[
    {
        "id": 213918,
        "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": 270,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "248\n\nIndia in 1521 preparatory to a voyage to China. Fernão Lopes de Castanheda notes that he was from Santarém and João de Barros notes that he was the son of Jorge de Melo Lageo dalcunha. Now in various nobiliários Martim Afonso de Melo is said to be the son of Jorge de Melo O Lageo and of D. Branca Coutinho and that he returned very rich from China. In 1522 he sailed to China.\" According to João de Barros, Da Asia (Decade III Livro VIII Capitulo V, 1563 ed.) he returned safely to Portugal in 1525. In April 1526 he is already dead (cf. Chancelaria of D. João III, Doaões, Livro 11, folio 84v).\n\nA humble Portuguese Jorge Alvares was the first Portuguese to sail to China in 1513-1514 as is well known. His voyage was succeeded by the more principal voyages of Fernão Peres de Andrade in 1517-1518, Simão de Andrade in 1519-1520 and Martim Afonso de Melo in 1522, in which each of these captains sailed as captain-major of a Portuguese fleet, after which official contacts of Portugal with China ceased for many years. The voyage of Martim Afonso de Melo brought to a conclusion the epochal period of first Western contacts with China during the era of trans-oceanic navigation, of which he was one of the principal figures.\n\nI take the present opportunity to republish the inscription of Martim Afonso de Melo which appears on his sepulchral urn according to the version of Ignacio da Piedade e Vasconcelos in his Historia de Santarem Edificada, Parte II, Lisbon, 1740, p. 202 and add to it my version so much as the damaged state of the urn allows.' It does not appear to have been dated.\n\nINSCRIPTION NUMBER 1\n\nTHE INSCRIPTION OF MARTIM AFONSO DE MELO ON HIS\n\nSEPULCHRAL URN ACCORDING TO PIEDADE\n\nE VASCONCELOS\n\nAqui jaz Martim Affonso de Mello filho de George de Mello, e de Dona Branca Coutinho, e sua nora Dona Maria Henriques\n\nPage 270\n\nPage 271",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215651,
        "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": 428,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "380\n\nthe gunpowder store, on one of the uppermost platforms. (Figure 4) Today it is kept locked, but is no doubt empty. Photographs from about 1900 show there was another building alongside the fort. This has been demolished to make room for the road that now skirts this side of Taipa.\n\nReclamation was instigated to provide for a pier which is now situated besides the Fort. Today the land in front has been filled in and a pleasant garden occupies the area. (Figure 5) On the slope at the side of the fort is a memorial to the victims of an explosion on the frigate D. Maria II in 1850. This is inscribed A MEMORIA DAS VICTIMAS EXPLOSAO DA FRAGATA D. MARIA II EM 1850. ERECTO EM 1880. It is a sad reminder of the dangers to which seafarers were exposed in those days.\n\nSecurity of Taipa Island was eventually taken over by the police and the fort was used as a police station until 2000. It is now a base for the Scout Association of Macau. Its continued official use has meant that there has been no pressure to change the facilities and there are no signs of any major modifications to them.\n\nA Nineteenth Century Cannon\n\nAlthough there are a number of old cannon within the fort, most have been placed there in recent times. However, an original one, dating almost from the time of the fort's construction, is at the front corner nearest to the pier.\n\nThis gun is an interesting example from the middle of the nineteenth century, a period of great change in the design of cannon. Similar guns quickly became obsolete and were replaced, so it is very unusual to find such a piece still in place, complete with the original mounting3. Figures 5 and 6 show the cannon, still pointing out across the straight between Taipa and the island belonging to mainland China.\n\nThe cannon is marked 'C.A. & Co. Boston,' and dated 1855. The maker was Cyrus Alger and Company, a firm founded in the U.S.A. in 1809. Their foundry was on Dorchester Avenue, Boston and they supplied the United States with cannon balls in the war of 1812 and later in the Civil War. They made both cast bronze and cast iron cannon, the basic alternatives for cannon up till the middle of the nineteenth",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]