China. Within the triangle contained by Shanghai, Nanking, and Hangchow, there are many large cities, such as Soochow, Changhsing, Huchow, Chinkiang and Kashing. In this area there is more railway traffic, more road traffic, more river and canal traffic, more sea-going shipping, and more active industry, than in all the rest of China. For the past four years, since the fall of Nanking, the Japanese had occupied the main lines of communication in the region; the Yangtze, the railways, the large cities; and they had patrolled and used the roads and creeks: in short, on the security of this base rested the whole Japanese position in China. Any threat here, any blow at Japanese dispositions, would be correspondingly the more telling. Well, as it happened, a broad tongue of mountains reached from the southwest into the area, and in these mountains the guerillas had established their quarters.\n\nOur car followed the road along the Tsien Tang river gorges: we slept in little road-side inns and ate in busy fly-blown taverns. When I had last visited these parts there had been no motor roads; I had come by junk, hauled up the rapids by trackers who bent to the ground as they strained to advance foot by foot. A new railway, leading south from Wuhu on the Yangtze, had been completed only a few years previously. In face of the Japanese advance, Chinese engineers had dismantled the line to deny its use to the enemy: but the Japanese advance had stopped at the edge of the plain; the mountain area which reached back to the mass of unoccupied China was still untouched, except for desultory bombing. The steel railway bridges had been cut, their girders sloped at all angles; and the sleepers had been taken for firewood by the farmers, leaving the rails lying along the track.\n\nAll this derelict steel, the stone piers of the bridges, the embankments and cuttings, and the rails themselves, were ideal for use in training. We had here better facilities than we had ever had in Maymyo, though", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212629, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 183, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "163\n\nJapanese planes were reported to be patrolling the road. We rolled back the hood from the rear half of the lorry and posted two sentries, one looking forward and the other aft, to sound the alarm should any planes be seen. The stores made such a rattle that in the cab you could not hear a shout from the rear, and so a string was led forward and tied to my wrist where I sat next to the driver. Three sharp tugs meant: \"Plane in sight, stop and get out quick\". Our lorry was always full of odd people, besides our own party, as in those days of transportation shortage there would be a crowd of passengers, civilian and military, male and female, at all stopping places, hoping for a lift. The trouble was that their idea of when the lorry was fully loaded and ours seldom agreed, and they would continue to pile in with their bundles long after, in our opinion, the safety margin had been passed.\n\nThe thought of our cargo made my hair stand on end. We had broken every safety rule inscribed in the manuals of the Royal Ordnance Corps. In addition to four large drums of petrol, we had a ton of ammonal, several boxes each of primers and detonators, some Mills and 69 grenades, rolls of instantaneous and detonating fuse, and a number of odd boxes of other types of explosive, such as gelignite and 808; each of these materials should have been segregated, and here they were all higgledy-piggledy with a quantity of shovels, picks, axes, and other metal implements jangling in the steel body of our lorry, and only too liable to spark. Our casual passengers liked to smoke and in their delightfully inconsequential way could not understand why we should object. It was a situation that would have pleased the \"Mad Hatter\", and the climax came when after a particularly bad bump over a pot hole one of the petrol drums burst a seam. The alarm signal was given and I pulled up in quick time to learn that the trouble was not a hostile plane but to meet a reek of petrol that spread a mile and to see the whole of our cargo soaked in the precious fluid which poured away to the earth from a corner of the vehicle. It did not take me long to turn off the engine. The members of our party jumped out and seized any handy can or bucket to catch the jetting petrol; others threw out part of the cargo so that we could reach the drum, which we eventually succeeded in turning over with the burst seam on the upper side. Having escaped disaster thus far, I ordered the whole of the party well away from the truck till the cargo had dried out and the spilt petrol had evaporated.\n\nOn the fourth day a van full of American aviators passed us. They were some of General Doolittle's men, who had parachuted into China", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212638, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 192, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "172\n\ndisplaced by the Japanese advance on Shangjao. He also engaged some of the workmen from the Co-op. I was concerned not to have all our eggs in one basket, because I feared that should our efforts be too successful the Japanese would come and bomb us or send fifth column plain-clothes men to liquidate us. So we placed his workshop in another village. For raw material Reginald had the pieces of steel rail cut with explosives from our derelict line when practising with the students. From these he made all sorts of things. His chief output was knives, with which we had to equip all our students for cutting fuse, and other work. He also made screw-drivers, pliers, wire-cutters, crow-bars, and earth augers. The latter were heavy instruments with nine-inch cutting surfaces, that we used to cut holes in the earth. You could lay quite a good mine at the bottom of a six-foot deep nine-inch wide earth auger hole.\n\nThe chief instrument for cratering was however the light camouflet set. This was a metal tube of 2\" diameter and 6 feet long, which was sunk into the earth by means of a hammer head that slid up and down inside. When driven in its full length one pulled the tube out and dropped in a small camouflet charge of 4 oz. of explosive; that blew a chamber of about a foot diameter at the bottom of the hole, sufficiently large to take a charge of 50 lbs. Ammonal was the best explosive for this type of cratering. We would pour the grey powder down the hole, gently ramming it with a wooden rammer, until the whole fifty pounds was well packed at the bottom, together with a primer from which a length of detonating fuse led out to the surface. We would then tamp the whole to earth level with mud, also gently rammed down, lash the detonator and safety fuse assembly to the detonating fuse and set the thing off. One could thus produce a crater up to thirty feet in diameter. This type of demolition, useful for mining at the back of bridge abutments and destroying them, took too much time and the instruments were too heavy and conspicuous to appeal much to our students.\n\nOur second course finished in October, by which time we were beginning to run short of explosives and other supplies. Although the Japanese withdrawal from Shangjao had reopened communication with the rest of China, the destruction by the Chinese of all the motor roads to deny their use to the enemy, had prevented any further supplies reaching us. The first to come through were borne by junk and by coolie escorted by Jim, the missionary who had escaped from Shanghai, and who now rejoined us to help in administration. He brought us news of outside events. We learnt that it had been decided to wind up the main", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212770, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 79, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "64\n\nSeptember 1885 March\n\nJune\n\nca 1885\n\n1886 January\n\nca 1886\n\nca 1886\n\n1887\n\n1889/1890\n\n1889 23 January\n\n1890\n\nLived in the Chang-fa Chen, an hotel in Shanghai\n\nHis first child, Pin Mesny, also known as Hu-sheng, born in Shanghai Departed Shanghai aboard the Yangtze for Canton and appointed for service in both Arsenals [claimed that during the years 1884/1887 whilst living in Canton, he suffered from boils, eczema and prickly heat]\n\nMany of Mesny's notes lost in Chungking during the destruction of the CIM missionary premises. Mesny had left them for safe keeping with the Rev G Nicoll\n\nOffice Bearer of the Keystone Royal Arch Chapter of Masons in Shanghai\n\nPromoted to the brevet rank of Lieutenant-General [ennobled for three generations: previously claimed to have been bestowed in 1879] In charge of the China Branch of the New York Life Office, in Shanghai\n\nRepresentative of the Lartigue Railway Construction Company in Shanghai\n\nIntention to publish a monthly magazine in Shanghai to be called Yüleh Pao together with Chiang Chao-ling (friend and sworn brother). to be the organ of the Reform Party\n\nMade two journeys through Anhui and northern Kiangsu in connection with famine relief\n\nJourney through Anhui, around Lake Chao from Wu-hu to Lu-chou Fu, returning 5 February 1889\n\nVisited Wu-chang to warn Chang Chih-tung that he was erecting the Iron and Steel Works in Wu-chang in an unsuitable place\n\n1891 7 September Typhoon destroyed the Olympia Skating Rink, his property in Lloyd\n\n1892 January\n\n1894\n\nMay\n\n1895 September\n\n1896 Mar/Sep 1898\n\nMay/June\n\nDecember 1899 Mar/Oct\n\nRoad, Shanghai, ruining him financially.\n\nMesny involved in the Mason case\n\nInvited to organise a naval brigade for service on the Hsiang and Han rivers\n\nStormy interview with Li Hung-chang in Tientsin Visited Peking and had breakfast with Manchu Prince Su Claims to have volunteered for service in Manchuria [Sino-Japanese War]\n\nEn route to Manchura: Visited Liu K'un-1, Generalissimo of Chinese Forces [afloat and ashore] at his headquarters at Shan-hai-kuan Mesny refused permission to visit camps of Wu Ta-cheng and Wei Kuang-tao at or near to T'ien-chuang-tai Liu advised Mesny to return to Tientsin.\n\nHis second and only other child, his daughter, Marie Wan-er, born in Shanghai\n\nBegan the publication of his Chinese Miscellany Volume 1 in Shanghai\n\nPublication of Volume 2 of his Chinese Miscellany\n\nLegally married to Lady Han, mother of Hu-sheng [or Pin] and Marie Wan-er\n\nTrip by chartered boat to Hangchou\n\nVisited Nanking\n\nPublication of Volume 3 of his Chinese Miscellany", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212794, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 103, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "88\n\n# Appendix E\n\nPotted Biographies\n\nof\n\nChinese and Europeans\n\nand\n\na list of Terms\n\nwhich appear in the Mesny Saga\n\nBaber, E Colbourne [1843-1890]:\n\nHBM's Consul-General at Seoul, formerly HBM's Political Agent, Resident at Chungking. Mesny wrote that he had met Baber every day during his stay in Chungking in 1880 having first met him in the spring of 1877.\n\nChang Chih-tung:\n\nZIF\n\nAn Imperial official, born in 1837 died in 1909.\n\nHe was a reformer with close contact with foreigners, who remained a staunch Confucianist and a supporter of the Manchu dynasty. He was appointed governor of several Chinese provinces and was unusual in that he died poor, having lived an honest and comparatively frugal life. His reputation has remained as one who took the lead in the modernisation of Chinese economic life. Gretchen Mae Fitkin in her book The Great River, [North China Daily News, Shanghai 1922,] wrote that [the city of] Wu-chang under the idealistic rule of Viceroy Chang, branched out commercially and grew and prospered. He was a man of strange personality, an impractical dreamer, possessed of the spirit of the reformer and promotor (sic), but without either the stability to stick to one thing or the foresight to fit his plan with conditions. When he decided to start the iron and steel mills at Hanyang in [1890] he sent orders back to England for blast furnaces. The manufacturers wrote back for a sample of the ore. They manufactured two types of plant, each suitable to a distinct type of ore. But as Chang Chih-tung had not yet found the ore he could not send a sample. He insisted, however, on having the plant, and one was finally sent out. But it was not of the type suitable for the ore later discovered! One can see these furnaces today (1922) at the Hanyang Iron Works. According to OM Green [The Foreigner in China]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212813, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 122, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "320\n\nMESNY'S CHINESE MISCELLANY.\n\nThe total strength of the regiment is thus: One Colonel, one Second-Major, two Captains, four Lieutenants, four Sub-Lieutenants, two Sergeants, four Corporals, two Lance Corporals and about 650 to 700 men.\n\nThe strength of this regiment is, however, very much increased by over one hundred and thirty gun-boats and a score or so of old ones. Each new gun-boat is manned by one officer and nine men on a peace footing, to which are added one officer and five men in times of war. The old gun-boats have two officers and over twenty men each, and some of them cruise down in the neighbourhood of the Bogue Forts.\n\nThe new gun-boats thus give a complement of 1,300 officers and men in times of peace and over 2,000 in times of war, to be added to the strength of the above naval regiment, besides a proportionate number of commissioned officers.\n\n1439. PAN FEI-A favourite concubine of Tung Hun Hou, the last but one of the Sovereigns of the Ch'i dynasty, A.D. 499-501.\n\nThe practice of cramping the feet of Chinese girls is ascribed to her by some writers. Mayers says: \"She is celebrated for her beauty and grace, and it is related of her (but on untrustworthy grounds) that the practice of artificially cramping the feet was introduced under her auspices See Yao Niang. Her imperial lover is said to have uttered one day, when gazing at her performances in the dance upon a platform ornamented with golden lilies the amorous expression: 'Every footstep makes a lily grow!' and hence the term Chin Lien metaphorically used for the feet of women is said to have taken its rise. In allusion to the same traditions the expression Lien Kou (lily hooks) is also applied in celebrating this charm of woman-kind.\" The term Chin Lien really means Golden Lotus, not Golden Lilies, frequently translated by foreign writers, and in like manner means the term Lien Kou Lotus Hooks. I have often heard the nicely cramped feet of women described as I tui lien hua, i.e., a brace or pair of lotus flowers.\n\n1440. CHOU TICH CHÈN : The battle name of Chou-han the malicious. The rabid anti-foreign Hu-nan man, who has done so much harm to China and to the Chinese by stirring up animosity against foreigners instead of friendliness, adopted as a battle name the characters Tich-chen, which means True as Iron, or \"True as steel\" Chou Han has now fallen, and is ruined, and he is bound to die a miserable death, like everybody else who gets in the way of Christian progress. The following two characters-Tich-chen —may now be substituted for the two so boastfully selected by himself.\n\nHu-nan is bound to be opened to foreign trade and friendly intercourse with foreign nations. No mortal man even yet kicked against Christianity without hurting himself. Chou Han is as good as dead, or he ought to be dead.\n\n1441. AI YEH -The leaves of Artemisia Moxa, q.v. This is considered a lucky plant. On the fifth day of the fifth moon every family gets a few leaves to hang over the house doors. When dry and rubbed up it answers the purposes of punk or tinder, and may be lighted with flint and steel by striking fire over the punk in the usual manner. It is also burnt to drive away insects, or mosquitoes at least, and is very useful as such.\n\n1442. I-TS'AO-Healing Herbs, Medicinal Herbs, Drugs, Artemisia Moxa, q.v.\n\n1443. AI-HO-Punk made from the dry leaves of the Artemisia Moxa, q.v., and used as a cautery in various cases of disease, and burning the scars seen on the head of all properly initiated Buddhist priests. Each scar represents a vow to abstain from evil and perform good deeds.\n\nA full Index will be issued every Six Months.\n\nJan. 9th, 1896.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213606, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 202, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "174\n\nwith radio and telephone, which is manned continuously. In the wall, at head height around the circumference, windows afford a 360° arc of vision to the duty constable. The Control Room gives access on either side to the flat roof of the arms of the post. This roof has a low, castellated parapet, and forms the Observation Bridge. Here is located a petrol generator and a searchlight. The former supplies electricity to the searchlight by night, and re-charges the R/T batteries by day. The bridge is also manned throughout the twenty-four hours of the day.\n\nThe lower storey of the tower forms the men's mess room. In one of the wings, there is sleeping accommodation for the personnel, with built-in bunks and lockers. In the other wing, there is a kitchen, bathroom, and storage space, all small, but adequate. The windows of the ground floor perform the dual function of admitting light and protecting the post, since they are fitted with movable steel shutters bearing loopholes. The whole building is surrounded by a barbed wire perimeter of some depth.\n\nThe personnel are Cantonese and Hakka constables, the number varying with the area covered by the post, and the activities which it has to perform. This also influences the choice of command: in the more heavily staffed posts, a Sergeant is in charge, and in the remainder, a Corporal. All posts are well armed, having automatic weapons and grenades as well as the rifles and revolvers normally to be found in the N.T., and there is a plentiful supply of ammunition. Emergency signalling and lighting equipment is installed so that the posts are able to continue in their work in the event of a breakdown in their mechanical equipment.\n\nIn short, each post is so designed, constructed, equipped, and staffed that it can, if need be, carry on an independent existence as a unit, without assistance from the main station.\n\nToday the posts still retain very much the same appearance as when they were built. They are in a good state of preservation despite their exposed positions. Modern installations include room coolers, thermal imagers, external cat ladders, safety railings, and windows to the upper storey of the control tower. In the fenced compound of each post, there is a separate ablution block and generator house, and at some locations", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213985, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 54, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "20 years ago during the pre-historical period when the universe was created out of the 'great chaos'. Yau, a mythological character, is believed to have taught his people how to build crude bridges and construct huts.4 The latter were sometimes erected as 'nest-like' shelters in trees to afford better protection against wild animals. He built such a structure for his own mother. This, so some claim, marked the beginning of framed timber structures which led, naturally, to the erection of scaffolding. Yau Chao Shi's birthday is celebrated on the 19th day of the first Moon,\n\nDuring the Era of the Spring and Autumn Annals, about 500 years before Christ, a master builder, all-round craftsman and inventor, Lu Pan, who today remains the patron god of all workers in the building industry, is said to have brought into use more 'scientific methods' of scaffolding.7 Lu Pan was one of the first mortals to be raised to the level of a deity.\n\nOsmond Tiffany Junior, traveller and author, wrote during Hong Kong's first decade (the 1840s) as a British Colony:\n\n... before a house is commenced a staging of bamboo is erected and covered with matting. As the building rises the bamboo poles are run up story by story, the matting elevated, and the whole house completely protected from the glare of day until the last nail is driven.*\n\nAlthough one sometimes comes across a similar practice in Hong Kong today, when the substructure or a site is protected from the weather, with high-rise buildings such a shelter as Tiffany describes above is not generally practicable. Such a practice is, however, sometimes employed in Britain using steel scaffolding covered with tilts.\n\nToday, seemingly flimsy, 'low-technology' bamboo scaffolding in Hong Kong, together with the agility and traditional skills of scaffolders, contrast markedly with the modern technology of multi-storey buildings. This invariably earns admiration in Hong Kong from both tourists and locals alike. Bamboo scaffolders have been aptly likened to spiders weaving their webs. Bamboo scaffolding may be considered as primitive without being old-fashioned, time-saving without being insecure, and economical without being impracticable.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213989, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 58, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "24\n\nTools\n\nThe tools used by bamboo scaffolders are simple, few in number and have changed but little over centuries. They comprise a timber bow (frame) saw, about 30 inches long, with a steel blade and a cord, made up of several strands, stretched along the back of the saw. A piece of timber, about four inches long, is inserted in the strands of the cord. This is turned around so the cord is twisted, tightened and thus shortened. As a result, the blade becomes taut. The bowsaw is used to cut bamboo to appropriate lengths. Other tools include a rule, a pair of snips to cut wire used to secure the scaffolding to a building, such as for cantilever scaffolding. Wire is also used, for additional strength to fasten China Fir poles together. A folding knife with a hooked end, to cut through lashings when dismantling scaffolding, is also used by scaffolders. The hook is employed to unravel knots. A length of rope is used to hoist lengths of bamboo up to the upper floors of a building. A narrow-bladed spade is sometimes used when uprights are sunk into soil.\n\nTypes of scaffolding\n\n20\n\nIn addition to ordinary scaffolding forming working platforms for a building, bamboo may also be used for a variety of other purposes. For example, to construct a frame for a 'matshed' in which to perform Chinese opera (see Plate 5). The frame for the stage inside the matshed will also be fashioned out of bamboo. Years ago the matshed would have been 'clad' with palm leaves, canvas or rattan mats. Today, thin steel sheets are normally used with their greater fire-resisting qualities.\n\n21\n\nBamboo may also be used to form raking or flying shoring for strutting up a building which is in danger of collapse. In addition, bamboo may be used for constructing ladders or trestles, to build a spectators' stand at a public function, or to construct a pai lau, a celebratory archway. Sometimes bamboo is used to form a frame on which to mount fireworks or it can be used to fashion a screen to protect property when blasting of rocks is carried out.\n\nA variety of types of scaffolding are used to form working platforms. These include a cantilever ('truss-out' or 'flying' scaffold, fei paan,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213991, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 60, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "26 \n\nare left in position for a long time however, such as shoring, nylon withstands the weather better than bamboo lashings.\n\nThe author recalls taking a group of building students, in 1957, on to what was then an open building site in Central District, where the Furama Hotel now stands, to see an exhibition of tubular steel and aluminium scaffolding. Some people prophesied at the time that, before many years would pass, western style scaffolding would replace bamboo. Others, wisely, shook their heads. The author recalls as a fairly typical example, in the late 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, when many buildings along Conduit Road were pulled down and rebuilt. In almost every case, bamboo scaffolding was employed, even for buildings of 40 storeys or more. Little western style scaffolding was to be seen.\n\nReasons for the popularity of bamboo scaffolding are several. 26 Most contractors in Hong Kong do not have builders yards and bamboo, unlike steel or aluminium scaffolding, can be stored on a hillside with little risk of being stolen. Also, after scaffolding has been dismantled, bamboo does not have to be cleaned and oiled like steel scaffolding. It is, in other words, maintenance free and can, on average, be reused three times. Poor ventilation and dampness in storage are major factors to watch for and bamboo should not be left lying in direct contact with the ground.\n\nBamboo scaffolding is also flexible, and light and fast to erect. Although figures quoted naturally vary depending on conditions, a trained scaffolder, with a mate or mates to hoist the bamboo, can erect up to 20 'wells' of single scaffolding, or nine wells of double scaffolding, a day. Since the intersecting uprights and horizontal members resemble the Chinese character for a 'well'(井), scaffolding is usually costed in units of 'wells'. A well is nine 'empty' squares, divided by lengths of bamboo, with an overall size of about 10 feet by 10 feet. At lower levels however, naturally, because it is easier to climb up and hoist the bamboo, work proceeds faster.\n\nAccidents\n\nBearing in mind the high-risk factor, in the old days especially, before becoming a scaffolding apprentice one would find out if one's\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214050, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 118, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "85\n\nWharf, one of the oldest landing stages, originally consisted of a simple wooden pier which needed to be replaced as successive reclamations advanced the seafront. In the mid-1880s when it was rebuilt it was still the principal landing place on the Island, being by this time a substantial wooden structure. Numerous other piers and jetties have always been scattered along the north shore which generally served the smaller-sized coastal and harbour shipping, larger ocean-going vessels making increasing use of the deep-water facilities in Kowloon. In 1911, the main piers in the central district were Queen's Pier (rebuilt in the mid-1920s), Kowloon (Star) Ferry Pier, Blake Pier (previously Pedder's Wharf) and the old P&O Jetty. By 1930 there were still some 30 piers and jetties on the Island jutting out into the harbour. The effects of severe typhoons caused immense damage to vessels and facilities, and heavy loss of life, for example that in 1874 resulting in the deaths of 2,000 persons; old photographs show a devastated harbour with the remnants of numerous piers sticking out of the wreckage-strewn waters.\n\nBy 1887, on the Mainland there were three principal jetties, ranging in length from about 110 to 145 metres lying just north of the south-west tip of Kowloon peninsula and a 150m-long vertical seawall to the south. The dock area itself incorporated a 1.2km-long narrow-gauge steel tramway system which was manually operated along the wharfage and through the extensive godowns. As a result of the devastating 1906 typhoon, in which 10,000 lives were lost (over 2% of the total population), enormous damage was caused to the existing wharfs and to the new Star Ferry pier which was completely severed and marooned from the land. A 200m-long 13m-wide wharf with 9 metres of water at low tide was added to the complex in 1916 which was long and deep enough to allow the largest ship visiting Hong Kong at that time to come alongside. By 1925 there were already 18 deep-water berths available in Kowloon.\n\nEarly in the century there were also piers and wharves for passenger ferries and commercial vessels in other locations, for instance in 1904 a berth was constructed at Lai Chi Kok to serve the oil tank farm and, shortly afterwards, at the end of Boundary Street there was a 36m-long 2m-wide pier with sufficient depth of water to enable freight to be transferred to and from steam launches.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214061, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 129, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "96\n\nThe Shing Mun Valley scheme was started in 1923 and initially a 2km-long 3m-diameter tunnel was driven to Shek Lai Pui. Subsequently, the largest pre-Pacific war reservoir was constructed, which was to double the Territory's total water storage capacity to 27,000 million litres; it was formed by the main Gorge Dam, which was the highest in the old British Empire at that time (1936), and the subsidiary 25m-high earth/rockfill/concrete core Pineapple Pass Dam. The remarkable Gorge Dam, 85m high with a bold and probably unique design, consists of a downstream shoulder of rockfill faced with pitching and an upstream face comprising a slender near-vertical reinforced concrete diaphragm wall supported by a massive concrete thrust block. Between the upper part of the thrust block and the downstream rockfill, there is a narrow wedge filled with sand for the purpose of taking up any settlement of the rockfill and to cater for possible earthquake movement. Any leakage through the upper part of the diaphragm can be observed from an inspection gallery behind it. Elaborate experiments were made to determine the correct design of the reservoir overflow bellmouth in order to reduce vortexing and to neutralise the destructive vacuum forces which could occur at the base of the bellmouth overflow shaft. For this investigative work, the young Geoffrey Binnie was awarded a Telford premium by the Institution of Civil Engineers. Subsequently, preliminary investigations for the Tai Lam Chung scheme were started shortly before the outbreak of the Pacific war, by which time the Territory's population had risen to about 1.6 million.\n\nAs a result of an acute water emergency on the Island, work started on a 300mm steel pipe cross-harbour main in 1929, the sixty-two 30m-long bolted sections taking less than 2 months to lay, and a further 450mm main was laid in 1935. Due to corrosion problems, it was necessary to replace these pipes in 1939 with two 530mm steel pipes, protected with a 12mm-thick cement lining on the inside and a 60mm coating of vibrated concrete on the outside, which were laid on reinforced concrete blocks bedded on rockfill with a protective rubble mound on the east side of the pipelines to prevent damage from dragging anchors.\n\nThese pre-Pacific war water schemes not only involved building dams but also needed construction, often in difficult site conditions, of a multiplicity of extensive catchwaters, tunnels, trunk mains, treatment plants, service reservoirs, pumping stations, and distribution mains in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214292, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 150, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "113\n\ngenerated when a flint struck the steel and landed on the small charge of powder in the priming pan. This form of ignition had been used on firearms from the first half of the sixteenth century, and by the nineteenth it had developed into an efficient mechanism. However, it had a number of faults, one being its susceptibility to dampness, so that in wet weather it was very unreliable.\n\nThe effect of rain on the flintlock is illustrated by the account of an action before Canton given by Ouchterlony: \"..., the General, finding the rain descending in torrents, and every appearance of a tempestuous night, directed a retreat towards the heights occupied by the main body of the army. The muskets of the troops being all furnished with flintlocks, had, of course, by this time, become utterly useless.\n\n27\n\nThe action came to a successful conclusion, however, as after a while help arrived: \"In another minute the marines had formed: and a destructive volley, poured into the crowded ranks of the Chinese, at a distance of a few paces, speedily swept away the astonished pursuers, and taught our own people, in a manner the most impressive, the value of the admirable weapons, the percussion muskets, with which the marines were armed.\"28\n\nThe percussion form of ignition was invented by a Scottish minister, the Reverend Forsyth in 1805. It had been known for some considerable time that certain chemicals, such as fulminate of mercury, explode when struck with a hammer. They were too strong an explosive to use as a substitute for gunpowder, but Forsyth had the idea of using them as a means of ignition. It took a little while for the standard percussion mechanism to develop, but by the 1820s most sporting guns were using it. The military, however, were, as usual, slow to respond and were even about to issue a new flintlock arm, when in 1834, comparative trials were held to assess the performance of the percussion musket. The new system proved its worth, and there was then the problem of reequipping the army. This was a lengthy process, and hence, it is not surprising that the main troops assembled for the Eastern Expedition in 1840 still carried flintlock muskets.\n\nThe action described above, which took place on 30th May 1841 was the first use of percussion muskets in war. The honour fell to the\n\nPage 150\n\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214298, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 156, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "119\n\nmust have been dreadful. For whenever they were wounded and fell, the match-lock set fire to their cotton clothes, and I saw several instances of their being literally burnt alive.\n\n33 C.Worswick & J.Spence. Imperial China, Photographs 1850-1912. London, 1979,\n\np.36 shows a photograph by Felix Beato.\n\nMackenzie, op. cit., p. 144 reports that \"The Tartars and Chinese troops use bows of different sizes and strengths, the Tartars use a peculiar kind of cross-bow, throwing three arrows..\"\n\n35 John Henry Gray. Walks in the City of Canton. Hong Kong, 1875, p.527.\n\n36 Ouchterlony, op. cit., p. 98 reporting the taking of the fort of Tycocktow says \"More resistance, however, was offered here than at Chuenpee, for the Chinese were not forced from their ramparts until the boats' crews had gained the summit, and the bayonet and cutlass had clashed with the spear and the broadsword. Several of the assailants received wounds from the cold steel, a rare occurrence in the Chinese war.\"\n\n37 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 151.\n\n38 Lt. Colonel Fisher, C.B. Personal Narrative of Three Years' Service in China. London 1863. p.383.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214428, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 286, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "252\n\nSearchlight Emplacements\n\nInside the satellite earth station there is a steep flight of steps from an old generator house down a very rugged and precipitous ravine to a concrete footpath which girdles the south-eastern coast of the peninsula. Remains of old concrete posts at regular intervals suggest a security fence existed at one time alongside the footpath. About halfway along the footpath, situated on a ledge of the cliff, stands a small concrete structure with a semi-circular bow-shaped front and a large open embrasure facing in an easterly direction. This shelter housed one of the coast artillery searchlights for the battery. The searchlight was protected by steel shutters when not in use. The rear part of the shelter housed either a small generator or a series of accumulator batteries to provide the electricity supply to power the searchlight. A second searchlight emplacement can be found further along the footpath facing in a south-easterly direction.\n\nSituated higher up the cliff above the second searchlight emplacement is the searchlight command post. This consists of a two-tiered structure connected by an internal flight of steps. The same standard design as the searchlight emplacement has been used for each tier, the only modification being to increase the height of the parapet wall, which reduces the size of the embrasure opening but still allows observation. This is where the searchlight directing officer and battery observers would have been stationed. Adjacent to the searchlight command post is a small concrete shelter probably used as an off-duty rest room by the searchlight operators and observers working shifts or watches.\n\nDefence electric lights or projectors could be used in either a searchlight role, sweeping across the sea in front of the emplacement picking out and following hostile targets for the gunners to engage, or as a fixed illumination covering constantly a body of water through which enemy ships might pass. The beams could be adjusted to narrow for long range or wide for shorter range, but with a greater area of coverage. Sometimes a system of 'sentry' and 'sweeper' beams would be used. Two lights situated some distance apart would remain in the same position as sentry beams. The light operators would watch for enemy ships passing through their beams, and when something was seen, a third searchlight, the 'sweeper,' would pick up the ship and illuminate it for the guns. Sweepers would also light up at irregular times, make", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214429, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 287, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "253\n\na quick sweep of the area then douse. 'Douse lights' was the official term used when passing an order. Coast artillery searchlights could not be used in an anti-aircraft role as they had very little elevation.\n\nThe Bluff Head Battery\n\nThe Bluff Head Battery was set up as an improvised emergency battery sometime after 1938 in the event of war. Although no two batteries were exactly alike they all conformed to a general pattern. A typical emergency coastal battery, such as that set up on the Bluff, would consist of two guns either fitted with their own gun shields or mounted in temporary steel framed casemates covered with sandbags which would later be rebuilt in brick or concrete, with sunken expense magazines or shell stores and air-raid shelters or dugouts for the gunners between them. There would be two searchlight emplacements, one on each flank of the battery, so that the guns could be used at night. A battery observation post equipped with range finder, predictor, and fire-control equipment would be sited behind the guns, if possible on higher ground, otherwise in a two or three storey tower, or in a convenient nearby building.\n\nThe battery would have been surrounded by barbed wire entanglements, and protected by infantry defences such as pillboxes, sandbagged machine-gun emplacements, and slit-trenches. The searchlights were housed in small brick or concrete shelters protected by steel shutters, each searchlight powered by its own diesel-engined generator housed in a small engine room at the rear of the shelter. Alternatively wet cell accumulator batteries in series could be used and probably were at Stanley, as a number of carbon rods, which were a component of this type of battery, have been found discarded in old bunkers and several old battery charging rooms have also been found. Emergency sandbagged searchlight emplacements could also be set up quickly if required.\n\nOther Gun Emplacements\n\nA mobile anti-aircraft battery, 18th AA Bty, 5th AA Regt RA, is known to have been captured at Stanley on 25 Dec 1941. An AA position is shown on old wartime maps on the spur above Tai Tam Tau,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214443, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 301, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "268\n\nleading up from ground level. The rear verandah has been bricked up. The tubular steel railings to the verandah and steps are probably not original. The building has an underfloor ventilation space formed by segmental arches bearing on brick piers. The verandah columns are square brick pillars with stop-chamfered arrises with plain plinths and capitals. Windows are metal framed with matching glazed doors. The flat roof has a parapet with coping and piers arranged above the verandah columns. Modern installations include a cat ladder to the roof on one side elevation and two floodlights mounted on poles on the roof to illuminate the volley ball court in front. The whole building is well maintained and in good condition. Photographic evidence in the PRO indicates that the roof originally was a Chinese tiled pitched roof.\n\nBarrack Blocks 1 and 2 are white painted two-storey brick buildings forming two opposite sides of the parade ground or barrack square. Both blocks have identical front elevations of plain but boldly arched verandahs of nineteen bays each. Arches are supported on square brick pillars with stop-chamfered arrises and plain unmoulded plinths and capitals. The lower floor is raised off the ground by means of segmental arches on short square brick piers forming a ventilation space below. Storey heights are emphasized by horizontal projecting string courses. The flat roofs have coped parapet walls with exposed brick piers, in vertical line with the pillars below, raised off the top string courses. The front elevation of each block is marred somewhat by the addition of a modern external staircase with balustrading and verandah railings in tubular steel. Internally there is little of architectural merit. There is evidence in the P.R.O. that when originally built Blocks 1 and 2 were left unpainted in natural brickwork and also had open verandahs on the rear elevations (now bricked up). Verandah balustrading consisted of two panels of cross diagonal braces per bay. The roofs were pitched Chinese tiled roofs with steel trusses, gable ends and chimney stacks. External rainwater pipes with hopper heads served the roof gutters. Both blocks are Grade 3 historical buildings.\n\nBlock 9, the Officers Mess, is a white painted building L-shaped in plan. The rear part of the Mess dating from 1903/4 consists of a two-storey building built in rusticated granite in Italianate style with bold arched ‘Venetian' verandahs on both sides. The lower floor is raised off the ground in a similar manner to the adjacent barrack blocks. Arches to the under floor ventilation space and ground floor verandahs", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214985, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 81, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "37\n\nThe labourer gave such details as age, address, knowledge of English, previous occupations and also details of the person, in China, to whom he wanted the Chinese portion of his pay to be sent. He then \"signed\" his contract and his identity card with his thumb-prints, so agreeing to the terms of service. Even though recruited as civilians, all were subject to martial law, including field punishments and courts-martial, conviction sometimes including the death penalty. They were considered as mercenaries.\n\nGroups of fifteen were invited to elect leaders, called Under-gangers. These men usually were more literate or had other qualities of leadership. It was necessary for the British officers and NCOs to treat them with respect at all times, otherwise they \"lost face,\" and their compatriots would then treat them with disdain and not obey their commands.\n\nEquipment and Pay\n\nBeing non-combatants, no Army-type uniform was issued to the labourers. They were issued with summer and winter \"native-style\" clothing. They were also issued with a fur-lined cap made of brown felt, with ear-flaps of grey fur, commonly called the \"Shandong hat\". These hats were modelled on similar hats worn by British troops in the North China garrisons prior to World War I. On arrival in France, labourers managed to acquire other types of headgear, namely civilian cloth caps, Australian bush hats, French Army kepis and even steel helmets. Pictures, whether stills or movies, show labourers of the CLC with a variety of clothing and headgear. European officers and NCOs wore regulation British Army uniforms and insignia, either with an Army General Service Corps badge2 or the insignia of their parent units during prior service.\n\nA cap badge of sorts was issued. Made of copper, it was oval, one inch by one and a half inches, and had the initials \"C.L.C.\" stamped thereon. Gangers wore chevrons on their uniform sleeves. The Chinese were proud of their contribution to the war effort and were ultimately awarded with an official motto Labor Vincit Omnia. [Labour Conquers all].\n\nIn addition to being clothed, fed and accommodated, the labourers", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215292, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 69, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "quota system which kept out their Japanese competitors they must pay the same price as British textile manufacturers and use British-made rayon yarn.\" So from June 1937 the 'spun, woven and finished within the empire' requirement was enforced for all cotton and artificial silk garments if they wished to qualify for preference as empire products.\"\n\nApart from boots and shoes, forches, cotton and artificial silk clothing and hosiery there were many other Hong Kong manufactured products exported to the colonial empire which were able to claim the benefits of the imperial preferential tariff. They included hats, umbrellas, leather bags and purses, suitcases, furniture, mats, lamps, rope, firecrackers, paper, books, cigarettes, perfumes, medicines, condiments, sauces, biscuits, preserved foods and refined sugar.\" Complaints of the abuse of this privilege continued. In June 1938 the Colonial Office issued instructions that Hong Kong goods should be admitted to preference only if the suppliers' declaration that the article had a 50 per cent empire content was supported by a detailed statement of costings certified by a chartered accountant and countersigned by an officer of the Hong Kong government.\" It cannot have been easy for a workshop in the back streets of Kowloon to afford the fees of a chartered accountant and get all the paperwork in order. Many justifiable claims to imperial preference must have gone by default. The Colonial Office was under pressure from the Board of Trade active on behalf of British manufacturers who found their trade threatened by Hong Kong's success. It sought to defend the principle that all parts of the empire should be treated equally. It could not stop the self-governing dominions from discriminating against Hong Kong, but it prevented the colonial territories from doing the same. The price it had to pay was the elaborate documentation required to prove that Hong Kong goods were genuinely made in the colony and were not products transhipped from China or Japan.\n\nIn 1937 manufacturing industry in Hong Kong received an unexpected stimulus from the Japanese invasion of China. Industrialists transferred production from Shanghai to Hong Kong when their factories were attacked by the Japanese. When Japan blockaded the Yangtse river and seized all the coastal ports in East China, Hong Kong became a vital entry point for military supplies. Factories were quickly established to provide clothing and equipment to the Nationalist forces. Factories were set up to produce steel helmets, gas masks, mess tins, webbing and military uniforms. Parts for lorries, trucks and even aircraft were imported and assembled in Hong Kong. The Commercial Press moved from Shanghai and began printing currency notes for the Chinese government. The number of factories employing more than 20 workers went up from 642 in 1936 to 864 in 1938, 925 in 1939 and 1,143 in 1940. Domestic exports of manufactured goods in 1938 totalled at least HK$91,610,000 (about £6,000,000).**", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215480, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 257, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "206\n\nto the north? It turned out to be neither of these, although weapons were certainly involved. What we had heard was an archery contest in progress. Archery is Bhutan's chief sport (although we were delighted to see some cricket being played once or twice.) The bows are made of two pieces of bamboo, lashed together, and the arrows are also of bamboo, with steel tips and plastic flights. The target is the size of cricket stumps and is aimed at from an incredible 150 yards away, or the equivalent of seven cricket pitches. About twelve young men were competing against each other. I have to say that the scoring system seemed particularly mean. The archer was awarded one point for landing his arrow near the target, and a measly two points if he hit it. I would have thought an audience with the king and a pension for life would have been a more fitting reward. For the 20 minutes or so that I was watching, not one arrow hit the target. Once an archer had shot his arrow, he rushed to the target end of the pitch, where there were already a couple of umpires, the better to see where his fellows' arrows were landing. ‘See' is an interesting word in this context. Not one of us visitors could see anything at all until we heard the thunk of an arrow hitting the ground - and this was usually within a foot of the feet of the encouraging crowd of archers. Although not understanding a word of Bhutanese, we knew that the shouts of encouragement were along the lines of: 'I say, Jack, you were a tad off target there,' or perhaps some colourful local equivalent.\n\nSurfeited with excitement, and dodging the missiles, we had a half-hour's walk, over a wobbly bridge, to visit the 17th Century Tamshing Monastery. Although again beautiful, placid and very atmospheric, I was getting to the stage of not being able to tell t'other from which.\n\nHow now brown cow?\n\nBack on the 'bus, the guide pointed out in the adjacent fields a herd of Swiss brown cows. 'How now?' we thought. The herd is a present from Switzerland and is used to make cheese. This was available for sale in a nearby shop and was excellent. But we must not eat too much, though, as lunch was waiting for us down the road, courtesy once more of Mr Fresco. The usual long table and chairs had been set up on the grounds of a deserted royal palace, the Wangdichholing Palace. This rather cute but still impressive building dates from 1856 and is the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215560, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 337, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "287\n\nwhere the first three lighthouses were built.\n\nTo manage the new lighthouses a 30-year-old man from the county of Surrey, Mr. Archibald Baird, was recruited in England. He received training at Trinity House in London,13 for a fortnight, to gain experience with various Dioptric Lamps and their management.14 He also stayed with Messrs. Chance Brothers, the manufacturer of the apparatus, for another fortnight to acquire further working knowledge.15 He arrived in Hong Kong in 1874 in the capacity of Principal Light Keeper for Cape D'Aguilar. He was also responsible for the supervision of the lights at Cape Collinson and Green Island, although all these lighthouses were not yet in operation.\n\nGreen Island Lighthouse\n\nGreen Island Lighthouse started to operate on 1st July 1875, about three months after Cape D'Aguilar Lighthouse was set up. The illuminating apparatus was fixed dioptic of the fourth Order showing a red light on the bearings from N. 16 E. to S. 18 E. (146 degrees). From N. 16 E. to N. 44 W. (60 degrees) and from S. 18 E. to S. 25 W. (43 degrees) it showed a green light. The focal plane of the light is 95 feet above mean sea level and in clear weather it should be seen at a distance of 14 miles.16\n\nThe small round Green Island lighthouse tower is constructed of granite and is about 12 metres high. Its arched doorway is decorated with granite blocks with a cross-shaped opening above. In comparison to Cape D'Aguilar, Green Island Lighthouse cost much less, about one sixth of the cost for the Cape D'Aguilar lighthouse.17\n\nWhen the Cape D'Aguilar Light became obsolete after the construction of Waglan Island Lighthouse, in 1893, Governor Henry Blake later proposed to move the lantern of Cape D'Aguilar to Green Island.18 In 1905 a higher and larger tower to accommodate the Cape D'Aguilar Light was completed and the new lighthouse on Green Island came into operation the following year. It has a round tower, is 17.6 metres high and is constructed of granite and concrete with a spiral staircase. The steel lantern on top of the tower is painted white.19", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215563, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 340, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "290\n\nmineral oil with rotating apparatus floating on mercury. This method for rotating lights by floating the apparatus on a bath of mercury, which eliminated friction and permitted revolutions as frequent as every 15 seconds, was invented in 1890. The technique led to a system of identifying lighthouses by the pattern of intervals of light and darkness. Waglan Light was one of only two such modern pieces of equipment introduced and installed in Asian waters at that time. The other one was installed on the Lao-t'ich-shan Light at Dairen. The British, after taking Waglan over, installed a diaphone fog signal. During its eight-year history as a Chinese light, no fewer than 222 fog-signal guns were fired during the month of April 1894. The fury of the sea at this spot during typhoons is notorious. In 1896, waves flooded the fresh water tanks and completely carried away the derrick used for landing stores, while the spray reached the lantern, 225 feet above high water, pitting the panes with sand and gravel.\n\n24\n\nThe cast iron tower is 52 feet high in the shape of a cone. It is painted white with a red upper portion. During the Second World War Waglan Lighthouse was extensively damaged by bombing. Repairs took place after 1945. It has been unmanned since August 1989. Waglan Lighthouse acts not only as a navigation aid but also as an outpost where weather information on the eastern corner of the territory is collected and fed to the Hong Kong Observatory,\n\nTang Lung Chau Lighthouse\n\nSituated on Tang Lung Chau, a small island to the west of Hong Kong Island, Tang Lung Chau Lighthouse is also commonly known as Kap Sing Lighthouse. It was put into service on 29th April 1912. It has a skeletal steel tower, 11.8 metres high, with a white lantern on top. The steel tower and light apparatus were obtained from England. Skeleton structures are normally used for supporting lights on soft or insecure bottoms - such as on sandbanks, coral reefs and shoals. The brick building which was the light keeper's house has a bedroom, a kitchen, a latrine and a storeroom. Rainwater was collected from the roof and diverted into an underground tank as there was no spring or fresh water supply on the island. The lighthouse is now unmanned and automated. Together with Waglan, this lighthouse was declared a historical structure on 29th December 2000.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215809, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 108, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "41\n\ndo without, would also be affected by heavy rainfall. Incendiary bombing, which would become a favourite strategy with the Allies against Japanese targets elsewhere as the war progressed, would naturally be less effective during the middle part of the year in Hong Kong. Heavy rainfall also affects the performance of propeller aircraft by cooling their engines excessively.1 Overall, air operations of all kinds would be less effective or even grounded during periods of heavy rainfall.\n\nThe flip side of air operations is anti-aircraft defence. A simple, inexpensive device employed as an anti-aircraft measure was the barrage balloon. This was a large hydrogen-filled, dirigible-shaped balloon attached to a steel cable anchored to the ground or a ship and floated several hundred to several thousand feet above it. The cable was stronger than it looked, and was meant to discourage low-level air attacks by having the ability to damage or clip the wings of a low-flying aircraft. This forces the aircraft to fly higher, which decreases its attack accuracy, and aids the effectiveness of one's own anti-aircraft artillery and intercepting aircraft.16\n\nHowever, a hydrogen-filled barrage balloon (in the days before helium use was common) is highly flammable. This is a liability during a thunderstorm, during which a spark of lightning could turn a barrage balloon into an incendiary hazard that is more dangerous to its user than to the enemy.\n\nCloud and fog.\n\nCloud and fog often went hand-in-hand with heavy rainfall to restrict air operations. Reconnaissance of Japanese positions would be very difficult. High level bombing or close support, favoured by the Allies and employed extensively in other theatres, would have to be cut back or even cancelled. If cloud and fog were present at the beginning of the amphibious stage of the Allied assault on Hong Kong, when the Allies would be at their most vulnerable, crucial air support would be inadequate or even lacking. If the Japanese contested the landing, and this was expected, the Allies would be faced with a precarious and probably dangerous situation.\n\nWhile cloud and fog are most prevalent during the beginning of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215878, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 177, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "110\n\nThe aim of our note is to provide further information about the sites as they appear today.\n\nSurvey findings\n\nDevil's Peak Redoubt\n\nThe Devil's Peak Redoubt has an area of about 1,240m2. The redoubt is rhomboid in shape on plan and looks like a crater from the air. It was built to circumscribe the rock outcrop of the Devil's Peak, and therefore its shape follows the basic topography of the summit of Devil's Peak (Figure 3). A government trig station, No. 128 (221.6m), has been planted at the highest point of the outcrop. Notwithstanding the fact that only a very small portion of its roofs survives, the redoubt retains its contiguous external walls and internal dividing walls.\n\nThe northwest-facing external walls of the redoubt were generally built in stone while all the other structures were of concrete. Most of the walls were about 500mm thick, albeit a portion facing west was only about 250mm thick. Passages with widths varying from 1.75m to 2.5m and heights 1.25m to 3m enclose the rock outcrop of Devil's Peak. The ruins of four originally covered bunkers and one kitchen can be found within the redoubt. Three bastions, being machine gun emplacements, command the west, east and north-eastern corners of the redoubt. One hundred loopholes, with openings measuring about 300mm x 150mm (h) and tapered towards the external face, were formed on all side walls of the redoubt.\n\nCollapsed roof shelters have exposed very thin steel reinforcement (around 3 mm in diameter) that were used within the cement-based roof slabs to take up part of the tensile stress. Signs of expanded metal or wire mesh were found to be used as reinforcement for certain sections of the roof. Conditions of the walls of the redoubt appeared to be good, except that a section of the external firing wall of length about 11m was found leaning outward with cracks of widths as large as 120mm and displayed up to 160mm outward at the top of the wall (Figure 5).\n\nNote that the following features were measured and shown in Figure 3:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215899, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 198, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "Pottinger Battery: 1 officer + 26 soldiers\n\n3 February 1920 The Chief of Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, considered that Hong Kong could resist Japanese attack for 3 months before relief from Singapore arrived.\n\nWashington Treaty\n\n1920/1921\n\n1922\n\nThe Admiralty informed the Committee of Imperial Defence that it was the authority to advise the scale of attack on ports and that for Hong Kong, the \"status quo applies.\"\n\nRollo, 1992, p.98\n\nRollo, 1992, p.101\n\nRollo, 1992, p.102\n\n1924\n\n\"Devil's Peak Sheet No.3,\" Ordnance Survey 1904, corrected and printed at the War Office 1924, shows road access, including \"roads suitable for man-handled guns\" and detailed land uses in the Devil's Peak area, with boundaries of War Department lands delineated. However, the locations of batteries and the Redoubt are not shown.\n\nPRO100(2)\n\n1927\n\nAerial Photograph No. H19 15 taken by HMS Pegasus.\n\nThe Joint Overseas and Home Defence Committee review.\n\nRollo, 1992, p.104\n\n1928\n\nSteel choke caused problems to the 9.2-inch guns at Devil's Peak.\n\nRollo, 1992, p.105\n\n1929\n\nAugust 1930\n\nFebruary 1931\n\nChinese writer/composer, Tien Han, visited Hong Kong and was impressed by the scenic views of Lei Yue Mun, as stated in his poem \"Good Bye Hong Kong.\"\n\nThe 12th Heavy Battery replaced the 9-inch guns with anti-choke pattern.\n\nRollo, 1992, p.105\n\nThe 12 Heavy Battery fired new guns at Gough Battery. \"Gough Battery fired over Hong Kong Island and Repulse Bay.\"\n\nRollo, 1992, p.105\n\n1933\n\nAnnual Review of the Defence of Ports.\n\nRollo, 1992, p.105\n\n22 October 1934 The 12 Heavy Battery practised indirect shots at Pottinger Battery.\n\n1934\n\nA letter from the Military Operation Branch of the War Office indicated plans to modernise two 9.2-inch guns at Devil's Peak in 1936/37 with 35-degree mountings.\n\n1936\n\nThe Hong Kong Defence Scheme\n\nRollo, 1992, p.107\n\nRollo, 1992, p.108, 109\n\nRollo, 1992, p.110, 112\n\n131", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216167, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 466, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "400\n\nequivalent to the 9.2 inch guns at Mount Davis and Stanley Fort Batteries. The gun embrasure was bricked up as part of the 1974 conversion works and steel dead shoring erected to provide extra support for the overhanging cantilevered canopy. A new door opening was also formed in 1974 in the rear wall. The original door opening is still there and leads to a small rear compartment with three recesses in the wall noted on the P.W.D. drawing as 'voids' which would have been the expense magazines. The original rear entrance staircase to the gun emplacement was filled in with compacted earth and slabbed over with concrete.\n\nThe 1968 Hong Kong Government 1:1,000 scale Survey Sheet (Sheet Number 16-NW-2D) shows several small rectangular structures near the gun emplacement, but there is no indication what they were originally. One was probably a searchlight emplacement and another one near the cliff edge may have been a forward observation post. Another rectangle marked 'R' for ruin on the inland side of the hill may have been the main magazine as it appears to have what looks like a separate blast wall constructed along one side of it. Still yet another structure further down the hillside may have been a barrack block for the gun crew. All this is of course conjecture and independent verification and further research are needed.\n\nA report on the gun emplacement was prepared in 1999 by the writer and submitted to the Antiquities and Monuments Office for record purposes. It is however unlikely that the structure will be graded as a historical building or receive cultural heritage status. Due to its remoteness Tathong Point is not easily accessible and with its dangerous steep and rocky cliffs it is not recommended to encourage the general public to visit the site. Permission from the Marine Department would be necessary anyway.\n\nTo illustrate the hazards involved in visiting Tathong Point, an incident recorded in the Public Works Department file should be mentioned. The file contains a memorandum (Memo) from the Director of Marine to the Director of Public Works reporting that at 11:00 hours in September 1966 (exact date not given) the launch “Ming Kee” carrying 12 'light-house workers' capsized off the Tathong Point Light House. All were saved by a sampan which was fishing in the vicinity. Enquiries revealed that the workers were employed by the Fook Lee", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216426, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 185, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "135\n\nthey could get out of it, other western correspondents provided a different picture. What may have been a comparatively common experience was described by a correspondent in the area just south of Mukden in June 1905:\n\n'Hamlets and farmhouses studded the landscape, and it seemed to us that we were wandering through a veritable Arcadia. The inhabitants, too, seemed fitted to the land, being a peaceable, amiable people of pleasant countenance and fine physique. In this portion of this now strictly neutral country, China, the agricultural population is apparently quite faultlessly neutral. The people seem altogether heedless of the two foreign armies that are sweeping across their land. Of international politics they know nothing. Their one care in the world is that the local representative of the Imperial Government in Peking does not wring extortionate taxation from them. A man ploughing in his fields does not take the trouble to look\n\nup when a regiment of Japanese or Russians marches by.'\n\nHowever, elsewhere it was reported that during the land campaign Chinese peasants fled to the hills as Japanese forces approached but soon returned to their farms and cottages once the fighting had passed them by. Foreign correspondents frequently reported that they had seen only goodwill between the Japanese officers and men and the Chinese working man.\n\nChinese in general took every opportunity to earn whatever cash they could obtain from both the Russians and the Japanese. Typical were the junk owners who were of inestimable value to the Russians carrying messages and messengers from besieged Port Arthur across to the Shandong Peninsula, and even when the Japanese imposed a tight net of patrol ships the wily Chinese managed to get the messages through by enclosing them in steel containers fastened to the bottom of the hull on the outside. Finally, when the Japanese had confiscated or sunk every Chinese junk they could lay their hands on, the Chinese posed to the world as long-suffering martyrs, who, because they were endeavouring to turn an honest dollar, suffered ruin at the hands of the Japanese.\n\nThe Russians also employed their fast patrol boats and destroyers to patrol the coastlines to ensure that foreign vessels were not aiding the Japanese cause. They frequently boarded likely vessels, during", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216504, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 263, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "215\n\nbasis of the 'School for Language in Education' (p. 229) that she mentions as the first of the Schools formed in the Institute of Education.\n\nIt is not true that the British Hong Kong Administration considered that knowledge and use of the Chinese language were not necessary to their work in Hong Kong (p. 244). From the beginning, there was considerable consciousness of the need for Chinese Language skills, and considerable effort was made to provide for appointees who would study the language and also, whenever pragmatically possible, to appoint persons who had studied Chinese already. At the time of the return of Hong Kong to Mainland China, westerners in the Administrative Service and the Police Force were still required to have or to acquire these skills.\n\n——\n\nIt is not true that 'the policy of mother tongue instruction' (i.e. the policy of using the mother tongue as the medium of instruction) in Hong Kong was ‘introduced only in 1997' (p. 244). The policy had been in place for decades, but in the face of parents' and teachers' objections, the British Administration had judged it inappropriate to do more than highly recommend compliance.\n\nIntroducing her earlier book, the highly-commended China's Universities, 1895-1995, Hayhoe explains (new edition of 1999, p. xiv) that her objective is to tell a story, not a history, and she admits that, while she had conducted hundreds of interviews with well-informed, relevant witnesses, she had not burrowed in the archives as a historian needs to do. To some extent her Autobiography seems to have followed a similar method and to be based on the same assumptions. For this, however, she did have the inestimable treasure of all her letters home to her Mother, written twice-weekly in her early years away, and handed over to Hayhoe not quite six years after her Mother's death. -- Her own diary, unfortunately, Hayhoe lost during a move. -- But she also had her early, unpublished creative writing, written in 1970s Hong Kong and the 'torrent' of her published academic writing.\n\nWhether writing history or story, however, a mind trained by a Classical education to operate like a steel trap (Full Circle, p.196) can lead to discomfort for its owner as well as for others if the facts it bases its operation on are not scrupulously correct. An exclusive or very heavy reliance on oral history (China's Universities, op. cit., p.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]