[ { "id": 206043, "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": 123, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "118\n\nSerial\n\nK. M. A. BARNETT\n\nUse\n\n1. (a) In numbering off items: ONE!\n\n(b) As a preparatory word of command, as in ONE! TWO! THREE! GO!\n\n2. Item by item, seriatim.\n\n3. (a) One day (contrast Ser. 6c).\n\n(b) One foot (measure of length).\n\n(c) Ten cents (measure of money).\n\n4. The meaning in each case is the unit augmented by 10%—\n\n(a) 11 (Chinese) inches.\n\n(b) 11 cents.\n\n(c) 1,100.\n\n(d) 11 (contrast Ser. 6f).\n\n5. Used bound to a congruence-marker to denote the particular singular. Examples (a) (c) (e) (g) with null ictus denote an unemphatic singular, like the English indefinite article or the Greek (unaccented) τίς. Examples (b) (d) (f) (h) have emphatic singularity.\n\n(a) (b) mark the congruence class of thin rigid objects like sticks, bottles, small growing plants (sometimes including bamboo but seldom rice), spears, arrows; and some special ones like songs and flags. There is also transference from the bottle to its contents.\n\n(c) (d) mark the congruence class of thin non-rigid objects like strings, rivers, roads, reptiles, fish, footless and wingless insects; and some special ones like split firewood, dreams, lives, live naked human bodies, towels, handkerchiefs.\n\n(e) (f) mark the congruence class of articles which can be folded away when not in use, like tables, chairs, beds, bed-clothes, documents.\n\n(g) (h) mark the congruence class of articles which generally form one of a pair, like hands, feet, eyes, ears; also animals, birds, flying or walking insects. And some domestic utensils like cups and cooking pots.\n\n6. (a) The common ordinal adjective \"first\"; used also to mean first in quality,\n\n(b) The same as TRAW-DARNG, which has the same superfixes.\n\n(c) (d) The first day of the lunar month (contrast 3a, with different superfix).\n\n(e) The first day of the lunar year.\n\n(f) The 11th day of the month (contrast 4d with different superfix).\n\n(g) Denotes the first of a series of arguments or considerations.\n\n7. This group indicates that the action described was immediately followed by another.\n\n(a) learns off at a single lesson.\n\n(b) wakes at the first sound of the bell.\n\n(c) as soon as I heard this I was afraid.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207464, "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-1975", "page_number": 232, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "224\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nAir alerts were frequent and raids were common, though no attacks were directed near to us. During alerts we brought our patients down from the upper two floors and the arrangement worked well enough though I was always a little fearful of our excitable guards urging haste to our patients whose gait and balance were disturbed by disease. Blackouts occurred regularly and added greatly to the difficulties of our night duty staff. I used to lie in bed on many nights when the hospital was blacked out but not alerted and listen to the big American planes flying over Hong Kong, probably from airfields in China on bombing raids on Japanese held territories. Emergency checks on our numbers continued to be held at night time about once a month in addition to the regular morning and evening checks. The night checks got us up from bed for up to an hour. In May we could still use our portable X-ray machines but this was of little value because we had no films. About the same time mosquitoes were a pest and we had a number of cases of fever among staff and patients.\n\nDuring 1943 I find recurring references in my diary to shortages of fuel and we had parties out regularly on the hillside behind the hospital felling trees. The cooks had an unenviable task trying to make fires with green wood. Food supplies, too, came at intervals which were not regular, and in June for example the rice intakes were so irregular that we had to juggle a good deal with issues. Stocks of sugar both from the Red Cross and Japanese sources dwindled also and we had to cut issues in order not to run out of supplies. By September 1943 eggs cost 1.30 yen each and rising costs generally compelled us to re-examine the system of issuing extra food for patients in need. We established that first priority should be given to patients with suppurating wounds or who had pulmonary tuberculosis; next came patients with gross loss of weight; then came those with acute fevers and those who could not eat rice and with these were banded some of the patients with visual defects, the result of deficiency diseases. In July we had to reduce the flour ration to 104 grammes a day, though to offset this the daily rice ration was increased to 384 grammes. We experimented with combinations of atta, boiled rice and ground rice to make something we could call bread and we even produced some small buns using a little flour as well. We made and issued a soup made from fish heads but this was unpalatable to most and when we abandoned the experiment we thereafter issued fish complete with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210338, "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": 309, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "288\n\nJULIAN TENISON WOODS IN HONG KONG\n\nRODERICK O'BRIEN S. J.\n\nA century ago, the government and scientific elite of Hong Kong welcomed an unusual visitor; an Australian Catholic priest and scientist, Julian Edmund Tenison Woods, who passed through Hong Kong as part of an extensive scientific tour of south-east and east Asia. Woods is probably best known outside church circles for his scientific work, and despite limited formal training, he became an active scientist, publishing extensively in natural sciences, especially marine biology, botany, geology and paleontology.\n\nIn 1883, Woods was commissioned by the then Governor of the Straits Settlements, Sir Frederick Weld, to explore and report on the mineral prospects of some areas of the Malayan peninsula. During this time, he was elected an honorary member of our sister branch, the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and two of his nearly two hundred publications are to be found in its journal. This expedition widened in scope, as he took advantage of opportunities to travel more widely, especially on the naval hydrographic ship HMS Flying Fish. Woods eventually returned to Australia in July 1886, after nearly three years research.\n\nDuring this time, he seems to have made four stops in Hong Kong:\n\nJanuary 1885: Hong Kong and Canton\n\nIn mid-January 1885, Woods arrived on the P & O steamer Hydastes from Singapore. He stayed first with the Governor, Sir George Bowen and then with Judge Russell.\n\nSir George arranged for him to lecture on The Mines and Minerals of the Malay Peninsula on 3 February 1885. During his introduction, Sir George expressed surprise at finding a priest involved in scientific pursuits, and his rather tactless remarks have been preserved in the full report which he sent the next day to the Earl of Derby at the Colonial Office:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210340, "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": 311, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "290\n\nRODERICK O'BRIEN S.J.\n\nhad only to retire to the Consulate where a rare treat awaited me in going over his collection.\n\nAlthough at this stage in his fifties, and in weak health (he died a few years later in 1889), Woods apparently planned a substantial scientific voyage up the Yangtze (Changjiang) River, but was unable to achieve this aim.\n\nApril 1885: Passing Through\n\nWoods then joined HMS Flying Fish on a voyage to the Philippine Islands. On 20 March 1885, we find him writing from Manila to his brother, Terry. But the exigencies of war in the region meant that the Flying Fish had to return to Hong Kong, and so also Woods.\n\nThe precise date of his return to Hong Kong is not known. In any event, Woods was soon gone again, this time to Japan. He left Hong Kong on 11 April 1885.\n\nJuly 1885: Pokfulam\n\nThe visit to Japan was planned to be only a short one, and Woods intended to return on the same steamer. But he was taken sick, and it was over a month before he could leave Japan. On 21 June, he was able to leave, and returned to Hong Kong about four weeks later,\n\nThis time, in a letter to his brother Terry dated 7 July 1885, he tells us that he was staying at Pokfulam, at the home of the managing partner in the firm of Douglas Lapraik & Company. Apparently he had not recovered in health, and the Governor arranged for him to spend his stay in the more salubrious climate of Pokfulam. Nevertheless, he was sufficiently attentive that in a later publication on the geography and geology of Hong Kong he was able to make specific mention of formations near the reservoir.\n\nPresumably recovered, he left Hong Kong to complete his work in the Malaysian area, arriving in Singapore once again, and undertaking an excursion to Pahang on the east coast of the peninsula.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210341, "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": 312, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "Page 31\n\n2\n\n291\n\n1886: Returning Home\n\nHis work in Singapore concluded, Woods returned on the Flying Fish to Japan in September 1885 for a second, longer visit. (There is no mention of his passing through Hong Kong on the way.) Woods' stay in Japan was extended by epidemics and the resulting quarantine, and it was February 1886 before he could leave Japan and proceed to Hong Kong.\n\nThere are no available details of his last stay. He rejoined the Flying Fish, which left Hong Kong on 19 March 1886, and travelled on her, via Manila and the Celebes, reaching Port Darwin in Australia on 23 June 1886. Immediately he resumed his Australian researches.\n\nWoods seems to have used every voyage as an opportunity for research, and some sixteen of his scientific publications are based on his work in Asia. In one of these, we find his description of Hong Kong. It is obviously a composite, based on his various visits:\n\nI first visited the south Chinese coast in 1885, arriving at Hong Kong in the middle of January, or, as I may call it, the depth of winter. It was piercingly cold at the time. All the inhabitants who could afford them were wrapped up in winter furs. The air was cloudy, damp, gloomy and raw to an extent which recalled to my mind the melancholy fogs of London. Having come straight from the fervid temperature of Singapore, the change can be imagined. Three days after leaving the Straits, all our Chinese passengers came on deck swathed to the eyes in quilted silks or cottons. It was evident that we were in a new region. We were passing many fishing junks of the unmistakable Chinese pattern: the sails of palm canvas, with bamboo laths across them like Venetian blinds. These junks, with thin radiating ribbed sails, apparently lop-sided and conspicuously down by the head, are characteristic sights to be seen nowhere but in China. In their marine architecture, as in everything else, the Chinese keep distinct from all the world.\n\nAmid the fog and mist which came thickly down upon us,\n\nPage 31\n\n2\n\n291", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211872, "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": 287, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "262\n\nToday I saw some porpoises floundering about in the water, and soon we may expect to see some flying fish. I am now getting into pretty near regular habits, and am thriving uncommonly well. The provisions are the best of everything. As much wine, spirits, etc. as I could drink, if I were one of that description of person. There is no mistake about living well; but of course one cannot expect it to last all the voyage. I have more than recovered what I had lost by the seasickness, and I shall soon, I hope, begin to look stout and hearty. I am on very friendly terms with everybody on board, and manage to hold a corner with the captain once in a way, although of course I cannot feel at home and friendly with people who live in a manner so opposed to all my notions of right and wrong. Three weeks ago I left home. What a long, long, three weeks it has been.\n\nThursday, April 4th\n\nAnother very fine day it has been, and nearly all the time I have been on deck sitting and reading or thinking in my easy chair. The time has passed very rapidly and pleasantly. Some hours have I spent in thinking of home, and all that I have left behind. The more I think of it, the more hard it seems; but I console myself with thinking there is a \"need be\" for it. Often, too, I am looking forward to my arrival, if spared, at Hong Kong. There will be not one there to look up to, since the chaplain has left, and I have not a letter of introduction to anyone there. It is rather a strange predicament to be in, but I must try and make the best of it.\n\nFor nearly a week we have had nothing but foul winds, so that we are not yet come to Madeira, after 25 days sailing. It is very poor work since we ought to have done it in one half of the time. It quite disheartens the captain and everyone else to be knocking about so long, and doing nothing, hardly, after all. The sun is now getting powerful; today it was quite hot, and has regularly browned my face for me.\n\nSince Sunday I was rather unwell, with a bilious attack, I suppose through eating too much, for the sea air gives me a ravenous appetite. I took some homeopathy last night, and today it has put me about right.\n\nI am beginning to learn a good many of the nautical terms, which at first seemed quite like Greek to me. I hope soon to know the names of all the parts of the ship. Our new steward answers very well, and I believe gives everybody satisfaction.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211876, "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": 291, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "266\n\nthe best of it.\n\nThe weather has now grown intensely hot. In the shade the thermometer is now standing at 84°, which is rather inconveniently warm. Since we have a lady on board, we are obliged to keep ourselves quite dressed, and really sometimes at meals it is very oppressive. At night even lying without clothes at all is very warm work. But in the day time on deck it is a trifle cooler when there is any breeze. In fact I have almost lived on deck for above a fortnight. It is pleasant of a night, especially now the moon shines. The stars however are all strangers to me. There is one fine constellation, the southern cross which is very pretty. The north star is just now going out of sight, and after tomorrow I shall not see it again for a while.\n\nI am getting more and more used to sea, although I shall never be very fond of it. It is all very pleasant to sit on deck and read all day, but soon one gets tired of it. It is the same thing every day, and no variety. Not even a sail has appeared for several days. The other day I saw a herd of grampusses, and the other evening a great fellow about 30 feet long, came blowing around the ship for some time. The flying fish are now very numerous, and sometimes a great shoal of them dart out at once from the water, and skim along above the waves. Today I spent some time in watching the stormy petrels as they skim along. Several of them have followed the ship for some days.\n\nI am now making some progress with Chinese, so that I can get on slowly through the gospel of St. Matthew in Chinese. I should do famously if the Chinese servant on board was only a Cantonese. I can of course make him understand in writing, but his pronunciation is as different as French from English. I also shall try to get some German if possible out of Captain Moate, so that I can discourse with the German missionaries.\n\nWe must now call at Anger [Anjer] for a fresh supply of fowls, and perhaps of water. I shall then hope to get hold of some fruit, which of course cannot be procured on board ship. I am very glad we may stop there, because I shall perhaps be able to send you a line just to say I am all right. I expect there will be a wonder at not hearing from me sooner. I fear however it will be impossible, since there appears no chance of falling in with an homeward bound ship. My health continues good, and if this hot weather does not last, I hope to keep all right.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212191, "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": 133, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "110\n\nJ\n\nonto\n\nup from Shanghai to relieve them. In this way he wished to show the Japanese that the British flag could not be driven off the Yangtze. But other ideas prevailed in Shanghai; the ships were ordered out. I was instructed to transfer my Chinese refugees, the employees from our office and their families, numbering some 200 souls, to the \"Ewo\" hulk, which was to be left anchored at Nanking under the protection of a British gunboat. Curiously enough, the refugees showed extreme reluctance to be abandoned thus to an unknown fate, and in the upshot, most of them went on to Shanghai with the ship. Our flotilla was augmented by the arrival of the light cruiser **Caradoc** from Hankow, where she had been wintering. Her 'tween decks were packed with several hundred British women and children, who were being evacuated from the upriver ports. A small ship flying the Italian flag added to our number; she was believed to be carrying the personnel of the Italian Aviation Mission, who had been training Chinese pilots at Nanchang. Led by a Japanese escorting destroyer, followed by H.M.S. \"Caradoc\", we formed line and sailed down the river, the journey enlivened by the anger of the Japanese Commander at the inability of the master of the Italian ship to understand the signals which, from time to time, he made in the International code. With our convoy went the last merchant ships to show the British flag on the Yangtze. The \"Red Duster\" was displaced; henceforth the Japanese view prevailed.\n\nHong Kong and South China 1938\n\nThe West river and its network of tributaries provide the highways over which the commerce of South China moves. Some distance outside Bocca Tigris, where the river debouches into the China Sea, an eleven-mile ridge of hills rises sharply out of the blue semi-tropical waters. We call it Hongkong, but to the Chinese it is \"The Fragrant Lagoon\". Why \"fragrant\" I cannot say, because the surrounding waters are salt, as any sea water, and full of large diaphanous jelly-fish that lie in wait to sting unwary swimmers, or of little black insects which get inside your bathing costume and bite you in places inconvenient to reach.\n\nThere is no record to show how these marine depredators spent their time before 1840. In those days, before the arrival of the British, the island was uninhabited and, though visited by fisher folk and pirates, I doubt whether they went swimming. The pirates have now", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212602, "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-1991", "page_number": 156, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "136\n\nThe charming English custom of dressing for dinner is ill adapted to the perspiring tropics.\n\nWhen the walla-walla boat took me out to the coaster anchored in the harbour, I found she was even smaller than the ship I had come on from Shanghai, and slower. The run to Singapore, which the larger ships cover in a little over three days, again took a week. It is true we had to make a considerable detour to avoid the extensive belt of mines laid round the Singapore harbour, and we were kept waiting outside pending permission to enter.\n\nWhile anchored there, I was astonished to observe a launch, flying the Japanese flag, and towing a string of fishing craft, steam in over the minefield. On enquiry I was told that Singapore could not do without fish. It later transpired that many of the fishermen were Japanese naval officers in disguise, and that there was little they did not know about the British minefields. Only a few months previously, while undergoing cross-examination in court, a Japanese consular official detained on a charge of espionage had swallowed poison to avoid having to give evidence; but, presumably in the interest of the breakfast table, the Japanese fishermen continued to receive the benefit of the doubt. The big talk of the moment was the scandal of the bribes which had been paid on large contracts for the construction of the new concrete pill-boxes, which were being erected around the island. It was alleged that the quality of the concrete supplied was sometimes little better than plaster, and that some of the leading British firms were implicated. It was all a trifle disturbing.\n\nThe further you got from Shanghai and the nearer to India the worse the plumbing. In Shanghai, American influence had overcome British conservatism with happy results. In the foreign home there was generally a bathroom to each bedroom, and the fixtures were as pleasing to the eye as in use. Stainless steel vied with coloured plastic and the right use of glass to gratify the visitor. In Hongkong the standard lagged a bit. In Singapore it was a long way behind. The bathroom floor might be mere wood, and the walls just homely white tiles. No incentive here to dawdle in delectable contemplation. Even in the famous Raffles Hotel, a barrack descended from earlier times, the bathroom, though no doubt sumptuous enough by English standards, left much to be desired. If I remember rightly it even contained a primeval article of furniture called a \"wash-hand stand”.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214418, "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-1998", "page_number": 276, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "242\n\nagreeable in appearance.\n\nWe barely made it back to the European quarter and went into a hotel kept by a Pole. He said he had lived in Moscow for two years, when he was about fourteen and now he was over forty. I wanted to speak to him in Russian but he doesn’t remember a word. In a room closed from the heat, we were served a lunch of tender tasty fish and tough ham, which however we didn’t touch. P. then got into a sedan chair and ordered himself to be taken to some banker or other, while I set off further down the street to some superb quadrangular barracks. I passed an avenue with miserable scraggy trees and then walked along the water’s edge. It was no longer so hot, with a cool breeze coming from the bay. At the sea front I saw numerous large red insects flying from spot to spot. I wanted to catch a few and take them to G. Chasing after them I was unwittingly drawn to the gates of the barracks and found myself in a huge courtyard, which serves as a training area for the regiment.\n\nSome English officers saw me from the balcony, came down and invited me to join them, ‘to drink a glass of wine.’ We went into one of the rooms where the furniture, the crockery — everything confirmed what is said about the splendour of the officers’ way of life. Silverware and the finest linen are the normal accoutrements of their messes and dining-tables. The officers eat together at the one table and they adhere so strictly to this officer-family way of life that they are rarely absent from dinner. A spacious balcony, or verandah, where the masters of the barracks lazily doze during the hours of siesta, runs round the whole building. I declined the wine and was treated to some lemonade.\n\nIt was late and a sensuous, glittering and captivating night had descended when I returned to the pier, where I found P., waiting for the ship’s dinghy. Meantime a Chinese boat stood there before us; in the moonlight we could see two female figures in it. “What do we need the dinghy for?” I asked. “These women can ferry us across: let’s get in?” We got in and both women, holding on to the one oar, attached to the stern, began turning it briskly to right and left. The moon shone right in their faces: one was old, the other about fifteen, pale, with black, narrow, but nevertheless beautiful eyes; her hair was fastened at the back with a silver pin. “Take us to the Russian frigate!” we said. “Two shillings!” The young one named their price. “A hundred pounds sterling for some—", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216092, "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-2002", "page_number": 391, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "325\n\nPeninsula and Oriental Line had four passenger ships: the Chusan, the Carthage and the Corfu. I sailed on the Royal Mail Ship Canton. As a newly joined Hong Kong government servant I went on half pay as soon as I stepped on the boat. It took 31 days from Southampton to Hong Kong.\n\nIn first class one dressed every night for dinner, except the first night and nights in port. With a long voyage some passengers were like bears with sore ears. For others there were games like deck quoits, dancing, the ceremony of \"crossing the line\" and shipboard romances. Others were seasick. Regarding romance the pretext for \"Romeo\" at night was to take a girl up to the boat deck to show her the Southern Cross. One lady boasted: 'I was taken up twice on one night and both men pointed to the wrong constellation!'\n\nThere were sea birds and flying fish to watch out for, and some wonderful sunsets in the Indian Ocean. Just as the brilliant sun dipped below the horizon you could occasionally see a green flash. Looking over the ship's rail at night one could frequently see phosphorescent, microbial animal and plant life in the tropical waters. Sometimes one could see this when one flushed the toilet in the darkness of one's cabin.\n\nAt Port Said gilly gilly men (Egyptian magicians) were allowed on board to entertain passengers. Or you could go ashore, visit the Pyramids and elsewhere, and catch the ship at the other end of the Suez Canal (that was the way people travelled on the so-called overland route, before the Suez Canal was completed in 1869.)\n\nAden, with low taxes, was a good place for shopping. Or one could visit the museum there to look at a stuffed Manatee with its broad, flattened tail. Fond of sitting on rocks, these sea creatures were said to have provided the substance for seamen's tales about mermaids. Other customary ports of call for British passenger ships were Bombay, Colombo, Penang and Singapore. P. & O. ships were manned partly by lascar seamen with stewards from the Portuguese Goa. There was a splendid array of cuisine with China, Indian and Ceylon teas. The Indian curry cook could serve a different curry for every lunch of the 31-day voyage.\n\nSome Britons preferred to travel on foreign ships which were not", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216478, "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": 237, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "187\n\nShip \"Reigate\"\n\nat Sea\n\nSunday May 8th (1881)\n\nMy Dear Mother\n\nI am glad to tell you we have a fair wind at last and I now begin to write my voyage letter to you. It is a beautiful day so I have turned my bed out for an airing. We live very comfortable in our berth and get on very well together in the dog watches. We take it in turns to play. Wilson plays his fiddle and I my whistle so we pass the time away very pleasantly. Mr Ritchie [First Mate] has kindly been teaching me a good many things in the seamanship way and on Monday I am to go to him in my watch below in the afternoon and spend an hour at arithmetic. I have been wearing those old trousers and dungarees on weekdays and blue cloth suit on Sunday\n\nSunday 15th. Dear Mother, we have had a fine fair wind all this week and are on warmer weather. Now I am glad to tell you we are all quite well. I have been getting on very well at sea. Mr Ritchie has us in the cabin every other afternoon teaching us arithmetic. Yesterday night I stowed the mizzen royal for the first time on the voyage. This week we have been making boat covers and Father has been teaching us the way to sew. Father is very kind to me and Wilson and I get on very well together. We have finished nearly all our little store up. I have only one onion left. The steward has just brought us in a piece of plum pudding left from the cabin. We have not taken long to eat it. I am keeping a little log in the pocketbook Ada bought me.\n\nSunday 29th. Dear Mother, this week we have had doldrums and head winds yesterday night I went up to stow the mizzen Royal and in getting along the yard my belt unhooked and went flying overboard. It has been a great loss. This week I have washed all my dirty clothes. It is very hot now so I am wearing my duck trousers and a flannel shirt. We caught some bonitos yesterday and all had a good feed of fish\n\nSunday June 5th. Dear Mother, the weather has been very squally this week Last night it blowed hard and we reefed top sails for the first time. I got wet through three times during the night. It makes six times I have been wet through this week. I wished I was at home in bed last night.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]