[
    {
        "id": 206986,
        "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": 57,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG \n\n51 \n\nboarded Huck Finn's raft on the Mississippi went by the names of the Duke of Bilgewater (Bridgewater) and the Dauphin. But a title not only helped to disarm potential sceptics but allowed an adventurer to secure credit, often a necessity for the realisation of his schemes. Mayréna, as we have seen, kept himself afloat for some time by the sale of bogus titles, decorations and honours. A title, as it were, gave the claimant a fake persona, a social mask or facade behind which the predator could lurk. In this century, however, a devaluation of titles has taken place coincident with the rise of meritocracy.\n\nPoor communications helped an adventurer of the impostor or swindler type, for if knowledge of his past leaked out too soon, this would undermine any claim to respectability and diminish confidence in his intentions. News flowed more sluggishly in the nineteenth century, though it was a period of great achievements in the development of a network of world-wide communications. In 1853 the P. and O. had established a regular mail service between Hong Kong and Calcutta, thus establishing fortnightly communications with England; in 1863 the French Messageries Maritimes opened a route to the East; telegraph connection with Manila was achieved in 1880, with Canton in 1882. Nevertheless, mail, newspapers, and reading matter of all kinds took time — usually a month — to reach Hong Kong from Europe, even at the end of the century. There was also no Interpol to flash news by telegraph or wireless about international swindlers, pretenders and other social pests. The Hong Kong public had to wait several weeks before Le Courrier d'Haiphong brought news of the accusations Father Guerlach had levelled against Mayréna. It was not until 24 December 1888, six weeks after his arrival in Hong Kong, that the general public acquired some knowledge of Mayréna's chicanery and general untrustworthiness.\n\nIt was not only the pursuit of adventure, of fame or fortune, that drew adventurers to alien shores. Some left their homelands to escape from the cultural constraints and legal bind of their own societies — an escape, as they saw it, into freedom, innocence and, its corollary, libertinage.57 Laurence Hope, the wife of Lieutenant-General M. H. Nicolson of the Bengal Army, in 1902 wrote:\n\nUpon the City Ramparts, lit up by sunset gleam,\n\nThe Blue eyes that conquer, meet the Darker eyes that dream,58",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208000,
        "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": 39,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "BRUNEI: A HISTORICAL RELIC\n\n23\n\nSpaniards. She worried about the presence of France in Indochina on the opposite side of the South China Sea at mid-century; and later on she suspected imperial Germany of coveting northern Borneo and the Philippines.\n\nThe British sphere was initiated by the private efforts of an English adventurer, James Brooke, a former officer in the Bengal Army. In 1840, he helped bring an end to an insurrection in the Sarawak River, in the southern-most area under the nominal rule of the Sultan of Brunei, and was rewarded by being granted the province. In 1845 Brooke was appointed diplomatic agent to Brunei and supervised the transfer of the island of Labuan to Britain as a colony and a naval station. He also, in 1847, negotiated a consular treaty with the Sultan which effectively gave to Britain control over Brunei's foreign relations. The colony of Labuan languished but the quasi-protectorate over Brunei served as the de facto and legal base for Britain's sphere of influence in Borneo. Such a sphere was proclaimed in 1868 as a warning to all European nations to keep out.\n\nThe real carving-up of the carcass of Brunei began in earnest in 1878 with the founding of another private venture, that of a syndicate of City of London businessmen which later became the British North Borneo (Chartered) Company. The syndicate was under the control of Dent Brothers Company. Alfred and Edward Dent were sons of the owner of the former Hong Kong firm of Dent and Company. Raja Brooke had annexed, by treaty with the Sultan, additional chunks of territory before 1878. In 1853 he purchased northward to and including the large district of the Rajang River. And in 1861 he purchased the five so-called “sago rivers” as far north as Kidurong Point. When that point was reached, the Governor of Labuan objected to any further northward encroachment of Sarawak and Labuan's wishes were supported by Britain.\n\nWhen, however, the British North Borneo Company purchased the large area of Sabah, the whole of the island of Borneo to the northward of Brunei Town, with strong support from the Foreign Office, both Raja Brooke and the Colonial Office protested. It is interesting to note that the permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office who midwifed the company charter through officialdom in Whitehall was Julian Pauncefote, who was a former attorney-general.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n",
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    },
    {
        "id": 211623,
        "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": 38,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "13\n\nThe first was a Muslim who had been with the British army, and who may have been one of those who deserted in large numbers after the founding of the colony and who later formed the basis of an Indian community in Kowloon,\" The China Mail of 28 March 1878 printed: 'The man, known by the name of Mohammed Arab, died here yesterday. We understand that his residence in the Colony dates with the cession of the Island to Her Majesty, and it was he who planted the British standard on the Island, being with the expeditionary Force. He was a very charitably disposed person, and always stretched a helping hand to the needy and poor irrespective of nationality. He was well-known to many of the foreign community, and held in no little estimation for his uprightness and charities. His funeral, which took place yesterday, was largely attended by persons of various nationalities'.\n\n43\n\n44\n\nIf indeed Mohammed Arab had been in the British army, he must have been in either the Bengal Volunteers or the Madras 37th Native Infantry which were two of the regiments serving in the Chinese expedition.\" Both of these regiments contained Muslims and so Mohammed Arab could have been in either of them. The first Bengal Volunteers were raised in 1799 and in time the Volunteers became the 36th, 37th, 38th and 39th regiments of the Bengal Native Infantry.42 The usual sepoys of the Bengal army were mainly high-caste Hindus who because of dietary restrictions could not travel overseas, and so the Bengal Volunteers raised in the spring of 1840 were low-caste Hindus and Muslims lured from regular regiments by the promise of extra money. As for the Madras Native Infantry, it is known that some Muslim Lascars from Madras deserted during or after the Chinese expedition.\" This war was the first in which Indian troops were deployed in a non-Indian operation.\" Unfortunately the only members of the Bengal Volunteers named in official records of the Chinese expedition are firstly those who died, and secondly the officers,\" and no more information is yet forthcoming about the members of the Madras Native Infantry. The question whether Mohammed Arab may or may not have hoisted the flag on Hong Kong on 26 January 1841 hinges on whether a contingent of the Bengal Volunteers or of the Madras Native Infantry was landed for the ceremony - the only regiment which was definitely ashore at the time was that of the Marines and on which rank would have been called upon to perform the task. The senior native officer in the regiment was the Subadar-Major upon whom the duty could have devolved (in January 1841 this position in the Bengal Volunteers was held by Shaick Hedait Alie) but it would have been more likely",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211626,
        "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": 41,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "16 \n\nthe Narrative of an Eventful Six Months in China (London, 1875).\n\n20 A. Cunynghame, The Opium War, being Recollections of Service in China (London, 1844).\n\n21 A. Murray, Doings in China: being the Personal Narrative of an Officer Engaged in the late Chinese Expedition (London, 1843).\n\n27 \n\nThe United Service Journal, 1841, part 2 (July 1841), p. 307.\n\n23 C. Smith, Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1985), p. ix.\n\n24 Chinese Repository, 10 February 1841, p. 119.\n\n25 Ibid., 11 November 1842, p. 579.\n\n26 \n\nThe Canton Press of Saturday, 30 January 1841.\n\n27 Ibid., 13 February 1841.\n\n28 \n\nThe Canton Register of 16 February 1841.\n\n* \n\nFor general information on the Sassoons, see C. Roth, The Sassoon Dynasty (London, 1941) and S. Jackson, The Sassoons (London, 1968).\n\n30 \n\nK. N. Vaid, The Overseas Indian Community in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1972), p. 15.\n\n31 For further information, see the centenary volume by [J. Steuart], Jardine Matheson and Co., 1832-1932 (Hong Kong, 1934) and M. Keswick ed., The Thistle and the Jade: a Celebration of 150 years of Jardine, Matheson and Co. (London, 1982).\n\n32 JMA, C5/6, 65.\n\n31 \n\nSee J. Y. Wong, 'The Cession of Hong Kong: a Chapter of Imperial History'. The Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, 11 (1976), 52-3 and ibid., Anglo-Chinese Relations, 1839-1860 (Oxford, 1985), p. 51.\n\nH. B. Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire 1 (London, 1910), p. 624.\n\n35 Wong, Anglo-Chinese relations, p. 52.\n\nJ6 JMA, C5/6, 51.\n\n37 \n\nSee the report by the missionaries in The Canton Press of 27 February 1841, reprinted from one in the Canton Register of 18 February.\n\n38 C. Smith, Chinese Christians, op. cit. p. 173.\n\n39 \n\n40 \n\nVaid, The Overseas Indian Community, op. cit. p. 22.\n\nFor further information on the Madras Native Infantry, see J. B. R. Nicholas, 'Madras Native Infantry, c. 1845', Tradition, 42 and 43.\n\n42 \n\nSee The Canton Press of 16 January 1841.\n\nSee B. Mollo, The Indian Army (Poole, 1981), pp. 64-5. For further information on the Bengal Native Infantry, see F. G. Cardew, A Sketch of the Services of the Bengal Native Infantry to the year 1895 (Calcutta, 1903) and A. Bharat, The Bengal Native Infantry, 1796-1852 (Calcutta, 1962).\n\n43 P. Fay, The Opium War, 1840-2 (Chapel Hill, 1975), p. 208.\n\n44 \n\nVaid, The Overseas Indian Community, op. cit. p. 22.\n\n45 Mollo, The Indian Army, op. cit. p. 50.\n\n46 \n\nIndia Office Library and Records, London, China Medal 1842 and Bengal Army Lists.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211627,
        "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": 42,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "17\n\n1840-1842.\n\n47 India Office Library and Records, Bengal Army Lists, 1840-1842, unpaginated.\n\n42 For information on these ranks, see E. G. Barrow, The Sepoy Officer's Manual (a book of reference for officers of the Bengal Native Infantry) (Calcutta, 1887), p. 18.\n\n49 W. Legge, A Guide to Hongkong (Hong Kong, 1893), p. 2.\n\n50 Sir William Laird Clowes, The Royal Navy, VII (London, 1903), p. 575.\n\n31\n\n52 Clowes, The Royal Navy, op. cit. VIII, pp. 112, 203, 207 and 88.\n\n53 Ibid., VII, pp. 90, 338 and 346.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213501,
        "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": 97,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "65\n\nactually a few wretched huts or matsheds built on shelves cut out on the acclivity of a ridge. They were filled with Indian sepoys, the Bengal Volunteers. A supplement of a survey of Hong Kong in the Canton Press dated February 1842 gave us information about the Sai Ying Pun Barracks in 1842.\n\n\"A half-moon battery or platform which is to mount some half-dozen heavy guns on carriages is constructing at the extreme west of the town to protect the barracks there and at which are stationed the Bengal Volunteers\" (Sayer, 1937, P. 209).\n\nThe sanitary conditions of the barracks in those days were largely neglected. The water closet system that existed in the barracks was unfortunately unsuited to a tropical climate. Epidemics of fever spread through Hong Kong every summer in those early years of British occupation. In 1842, the Indian troops, stationed in Hong Kong lost nearly half their number. The death rate for the army in Hong Kong for that year was 25%.\n\nIn 1843, the sanitary condition of Hong Kong was most alarming. In the summer of 1843 an extraordinary outbreak of malaria fever occurred which during the six months from May to October carried off by death 24% of the troops and 10% of the European civilians. It was noticed that this virulent fever ravaged chiefly the extreme west and east ends of the British settlement. (It was due to the opening up of the ground by the troops in making roads or new buildings created marshy conditions that helped to breed mosquitoes). At the West Point Barracks in Sai Ying Pun where the left wing of the 55th regiment quartered, sickness was so universal that the regiment lost 100 men between June and the middle of August. On 20 July 1843, the troops stationed there were hastily removed on board ships in the harbour and the Barracks were abandoned and ordered to be razed to the ground. At the recommendation of the Committee of Public Health and Cleanliness, the ground in the neighbourhood was ordered to be levelled and well-drained.\n\nSince Sai Ying Pun had proved to be one of the most unhealthy spots in the Island, the main forces of the army began to move out of the place. The Royal Navy also found the naval base east of Belcher's Bay unhealthy and lay fully exposed to the fury of a typhoon and moved.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]