[ { "id": 205506, "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-1968", "page_number": 48, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION\n\n43\n\n46 Chiang, ibid., p. 17.\n\n47 Ibid., pp. 45-47.\n\n48 Hsiao, op. cit., p. 233.\n\n49 The White Lotus certainly appears to have been a sect, or rather the name taken by certain sects of Hsien-t'ien Ta Tao at times when they engaged in militant activities, rather than a secret society. See \"The Great Way... op. cit., p. 386ff for evidence connecting the White Lotus with Hsien-tien sects.\n\n50 See for example G. Schlegel, Thian Ti Hwui, The Hung League or Heaven-Earth-League (Batavia, Lange & Co., 1866).\n\n51 Freedman, Lineage Organization, ..., op. cit., p. 121.\n\n52 It might be noted here, and also in respect of the discussion on p. 35 on religious qualifications and military efficiency that some Hsien-t'ien sects were organized into what they termed Yin and Yang affairs. The nature of these \"affairs\" is somewhat obscure but sects often changed names when performing activities under one or other of these terms, this being one reason for the multiplication of sect names (see \"The Great Way.. op. cit., p. 378 and p. 384). The introduction of such divisions may have been an attempt by sects to organize themselves for practical affairs, including rebellion, as well as religious matters. Yin \"affairs\" might perhaps have dealt with esoteric religious matters (Yin dark, obscure) and Yang with secular matters, and perhaps they had more practical men to organise them. It is interesting to note that the main organisers listed by De Korne for T'ung-shan She in his The Fellowship of Goodness (T'ung Shan She): a study of contemporary Chinese religion (Grand Rapids, Mich., private publication, 1941, mimeo) does not include the patriarch himself who is hardly mentioned by him. Organisers were all practical men of affairs. The man given by De Korne as main organiser appears, in fact, on records of this sect (which is actually an off-shoot of Hsien-t'ien Ta Tao) in Singapore, as only one of the five top-ranking administrators. It may well be then that in seeking to engage in practical affairs (T'ung-shan She was involved in political machinations in this century although not actual rebellion) the religious leaders were sometimes kept in the background and other kinds of persons were in de facto charge.\n\n53 Hsiao, op. cit., p. 309.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206005, "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": 85, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "80\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\ndifficult problems to the governments concerned, and cruel, drastic, but ineffectual attempts were made to halt immigration. The massacres of thousands of Chinese in the Philippines in 1603, 1639, and again after the British occupation of 1763, are the most celebrated of many such occurrences, the last being caused by the Chinese having shown a marked preference for British rather than Spanish rule. In Indonesia the worst massacre took place at Batavia in 1740. Similar pogroms, but on a much smaller scale, continued in the Philippines down to 1820, and post-war Indonesia has shown a disquieting tendency to put the clock back two centuries in their treatment of their Chinese. But although victims of periodic bouts of xenophobia from the local peoples, in most countries of South-east Asia and at most times the Chinese were protected by the colonial governments which recognised the value of Chinese labour for their economies.\n\nBy the early decades of the 19th century the coolie trade between China and South-east Asia had attained substantial proportions -- although still nothing like so great as it was to become later -- and most of the trade was in the hands of Chinese junks of from 300 to 400 tons. Such craft could only sail before the wind and carried crews of up to ninety sailors, enough to man five European ships of the same size. They took anything from twenty to thirty days between south China and the Straits or Bangkok, and the coolies had a very uncomfortable time on the passage. No charts were carried, the only navigational instrument being a very rude compass, and they kept as close to land as possible. In the 1830s up to eighty such junks sailed to Bangkok every year, usually from Swatow, and by the mid 1840s, by which time European steamships were entering the trade, it was estimated that about 15,000 coolies were emigrating to Bangkok every year.\n\nA description of these old trading junks is given in S. Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom (London, W. H. Allen & Co. revised edition, 1883) vol. 1, p. 753. It shows inter alia that the number of passengers carried on these junks to the Nanyang could be very great. ... \"The cabins look more like niches in a sepulchre than the accommodations for a live passenger. The crew lie upon deck most of the time, and are usually interested in the trade of the vessel or an adventure of their own. The great number of passengers which have been stowed in these vessels entailed a frightful loss of life when they were wrecked. In February, 1822, Capt. Pearl, of the English ship Indiana, coming through Gaspar Straits, fell in with the cargo and crew of a wrecked junk, and saved one hundred and ninety-eight persons (out of one thousand six hundred with whom she had left Amoy).\" Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207737, "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": 125, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "110\n\nTIN-YUKE CHAR\n\nAldersey brought over from her Batavia, Java mission school to become assistant leaders in her Ningpo school. Ruth and Laisun had a family of six children: Elijah, Spencer, Willie, Annie, Lena, and Amy.\n\nChan later left his mission work and went to Shanghai in 1853 where he became quite successful through his connections with an English mercantile firm. On a corner of the American Board's property in Shanghai, he built a school house where his wife opened a girls' school. As he was acquainted with Yung Wing and was qualified, he was engaged to accompany the Educational Mission to America in 1872. He took along his wife and six children. His two eldest sons were ready to enter college in two years and his two eldest daughters received part of their education in England.\n\nIn 1875 Chan was detached from the Educational Mission and appointed interpreter to Li Hung-chang, Governor-general of Chihli. Thus, he met Hawaiian King Kalakaua in Tientsin in 1881.\n\nThe February 1887 issue of the Hamilton College Literary Monthly had this letter from Chan, \"We all love the United States, for many reasons. Our hearts are still there, although we are back in China. I am in Tientsin, with the well-known viceroy, Si [Li] Hung Chang, as his Secretary, and Interpreter. Annie, our eldest daughter, is married to a Dane, Captain of the Chinese government revenue cruiser; and is the happy mother of a beautiful son. Elijah, the eldest boy, graduated from the Yale Scientific School in 1887. He then went to Freiburg in Saxony, and remained there eighteen months. On his return to China, he was commissioned to open the copper mines in Eastern Mongolia. His prospects are very bright. He was offered the post of chief engineer for the government railroads, but declined to accept it. He is the first scientific engineer China has produced. His field is the largest ever offered to a single individual, for the mineral resources of China are almost infinite.”\n\nFrom Carl Smith's article, it was learned that another son, Spencer Tsang Lai Sun, married Man Kwai, daughter of the Reverend Ho Fuk-tong (1818-71) of Hong Kong.\n\nA further lead to more information was given by Chi Wang of the Orientalia Division, United States Library of Congress. In Shu Hsin-ch'eng's Chinese book on Chinese Students in Foreign Countries, the interpreter of the Educational Mission was identified by his official name, Tseng Heng-chung. The same is true in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207739, "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": 127, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "CHAN LAI-SUN AND HIS FAMILY:\n\nA 19TH CENTURY CHINA COAST FAMILY\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nProfessor John K. Fairbank of the Harvard-Yenching Institute in an address to the Society during his visit to Hong Kong in 1976, referred to the importance of the study of what he termed \"China Coast Culture\", meaning thereby the type of social groups, values, institutions, etc., that emerged from the commingling of diverse traditions in the port cities of China. He suggested that an understanding of the forces that created this social milieu and an analysis of its structure and operation might provide models for life as it is developing in an age of rapid cultural interchange.*\n\nThis study of one family which was a part of the China Coast culture illustrates some strands in its creation and emergence as a distinct way of life, with its own values and manners. This new life style is seen in such features in the family of Chan Lai-sun as the intermingling of Chinese and foreign home decoration; changed attitudes toward certain Chinese practices, such as the social mingling of sexes, foot binding, dress and the wearing of the queue; the employment in a Chinese setting of language, educational and scientific skills acquired by a Western-style training; and marriage across racial boundaries.\n\nMr. Tin-yuk Char has provided interesting information on the career of Chan Lai-sun. In the light of his suggestion that more information might be forthcoming, I can add a few more facts from material I have collected on the family.\n\nThe careers of Chan Lai-sun and his children are examples of the role marginal Chinese played in the Westernization of China. Chan's mother was probably Malay. His wife Ruth A-tik was born in Indonesia and was not of pure Chinese ancestry. In a list of members of the Presbyterian Mission Church at Ningpo for 1850, she is described as \"Indo-Chinese\". Both as children came under the patronage of foreigners and both received an English language education. Miss Aldersey, the patron of Ruth A-tik, first in Batavia\n\n* This is my interpretation of his remarks and may not be an altogether accurate assessment.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207740, "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": 128, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "CHAN LAI-SUN AND HIS FAMILY\n\n113\n\nand then in Ningpo, mentions Ruth and her friend Christiana A-kit in the Annual Report of the London Tract Society for 1847:\n\nI have two young women Indo-Chinese converts, who, fleeing from persecution, joined me in this country [Batavia]. They have applied themselves to the study of the English language since their arrival in the north, and one of them in particular is thirsty for the intelligence which that language opens out to her. Her desire for information has reference especially to religious subjects.\n\nAs we shall note A-tik's home after her marriage to Lai-sun was what nineteenth century missionaries called “pious\", but piety was connected with a concern for a modern education for Chinese girls and for some years she taught in the missionary school in Shanghai.\n\nA missionary educator visited their home at Shanghai, and her account published in 1857 in the American Episcopal Church journal, Spirit of Missions (v. 22, p. 350), gives evidence of the manner in which they combined their western type education and connections with the Chinese community in which they lived.\n\nAt the time of the visit Yung Wing, later the initiator of the Chinese Educational Mission in which Lai-sun participated, was a guest in the home. The missionary visitor noted that Yung Wing greeted her \"with quite an American air”, though he had to admit he had forgotten her name. When Yung Wing, even then interested in education, asked if he could visit the girls' school under the missionary's charge, she politely turned him down as she felt that since the girls were so modest and unaccustomed to a male presence at the school, it would unduly upset them, but she turned to Mrs. Chan and her friend Christiana A-Kit, wife of Kew Teen-shang, and asked their opinion on the matter. They said they never objected to associating on social and friendly terms with Christian gentlemen. \"But\", said Kit, \"when merchants or other heathen men call to see Attee's husband, she always retires.\"\n\nYung Wing remarked, \"When I was in the United States as a student, I often visited young ladies' seminaries and they never objected, in fact, I think they rather liked it.”\n\nThe missionary lady took the occasion to probe a little deeper into the attitudes of American educated Chinese, posing the question,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209396, "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-1982", "page_number": 53, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM\n\nIN THE SHANGHAI INTERNATIONAL\n\nSETTLEMENT\n\nJ. H. HAAN*\n\nIn this article I shall examine the special governmental structure which came into being in the Shanghai International Settlement,1 and which was virtually unique among colonial or semi-colonial territories.\n\nPut succinctly, the Settlement had the following characteristics:\n\n1. It was a territory which had explicitly been set aside by the Chinese authorities (in 1845 on the basis of the 1842 Nanking Treaty) in order that foreigners might live in it and conduct their trade from it. For the rest it was surrounded by Chinese territory, different from, say, Calcutta, Bombay, Colombo or Batavia, which all lay in foreign-dominated areas, if not originally then eventually.\n\n2. It was never the possession of any one single Western power. In this it was distinct from, e.g., Hong Kong, Singapore or Macau. In practice, this meant that no single foreign country was ever able to convert the city into a colony of that country, or to claim sovereignty over it.\n\nIn the crown colonies, government was conducted by a Governor who was appointed by the home country, and he was assisted by an Executive Council, equally appointed by the authorities; furthermore, there was a Legislative Council which consisted partly of official, ex officio, members and partly of non-official\n\n* Mr. Haan is a student of the University of Amsterdam.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210267, "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-1984", "page_number": 238, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "217\n\nLANGLEY, Edward 1851-1852\n\nManager of the Oriental Banking Co.\n\nLATIMER, Nichol 1865\n\nBorn 1830, died 1865.\n\nWith Archibald Little and John Nutt he was the founder of a firm that operated in Shanghai under the name of Nichol Latimer & Co. in Kiukiang and Chinkiang as Latimer, Little & Co, from January 1, 1864,\n\nHe was one of the managers of the Shanghai Steam Navigation Co. 1865.130\n\nMember of the NCBRAS 1865.131\n\nPublisher of the North China Herald 1863-1865, in the issue of which of September 30, 1865 his death (on Sept. 28), due to an overdose of morphia, was announced.\n\nHe was buried at Shantung Road Cemetery.\n\nMACDUFF, Hector C.R. 1850-1851, (1854-1855)\n\nMercantile assistant MacVicar & Co.133, later partner in Smith, Kennedy & Co. in which his interest ended June 30, 1855.134 Trustee British Episcopal Church 1854-1855.\n\nMAN, James Lawrence 1856-1857\n\nAt first lived in Canton.136\n\n135\n\n137\n\nAuthorized to sign for George Barnet & Co. March 31, 1865, the date on which that firm moved to Shanghai; partner from August 6, 1855;135 interest ended March 31, 1862.139\n\n140\n\nTrustee British Episcopal Church 1855-1856, 1856-1857 and 1857.141 Portrait.\n\nMEDHURST, Dr. Walter Henry 1854-1855\n\nBorn 1796, died 1857.\n\nSent out by the London Missionary Society to the Far East, where he lived in Malacca and Batavia before taking up residence in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210386, "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-1984", "page_number": 357, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "336\n\nThis book contains several technical flaws. Many of the Chinese works and place names romanized in the text do not appear in the glossary and place name index. The first two chapters present differing numbers for the size of the Dutch military force found on Taiwan. Hsu (p. 15) using a Japanese translation of the Dagh-Register, Batavia and an article by Nakamura Takashi, states that the Dutch forces never exceeded 2000 while Wang (p. 36) gives no source but states that the Dutch troops numbered 2200. A similar figure to Wang's can be found in James W. Davidson's The Island of Formosa. There are also some technical mistakes such as no scale nor direction indicated on a map (p. 149) and lack of unified spelling for the city of Jilong (Keelung, p. xv; Chilung, p. 140). The map on page 40, presumably indicating migration routes in Taiwan during the late seventeenth century, shows Fort Zeelandia (near modern Tainan) on the mainland portion of Taiwan as it is today due to silting at the mouth of the Yanshui River. Other maps or pictures display the fort on a sandspit, in some cases connected to the main island (pp. 29 and 119) and in one case on a separate small island (p. 13). On the linguistic side, the character for a Chinese picul which is pronounced dan (tan) is romanized by its other pronunciation (shih) which means a rock or stone.\n\nMore crucial is the lack of a central theme to the essays selected as a whole. This is perhaps an inescapable problem of a book in which several authors are presenting their findings on singular aspects of a vast and complex subject. The contribution of this book, therefore, lies in the collection, within one English volume, of articles on various aspects of Taiwan's historical geography.\n\nRICHARD LOUIS EDMONDS\n\nThe University of Hong Kong\n\nThe Birth of Vietnam, by Keith Weller Taylor, Berkeley, The University of California Press, 1983. xxi + 397pp, tables, maps.\n\nKeith Taylor has provided a much needed and detailed account of Vietnamese history during the first millennium — its formative", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210601, "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-1985", "page_number": 208, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "189\n\nafter all, the Dutch had been trading there for sixty years. Following the 1670 plan three ships, the Zant, Experiment and Return were first despatched from London to Bantam. After leaving Bantam the Zant could not get across the bar of the Red River until 25 June 1672, making her turn around too late to sail for Japan. The Experiment and Return reached Taiwan on 16 July 1672 and, after delays in lading cargo, only the Return went on to Japan. The Experiment was captured by the Dutch (the Third Anglo-Dutch War had reached East Asia) on her way south, while after a wait at Nagasaki from 29 June to 28 August 1673 the Return was expelled by the Japanese. The factories established at Tongking and Taiwan immediately lost their whole basis for existence, yet both survived — Taiwan intermittently until 1685 and Tongking for 25 years, until 1697.\n\n8\n\nFor the first few years the Company remained hopeful of overcoming Japanese hostility, blaming the Dutch for what they saw as a temporary setback. But then the Tongking factory, despite all the difficulties of dealing with the local mandarinate,1 emerged as of value in its own right, supplying finished silks for the London market. The first order was placed in 1675; in October 1676 the English contracted for 4630 pieces; and in 1679 they ordered 18,500 pieces plus 40 bales of raw silk. It was only gradually, through the 1680s, that Cantonese wrought silks, satins and damasks proved more popular at the London sales. Apart from a price disadvantage, the Tongking merchants proved unwilling to adapt patterns and textures to suit European tastes, even though specimens were sent out.2 Chinese adaptability and commercial acumen proved irresistible, access to Japan was finally seen to be impossible, and the English withdrew from Tongking in November 1697.\n\nto\n\nSo far this outline of the Tongking venture must be relatively familiar. My novel element lies in the fact that the English factory archive records previously unnoticed details of the trade between Tongking and Japan which had eluded them. The Dutch operated three-cornered voyages between Batavia-Tongking-Nagasaki, bringing in Japanese copper cash2 and armaments and carrying out raw and finished silk, all of which were noted. But more importantly, the factory diary throws some", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210602, "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-1985", "page_number": 209, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "190\n\nANTHONY FARRINGTON\n\nlight on Chinese junk traffic. It fell into two groups. Firstly, voyages between Tongking and Nagasaki by resident Chinese, mainly represented by a ‘Captain Nitthoo'; secondly, voyages by mainland Chinese, originating at Canton and calling at Nagasaki and Batavia.\n\nFor example, on 6 September 1672 Captain Nitthoo departed for Japan with a cargo of 500 peculs of raw silk, “a great quantity of refuge silk” and 43,400 pieces of silk textiles. During his absence the English rented his house at Hien. Back again in March 1673, he left for Japan in July, mainly carrying raw silk, and returned in February 1674. Similarly, in April 1675 the English learnt that a newly arrived Cantonese junk had first taken in a cargo at Batavia, disposed of it at Nagasaki and had now brought into Tongking 16 chests of Japanese silver, 3 million Japanese copper cash and 93 chests of Japanese copper bars.\n\nIt would be tedious to rehearse the pattern all the way through to the 1690s. However, I am sure that a collation of these incidental references would prove a significant addition to our knowledge of Chinese inter-Asiatic wholesaling operations before the period of European dominance. A full transcript of the factory diary, with its endless repetitions of present giving and attendance upon mandarins, would make heavy reading. My intention is, rather, to issue a summary calendar with selected verbatim extracts, which should provide the necessary raw material for economic historians.\n\nNOTES\n\n'Une factorerie Anglaise au Tonkin au XVIIe siècle (1672-1697)', Charles B. Maybon, Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extrême-Orient 10 (Hanoi, 1910) 159-204 gives a summary list of sources for the history of the factory. “Les Anglais au Tonkin (1672-1697)', P. Villars, Revue de Paris Nov/Dec 1903 262-86 gives a brief narrative of life in the factory.\n\n2 The 1630s and 1640s saw attempts to achieve quick profits through a variety of separate ventures (eg, to Persia) organised alongside the longer-term joint stocks. At the same time rival 'interloping' groups (eg, the Courteen Association, formed 1635) became more successful in obtaining royal or Council of State approval for their own trading ventures, culminating in the opening of the eastern trade to private merchants between 1654 and 1657. In the background, of course, were the political upheavals of the Civil War and the Commonwealth.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210603, "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-1985", "page_number": 210, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "191\n\n3 Written by Quarles Browne, former chief factor in Cambodia, it survives in a 1664 copy in IOR: G/21/4 JJ. 4-8.\n\n*IOR: E/3/86 fl. 184-90 Company to Bantam 29 Feb 1664.\n\n5 IOR: E/3/28 no. 3041 Bantam to Company 31 Dec 1664,\n\n6 \"The trade of the English East India Company in the Far East 1623-84\", D.K. Bassett, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1960 32-47 and 145-57.\n\n7 The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China 1635-1834, Hosea Ballou Morse, 5 vols (Oxford, 1926 & 1929) — I p. 40.\n\n* For an excellent transcript of the documentation see Experiment and Return: documents concerning the Japan Voyage of the English East India Company 1671-3, ed Roger Machin (Kyoto, 1978).\n\n9 Vividly summarised in the diary as \"to be devoured by a company of catterpillers\" — IOR: G/12/17 p. 281.\n\n10 For example, Sep 1677 Tongking ‘peelongs' brought between 29s piece; Oct 1680 Cantonese 'peelongs' coloured 12s 8d 13s 2d, plain 23s 6d. IOR: Court Minutes B/34 and B/36.\n\n37s per 23s\n\nIn May 1677 Bantam forwarded \"two pettecoats made of a sort of silke much worne in England — it's called by the name of gawze.”\n\n12 The Tongking currency consisted of Japanese 'great' cash and locally coined small cash, which passed in the ratio of 6:10. The tael of silver (65 8d sterling) was reckoned at between 1000 and 1400 'great' cash, according to the availability of copper coinage. In September 1672 three Dutch ships from Batavia, bound for Nagasaki, brought in 6 million Japanese cash.\n\n13 'Floss' silk, used for padding winter clothing.\n\n14 Perhaps anticipating modern reactions, the Agent at Bantam wrote in June 1676 \"Wee would have you be larger in your advices though shorter in your letters.\"\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211862, "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": 277, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "252\n\nJOHN FRYER'S EARLY YEARS IN CHINA: I. Diary of His Voyage to Hong Kong\n\nFRED DAGENAIS*\n\nJohn Fryer (1839-1928) is perhaps best known as a translator of English language books on science and technology into Chinese. During a period of three decades as head of the translation department at the Kiangnan Arsenal (1867-1896), Fryer worked to translate and publish over 100 works. Fryer's translations were well-received by Chinese intellectuals, often reprinted, and were widely distributed. His translations, along with the translations of others, thus made available the then state-of-the-art Western science and technology to late Ch'ing reformers and intellectuals.\n\nDuring adolescence Fryer was caught up in the religious fervour of the mid-nineteenth century and the enthusiasm for things Chinese. He began his career as a pupil teacher at St. James' School in Bristol and completed his education at Highbury Training College in London. His principal at Highbury, the Reverend (later Bishop) Charles R. Alford, recruited him to serve as headmaster of St. Paul's College in Hong Kong, a school for Chinese boys sponsored by the Church Missionary Society. He worked as headmaster of St. Paul's from 1861 until 1863, when he went to Peking to become a \"professor\" at the T’ung-wen Kuan, or Government sponsored \"Interpreter's College\". While in Peking Fryer continued his association with the Church Missionary Society under the guidance of the Reverend (Later Bishop) James Shaw Burdon. In 1865 he was asked by the Church Missionary Society to become superintendent of the Anglo-Chinese School in Shanghai, where he worked until 1868, when he joined the arsenal at Kiangnan.\n\nFryer sailed for Hong Kong on March 10, 1861. He reached Victoria on July 30th, after a voyage of 142 days, including a brief stop in Batavia, seven days before his 22nd birthday. The voyage was not unlike voyages\n\n* Centre for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley.\n\nEditor's Note. It is hoped to publish a series of accounts of Hong Kong and its environs written by John Fryer in this and the next issues of the Journal. They have been edited by Dr. Dagenais, who is preparing a full edition of Fryer's papers. A portrait of Fryer is at Plate 22. A few minor editorial changes to Fryer's text have been made to remove possible ambiguities and to conform with current usage.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211863, "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": 278, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "253\n\ndescribed by other missionaries. It included a ship's captain who was irreligious, malicious, and perhaps incompetent; a sailing ship that suffered doldrums, storms, groundings, and tensions between officers and crew; a trip that subjected the passengers to tedium; a call at a tropical port that exposed the missionary to the wider colonial world; and, at the end of the voyage, the excitement of the unknown in China.\n\nFryer wrote a \"Diary of Voyage to China\" in the form of a letter to be circulated among his parents and friends in England. The “diary” is no doubt an abstract of a journal he kept, edited for home consumption, and titled to coincide with his 22nd birthday on August 6th. Although Fryer mentions keeping a journal or a diary in several of his later letters, no such journal has surfaced.\n\nThe Diary is the earliest example of Fryer's writing to come to my attention. It is well thought out, expresses Fryer's deepest convictions, conveys a sense of confidence in himself and his mission, and describes the excitement and adventure experienced by a young man about to make his mark on the world.\n\nThe Diary starts with expressions of faith and anticipation about the future. In it one obtains a feeling for Fryer's upright character and resoluteness, characteristics that were to serve him well in his life's work as a translator, introducer of Western science and technology, advocate of the superiority of the West, and educator. During the trip he familiarizes himself with nautical terms and the names of items on the ship; he studies the Chinese language; he observes and notes the changes of climate and visible stars, discusses local flora and fauna, describes people he met and records strange fruits and vegetables. In the **diary** he comments on customs of the sea and on peculiarities of both colonized and colonizer in Batavia. Above all, he describes the terrors of a journey fraught with danger and uncertainty.\n\nThe text of the holograph Diary required editing only in details. Minor changes were made to bring dates, prices, capitalization, emphasis, and spelling into conformity with modern usage and to improve readability. Fryer's use of the apostrophe and various punctuation marks was often capricious. Usually, Fryer wrote just one run-on paragraph for each day's Diary entry. These have been separated into smaller units for ease of reading. Where a single day's entry is broken in the original into more", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211885, "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": 300, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "275\n\ntossing about. Great blame is therefore due to those who saw it for not describing what they saw, and to those who ought to have been on the lookout for not seeing it.\n\nJust before dark we saw another ship in the distance, quite disabled, or rather nearly so, and laid to. We steered close under her stern, and found the crew all right, and preparing to set her to rights. She was a Dutchman from Cape Town, bound for Batavia, Every sail in her was blown to rags and gone, except two spankers which helped to keep her steady. Yet she laboured fearfully. Instead of being thankful that we were not so badly off, the captain kept laughing at the poor fellows, and saying how mortified they must feel to see us going on so well under the circumstances.\n\nOn Sunday as they were clearing the wreck away, a lot of the upper rigging fell on the new yard that had been put up, and snapped it off as clean as possible, to add to our troubles. I expected no other, and am only surprised it did not give way during the storm. It will take two days to \"scarf\" the pieces together and put it up again, and even then it may not stand.\n\nI do not know how long it will be now before our journey will end. I am almost disheartened about it. Three months gone, and not yet got to St Paul's Island or Amsterdam, in the Indian Ocean. As to you ever hearing from me again, it seems out of the question altogether. This storm will have put us by very considerably and no mistake. I dare say you all very much wonder you have not heard before, but I have only this consolation, that it is not my fault. I am continually thinking of home, and picturing in my mind all the pleasures of the country in May and June, while here I am tossed on the ocean, in the depth of winter, where the cold is enough to freeze anybody, with everything damp and cold. No more going round the Cape for me while my name is John Fryer, if I can avoid it. It is worth a pound a day to put up with all the inconveniences, and were it not for the thought of what I am going to do, I could not endure it at all. It is now dinner time, three o'clock, so I must now stop.\n\nThursday, June 6th\n\nSince my last entry our circumstances have been much on the improve. Yesterday we got the topsail yard up, and the sail bent. The old yard\n\nPage 300\n\nPage 301", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211886, "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": 301, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "276\n\nwas \"scarfed\" together and \"fished\" and \"dowled\", which operation has rendered it nearly as serviceable as a new one. We cannot use more than about a quarter of the sails yet, and it will take a long time to get the new masts up, and new sails made. Yet we are going along quite favourably considering, with a strong favourable wind.\n\nYesterday we were on the look out for St Paul's and Amsterdam, two small islands in the Southern Ocean. Through the chronometer's being out of order on account of the storm, we had made a wrong reckoning, and did not pass between the islands till after ten o'clock at night, when the captain came and told me to look out of my window and see them, as I was gone to bed. It was too dark to see more than the bare form of them. In fact Amsterdam was the only one I could see from my side of the ship. It is simply a rugged rock, about 15 miles long, and quite uninhabited except by sea-birds, of which a great number were soon flying round the ship.\n\nThis morning when I went on deck they were far out of sight. We ought to get to Java in 12 days if we were in good trim, but in our shattered condition we shall perhaps make nearly double the time. There will be a short stay also at Batavia to lay in stock of masts and spars to repair with. As yet we have been wonderfully favoured by the wind, and notwithstanding the storm and the fortnight tossing about in the Channel, we are four days ahead of the last voyage the ship made to Batavia. We shall now soon be going northward into warmer weather.\n\nThe captain was quite knocked up with the storm, and has not yet got over it. He does not take his meals with us yet, and Capt Moate and I are in no hurry for him to do so, for we get on far better by ourselves. In fact I may say we are good friends, and have been so all the voyage. We have never had a misunderstanding between us, and as long as he does not swear or talk improperly I do not much mind him as a companion, especially as he is a far better scholar than I am, and has resided at Hong Kong, so that I know by this time what I must expect when I get there. I have got him to read some good books, and now and then a little serious chat with him, which he submits to just to oblige me. I know all his personal history, and in fact could write an account of his life with tolerable accuracy. He is thoroughly disgusted with Capt Harper, who is quite an uneducated man, and thinks he is a perfect gent. For my own part, I never disliked anyone more than I do him. I can hardly be civil to him at times; for he acts in such a disgusting manner", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211887, "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": 302, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "277\n\nwith everybody. Capt Moate always styles him \"Bull dog\" and I never hear him speak of him but under that honorable name.\n\nThere are several men who have not yet recovered from the injuries in the storm. One was severely hurt and asked leave to go to his berth, when the captain gave him a kick which fetched him down, and sent him rolling up and down the deck as the ship rolled. This morning he mixed up a cargo of jalap and salts, and everyone that could not come to work had to swallow enough for a horse. Ever since we started he has had some one on the black books, and whoever gets there always remembers it.\n\nMrs Harper keeps herself shut up all day long in her cabin, and not once a day do I see her sometimes, and not once a week does she dine or take a meal with us. She is a regular Catholic, and regards the rest of us as so many heretics. Indeed I set my foot in it before I knew she was a Catholic, by speaking rather strongly against popery in an argument with the captain.\n\nYesterday I spent a good deal of time in watching the men at their work. I suffer much for want of exercise, although I walk about as much every day as I can. Yet it is nothing like a good walk in the fields. Tomorrow I intend to commence a course of salt water as medicine, and adopt grandfather's system of taking it.\n\nMonday, June 17th\n\nAfter long tossing about in the Southern Ocean, and enduring cold as well as rough weather, you may imagine what a relief it is to be going along very peacefully into the tropics, which we shall enter in a few hours. Everything appears altered, and seems to look cheerful and happy. The air is beautifully mild; the sky is quite clear, and everything tends to make the deck once more a comfortable place to spend the long and tedious days. We are now also just getting into the SE monsoons which will take us straight to our resting place, Batavia, where we hope to arrive by next Monday. The wind being light, we as yet make scarcely any progress, on account of our want of sails. None of the masts have been put up yet, although we hope to fit up the main top mast by tomorrow night, when we hope to go on faster. You may imagine how I long to see land once more, for tomorrow makes a hundred days since leaving England. It will be about 30 days before we can reach Hong Kong, yet", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211889, "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": 304, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "279\n\nsome hopes of Capt Moate, for it is possible to talk to him, and we have had some very serious conversations together on religious subjects; and he has even read his Bible occasionally; but he still swears dreadfully when he is talking to any of the rest.\n\nMy clothes have lasted out well; especially the shirts, which I have saved by using the \"flannel ones\". I intend to do a small \"dab\" of washing on my own account this week, that I may have less to have done when I get to Hong Kong.\n\nWe ought to sight Christmas Island on Friday, and with a good strong wind I have no doubt but that we shall do so. I intend to write another letter to send you from Batavia, because it is only a quarter ounce I can send for you to get it soon. I often trouble myself to think how disappointed you are not to have heard from me before, but of course it is not my fault. I dare say this yarn will stretch out long enough before I get to China to last you several hours reading it through.\n\nTuesday, June 18th\n\nToday has occurred the only event of the least importance for a very long time. About ten o'clock we spied a sail in sight and at noon the ship came up with us. She was a whaler about half the size of our ship. She lay to for us to come up, and then sent off a boat, supposing from our shattered appearance we were in distress. The whaler was from New Bedford, United States, and her name was The Congress. The boat was soon alongside, pulled by six stout strapping Yankees. The captain, a very gentlemanly fellow in every respect but dress, came aboard, and had a good yarn with our \"skipper\". To hear the fellows talk was quite amusing to me. They have all such a nasal twang that when I heard one speak I went and looked over the side, expecting to see \"old Bobby\" there, for I never heard anything more like his \"cackle\".\n\nThey had been out nearly two and a half years, and had only taken 800 barrels of oil. There are four men continually at the mast heads, on the lookout for whales, and in the distance you may imagine how very small they appeared to be. They will make about a four years cruise of it before they return to their home. What a life it must be, to stay on the water so long, and in such dangerous employment. They had eight harpoons in the boat which came off; and the boat seemed to fly over the water.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211890, "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": 305, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "280\n\nWe are now going on very slowly indeed, and unless the breeze very much strengthens it will be a while even now before we reach Batavia. The weather is much warmer today and I have spent nearly all the time on deck. No one can imagine, unless placed in my circumstances, how much I long to see land once more, and to tread on \"Terra Firma\".\n\nWednesday, July 3rd\n\nI am now writing under far different circumstances to my last. Here I am in a fine hotel in Batavia, recreating and resting till the vessel is able to proceed to her destination. How I came here I will endeavour to describe as clearly as possible, although I have had to pass through so much that I have forgotten one half of it.\n\nNow to proceed. The day after we spoke with the \"whaler\" I have just mentioned, we spoke to another which came from the same town. She had lately caught a whale, and as she sailed past I saw the greater part of the blubber upon deck, cut up in large pieces. They were boiling some at the time, and the scent was quite alarming, as it blew toward our ship. They wrote their longitude by their chronometers on a large board, and we did the same. We were 90 miles out, and this is the result of the captain's ignorance and negligence in all probability.\n\nThe next few days we had a complete calm so that we were only making a few miles a day. The ship having only half of her sails that were capable of being used, made it slow work indeed. Day after day we went on till at last one afternoon we sighted \"Java Head\". The captain's impatience at the lightness of the wind knew no bounds. He walked about and swore, and stamped, and bullied, but all to no purpose. The next day we got off Prince's Island, and just moved a few miles along the shore.\n\nPleasant indeed it was to be in sight of land once more after such a long stay on the wide ocean, with nothing to vary the tediousness and monotony. If it had been a dreary desert land it would have been a treat to look at it, but how great the pleasure to see with the glass the most fertile and luxuriant island in the world, completely embossed with trees, of the most graceful and imposing appearance. We could see the waves as they washed the shores, and hear their dashing against the sandy beach. The heat was something considerable on account of the calm. Butterflies and small insects came off to the ship from the shore, and were the first", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211892, "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": 307, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "282\n\nand look at them, and made remarks on their condition. No wonder they go almost naked, the heat is enough to make anybody do so. They wear sun hats exactly like a large wash pan turned bottom upwards. A boy was steering who was the most good-looking of the lot.\n\nThe captain bought a monkey, which was quite young and has since afforded us plenty of amusement; also about four crates of yams and some bottles of curry powder. I waited for the next boat and invested half a crown in seven cocoanuts, a quarter hundred oranges and an immense bunch of bananas. The banana is a fruit in shape like a cucumber, only larger when they are well cultivated, and about a hundred grow on one bunch. My bunch was quite as much as I could lift, and being quite green I hung them over the ship's stern where in a day or two they ripened and were quite yellow. Their flavour is delicious, and is something like that of a ripe pear. When fried in butter they are delightful. The captain also bought 300 oranges for the use of the cabin, but madam ate them nearly all herself in less than a week. They were wild ones I believe, but the flavour was very good. Afterwards when other boats came off, we bought plantains, eggs and no end of things.\n\nTwo ships came in behind us, to one of which we afterwards spoke; she was the Wynand from London, and came out above 20 days after us, and turned off up to China, where she will in all probability reach in 100 days, as we should have done had we had a proper sort of man to act as captain. We ought to have gone off behind him, and never to have gone to Batavia, which has hindered us at least a fortnight, if not three weeks; so say all the ship captains at Batavia. We however turned off Point Nicholas and scarcely came under Babic Island when the wind ceased, and for four days we scarcely moved as many miles.\n\nI grew quite disgusted. To amuse myself I got a hook and line and went fishing. But in throwing it out on the next day the hook caught the top of my finger and tore it clean through, taking away the whole of the upper part of the nail. I got it doctored up a bit, and what with cold water and other appliances it was nearly well in a day or two. I caught no fish, through not having any proper bait, although the fish were leaping out of the water by thousands, and the natives in their canoes were pulling them up by hundreds. We saw them also pulling in their nets, and trying by shouting to frighten the fish into their nets.\n\nA boat at last came off at night out of Bantam, to ask for a job in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211893, "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": 308, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "283\n\nBatavia Roads to carry to and fro from the ship to the shore. These boats are always used by ships in Batavia and are paid four rupees or guilders a day. They are pulled by four Malays except when the wind allows sailing. The head man came on board. They had plenty of rice and fish with them which they ate with their fingers, as all Musselmen do. They are regular Mohammedans,\n\nThe one who stayed on board could speak a little English, and on the next evening I got alongside of him to try what I could make of him. I asked him a few questions but could not understand his answers, so I thought I would give up. At last he said, \"You not know her! You not sabby her? Her name Roleston. Not you sabby Roleston?\" I was very much surprised, as you may imagine, to hear him repeat that name, and how to think of it I could not imagine. What, thought I, can he know about Roleston, and whoever could he be talking about? At last I made out that there is a mercantile house in Batavia of that name, who have a ship of the same name, and this man had served the ship with his boat only a few days before, during the time she was loading. He was a fine intelligent-looking man, for a Malay.\n\nThe captain became more unbearable every day. From morning to night it was nothing but curses, grumbling, bullying, and threatening.\n\nOn Saturday night, June 30th, we stopped off Amsterdam, a small island about 12 miles from Batavia. Here I sat on deck and with the glass looked over the island, which was about a quarter mile off. It looked very pretty by moonlight. There were several native huts on the shore and in the interior, and at night each had a light burning, which looked pretty among the trees.\n\nIt is very pleasant to be sailing among these islands, all covered thick with trees wherever there is room for one to grow. It is truly sailing as the poet says:-\n\nAmid the green islands of glittering seas\n\nWhere fragrant forests perfume the breeze.'\n\nOn Sunday, July 1st, we had several boats come off to the ship from parties in Batavia who were canvassing for trade and patronage. One of them brought a Portuguese, who from being born and brought up in the tropics was as black as a negro. He delivered his card, and was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211894, "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": 309, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "284\n\nmarvelously well behaved, in fact quite the gentleman, though rather short and stumpy. It was cheering to see fresh faces, although I longed to be on shore and see the country far more.\n\nThe captain was very irritable, and I could see he wanted to have a small row with me about anything that might offer itself. At last he was saying what a pity we were not able to get on shore. Yes, said I, for my part, I should like it if it were only for the sake of going to church. Then he began to blow up about religious people, and swore at me, and got in a fine rage. Being Sunday I kept as quiet as I could and let him have all the talk to himself. I have made up my mind to say as little to him as possible, since he has tried to pick a hole in everything I say. He has tried his hardest to lead me astray as far as possible, and finding it is of no use he begins to hate the sight of me, and I am glad of it; for it must be a very low fellow he could respect.\n\nHowever, we got the anchor weighed about noon, and after tacking about till evening the ship ran right into a reef of rocks on the other side of Amsterdam, and there she stuck, knocking against the rocks, and could not be got off. In my own mind I almost wished the old ship had broken up, for then I should have got clear of her. I watched one of the men while steering, and noticed he was nearly 2 points off his course. I believe the sailors would have been pleased enough to have settled their account with the ship that night and got clear of the awful swearing. Every means were tried, but all of no avail. I sat on deck till past midnight, watching the manoeuvers. Madame came on deck and stayed all the time, as she has always done lately. It was utterly disgusting to hear how she went on, groaning and sighing and making the captain ten times worse than he would otherwise have been. I went below and had a comfortable nap. In the morning we were still sticking there. The ship chandler came off, as also one of his \"outrunners\", or men who go and meet ships to get their patronage.\n\nAt last about noon the ship floated, and off we went. At night we came to a stop, in sight of Batavia. In the morning after breakfast, Capt Moate and myself accompanied the captain on shore. Glad enough was I to get clear of the ship, and see her at a distance, even but for a few days. But vexed enough I was to know that the mail had left on the preceding morning, and that there would not be another mail for 15 days. Yet I console myself by thinking it was not my fault that I could not write earlier.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211895, "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": 310, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "285\n\nJuly 17th\n\nOnce more on board ship and seated at the cabin table, I am endeavouring to recall to mind a few reminiscences of Batavia, which I trust may prove interesting to all who read them. I will begin where I left off, and tell you that the sea being rather rough, we got a good drenching before reaching the shore in the boat. I had on my light suit which I had up to that time worn but little. The sea water has done it but very little injury. In fact it was so hot that long enough before we reached the town it was dry throughout.\n\nIn we pulled, among the crowd of shipping, and at last reached the entrance of the Canash. This is a canal about two miles long, reaching from the town to the sea. It was full of small ships and boats. As we neared the lower town, the sides were covered with green trees and bushes. I really felt quite like a prisoner released after a long confinement, and it was a treat to hear the birds sing once more.\n\nWe passed the Dutch fortifications, and then stopped at the custom house, where our effects were taken note of, and we were allowed to enter the town. They are very strict as to who they let into the town, as we could easily see, for we were well overhauled.\n\nWe went a short way along the road till we came to a Dutch store, where the captain went in and we stayed a short time. We there met the captain of the ship which we passed the day after the storm. He had been in some days, and that rather vexed our captain. He was a smart little Dutchman, and quite the gentleman. I had a few minutes chat with him.\n\nThen we took a carriage and went up into the town. The carriages are like an English Chaise, and only room for two. Of course they are open, and have an open place behind so as to have a cool breeze right through. The horses are all about the size of very small donkeys, and as thin as possible. There are two to every carriage, and they can hardly move along. You cannot hire one for less than three and a half rupees, or 5/10; but you can keep it for six hours for the money. The drivers are Malays, and wear the \"basin\" kind of hat I spoke of before. They have to keep the whip constantly going.\n\nWe drove through the town which in the European parts is very neat", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211896, "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": 311, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "286\n\nand pretty. There are abundance of trees of all sorts growing at the sides of the roads. The shops of the Chinese amused me very much as we went along. At last we came to \"Hughan's store\", where there is a great space, with easy chairs, etc. for loungers and loafers. Hughan is a ship chandler, and by keeping this place pretty comfortable he gets the captains of all the English and American ships there, and of course gets the job of supplying their ships with provisions, etc. Before the whole lines of stores and offices there is a path, with a roof to it so that one can walk about for an hour without being in the burning hot sun, which in Java is very injurious, especially to Europeans.\n\nWe took a short drive about the town with the captain, who was looking out for some spars for the ship, and then set off out in the country to Madame Baines' Hotel, which is the only English place where one can get to. It was a three-mile drive, but the beautiful appearance of the place made me think nothing of the distance. The Dutch, to whom the island belongs, are the greater part of the European population; consequently, the town is in every direction intersected by canals as is Holland. These canals serve the purpose of drainage, washing, and to keep the air cool. On each side of them is a very wide road, shaded by large trees from the sun. Thus the streets are very wide and airy. There are, of course, a great many bridges. The European houses are very grand, and nearly all built on the same model.\n\nOur two poor horses at last brought us up to our Hotel, where we arrived about two o'clock. It was half an hour before we could get anyone to attend to us, since it is the custom to sleep in the middle of the day. At last, after walking about over the house, we were met by our hostess, a Scotch lady of colossal dimensions, but withal a pleasant agreeable old party, who at once made us at home, and got us some \"tiffin\", or breakfast. All her servants are Malays, and she can speak the language very fluently. Indeed, when well spoken, Malay is a pretty language.\n\nHer house is an average specimen of all the European houses in Batavia. It has only one story on account of earthquakes, but it is very lofty and airy. There is a large dining hall and entrance hall, while round the house are the verandahs, where people spend a great part of the day, and especially the evenings. Facing the road, the verandah is very wide and lofty. In the garden is a stream, running round a small island, which has some fine clusters of trees, which are so curious that I cannot describe them. Some of the leaves are as large as a good-sized tablecloth. Round", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211897, "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": 312, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "287\n\nthe garden are the houses where the servants live, the bath rooms, the stables, etc. etc. There is a pretty lawn before the house, and at each side of the gate stands a lofty tamarind tree. The house is situated on one side of a square which is nearly four miles round, and the double row of lofty tamarind trees on each side of the road round it form a very cool walk.\n\nAll round are villas, some of them of very elaborate architecture. They call Clifton a city of palaces but it sinks into insignificance compared with Batavia. On every side is displayed great magnificence, nature striving to outdo the elaborate effects of art. Almost each house has a grove of cocoanut trees, whose foliage gives a grand effect.\n\nAfter a rest of a few hours we went to dinner at half past six, which is the usual hour in Batavia. Previously we were introduced to the other occupants of the house: Mr Phillips, a surgeon and dentist, Mr Blyth, an independent gent, and Mr Elbrach, a man of considerable property who has resided 40 years in Java, during which he has never seen Europe. He is a regular tough old gent and no mistake. We had dinner in regular style, and there were no end of dishes. The curry pleased me very much.\n\nAfter dinner I took a walk with Captain Moate round the square, and afterward took a walk alone. It was a fine sight to walk past the villas, and see the verandahs all lighted up, while the ladies etc. were sitting in the cool of the evening, either reading, conversing, or singing. The music was quite a treat to me. No native is allowed to walk about after dark without a light, and also his written pass, to show who he is, and where he is going, Europeans however are allowed to go unmolested where they please. Yet a suspicious character is watched by the native police for miles, and notice is taken where he goes to. One night a fellow followed me home, although of course he did not imagine I knew he was doing so. As you pass each watch-house the guard challenges you in Malay, which I not understanding, I never used to take notice of. Every carriage has to carry lights before and behind, wherever it is going. The number of the carriages of the aristocracy that drive about is very considerable.\n\nWe saw a company of Dutch and native cavalry pass the house. The horses were so small that the men's legs almost touched the ground. We also saw the \"town militia\" exercising on the square before the house.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211899, "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": 314, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "289\n\nEvery few yards you see people bathing. Women come down and go out into the middle of the water up to their shoulders, and then dip and scrub the little brown youngsters and teach them to swim. In places the water is quite alive with them, men, women and children altogether. It is quite disgusting to see such scenes of indecency, but people there seem to think nothing of it.\n\nOn the second day of my walk, I went into town and found a French watchmaker, and got him to put me a new glass, in place of the one I broke in the Channel. I had to pay three rupees, (5/-) for it. Nobody there charges less, and they never do any job to a watch under five rupees. I had a good chat with the old fellow, and got him to repair the hands into the bargain. In his shop I found a young German who could speak almost every European language.\n\nDuring the time I was at Batavia the horse races came off. The plain in front of the Hotel was the race course. Although of course I had nothing to do with the races, I amused myself by looking at the people from the verandah. There was a motley throng of people dressed in their gay holiday clothes. The Malays of all descriptions were dressed in pink cotton clothes. The Chinese in white coats, light blue trousers and straw hats. The Armenians in long flowing robes of yellow or blue, the Arabs somewhat similar, with large turbans. The half-caste and Europeans were dressed as is the universal custom in white. Consequently there was a mixture of colours, as well in dress as in countenance. The fruit sellers were very busy, and seemed to be making a deal of money. The Chinese, with their usual carefulness and forethought, each brought a little bundle of fruit with them so that they might not have to pay through the nose for it. Of the races I can say nothing since I saw nothing; only it pleased me to see a tremendous shower come on in the middle day of the three, and put a stop to the day's fun.\n\nOne day I bought some clothes of the men who infest the place, viz. two kobias, a kind of loose white jacket to sleep in, and wear in the morning, and two pairs of perjaumers, or native loose trousers for the same purpose. Of course people here never think of using bed clothes, and these sleeping clothes are as thin as possible. I also bought a light silk coat, and a pair of white jean trousers.\n\nDuring our stay Captain Moate, unknown to me, got two quart bottles of gin, and got dead drunk. I could not have thought it of him,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211900, "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": 315, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "290\n\nalthough I knew he was fond of spirits and wines. He called me at last and begged me to help him and take care of him. So I treated him as a child, and took away about a quart of gin, and stowed it in my room. I sat up with him all night, and by trying hard I managed to keep him quiet, although he became delirious. The next day I persuaded him to take a drive in the country, and the fresh air soon restored him to his former self. He was very much ashamed, and if I had not been there he would have been robbed upside down. So much for drink. But he won't leave it off, and since, drinks his grog as usual.\n\nI got Madame Baines to drive me up to the Revd Mr King, of the Free Church. No sooner did I see him than I knew we should soon be friends, and sure enough in a few moments we were like brothers. He is a clever fellow, and a thoroughly good man. After a long conversation I agreed to come up to tea on the following day. His wife is a neat little Scotch woman, or rather lady, for I found afterwards that she is from a high Scotch family, although she married [a] comparatively poor man. She has a well cultivated voice, and sings very much like Anna. In fact it seemed almost as if I were hearing her sing. We spent the evening in conversation, and closed with family worship. It was such a treat to find a man whose ideas were at all like my own. Nobody can imagine it unless they had been shut out from society as I had been. I paid them a second evening visit, which was spent in a similar way. A mutual friendship has arisen between us, and he has agreed to carry on a correspondence with me. She has a brother at Hong Kong, about 19 years of age, who is in a good situation in a merchant's office. She wants me to find him out and exercise a little brotherly superintendence over him. Mr King is a good Dutch scholar, and can preach in Dutch and Malay. At present he officiates in the Church of England by permission, till he gets another church built for himself. He went over the orphan house on Ashley Down about a year ago, and we had a good chat about it.\n\nI returned on board ship on the Saturday afternoon with the captain, whom I met in Batavia. But there it was nothing but swearing, etc, as usual. He worried a man, and annoyed him in such a mean way, that he had to iron him, and then he went mad. On Sunday morning he became quite raving, and therefore since I found out we should not go till Wednesday, I made a start, and hoped to get out in the country by eleven o'clock, in time for Divine service. I had a pleasant row ashore alone with the Malays, and steered the boat, which is a thing I never attempted before. When however I got out to Madame Baines, I found she was\n\nPage 315\n\nPage 316", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211902, "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": 317, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "292\n\nhas to keep up about a dozen of these servants, for each one only does one thing.\n\nOn Thursday morning weighed anchor. There was scarcely any breeze, and it was only a short distance we made, before we stopped at night. On Friday we were off again, and got a little breeze. About midnight through sheer ignorance and carelessness the ship dashed onto the Aganeiten rocks, and there was a fine crash. The captain was quite paralysed, and did not know what to do. The ship would have doubtless broken up and never been got off; but all at once the wind changed and blew her clean away from danger. Truly a merciful Providence attends us, or we should long ago have gone to the bottom. The captain evinced his gratitude when his fright was over by cursing and swearing worse than before, and bullying the men. In fact the men are continually on the point of mutiny. All I wonder at is that they have not done so before.\n\nWe reached the strait of Banca at last, after several days without wind. As we entered we passed the mail steamer to Batavia, and a Dutch ship aground. We were three days going through, on account of the wind. At night we stopped off another Dutch ship going to Singapore and Hong Kong. In the morning she was off an hour before us. Our masts are not yet only half up, so that in a few hours she was out of sight. The captain does not intend to finish the masts till he gets to Hong Kong, although that was the excuse for going to Batavia.\n\nThe breeze grew a little fresher toward evening, and at night we were going on about five miles an hour. Early in the morning, I heard the cry \"Breakers ahead\", and in another moment came another crash or two, and the ship was dashing on a coral reef. Two large rocks wedged us in, and there we were, expecting to go to pieces since the sea and wind increased and there was no chance of getting off. We were right in the middle of the Toedjoe Islands, which are considered as very dangerous. The captain did not even try to get her off. About noon however with our usual good fortune in difficulties, the water rose about 10 feet, and by sending out an anchor in the ship's pinnace, we drew the ship gradually out of danger, and got clear again. This was celebrated as before by renewed blasphemy.\n\nJuly 25th\n\nWe have now crossed the line, and are less than a thousand miles", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211904, "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": 319, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "294\n\nIn fact since reaching Java I never enjoyed such good health. Captain Moate continually jokes me about my stoutness. I am really getting quite a corporation, in spite of having my clothes continually saturated with perspiration. Even now as I write the perspiration stands in great drops on the backs of my hands.\n\nOur diet holds out wonderfully well, in fact we laid in a good store in Batavia. Every morning I have a great dish of rice and curry. It is a capital dish and the condiments in the curry tend to strengthen the stomach, so that I can now almost digest a brick bat. I mean to live chiefly on it at China if all is well. Today there has been a pig killed, so tomorrow there comes a feast of liver and crow and roast pork. Meat here never keeps over a day, even under the most favourable circumstances.\n\nA few days more and with a fair wind we ought to finish our journey. I shall begin to pack up tomorrow. I brought a piece of American Drilling at Batavia. I got forty yards for eight rupees. Already I have made myself two pairs of trousers and nearly finished a third. I cannot however finish them off before reaching China. All on board in the cabin dress in white, as is the universal custom in Java, and China.\n\nMy cabin is like a little oven on account of the hot sun shining on it all day. At night I sleep with my window open and of course never think of bed clothes. It is only towards morning that the temperature of the room becomes bearable. All day nearly I sit on deck under the awning, where there is generally a fresh breeze blowing when there is a breath of wind. Walking about or taking exercise is an utter impossibility on account of the heat.\n\nI find however the benefit of taking nothing of stimulative drinks. I am always myself, which is more than I can say of the rest of the folks. Only fancy a man taking these things during the day:- at seven o'clock a stiff glass of grog, made with full quarter pt [pint] of rum. Ditto at eleven, at twelve, at five, at eight and at midnight. At dinner a large glass of beer, and three or more glasses of port or sherry. I might have just as much if I liked to drink it, only I know a trick worth two of it. Captain Moate is almost if not quite a slave to spirits. He envies me for looking so stout, while he is continually troubled with a dysentery and is quite thin.\n\nA The Chinese has come off rather badly lately on account of this", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211905, "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": 320, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "295\n\nweather, in which it is impossible to study. Today and yesterday however I have brushed it up a little.\n\nI am looking forward with the most intense anxiety to get a letter from you at Hong Kong. Till then, unless our voyage is unexpectedly prolonged I shall write no more. I think that what I have already written will occupy many an hour to read; but if it interests or amuses, I shall consider the time spent in writing not to have been thrown away.\n\nSince the voyage has been unusually protracted from Batavia to China I must just describe the last few days. We had light winds all the way up the China Sea. Day after day we lay with scarcely a movement. Everything went on worse than ever, swearing increased fearfully. So we went along till Sunday evening, when a wind gradually began to blow, and took us along at a comfortable rate.\n\nOn Monday morning we took in a pilot about 60 miles from the Ladrone Islands. He was about as smart a fellow as ever I saw, and knew his business thoroughly. I was most thankful to see him, because I could not trust the captain. I could see he neither knew where he was, or what to do; and in a few more hours we must have been among the hundreds of islands, which to one that never saw them before, could never be navigated. I look upon the unusual fact of the pilot coming so far out to sea, as an interposition of Providence on our behalf. The wind increased and we went along famously. We were to get to Hong Kong early in the morning. I sat on deck watching the ship as it threaded its way among the groups of islands and rocks. At last I went down to my cabin, but there was no sleep. My mind was all activity.\n\nAt day break I went on deck, and there I saw the sight my eyes had so long desired to see. Hong Kong lay before me, and rising up the slope of its rocky sides stood Victoria. Everything looked green and flourishing. As I glanced round the town my eye rested on the Cathedral, and then there stood the college on the hill side, almost buried by the trees round it, and as much unlike the photograph I had, as winter is unlike the summer,\n\nI packed all up, and went to breakfast, but it was not till eleven o'clock that I could get on shore, since all the boats were gone. At last I got a chance, and went on shore with a very intelligent Chinaman, who cautioned me against the thieves and pickpockets. The heat was dreadful.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212231, "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": 173, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "150\n\nSix of them by means of bamboos can carry a very large block of granite to any distance. Their ingenuity is very surprising. There are a few cows, and a few goats to be seen, but there is little verdure except for the goats and mountain sheep. The Chinese dogs are not worth a straw, except to eat, and their flavour is no doubt not so bad. They keep cats in hutches like rabbits; and feed them with rice till they are in good condition for eating. Rats are very abundant; pigs abound, for pork is the chief native food. The birds are not very numerous. Fowls are sold by the pound, at the same price as pork. Geese the same. Wild birds are not allowed to multiply very much. There is the common house sparrow, magpie, the wag-tail, and different species of pigeons. Insects are far too plentiful. Butterflies as large as birds. In fact I have sometimes to look for some time to distinguish whether what I see is a bird or a butterfly. Spiders are very large, and look like young crabs. Cockroaches and beetles are also quite gigantic and very plentiful. They eat up whatever they can get hold of, not being particular whether it is books, shoes, hats, clothes, or food.\n\nThe ants are the worst of all the vermin; black ones are like those in England, perhaps smaller, and not injurious. They take however a great fancy to hair-brushes, so that before you can use one you have to knock out all the inhabitants. They get everywhere, but one does not mind them. The white ants however are greatly dreaded. In one night they will completely destroy a box of clothes, so that in the morning you may find the fragments of the box, that will crumble in your fingers, and find nothing but a few rags and dust for the clothes. They get everywhere. The other day I happened to notice something wrong in a box of Mongolian bibles in the Lumber room. On taking it out, the box fell to pieces, and there were just a few fragments of leaves left, the books being all reduced to black looking dust. I have to be very careful of my boxes, and stand them on bricks to keep them off the ground, which is considered as some protection. The only way to preserve food, etc., is to stand each leg of the meat-safe in a small bowl of water, so that they cannot get at it. The same with things kept in cupboards, etc. These things however do not trouble me in the least, for the servant has all that to attend to. The mosquitoes, that were represented to me as so formidable and annoying, seem quite a hoax. Neither at Batavia nor here, have I so much as seen one. I have no clear idea what they are like; as to being bitten by them, it is out of the question. Mosquitoes to me are quite fabulous. Perhaps however I am one of the favoured ones whom they do not molest. At Batavia I had", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213805, "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-1996", "page_number": 157, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "JOHN FRYER'S EARLY YEARS IN CHINA: III. ACCOUNT OF THREE DAYS EXCURSION ON THE MAINLAND OF CHINA\n\nFRED DAGENAIS*\n\n129\n\nThis is the third in a series of letters by John Fryer (1838-1928) to appear in this Journal. In the first letter Fryer described the tedious and sometimes difficult voyage from London to Hong Kong in 1861 on a sailing ship via the Cape of Good Hope with a brief stop at Batavia. In the first letter Fryer presented himself as a very young man just out of Highbury Training College coming into contact with the larger world, homesick, critical of the master of the ship and of the passengers, confirmed in his personal faith, bent on self-improvement, and interacting for the first time with missionaries in the colonial world of Batavia and Hong Kong.\n\nThe second letter, written shortly after his arrival, described Hong Kong and its environs and the European and Chinese people encountered; in it he provided us with a detailed tour of the building housing St. Paul's College, where he had been assigned to superintend by the Church Missionary Society, and of its operations. St Paul's College had its origins in a school founded in the mid-1840s by then Colonial Chaplain Rev. Vincent Stanton; the College was given a boost by the arrival in 1850 of the Rev George Smith, Bishop of Victoria (1849-64). In that letter Fryer seemed in awe of his new authority and responsibility and quite proud of the commodious school building and its library; he began to socialize with the Colonial Chaplain and his family, and revealed an appreciation of the wider perspective offered by the interaction with the Chinese population of the island and its culture.\n\nThe first and second letters were clearly identified as letters written for home consumption, for family and friends in Hythe and Chudleigh. The letters were extracted from his diary and designed to describe his adventures in an exotic land. The first letter had a salutation and a signature; the second letter had a salutation, but ended abruptly, the last page or pages with conclusion and signature having perhaps been lost or purposely destroyed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215199, "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": 295, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "259\n\nAfter the Japanese invasion of Malaya on December 8, 1941 he accepted an invitation by The Times to become its war correspondent. His wife, Maria, and other expatriates were evacuated to Batavia (Jakarta) in January 1942. Mr. Morrison covered the Malayan campaign through to the surrender of Singapore on February 15, 1942, leaving the city for Batavia on February 10, where he rejoined his wife. He was in Melbourne by May of 1942, and appears to have spent the rest of the war in Australia as a war correspondent, although there is some evidence that he was in New Guinea for a period.\n\nAfter the war he and his wife returned to Singapore where he continued as a correspondent for The Times. He met Han Suyin in Hong Kong in June 1949. He went to Korea in July, 1950 to cover the Korean War and was killed on August 12, near Taegu, when the jeep in which he was travelling was blown up by a land mine. He had a brother, Alastair, in the Diplomatic Service and another brother, Colin, in the colonial service in Hong Kong.\n\nCloud service in\n\nAnd now I've seen the pavilion where Ian and Suyin sat together under the stars, and the tree, and the steps that Mark ran down (in the motion picture) after saying his final goodbye to Suyin, on his way to the airport (the book is much less romantic — they say goodbye on the street and Mark boards a 'bus for the airport). What an incredibly poignant experience!\n\nPavilion behind Realty Gardens\n\nI made my visit to the pavilion with my two young children (my wife was otherwise engaged) and understand, perhaps for the first time, that passage in Han Suyin's book where she quotes Mark as saying that life's greatest tragedy is not to be loved, which he promptly amends to not to love.\n\nAnd then, of course, there is the passage central to the book's theme and from which the title is taken:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215666, "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": 443, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "395\n\ncorrespondent for The Times in southeast Asia, having previously supplied articles to the paper on a freelance basis. One of the last to escape the invading Japanese, he reported the retreat along the Malay Peninsula and the last stand and surrender of the British garrison in Singapore on 15 February, 1942.\n\nAfter Singapore, Mr. Morrison went to Java before following the campaigns in the South West Pacific under General MacArthur, and later in Southeast Asia under Admiral Mountbatten.\n\nMr. Morrison was a courageous correspondent who never thought twice about entering a dangerous situation to get a good story. During the Second World War he spent a lot of time reporting from the front and shared the soldiers' life in the jungle. He regularly hitch-hiked on Australian or American army transport planes in order to follow the action and provide authentic accounts of the fighting with the Japanese. He often came close to death. In late November 1942 he was slightly injured during an air raid on the Buna front in Papua, and in December 1943 he was involved in a plane crash which resulted in head wounds and fractured vertebrae. This is how he telegraphed the paper:\n\n'Regret involved in airplane accident enroute obtain eyewitness operational full stop hospitalised injuries seriouser than yestertime hope recover soon Dickson Brown newschronicler kindly consented cover next three days thereafter Curthoys sorry disappoint you good story - Morrison'\n\nHis injuries on that occasion kept him out of action until July 1944, when he returned to cover the South East Area Command. He was not out of trouble for long. On 10 December 1945, while reporting from Batavia (now Jakarta) covering a local campaign he was again wounded and cabled the paper:\n\n'Left hospital today. Thumb, in which fragments of Dutch bullet are lodged, will take at least a fortnight to\n\nIan Morrison and family, circa 1950", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216411, "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": 170, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "120\n\nHERMES herself though always small and crowded, and below decks a very hot ship, seems to have been a happy ship and \"old hands\" with whom I have chatted refer to her with considerable affection (JP).\n\n6840 tons. On 5th May 1942, just a day before the surrender of U.S. forces, to be sunk in Manila Bay by Japanese air attack.\n\n'Public Record Office/National Archives, Kew. File PRO ADM 156/101-2. Report by Captain E.J.G. Mackinnon dated at Wei-Hai-Wei, 13 June 1931.\n\n*Built in Aberdeen in 1889 as YUEN SANG, 1,723 grt, for Indo-China S.N. Co. Ltd. (Jardine Matheson & Co.). In August 1923 sold by them to Mr. Pao Ying Lin for Yen 75,000. Registered at Newchwang, China. Newchwang is in Southern Manchuria, and in 1931 within a Japanese zone of influence. Only to be sold to the breakers in 1937, aged 48 years.\n\n'PRO ADM 116/2843. China General Letter No. 7 covering the period 1 - 30 September 1931.\n\n-\n\n\"Ewo is Jardine's Chinese name 'Happy Harmony' - I believe adopted from that of a merchant in Canton with whom they did business in very early days (JP).\n\n\"Lieut. E.H. Chavasse, Up and Down the Yangtze, printed privately.\n\n-\n\n122,595 grt. Built in Hong Kong in 1926 for Indo-China S.N. Co. Ltd (Jardine Matheson & Co.). In 1940 to be requisitioned for service as an auxiliary patrol vessel with the Royal Navy. On 13 February 1942, when carrying escaping personnel south from Singapore towards Batavia, to be bombed by Japanese aircraft. Damaged, beached and abandoned at Muntok on Banda Island.\n\n\"PRO ADM 116/2843. Report 0702/204 dated at Hankow, 6 October 1931.\n\n\"PRO ADM 53/78855. Log book, H.M.S. HERMES.\n\n15625 tons. Built in 1915. In March 1939 to be sold for scrap.\n\nAnne M. Lindbergh (1936). North to the Orient. (London: Chatto & Windus), 248. Born on 22nd June 1906 she was to die only as recently as 7th February 2001.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]