[ { "id": 204753, "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-1964", "page_number": 56, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE\n\n45\n\nis one important point to be cleared up. The Chinese are highly skilled farmers. Their techniques of land-winning and of irrigation change landscapes. So, alas, does their age-long war against trees. But since A.D. 900 the topography of this territory has been changed not only by human technique. There has also been a gradual, small, but identifiable and, I believe, measurable tilt of the surface of the earth along the axis of the four high peaks (the two on Lantao,37 Tai Mo Shan and Ng Tung Shan104) which has altered and is still altering the coast line. I leave it to geologists to say whether this is a necessary effect of what happens when the subsidence of a long straight shore meets a range of hills parallel to the shore (in which case it will be reproduced at many points of the Chinese coast), or whether it is a local peculiarity. It would also be interesting to fill in some of the chronological gaps and find out whether the two clear cases of recent river capture13 took place before or after the Chinese settlement. Until these gaps are filled up, I do not claim that the details of the shore line indicated on the map are authoritative, but they are not far wrong for the northwestern part of the territory, which was the part first settled by the ancestors of the Man94 and Tang.44\n\nYou will observe that the present Castle Peak and the mountain attached to it on the north42 were at that time an island, separated from the mainland of the New Territories by a sea channel which in A.D. 900 was probably very shallow but navigable. The traditions of the oldest villages leave no room for doubt that there has been a general uplift in excess of 5 metres in this area. The red line approximately follows the present 5 metres contour. The ground on both sides of the navigable channel was swamp, probably mangrove swamp, dotted about with small islands and intersected by creeks and streams. The first fort of which there is written record was known as Tuen Mun Chan141 and was almost certainly located at a point I have marked on the map,138 about three miles north of the present location called Tuen Mun.141 It would be an advantage if all doubts could be settled by excavation on the site, which can be seen even from the ground (and more clearly still from the air) to have contained old earth-works and possibly buildings.\n\nIt will be noticed that the present Sham Chun120 River had a much shorter course at that date, and the northern half of what", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204756, "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-1964", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "48\n\nK. M. A. BARNETT\n\n17\n\nstrong corroboration of traditions, which might otherwise be thought apocryphal, of the disappearance of other villages, including the large village of Lik Yuen,84 half way down what is now Tide Cove.16 For all that, one cannot be absolutely sure. An old Hoklo155 boatman at Tai Po, who fortunately spoke reasonable Cantonese (for I cannot manage the Hoklo language) told me that \"fifty years before he was born, Hong Kong Island was joined to the mainland. It obviously was not. But remembering what has been observed by other field workers, that \"fifty years\" is commonly used to mean any time too long to be remembered, what the old man was passing on was clearly a tradition among the Hoklo that Tuk Ngo Kong45 a name for Victoria Harbour which apparently only the Hoklo language now preserves was long ago interrupted by a strip of land. It may well have been so, and I have provisionally marked it so. For if it were, it would tend to explain the curious demarcation of responsibility between the military commanders of Nam Tau and Tai Pang40 and the apparent fact that ships went through Sheung Sz Mun127 rather than through the present Hong Kong Harbour. It might also explain why Kwun Fu Cheung was more important for the collection of salt than for defence.\n\nThere is also some slight reason to believe that Ma Wan and Tsing Yi,13 which are now islands, were 1,000 years ago connected to the mainland and to one another, and that the channel between Chep Lap Kok1 and Tung Chung was considerably deeper than it now is.\n\nBut I must emphasize that the picture on the south and east side is still sketchy. It would greatly facilitate the work of the historian if his geological colleagues could be persuaded to take their eyes off remote aeons and fix them on to this comparatively recent period so as to obtain some degree of certainty regarding the position of the shore-line at the time of the first Chinese settlement.\n\nThe Missing Pieces. To move away from the shore up to the hills, the first thing that would strike the eye of any us, if he could be transported by time machine into the tenth century, would be the profusion of trees. A former Director of Agriculture told me that the remains of huge trees had been discovered some distance below ground during preparatory work for one of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204826, "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-1964", "page_number": 129, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "108\n\nCRANMER-BYNG AND SHEPHERD\n\no'clock on the morning of the 13 inst. We shortly after got under weigh with a fresh breeze from the north, and worked up with the tide to the point anchor in the plan, near the Nine Islands where we anchored. The weather was squally with rain and so thick that we could scarcely discern land. At day break we weighed and worked up to Lintin, where at twelve o'clock we anchored. I went immediately on board the Lion and delivered Your Excellency's Letters to Sir Erasmus Gower. As it rained hard and blew fresh, I remained there for the night, and at seven in the morning I returned to the Jackall, when as there was some appearance of its clearing up, Captain Proctor got under weigh, and stood towards the Island of Lantao. The soundings are expressed in fathoms in the plan, and they point out the track of the vessel. We inserted the rocks marked A.B. which we did not observe in any former plan. The weather continued so thick above, that we could not discover the Peak of Lantao, nor with any precision the land along the shore. At the point C the island marked Shatlapko in the charts, wore so favourable an appearance, that we stood towards it, although as it had been laid down between it and the island of Lantao, little hopes could be entertained of finding shelter for shipping from westerly winds. At one o'clock find that we suddenly shoaled our water, we anchored in 44 fathom water over soft mud at the inner point marked anchor. The uncertain state of the weather, and the short time it was probable we could allow for the examination of Cowhee, made it necessary to hasten from this anchorage. Whilst we took angles in the ship, the boat was dispatched to sound, with directions to stand over to the South East side, as soon as she should find, towards Shatlapko so little as three fathoms water. This she very shortly did and her track and soundings are expressed in the plan. The Island of Shatlapko we found to extend towards the shore of Lantao; by which it appears, that the whole of this bay is sheltered from westerly winds. The officer who sounded in the boat, reported his having seen boats pass through the channel marked D, that the land in its neighbourhood on Lantao was low and cultivated, as was that marked E which he discovered through the opening!\". The point to the north west of E, has been hitherto laid down as an island; as well as", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204827, "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-1964", "page_number": 130, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "A RECONNAISSANCE OF MA WAN\n\n109\n\nthe thick weather would allow us to judge, we thought to the contrary, and it is sketched in according to the concurring opinions of the gentlemen on board\". Immediately after dinner we weighed and worked out of the bay, we anchored in the evening at the outermost anchor the weather again became thick and squally with rain. At break of day we weighed and worked over to anchor on the north shore which is laid down in the charts as a part of the main. It was now so thick that we could only see the Bottoe Islands12 at intervals, and very rarely the shore of Lantao. At eleven it cleared a little, we again got under weigh, and stood eastward along the shore, having a fine deep bay with a sandy beach to our left. We saw some large fishing boats and several huts, apparently the habitations of fishermen along the shore marked G. When we got off the point G we had irregular and very strong gusts of wind off the high land, and we could get no bottom with a hand line of 14 fathoms. Westward of the point H is a beach of about three quarters of a mile on which is a village consisting of ten or twelve houses13; some of these appeared very lately to have suffered from fire. On seeing the vessel approach, five or six men ran to the top of a small, but rather high conical rock, at H, as if for protection, here they remained till we passed them. The wind still blew fresh in puffs off the land, and we could get no bottom, at length however we got up to anchor eastward of H. and anchored in 13 fathoms hard gravel and shells, with 15 fathoms under the ship's stern. From the strength and irregularity of the squalls, the rapidity of the currents in this narrow channel, and the badness of the ground on which we had anchored, Captain Proctor wished to get away again with the vessel as soon as possible; we therefore went on shore on the island of Cowhee, agreeable to your Excellency's instructions.\n\nWe first stood over to the point I, we found no bottom with the hand line till very near the shore, where we had seven fathoms with a rocky bottom. We could not land here owing to the sea occasioned by the wind and current. We rowed eastward along the island six or seven hundred yards, where we turned a rocky point, close to which we had 34 fathoms with a rocky bottom, and a little way further out 17 fathoms. East of this is a small bay about 300 yards from point to point, and 80 or 100 yards in depth. In this bay we had 7, 6, 5 and 44 fathoms over soft mud,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204831, "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-1964", "page_number": 134, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "A RECONNAISSANCE OF MA WAN\n\n113\n\nCaptain Proctor in his passage from Chusan in the Endeavour in October last, came through what is called the Cowhee Passage. It was then blowing hard from the south east. The pilot carried him to the westward of Cowhee, and he anchored for the night in 8 fathoms water, soft mud, off the point L. In the morning he passed to the southward of the Bottoe Islands, having 5 and 6 fathoms over soft mud all the way in shore.\n\nOn the morning of the 17th we got under weigh and passed close to the northward of the Bottoe Islands, we then stood over to the north shore, and worked up to the northward of the islands of Lonkoo25 and Lintin. The weather was so thick that we were frequently out of sight of land. At the turn of tide we anchored near some fishing stakes in 4 fathoms water, Lintin bearing SSE distant about 15 miles. On the 18th we weighed and worked up to Anson's Bay, and on the 19th we passed the Bocca Tigris, and reached the Indiamen at the second bar. The 20th in the evening the Jackall arrived at Whampoo.\n\nSigned: HENRY WM. PARISH\n\nLieut. Royal Artillery\n\nN.B. The soil in general is free from stone, but the surface of the hill on the north west side of the island is covered with stones of a moderate size, and proper for building.\n\nGeographical Comments\n\nAny note on the value of Parish's survey of Ma Wan (Cowhee) and Lantao Island must inevitably take into account the state of nautical knowledge of Hong Kong waters at the time. This was probably sketchy; indeed, Parish himself states that he made a major revision to the outline of Lantao. His own work was very accurate, and his records of depths and currents off Lantao and around Ma Wan are confirmed exactly on modern charts26. His constant harping on the difficulties of navigation, however, cannot be ascribed entirely to the awkwardness of the local topography; bad weather (of which he had plenty), and a clumsy square-rigged ship, cannot have helped to raise his opinion of the area.\n\nThe channels around Ma Wan and North Lantao contain some of the deepest and most dangerous waters in Hong Kong. Both on rising and falling tides, there is a concentration of currents of up to seven knots along both east and west coast of Ma Wan, and these converge in the channel between Lantao Island and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205350, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 112, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT\n\nJ\n\n105\n\nThis officer established himself at a place then called Shak-tse-kong, the present Nam-tou, a part of which situated on a hill was surrounded by walls. But it was found that this officer was unable to rule efficiently the whole of the district, and some men of influence, supported by the high mandarins at Canton, demanded that the part of the country which they inhabited should be made a separate district.\n\nThe Emperor Wan-lik granted this petition in the first year of his reign; the new district was called \"Sanon,” new peace; and the walled part of Nam-tou rose to be the district town of Sanon, and accordingly received the name of Sanon Yuen-shing 新安城.\n\nThe Sanon district included the islands of Lan-tow, Hongkong, and all the small neighbouring islands. The mainland portion of the district was bounded to the North by the districts of Túng-kun 東莞 and Kwei-shin 歸善. The northern boundary is formed by the Pik-tau River, which flows into the estuary of the Canton River, and is navigable for small Chinese sea craft (such as passage-boats) for about 8 miles; and several chains of mountains further to the East. This boundary, however, is very arbitrarily drawn, as sometimes villages in the midst of Sanon belong to Túng-kun. The borders of the three districts join together in the neighbourhood of the mart of Kun-lan, a place notoriously unsafe, as being the abode of thieves and vagabonds, who can with facility escape from the jurisdiction of one mandarin to that of another.\n\nTo the East, the Sanon District is bounded by the estuary of the Canton River. This estuary is divided by the Chinese into several parts with different names: the part to the south of the Bocca Tigris into which the Pik-tow River falls, is called Hop-lan Hoi; the bay named by the English Lintin is designated by the Chinese Nam-low Bay, after the city of that name; Deep Bay is called Hau-hoi or Back-water Bay*. This bay is generally very shallow, a deep channel however running down the centre; the navigation is rendered more dangerous by the many oyster-beds which exist. The bay terminates in a considerable creek, which is navigable at high-tide for three or four miles, as far as the important mart of Sham-tsuen.\n\n&\n\nPA.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206057, "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": 137, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "132\n\nHENRY D. TALBOT\n\nLo cheou-Lo Chau (Beaufort Island)\n\n=\n\nMers Bay Mirs Bay\n\nMew Is.-Mo Chau\n\nNako chau-Papai (Nei Kwu Chau or Hei Ling Chau)\n\nNine-pin-Ninepin Group\n\nPo-ke-long Point=Lei Yue Mun Point\n\nPsang-chau-Kau Yi Chau\n\nRagged Island Steep Island\n\nRat Island or Ling Ting-Ling Ting\n\nR. Povado or Iron River-Hebe Haven\n\nSin-can-hien-Hsin-an Hsien (San On Yuen) or, rather, the district city of Hsin-an\n\nSingan Islands-Siu Chau and Tai Shan\n\nShu-lap-ko Is.-Chek Lap Kok Island\n\nSui-pak Siu Kau Yi\n\nSoko Cheou Is. the Soko Islands\n\nSong-kco Sung Kong\n\nTa baco=Chung Chau\n\nTat-hong Moon-Tathong Channel\n\n=\n\nTay Pak Peng Chau\n\nTay-pak-hoe Green Island (or perhaps the sea between Hong Kong and Lantao Islands)\n\nTsa-cheou Is. =Sha Chau\n\nTsan-Cheou-Kau Pei Chau (off Cape D'Aguilar) Tysa=Small island 1⁄2 mile south of East Brother\n\nWang Laang-Waglan Island\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Cf. The British Museum General Catalogue of Printed Books (London, 1961) Vol. 100, Col. 222.\n\nThe British Museum Catalogue of Printed Maps. Charts and Plans (London, 1967) Vol. 7, Col. 359,\n\nMorse, H. B. The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China 1635-1834 (Oxford, 1926-29) Lists of Ships.\n\n2 Cf. Bonacker, W. Kartenmacher Aller Lander und Zeiten (Stuttgart, Hiersemann, 1966) p. 200,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206105, "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": 185, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\nTHE J.O.P. BLAND PAPERS\n\nIntroduction\n\nOne day in September 1967, I received, quite out of the blue, a letter from my former commanding officer during the Second World War, Michael St. J. Packe, to say that he had been entrusted with J.O.P. Bland's private papers, with instructions \"to find a good home for them,\" and asking me whether I would like to have them. Before going further, let me explain that Mr. Packe is himself a historian and wrote an excellent biography of J. S. Mill.* We have kept in touch intermittently since we were demobilized from the First Airborne Division (British) at the end of the war, and I have been to visit him at his home on Alderney. This is the really fantastic part of this chain of coincidences. Here was Mr. Packe, living and writing on the little island of Alderney in the Channel Islands while a near neighbour of his was Mrs. Dolores Coombs, an old friend of the Bland family, who had often visited them at their home at Aldburgh in Suffolk. Bland himself died in 1945 and Mrs. Bland in 1953. His private papers were entrusted to his goddaughter, Miss Ailsa Cochrane, who was to act as his literary executor and to try, if possible, to complete the memoirs which he had begun before his death, and to have them published. Before she could achieve much Miss Cochrane became ill and in 1955 her brother sent these papers to Mrs. Coombs who, in turn, was to act as literary executor. Meanwhile Bland's books on China had been given to Trinity College, Dublin. However, a list of these books, preserved among his papers, shows that they amounted to a modest collection without containing anything rare.\n\nSometime in 1966 Mrs. Coombs was forced by illness to leave Alderney, and it was at this point that she entrusted her friend and neighbour, Michael Packe, with the task of finding a home for these papers. Thus for a period of over twenty years Bland's private papers disappeared from view while two successive literary executors struggled with the task of trying to complete and publish his memoirs. Bland himself, to judge from his instructions to his\n\n* The Life of John Stuart Mill (London: 1954).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206478, "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-1972", "page_number": 26, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "SOME NINETEENTH CENTURY WATER-COLOURS OF CANTON AND THE FAR EAST\n\nP. H. COLLIN*\n\n(The text of a lecture to the Branch given on 15th December 1971)\n\nA small collection of mid-nineteenth century water-colours of the Far East recently came to light in a London dealer's. The paintings are mainly of China, in particular Canton, with inscriptions and dates in pencil or paint; at some later date, they have been numbered in Roman numerals in ink on the reverse.\n\nThe list of the paintings is as follows, showing the number on the reverse, the inscription on the face of the painting (in italics), and a brief description by the author. The spelling and punctuations are as in the originals.\n\nII Sumatra Straits of Sunda Nov. 14 57\n\nA view of islands, with a native dhow.\n\nIII After heavy rain. Straits of Sunda\n\nA sailing vessel.\n\nIV China Sea the green clouds are from nature\n\nSmall junk against the sunset.\n\nV North Wantong|Id. Bocca Tigris Decr 16th 57\n\nA fort with a red-coated soldier on guard and mountains seen on the far side of the channel.\n\nVII Canton Feb 58\n\nA view looking across roof-tops towards a pagoda and the west gate.\n\nXI Febry 58 Canton Bamboo grove beyond White Cloud Mountains The Jingal pic-nic Feb 20th 58\n\nSome soldiers and Chinese sitting by bamboos, looking across paddy fields to a clump of bamboo where a group of figures are visible. Mountains in the distance.\n\nXIII Canton 58\n\nThree horses and riders with, beyond rolling country, the pagodas of Canton.\n\n* Mr. Collin was formerly Lecturer in English at the University of Hong Kong and is now a publisher in London.\n\nPlates 32-33 illustrate this article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209859, "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-1983", "page_number": 118, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "96\n\nIn the North District the islands are much barer and less cultivated than in the South District. Only two business centres of any importance exist; Tap Mun and Kat O. Both have shipbuilding sheds; the former has or had a launch service with Taipo, and the latter a distillery which gave a good deal of trouble to the Revenue Department. The business centres of these islands are in fact on the mainland; the Crooked Harbour islands look to Shataukok, the Port Shelter isles to Saikung.\n\nA very important element in the economy of the islands is the returned emigrant or seaman: Lamma has a good many of them; Lantau also. Emigrants generally go to America or Borneo, and a few to Singapore. Some returned emigrants are from Australia, they usually buy land, build a house and settle down.\n\nTour of the Islands\n\nTo get a view of each island as a whole, I suggest that a tour be taken as if in an imaginary launch, starting from Kowloon and going west as if to reach Canton through Kapshuimun (\"Rushing Water Channel\") but turning south of Lantau, passing the East Lamma Channel, and round Cape d'Aguilar into Port Shelter, and so up the East coast to Taipo and Crooked Harbour.\n\nStonecutters: or Ngong Shuen Chau (\"High Junk Island”). Most Chinese placenames are descriptive and have meanings. This one needs no elaboration, I think.\n\nTsingyi: (literally \"Green Clothes\": but the real meaning is uncertain). Has a fair harbour, a few shops and several villages in the northern half. The hills on this island are unusually high. There are two or three limekilns. A ferry calls about four times a day. Once a reclamation was started at the head of the harbour but it came to nothing and only two or three walls now mark where it was meant to be. The inhabitants are Hakka.\n\nIn 1856 this island was the scene of a small naval action against a number of pirate junks flying the rebel flag of the Taipings. The captain of H. M. S. Sampson states in his dispatch:\n\nIn proceeding through the mandarin channel (going west) some junks were observed at anchor inside the island, close", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209860, "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-1983", "page_number": 119, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "97\n\nin the N. E. corner. My pilot not being acquainted with the channel, I got a fisherman's boat to go up with one of the Chinamen I had on board, to see if he could recognise his property. He shortly returned on board, saying his boat was there, and that the other boats were pirates. I immediately stood in under easy steam, when the pirates seeing my intention, made sail, and ran through the channel towards Wanchowchow (Stonecutters). I fired a few shots at them, but they soon got under the cover of the land. Then sending my boats after them, and running round outside the Island. I had the satisfaction of driving them on shore, and destroying five, as well as liberating two market-boats with several passengers who had been in confinement for several days.\n\nThree captured men are sworn to by one of the owners of the boats, and I have sent them in irons to Hong Kong.\n\nThese piratical boats had all the rebel flag flying and fired upon our boats, without however doing any damage.\n\nMa Wan (\"Horse Bay\"). This island is low-lying, although the geological structure is the same as Tsingyi and Lantau. The east coast has a fine bay, almost unapproachable for rocks. The inhabitants are mostly Hakka. One of the Customs stations built for the so-called \"Blockade of Hong Kong\" during the 1870s and 1880s still stands on this island; it is now used as a school.\n\nThe waters around Ma Wan are known as Kapshuimun (\"Rushing Water Channel\"). The name is apt since Kapshuimun has about the swiftest tiderip of any channel in Hong Kong. It is 25 fathoms deep. It is the track of all steamers from Hong Kong going to and from the Delta. Opposite Ma Wan, on the south shore of Kapshuimun, that is, on the northernmost tip of Lantau, are the only wolframite mines in the islands.\n\nLantau. This is our biggest island, two and a half times the size of Hong Kong Island. Lantau Peak is the highest peak in the Ladrones 3061 feet.\n\nThe northern end is almost deserted except for a few tiny hamlets round Yam O (“Hidden Haven\"), a perfect smugglers'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209872, "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-1983", "page_number": 131, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "109\n\nNam Tong Island (“Southern Hall Island\"). This island is large and mountainous. Military defence work is currently going on there. It was formerly cultivated, but in 1929 the cultivated area was abandoned. There is an Aga light on the southern point. The channel to the north of this island is \"Buddha's Head Pass\". The harbour within this channel is well sheltered: there is a big temple on the mainland to the north of the channel. The chief place of interest on this island is the old fort near the north point, with a south wall thickened, apparently for mounting cannon. This fort is probably Chinese, perhaps built by pirates.\n\nHere we leave the islands of the South District, and enter the North District as we pass into Port Shelter. The interest of this place lies in its extraordinary geography and geology, and its wonderful beauty. The surf which beats on the high pillared cliffs of High Island, Bluff Island, and Basalt Island dies away as your launch passes into the long calm channels, and under the hills of the mainland there is perfect shelter, though I do not think the anchorages are good. Grassy hills come down to the waters' edge, and near Saikung the sea is studded with diminutive islets.\n\nThe soil of these islands appears extremely barren, as the population of the islands is very small. Fishing seems the chief occupation. Settlements are few. Yim Tin is named after some abandoned salt fields a little to the south of the (Roman Catholic) mission church: Kau Sai (\"West of the Channel\") explains itself. There is also a group of settlements in the southern part of High Island. These have the remarkable names of \"North Fork\", \"Tribute Rice Junks Bay\", and \"White Insect Wax\",32 This group and Yim Tin are the only places in these islands where cultivation is of any extent. \"North Fork\" is a most remarkable place. Someone has lavished money on it, the houses and the ancestral temple are well built, a high platform held up by a big masonry retaining wall stands in front of them, and a small stream by the village is crossed by a fine three-span bridge all of stone: it is the sort of stream for which the rest of the Territory think six stepping stones are ample. I have no idea how these names originated, except that the bay may have been an anchorage for junks carrying the tribute rice north from Canton to Peking.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209873, "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-1983", "page_number": 132, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "110\n\nThe very latest is that some enterprising folk of these parts have committed a piracy on a junk there, and five or six of them are up before the District Officer, South, on a committal charge.\n\nAt the northern end of High Island is the interesting feature called the Dry Channel or Kon Mun. It is a fiord formed by the sunken mouth of the valley running northwest by Lan Nai Wan, which is connected on the west with the other channels. Into it has poured the whole of the silt from the upper valley: and as this point is precisely where the two tidal waves sweeping round High Island meet, the silt is heaped up there without any chance of it getting carried away. Nothing bigger than a small sampan can traverse it, and then only at high water.3\n\nLeaving this fascinating island group by the often stormy route past Conic Island and Fung Head, we reach the mouth of Taipo Harbour, with Kang Chau (a little rock built up of volcanic ash beds), Grass Island, with the fishing village of Tap Mun on it, and Port Island. This last island is uninhabited.\n\nThe islands in Taipo Harbour are mostly of sandstone and shale, but are otherwise of little interest. They are Harbour Island, Centre Island, and lastly, the island near Taipo station where the District Officer, North, lives, though since the causeway carrying the road was built, this is no longer an island.\n\nGoing out again round Bluff Head, we come to another island-studded stretch of sea. Three large and sixteen small islands occupy it, and it is a most beautiful piece of water. Double Island, the first you come to, is in two halves joined by a low, narrow neck: the Crescent Island, beside it, is uninhabited, but Kat (\"Lucky Harbour\") Island, not being very lofty, has a good deal of its surface under cultivation.\n\nThere is yet one more island, and this is in some ways the most curious of all. It lies away across Mirs Bay, two miles from the Chinese coast, from which it draws a good deal of its drinking water by means of waterboats. It is called, very appropriately, Pingchau (\"Flat Island\"). When I was there, I did not see any paddy whatever; all cultivation was dry, and often the fields were unterraced and sloping, quite different from other parts of the New Territory, yet the island is populous, in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210233, "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": 204, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "183\n\nmarsh, which has been enclosed by bunds to form kei wais, (iv) a shallow channel running parallel to the outer bund; (v) a zone of mangrove plants some 15-25 m. wide with Kandelia candel, Avicennia marina and Aegiceras corniculatum as the commonest species, (vi) Deep Bay, which forms part of the estuary of the Pearl River and also receives water from the Sham Chun River and smaller streams. At intervals channels run through the mangrove zone to join channel (iv) beside the outer bund to Deep Bay; water moves along these channels during the rise and fall of the tide and thus the kei wais are filled.\n\nWithin the kei wais are small, irregularly shaped, muddy islands. Essentially all of our results were obtained from Mai Po kei wai No. 7 (total area ca 9.3 ha, area of islands 5.6 ha, area of open water 3.7 ha). This kei wai is 820 × 120 metres with its shorter sides parallel to the shoreline. It is surrounded by a bund which, on the seaward side, is pierced by a sluicegate with a concrete frame. The frame is about 2 m. wide and is usually closed by a gate consisting of heavy wooden planks, placed horizontally, which can be raised or lowered in slots in the concrete frame (Plates 7-9). The sluicegate is essential to the operation of the kei wai because it enables the operator to control exchange of water between the kei wai and the adjoining estuary. The kei wai, like others in the neighbourhood, was held on lease renewable every seven years.\n\nSource of Future Produce\n\nAs already mentioned, an important source of future produce is the adjoining estuary: fry and larvae are carried on the high tide through the open sluicegate into the kei wai where they are \"trapped\" when the gate is closed. Species entering in this way include marine fish, shrimps and crabs. In addition, the source of produce is supplemented and diversified by the operator, who may add fry of tilapia (Sarotherodon mossambicus, syn. Tilapia mossambica) and the brackish-water striped mullet (or grey mullet, Mugil cephalus). Small oysters (Crassostrea gigas) are bought from local fishermen and used to stock oyster beds set up in the vicinity of the sluicegate; their growth period is 1.5 to 3 years.\n\nThe basis of production of the kei wai is the usual two food", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "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": 212745, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 54, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "39\n\nShe was his maternal cousin, and his parents were keen that he should return from China to marry her. He said that he had made many lame excuses—which his parents had interpreted to be that his business was going so well that he dare not leave it [his usual ebullient tendency to exaggerate doubtless led them to assume he was making a fortune, and his brother, John, was therefore persuaded by their parents to travel out to China to let Mesny return home to marry]. However, Mesny's business was not sufficiently adequate for him to consider marrying anyone, not even the girl in Hankow, despite the Hankow girl having money of her own, and in addition, Mesny did not feel ready to marry and did not do so. He tells us that the Hankow girl went down to Shanghai, where she married a young man ‘whose name was still [in 1899] a household word, though husband and wife had long since been absent from the scene of their former experience in matrimony and other matters.'\n\nDespite the view he held about marrying a girl from his own country, he married Chinese women, one immediately after the other. The local girl back in the Channel Islands, his cousin, Lydia, whom his parents wished him to marry, appears to have dropped out of the picture in the late 1860s or early 1870s, when he married his first Chinese woman, probably by Chinese rites first, followed by a western marriage at the Hankow Consulate some years later. He was still sending verses to Lydia in 1868 and, incidentally, writing a letter a month to his old father in Jersey.\n\nWe have little idea what happened to either his first or second wife. We know that the second was legally separated from him and had taken half his worldly wealth with her. Why did he move back to Hankow for his last years? He left Shanghai in 1914... the unanswered question is whether his wife's obtaining a legal separation led to his move from Shanghai to Hankow? Another oddity involved his only son, who moved from Hankow to Shanghai to work, in his early thirties, at about the same time as his father moved back to Hankow from Shanghai. Mesny's son-in-law was a British businessman who, at some stage, lived and worked in Ningpo, not too far from Shanghai, and yet Mesny moved in the other direction to Hankow, where he had acquired a menial job with a long-standing British firm until he died.\n\nWe do not know anything about his relationships with his son and daughter, particularly in later years. At the time of his death, his only son would have been 34 and probably married. His daughter, Marie,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212768, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 77, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "62 \n\n1874 April \n\nJuly October \n\n1874 \n\n1874 December Late 1874 \n\n1875 Summer? 1875 Winter \n\n1877 February \n\nKueichou, but Mesny had already departed \n\nTo Ch'engtu (six month stay] \n\nVisited the temple dedicated to Tu Fu the poet in Ch’engtu Returned by very large houseboat via Sui-fu, Chungking and I-ch'ang to Hankow. Mesny entertained at the palace of General Viscount Pao Chao in K'uei-chou en route on the Yangtze. In Hankow he met Rev. David Hill \n\nPublished 'Tungking' [date in the book itself: Mesny however, claimed later that it was published in 1875] \n\nOfficially married Nien Suey-tsen in Hankow \n\nTravelled overland from Chin-kiang, through Shantung [Chi-nan], en route for Peking. Spent winter in Chi-nan at invitation of Ting Pao-chen, the Governor of Shantung, to whom he claimed he had been an adviser \n\nPeking \n\nReturned to Kueichou via Shanghai [November]. Hankow and Human [1876] Re-appointed Superintendent of the Kueichou Armouries, an appointment he held until March 1877 \n\nMesny entertained two British Protestant missionaries in Kuei-yang \n\nOverland Trek to Western China, through Burma to India and by sea to England \n\n28 May \n\nJune 1878 8 January \n\nNovember \n\n26 December 28 December \n\n1879 February \n\n9 March 4 June \n\nDeparted Kuei-yang for Szechuan [his third visit to the province (en route for England, via Tibet, Burma and India, with Captain Gill)] Arrived Ch'engtu \n\nArrived in England from Calcutta \n\nVisited Channel Islands \n\nReceived telegram from Chinese Minister in London desiring Mesny to accompany the returning Chinese Minister at Berlin to China: departed! Marseilles for Hong Kong aboard the Irrawaddy Arrived Hong Kong from England \n\nDeparted Hong Kong for Canton \n\nVisited Amoy \n\nDeparted Canton for Kueichou, via Kuei-lin (Kuangsi] Arrived Kuei-lin \n\n25 July \n\nArrived Tu-yun Fu \n\n4 August [1880/1881] \n\n1880 February \n\n15 March \n\nAugust \n\n1881 January \n\nFebruary \n\nArrived Kuei-yang \n\nPossibly visited Hanoi? \n\nGovernor of Kueichou province recommended Mesny to the Throne for the bestowal of posthumous honours for three generations [San-tai Erh-p'in Kao-feng] \n\nSet out for Lan-chou via Chungking [where he had remained six months] \n\nMesny spent the night at Ch'ien-hsi Chou, some 90 kms NNW of Kuei-yang, where he was attacked by an armed mob Departed Chungking [after 'delay due to unexpected contretemps\" which Mesny did not clarify] \n\nArrived Lanchou \n\nDeparted Lanchou, crossed Gobi to Ham taking six to seven weeks", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215572, "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": 349, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "299\n\nBeing cooped up on a steep, precipitous, hummock of rock, which consisted of a small, high island and a second island forming, as it were, a long straggling tail meant there were limitations to physical activity. There is a sea-water channel varying from seven to nine metres wide separating the two islands. In a total area of approximately 11.75 hectares, there were obvious limitations to taking exercise.\n\nAlthough the overall length of the \"main\" island is only about 0.8 of a kilometre, like being on board ship there are certain things that an enthusiast can do. Some lighthouse keepers did not bother to exercise. Lai Tak-wah, however, told the author that he used to try to get in 30 minutes every day. Some of this would include climbing up and down the 224 steps which led from the new pier at sea level to the buildings at the top of the Island.38 Some keepers liked to swim. Others practiced Chinese martial arts.\n\nWildlife\n\nApart from higher up towards the crest, little vegetation grows on the main island. Except for a small sisal tree and a chilli tree which stood there in 1990, the author recalls there were no real trees although there are a few bushes. On the smaller \"tail\" island there is even less - just the odd patch of sparse grass.\n\nThe top part of the main Island is partly covered with vegetation, including a few plants and flowers, such as Chinese Hibiscus.39 For those interested in wildlife, when the Royal Asiatic Society members paid their visit in 1990, there was a colony of red-rumped swallows nesting in the cliffs on the leeward side of the main Island. However, on subsequent visits the author did not spot these birds, although there are usually a few swifts and the odd black-eared kite circling in the sky. But no matter whether a person is interested in wildlife or not, Waglan, with the waves breaking together with the foam, is a beautiful spot,\n\nNear the end of the low, straggling island, surrounding a cavern that goes right through the island, you can see two very large rocks. Using a little imagination, these, some proclaim, seem to be leaning over \"kissing.\"40 Yes, there is even romance at Waglan!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216409, "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": 168, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "118\n\nIn addition to her usual cruising on the China coast the ship paid one visit to Nagasaki and, early in 1933, another to the Philippine Islands.\n\nOn 11 June 1933 the carrier EAGLE, Captain L.V. Wells, DSO, arrived at Hong Kong to replace her on the station. Accordingly the next day HERMES slipped for Singapore and after a pleasant passage reached Sheerness on Saturday, 22 July 1933.\n\nAlthough while in the East mention has been made above of the activity of pirates, actual direct involvement with any such deed had been about the only experience she missed between 1930 and 1933. She was to fill that gap during her following commission, also on the China Station when under the command of Captain The Hon. George Fraser.\n\nNOTES\n\n[Hon Ed.] HMS HERMES, a small aircraft carrier of some 10,950 tons, was the first purpose-built such warship in the Royal Navy. On 15th January 1918 she was laid down at the Armstrong Whitworth yard and launched on 11 September 1919. The yard was scheduled to close, and no great post-World War I urgency to complete her was perceived, so she was towed to Devonport for completion. There she was commissioned on 6th August 1923. Several of her pre-World War II commissions were spent on the China Station. At the outbreak of World War II she \"worked up\" in the English Channel, carried out one patrol, and then in October 1939 was ordered to Dakar to work with the French Navy on anti-enemy blockade runner and surface raider patrols. With the ship operating twelve Swordfish aircraft, generally speaking these operations took place out across the Atlantic towards the coast of South America. On 8 July, 1940, with the advent of Vichy then at Dakar, the ship launched a daring night-time attack first using her motor boat immediately followed by Swordfish aircraft torpedoes, crippling the new battleship RICHELIEU which was lying in Dakar Roads. Subsequently, when returning to Freetown, she was damaged in collision with the P & O liner CORFU, then an armed merchant cruiser engaged in convoy protection duties. She was repaired at Simonstown, South Africa. Following repairs she saw further service, enjoying some notable successes, in the South Atlantic, Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.\n\nFrom Trincomalee late on 8th April 1942, the approaching Japanese fleet having", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]