[
    {
        "id": 210724,
        "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-1986",
        "page_number": 75,
        "title": "RAS-1986",
        "content_text": "58 \n\nD.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU \n\nLordship that the house in which he resided, (situated within the grounds alluded to), has been tendered to me for a Government House; I did not trouble your Lordship with this matter, being of opinion that the house in question, considering its locality and other circumstances connected with it, is totally unsuitable for the purpose.\" \n\nFollowing continued discussions with the Hong Kong Government, the Governor, Dr. Sir John Bowring, F.R.S., F.L.S. a botanist in his own right, wrote on August 14th 1855 to Lord John Russell asking for money from the Colonial Funds to establish “a Public Botanic Garden”. In addition, Bowring suggested that a house would be built for such a person (to be recommended by Sir William Hooker, Superintendent of Kew Gardens). Bowring stressed the commercial importance of the venture in the following passage: \n\n\"The access we are now obtaining to the Chinese Empire itself, and to circumjacent countries, would enable me, with such an auxiliary, to render valuable services, not to science alone, but to the commercial interests. As associated with science, inquiries are constantly addressed to me on the subject of dyes, oleaginous matters, fibres for textile purposes, materials for paper-making, and other topics; which the presence of a Botanist would enable me more satisfactorily to answer. \n\n++ \n\nThe Governor continued; \n\n\"Independently of which I might be able to render services to the Botanic Gardens in India, — to send useful plants and fruits to the mother Country and the Colonies, and generally to promote objects to which I cannot now personally attend,. . . \n\nDespite these overtures to London not much was done in Hong Kong to get the Botanical Gardens established, though various despatches in the form of Answers to Queries from Downing \n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216332,
        "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": 91,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "40\n\nmilitary forces of the Crown, afloat and ashore.\n\nTaking these in turn, starting with the pilots who took foreign ships into the Macau Roads and up the river to Whampoa, we can examine their several duties, and - if we can find contemporary descriptions to suit - even their persons and characteristics.\n\nThe outside and inside pilots\n\nDespite the existence of various sailing guides, the masters of ships sailing to Macau normally took on a pilot once arrived among the islands off the coast of China at this point. There were the \"outside\" pilots who took vessels into Macau Roads, and the \"inside\" ones who took merchant vessels on to the Whampoa anchorage.\n\nThe former were stated to be ‘a very simple, well-meaning race of people, who get their living by fishing, when they have finished their pilotage.' After describing their simple dress and shoeless condition, Dr. Downing added, \"They are supposed to know the depth of water in the different channels, with the times of the changes of the tides, but very little trust is reposed in them, and they are not educated and sworn-in for the office.'44\n\nThere was a reason for this, to us, rather odd state of affairs. The \"outside\" pilots were not necessarily the registered ones. As another reliable contemporary source has it, 'The pilots' names were registered at an office near Macao; and all who were licensed paid the sum of six hundred dollars. The person who took out the licence sometimes knew nothing about ships or the river; but in such cases he employed fishermen to do the duty.\"45\n\nWhilst a ship was being conducted into Macau Roads, the pilot-boat would take in letters and despatches for China and would bring back the \"inside\" pilot, \"without whom and his chop [a permit] the vessel cannot proceed up the river.'46\n\nThese \"inside pilots\" were a different class of people, 'properly educated and examined as to their knowledge of the management of European craft, with the depth of water and direction of the currents in the river.' Downing has left us this amusing picture of the \"inside\" pilot who was to take his ship up the river. 'He seemed to consider himself of",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    }
]