[ { "id": 204806, "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": 109, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "97\n\nHONG KONG BUTTERFLIES\n\nV. R. BURKHARDT\n\nRichard South, the author of the most popular handbook of British butterflies, prefaces his work by saying, \"Almost everyone admires the wild flowers that Nature produces so lavishly, and in such charming variety of form and colour; but, in addition to their own proper florescence, the plants of woodland, meadow, moor, and down have other blossoms that arise from them, although they are not of them. These are the beautiful winged creatures called butterflies, which, as crawling caterpillars, obtain their nourishment from plant leafage, and in the perfect state help the bees to rifle the flowers of their sweets, and at the same time assist in the work of fertilisation.\n\nEnglish butterflies rarely obtrude themselves on the stroller's gaze apart from the whites which devastate his cabbages, and the apparently aimless flight of the Meadow Brown, when crossing a hayfield. The real country lover passing through the leafless copse on a sunny windless day in February, may be heartened by the sight of the sulphur yellow of the male Brimstone which, as the \"butter-coloured fly\", gives its English name to the whole race. In Hong Kong, the most unobservant cannot fail to notice the brilliant \"aerial flowers\" referred to by the British naturalist, as the purple shot Euploeas, or the yellow Euremas pass him in the very centre of the city.\n\nThough the Colony lies just within the tropic of Cancer, at least seventy per cent of its butterflies are Palaearctic, that is to say, to be found normally in a zone running from Africa north of the Sahara across Europe and Asia to Japan and Formosa. The geology and climate of the Colony both militate against the luxurious vegetation associated with a tropical country. Though much has been done by the Government in the way of afforestation, there has not been time since the British occupation to produce the leaf mould and rich subsoil found in primitive jungle and forest, and the flora on which the larvae of butterflies feed is much more restricted than in countries like Malaya and Indonesia.\n\nEarly collectors identified about 140 different species of butterflies in the Colony, and J. C. Kershaw in his \"Butterflies of Hong", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206395, "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-1971", "page_number": 212, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "186\n\nREV. JAMES LEGGE\n\nOn the 2nd July of that year, I was walking out on Caine's Road in the afternoon with a friend, when we saw a steamer coming through Sulphur Channel. At first we thought it must be the mail, but it proved to be the Shannon, with Lord Elgin on board. As she steamed into the harbour, and she and the Admiral saluted each other, and the thunder of their guns reverberated along the sides of the mountain, which were then all fringed with mist, I said to my companion, \"There is the knell of the past of China. It can do nothing against these leviathans.\" And so it was. I need not try to tell you how Lord Elgin's measures were delayed in a manner that contributed much, through his prompt and magnanimous decision, to the preservation of our Indian empire. All this and his subsequent proceedings in China may be seen in brief in the memoir of his Life published during the present year. It is only when he is gone that the public at large have the means of knowing what a good and great man Lord Elgin was,—bold, prudent, far-seeing, conscientious. I hope all my hearers, if they have not already read, will soon take the opportunity to read, that memoir, and especially the chapters relating to his two missions to China.\n\nThe Government at home was equal to the exigencies of the occasion as well as Lord Elgin. Fresh troops were sent out. He went to Calcutta, but was back from it in September. The war at Canton was brought to an end by the capture of the city on the 29th of that month, and Yeh was taken prisoner a few days after. The surprise and disgust of the Chinese in general were great, because he did not seal his loyalty to the dragon throne by at once committing suicide.\n\nIn January, 1858, I made a visit to Canton, and had the satisfaction of walking all over it, and on a Sunday opened the first house, that was set apart in it to that purpose, for the preaching of the gospel. My sermon was followed by one from a relative of the T'ae-ping king, who came subsequently to be well known himself at Nanking as the Shield King. Poor man! He had been connected with the London Mission here for several years, and was the most genial and versatile Chinese I have ever known, and of whom I can never think but with esteem and regret. Had he taken my advice, he would have remained quietly in Hongkong as a preacher, and might have been living with his head on him to the present day.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206655, "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": 203, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n197\n\nand his three small survey ships have given their names respectively to Sulphur Channel, Starling Inlet and Plover Cove.\n\nJ. R. JONES.\n\nCHINA'S EARLIEST PRINTING A NOTE\n\nLLL\n\nIn Volume 7 (1967) of this Journal I published a brief note entitled \"Printing, a new discovery.\" This told of a find in a stone stupa, standing in the courtyard of a temple called Pulguk-sa, in Korea, erected in 751, of a printed Buddhist sutra. The find was hailed by the Korean archaeologists as perhaps the oldest example of printing known, although the exact date of the printing still remains a mystery.\n\nRecently I have learned that the Chinese discovered another piece of printing as far back as 1944. (Somehow, perhaps because of the war, news of this had escaped my attention.) Known in Chinese as T'o-lo-ni ching chou (dharani sutra charm), it was unearthed in a T'ang dynasty grave site in Chengtu, Szechwan, inside the silver bracelet of a young woman. As Professor Max Loehr has written, it \"is a charm printed on a single sheet showing a six-armed Bodhisattva figure in the center of concentrically laid out Sanscrit words written in Lantsa letters.\" This is surprising, but not unreasonable. In the last half of the Tang, Chengtu happens to have developed into perhaps the chief center of printing, and, as everyone knows, by the middle of the eighth century Chinese civilization had reached one of its heights. It was the age of Li Po and Tu Fu, Wu Tao-hsüan and Wang Wei, and Buddhism was at the summit of its influence. With the demand for reduplication in every circle - Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist - and with all the tools and techniques at hand, the printing of a highly popular charm seems natural. So it came about that there have come to light charms, printed within a few years of each other, in Korea (751?), China (757), and Japan (764-770).\n\nBibliography:\n\nChung-kuo pan-k'o lü-lu, compiled by the Peking Library (Peking 1961), pl. 1, text Vol. I, p. 7;", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207146, "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": 217, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n211\n\nNote the offices of the Nam-pak Hong Association on the left-hand side of Bonham Strand; the divided shops of the Chun Lung Sang porcelain business (1878) and the bamboo and rattan ware dealers further along, also the frontage of the Ping Heung Tea-house next to Ching Wah Kok.\n\nDuring this visit Members are advised to look around them, up as well as down, because there are all sorts of interesting little vistas to have had, often revealed by the removal of a house for redevelopment.\n\nFootnote:\n\n1) We will not be going to the Shun Tak District Commercial Association at 67, Queen's Road, West, as hoped, because a terrible blow; the furniture and fittings have already been cleared out prior to demolition of the building.\n\n2) The Tung Kwun District Commercial Association was founded as the Tung Yee Hop Tong in 1893 for charitable, including educational, work among persons of that district resident in Hong Kong. The present premises were purchased about 40 years ago. There is an interesting commemorative board above the window in the main hall presented by four shops in Liu Po New Market, Tung Kwun in 1912 in appreciation of flood relief work and settlement of disputes and of a defamation case by the Hong Kong Chamber. This shows that its influence extended beyond Hong Kong.\n\n3) The Nam-pak Hong Association in Bonham Strand, though in new premises that are of no appeal, is of great interest. This powerful commercial association was established in 1868 by merchants from different parts of China together with Chinese merchants from South-east Asia. This explains the name of the association which, in Chinese, means South-North Firms' Public Office.\n\nAdditional Notes for the Visit to Old Western District Carl T. Smith\n\n(a) The Development of West Point\n\nThe area we are visiting today was formerly dominated by two points of land. After the British occupation of Hong Kong they became known as Possession Point and West Point. Between the two was a steep hillside with a bay at its foot. The present Ko Shing Street approximates the original beach.\n\nDr. Eitel in his history of Hong Kong, Europe in China, pp. 123-124, gives an account of the event which gave Possession Point its name:\n\nOn January 24, 1841, Commodore Bremer, having arrived at Lantao, directed Captain Belcher, in command of H.M.S. Sulphur, to proceed forthwith to Hongkong and commence its occupation.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208938, "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-1980", "page_number": 100, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "68\n\nJOHN VILLIERS\n\nfined to the limited, though evidently still profitable, carrying trade between China and Japan.3\n\nConditions in Japan were no more conducive to an organised system of state trade than they were in China. The period from 1467 to 1568 was the age of the warring states, in which both the Emperor and his shoguns were powerless against the might of the regional war lords, the daimyō. Even amid the anarchy to which this state of affairs gave rise, merchant communities nevertheless flourished and cities such as Hakata, Hirado and Sakai prospered. Japanese exports to China included copper, sulphur and weapons, and their imports from China were chiefly raw silk and porcelain, both of which they considered superior to their own products, cash, drugs and books. Again, from the Chinese point of view this trade was technically tribute and the ships were officially dispatched by the Emperor, the Shogun, by great daimyō or monasteries, while the fitting out of the ships and the business arrangements were in the hands of the merchants of Sakai and Hakata, and chiefly to their profit.\n\nAs both Chinese policy became more restrictive and isolationist and the power of the shoguns grew weaker, so this Sino-Japanese trade collapsed and by the 1540s had been replaced by extensive piracy and smuggling. Pirates ranged up and down the coasts of China and the many offshore islands more or less unchecked. In Japan the daimyō and in China the mandarins connived at this illegal activity because it brought them considerable profits.4\n\nThus, when the Portuguese first arrived on the scene, they found great opportunities for acting as trading agents in goods which for various reasons could no longer be traded directly between the countries that produced them. They soon found that \"there is as great a profit in taking spices to China as in taking them to Portugal\". But they had to fit into existing trade patterns both in the inter-island trade of the Indonesian archipelago centred on Malacca and in the trade of the China Seas. Even in theory they were never able to attain a complete monopoly but had to trade in competition—and often in conflict—with the Asian traders already active in those waters. Within a few years of their conquest of Malacca the Portuguese had opened up direct trade relations with the spice islands and sent expeditions to the Lesser Sunda Islands in search of sandalwood. They also endeavoured to open relations with China. Their first attempt was a disaster and led to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209775, "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": 34, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "REVD. CARL T. SMITH'S NOTES ON THE SO KON PO VALLEY AND VILLAGE\n\nSo Kon Po can be translated as \"the straw broom plain\", or possibly, \"the straw broom landing place\". The valley is a pocket with hills closing in at its seaward end. The hill to the north is the site of Tai Hang Village and Tiger Balm Garden. To the south-west is Jardine's Lookout, and to the south-east is Caroline Hill. There are two principal roads, both circular, the Eastern Hospital Road and the Caroline Hill Road. The original So Kon Po district extended to the north-west of the valley itself, that is, to the north-east side of the old East Point Hill, now the area of Hysan Avenue and Lee Gardens. In the present area of Jardine's Bazaar, Irving Street and Keswick Street there was probably a Chinese settlement at the time the British occupied Hong Kong. In 1842 the population of this village of So Kon Po was given as eighty. The valley drained into the sea near the present junctions of Yee Woh Street, Causeway Road and Tung Lo Wan Road. Tung Lo Wan was the name of the bay at the seaward end of the valley; the bay has now been reclaimed to form the Patterson Street and Victoria Park area.\n\nThe original cultivators of the valley seem to have been the Wong (#) family. A few people in the village were engaged in ship-building and fishing.\n\nCapt. Belcher, commander of H.M. survey ship \"Sulphur\", landed on Hong Kong island in January 1841. As the most suitable site for a settlement, he suggested a spot \"at nearly the east end of Hong Kong bay, in two small indents; one opening into the valley of Wongneichong and another to the north-east [the So Kon Po valley]. A small promontory [East Point] of about 220 yards in length and 120 in breadth, with a frontage on both sides, has a landing place for boats at the point at all times of the tide. Both of these small bays are dry at low water spring tides, and would be easily gained from the sea\". (Canton Register, 7 Dec. 1841)\n\nCaptain Belcher's suggestion was not followed, but Jardine, Matheson and Company considered the East Point promontory,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210725, "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": 76, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "59\n\nStreet on the Natural History of Hongkong contained numerous references to the flora of the region and these notices would undoubtedly have had the effect of keeping the idea of a Botanical Garden in the minds of the relevant authorities, both in Hongkong and in London. For example, in Despatch no. 130 of 1860 it is stated that:\n\n\"Botanical notices have appeared in Hooker's Journal of Botany 1842. Collections made by Mr. R.B. Hinds, Surgeon, H.M. Ship “Sulphur”. Also in Journal of Horticultural Society 1844 and subsequent numbers by Lindley, of plants collected by Mr. Fortune on his first visit to China.\n\nIn Walpers Annales, descriptions by Dr. Hance of Hong Kong Plants. Some plants were described by the Botanist Mr. Wright attached to the American exploring expedition published by that government.\n\nA review of the Flora of the Colony, derived chiefly from the collections of the late Major Champion, 95th Regiment, was undertaken by Mr. Bentham, V.P.L.S. in Sir W. Hooker's \"Journal of Botany”, 1851 and succeeding years. This version was entitled 'Florula Hongkongensis'. The concluding section of the Botany of the voyage of H.M. Ship “Herald\" (London 1852-7, -4 to 100 plates) edited by Dr. Seemann, under the authority of the Lords Commissions of the Admiralty, is entirely devoted to Hong Kong, and includes, (in addition to the materials at the disposal of Mr. Bentham), the collections of Dr. Seemann himself, (not extensive, however). Since the date of these publications however, the knowledge of the vegetation of the island has been much extended and many novelties added by the constant explorations of the late Dr. Harland, Mr. Wilford (a collector sent out from Kew) and Dr. Hance now Vice Consul in Whampoa.\n\nA flora of Hong Kong to comprise all the plants hitherto discovered is now in preparation by Mr. Bentham", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211134, "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-1987", "page_number": 195, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "170\n\nRobertson readily admitted that there had been cases of hardship, but in view of the large number of junks which entered and left Hongkong, he believed they were few and far between.\n\nIn his view, one of the main difficulties China faced in collecting its duties were the violations by junks which sailed from certain ports along the west coast of China which did not have customs stations.\n\nThe Chinese regulations required such vessels to proceed to the nearest Customs House that they might there pay the proper duties and get a receipt with a “Grand Chop.”\n\nInstead of complying with the regulations, many junks proceeded directly to Hongkong. Here their cargoes, for which they had paid no export or transit duties, could be sold or transhipped.\n\nThe perennial problem of smuggling demanded attention. In commenting on the Commission's contention that the junk trade of Hongkong had been injured by the blockade, Robertson remarked that, “unquestionably the contraband portion of it is likely to be so, but I am not aware that that affords a matter for regret; on the contrary if the Colony consulted their own interests instead of those of a number of Chinese who make the Colony the base for their operations and take no manner of interest in its prosperity except as far as affects themselves, they would see that the less smuggling there was the better and sounder would be the trade and the more respectable the class of Chinese traders who would resort to it.”\n\nIt was not only opium that was being smuggled into China. Hongkong also served as a base for illegal trade in salt, arms and ammunition, along with sulphur and saltpetre used as ingredients of explosives.\n\nThe foreign importation of arms had been prohibited as a measure to keep them out of the hands of bandits and pirates. It was hoped that a ban of traffic in arms would assist the Kwangtung authorities in controlling clan feuds and the ever present danger of open conflict between Punti and Hakka.\n\nPage 195\n\nPage 196", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211457, "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-1988", "page_number": 173, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "149\n\nUpon receiving word of the unexpected death of Second Paternal Aunt, Father decided to take a trip to China to see his remaining brothers and sisters. Passage by boat after the First World War was difficult to secure, but reluctant to change his schedule and to inconvenience the bank, he accepted steerage accommodation and left in April 1919 on the Shinyo Maru. Before the ship arrived in Japan some ten days later, he had seen 19 passengers die from influenza and he had himself fallen ill. He debarked in Japan to seek medical care, but as he had difficulty communicating with the Japanese doctor, he proceeded to Shanghai so that Second Paternal Uncle could take care of him. The weather in Shanghai proved to be too cold, so he decided to go to Hong Kong to stay with First Paternal Uncle. There a doctor Koch diagnosed Father as suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis. When his fingers began to swell, relatives believed the sulphur content of the water in Hong Kong was not beneficial and arranged to move him to my maternal grandfather's home in Shekki, occupied then by his widow and son. It was then that Father sent for Mother. With the help of C. K. Ai, Mother was able to obtain passage, again steerage, on the S. S. Nanking for herself, Dora, and me. Ruth and Helen were left in the care of the Ais. It must have been difficult for them, especially for Helen, to be separated from Mother under such stressful circumstances.\n\nOn shipboard we were one of three families in a large cabin, sharing one bath. There was much noise and activity in and outside of this cabin, but we kept much to ourselves because Mother was very much worried about Father and left Dora, who cried a good deal, probably from seasickness, to my care. One day Mother suffered such severe gastric pain that she thought she would die and gave me instructions as to what to do. The ship's doctor was able to ease her pain. It was a frightening experience and the trip was a traumatic one for all three of us. Years later, Dr. Samuel Yee found that Mother had had a healed perforated gastric ulcer and I wondered if it had occurred then.\n\nSince we were total strangers in a different world, First Paternal Uncle thoughtfully accompanied us from Hong Kong to join Father in Shekki. We travelled over the ocean and up river to our destination on a crowded junk or \"doo\", to be greeted joyfully by Father. Chinese herbs and good food, however, had not been able to restore Father to good health. So my parents decided to return to Honolulu, hoping that a stay at the Leahi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211618, "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": 33, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "8\n\n00\n\n# HONG KONG, 26 JANUARY 1841: HOISTING THE FLAG REVISITED*\n\nK. J. P. Lowe\n\nThis article will attempt to investigate the circumstances surrounding the ceremony of the hoisting of the British flag on Hong Kong Island on 26 January 1841, following the cession of the island in the treaty of 20 January 1841. It will in the process shed light on some of the more immediate British reactions to the acquisition of the island. The first Opium War and the subsequent Chinese expedition of 1840-1 form the immediate background to this event, and these subjects are well covered in the contemporary China-coast English-language press, in quasi-governmental sources and in memoirs by those involved. Negotiations leading to the cession were carried out by Captain Charles Elliot1 for the British, and the Chinese commissioner Ch'i-shan. Yet the hoisting of the flag itself seems largely to have been ignored or played down at this stage, even though Hong Kong was taken by the British as a direct result of successful military action and the ceremony should have been an important gesture of victory. I wish to posit that although Elliot and J. Gordon Bremer, the naval commodore, were proud of the acquisition of Hong Kong (and steamed all round their island at the first opportunity2), most people were not, and considered it of little consequence. The downplaying of the formal possession ceremony in contemporary accounts reflects this, and it was only when the colony started to be a financial success and stable social entity in the 1870s that the ceremony of possession took on a new significance.3\n\n6\n\nReminiscences of the Chinese expedition by officers in the navy and the army are common. Good examples of this type of literature by naval officers are the books by Edward Belcher of HMS Sulphur,4 by John Elliot Bingham who had been first Lieutenant of HMS Modeste,5 and by William Bernard who had been on board the Nemesis. Of these three, unfortunately only Belcher was in Hong Kong on the requisite day to witness the ceremony because Elliot had commandeered the Nemesis to take him to the Second Bar for his meeting with Ch'i-shan (also on 26 January), and Elliot Bingham had fractured a leg during enemy action on 10 January and had been taken to Macao. Belcher\n\n* I should like to thank Jardine Matheson and Co. Ltd. for permission to use their archives, and Eugene McLaughlin for his help.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211619, "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": 34, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "recounts that the crew of the Sulphur landed on Hong Kong island on Monday 25 January” and as 'the bona fide first possessors' drank the health of Queen Victoria on Possession Mount. Then 'On the 26th the squadron arrived; the marines were landed, the union hoisted on our post, and formal possession taken of the island, by Commodore Sir J. G. Bremer, accompanied by the other officers of the squadron, under a feu-de-joie from the marines, and a royal salute from the ships of war'.\" Bremer himself was no more expansive. In his official despatch to R. More O'Ferrall M.P. at the Admiralty, written on 24 February but received only on 8 June 1841, Bremer reported that on 26 January he proceeded to Hong Kong ‘and took formal possession of the island, and hoisted the colours on it, with the usual salutes and ceremonies'.\n\n12\n\nNews of the acquisition of the island of Hong Kong became public knowledge in England on the morning of Friday 9 April 1841, but yet again there was no description of the ceremony of possession. On this day Elliot's circular of 20 January was printed in The Times, and it was discussed in an optimistic editorial: it was considered good news because Hong Kong was much more convenient for trade than Macao and a settlement there would be able to maintain itself independently of the Chinese.\" By the following day the tone of the editorial had changed. Its author wrote that 'the nominal cession of the island of Hong Kong to the British crown, though apparently promising considerable advantages to our mercantile interests, has been clogged with conditions which in practice may substantially defeat them', and then referred to the island as an 'insulated and unfrequented locality'. One factor which may have been decisive in settling on Hong Kong in the negotiations was, as the merchant James Matheson noted, the Chinese language, for such, he felt, is its ambiguity that it is difficult to fix in it a definite meaning.\" Matheson believed that, when Ch'i-shan remarked in one of his communications ‘as we have granted you territory you do not now require another port', Elliot in consequence gave up thoughts of British access to a port in northern China in the hope that he could hold Ch'i-shan to an interpretation of the Chinese characters which meant that the British had been granted the territory of Hong Kong rather than merely being given a trading factory there.'5\n\nTwo letters to The Times published in the same week expressed dissatisfaction with the new British acquisition. The first was dated Macao, 22 January and was presumably written by a merchant: 'Regarding the terms of Captain Elliot's treaty with the Chinese, I have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211625, "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": 40, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "15\n\nhas not materialized is a testimony to the fact that the present and the future in Hong Kong have always been more important than the past, with the result that the recovery of information on Hong Kong's history is now very difficult.\n\nCHRIST'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE\n\nNOTES\n\nSee C. Blake, Charles Elliot R. N., 1801-1875 (London, 1960).\n\n2. W. D. Bernard, Narrative of the Voyages and Services of the Nemesis from 1840 to 1843, I (London, 1844), p. 304.\n\n3. When the British flag was hoisted on Chusan on 5 July 1840, the name of the person responsible for hoisting the flag also went unrecorded as it was considered unimportant. See G. Graham, The China Station (Oxford, 1978), pp. 127-8. I am grateful to Alan Reid for this reference.\n\n4. Captain Sir Edward Belcher, RN, Narrative of a Voyage round the world performed in HM's Ship Sulphur, during the years 1836-1842 (London, 1843).\n\n6. J. Elliot Bingham, Narrative of the Expedition to China (London, 1842).\n\nBernard, Narrative, op. cit. Bernard wrote the book from the notes of W. H. Hall who had commanded the Nemesis, and included his own observations.\n\n7. Bernard, Narrative, op. cit. I, p. 291.\n\n8. Elliot Bingham, Narrative, op. cit. II, p. 120.\n\nIn the text 26 January is misprinted for 25 January.\n\n19. Belcher, Narrative, op. cit. p. 148. This account is the one usually quoted in an account of the cession of Hong Kong. See for example G. R. Sayer, Hong Kong: Birth, Adolescence and Coming of Age (London, 1937), p. 93 and J. R. Jones, “Who Hoisted the Union Jack?“, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 12 (1972), p. 196.\n\n|| Supplement to The Times of 12 June 1841. This expression appears to be formulaic as Bremer uses identical words in a letter to the Earl of Auckland who was Governor General of India of 10 March 1841. See Duncan McPherson, Two years in China (London, 1842), p. 274.\n\n12. The Times of 9 April 1841. The editorial went on to say: 'the recognition of a territorial right in the British crown, as well as the terror of the British name, will give our countrymen advantages which were never possessed by the Portuguese in China'.\n\n13. The Times of 10 April 1841.\n\nE. Jardine Matheson Archives, Cambridge University Library (hereinafter JMA), C5/6, James Matheson's private letter book, 54.\n\n15. Ibid., C5/6, 60, 22 January 1841.\n\nThe Times of 15 April 1841.\n\n17. JMA, C5/6, 69.\n\n18. The Times of 13 April 1841.\n\nMcPherson, Two Years in China, p. 76 and W. W. Mundy, Canton and the Bogue:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212388, "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": 330, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "307\n\nrecovering them and their stubborness in this belief undoubtedly saved the lives of 21 British seamen.\n\nH.J.W. CHETWYND-CHATWIN\n\nREPORT ON VISIT TO TAI HANG FIRE DRAGON DANCE, MID AUTUMN FESTIVAL 1992\n\nOn the 11th September, 1992, a party of Society members, family and children visited the Tai Hang Tsuen Fire Dragon Dance at the invitation of the Tai Hang Residents Welfare Association.*\n\nThe Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance started in 1880 when Tai Hang was a small Hakka village of farmers and fishermen on the waterfront of Causeway Bay.\n\nAccording to local legend, on a stormy night that year, just prior to the Mid-Autumn Festival, some villagers killed a serpent at a stone house in Sun Chun Street. They placed the body of the serpent in a bamboo cage, intending to hand it over to the local police station the next morning. However, by then the body had disappeared. A few days later a plague broke out in Tai Hang and over ten persons died.\n\nOne night a village elder in his sleep was told by Buddha (one version says that the message came through Kwun Yum, the Goddess of Mercy) to make a grass dragon and burn firecrackers and incense sticks during the Mid-Autumn Festival. This advice was followed and the sulphur in the firecrackers drove away the disease and the villagers were saved.\n\nIt then became customary to hold a fire dragon dance every year during the Mid-Autumn Festival in order to drive away infectious diseases and to bring good fortune. This custom has been followed every year since 1880, with the exception of the Japanese Occupation and during the 1967 disturbances. The arrangements are in the hands of the Tai Hang Residents Welfare Association, and the event is very much a community function which continues a long-standing village tradition in the heart of modern, urban Hong Kong.\n\n* See Plates 14-15.\n\nPage 330\n\nPage 331", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214047, "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-1997", "page_number": 115, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "82\n\ntwo long roughly-hewn granite slabs. Near villages adjacent to the sea stone jetties were built, the largest almost certainly being that at Kowloon City with its 21 spans, each with five longitudinal slabs supported on granite piers, which was completed in 1875 with a wooden extension added in 1892, and connected to the older Walled City by a wide road.\n\nReclamations were formed, for example, at Sha Tau Kok, Nam Chung and Luk Keng (near Starling Inlet), Shuen Wan and Yuen Long. These were sited on the tidal flats behind rock/mud/stick bunds located at low water level, and incorporated horizontal timber plank sluice gates. It took seven years for the salt to leach out of the sea bed with quarterly flushings before the land could be put to agricultural use.\n\nIrrigation schemes were constructed throughout the rural areas involving construction of temporary dams across streams, simple pedal-operated wooden paddle-belt machines for raising water (usually around a metre), small bunds, catchwater channels and even bamboo pipe-aqueducts to cross low-lying ground. To provide power for traditional village industries, wooden water-wheels were installed adjacent to streams.\n\nHarbour Works\n\nOn the signing of the Convention of Chuen-pi in 1841, Captain Belcher of HMS Sulphur undertook a hydrographic survey of Hong Kong Island and the surrounding waters with separate scales indicating sea miles and cables, statute miles and furlongs, and yards. The chart's emphasis was on water depths in fathoms, rocks and coastlines with the general shape of the hills and prominent landmarks shown only for navigational purposes.\n\nAs the years passed, the benefits of Hong Kong's natural deepwater harbour were exploited and, by the turn of the century, some 40% of China's foreign trade was passing through Hong Kong which had by this time become one of the world's principal ports with its fine dockyards and excellent workforce devoted to shipbuilding and repairing - indeed \"a sort of Far Eastern Marine Clapham Junction”.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214845, "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-1999", "page_number": 260, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "227\n\nChinese, except as regards the use of Opium, are exceedingly temperate in their habits and we cannot account for the immense distilleries which have been discovered here.\"\n\n19 Captain Sir Edward Belcher, Narrative of a Voyage Round the World, performed in Her Majesty's Ship Sulphur, During the Years 1836-1842. Including details of the Naval Operations in China, From Dec. 1840, to Nov. 1841 (London 1843, Dawsons of Pall Mall reprint, 1970, Vol.II, p.152.\n\nWyndham Baker, p.156. Commenting, he had added, \"The British common soldier in fact is a strange compound, for they are very kind to their prisoners when once the excitement ceases.\"\n\n21 Beeching, p.136.\n\n22\n\n24 Beeching, p.152. Another British placard recorded by Chu warned that there was to be no more commandeering of goods without payment: ibid. However, despite good intentions, according to another Chinese diary, this time from Shanghai in 1842, rape and looting did occur there, and impressment of civilians for forced labour for such heavy work as shifting gun emplacements and gunpowder [ibid., p.149]. Wyndham Baker, when landing his guns before Chin Kiang Foo, refers to \"about 100 helpless natives to assist in carrying the shot boxes.\" Baker, in Blackwood's 1964, pp.161-2.\n\nBeeching, p.139.\n\nThe British Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen, had agreed, minuting: “The worst proposal I have seen from Mr. Pottinger....It ought not to pass unnoticed\": Beeching, pp.139-140. But Pottinger deserves credit for preserving the famed Porcelain Pagoda at Nanking from British soldiers and sailors who, armed with chisels and hatchets, were intent on obtaining souvenirs by stripping tiles from the tower. \"Sir Henry Pottinger was very indignant at this gratuitous vandalism; a guard was stationed to keep off intruders, and no one was thenceforth allowed to visit the tower without a permit from the Admiral or Commander-in-Chief.\" Parkes wrote, \"Such an act as this is shameful and a disgrace to the British name.\" From Stanley Lane-Poole, Sir Harry Parkes in China (London, Methuen & Co., 1901), p.32. Alas, the Porcelain Pagoda was destroyed by the Taipings not long after, in 1856.\n\n25 Edgar Holt, The Opium Wars in China (London, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1964), p.139.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214850, "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-1999", "page_number": 265, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "232\n\nRoutledge, New Edition, 1859)\n\nGeorge Henry Mason, The Costume of the Chinese (London, William Miller, 1804)\n\nLieutenant John Ouchterlony, The Chinese War: An Account of All the Operations of the British Forces from the Commencement to the Treaty of Nanking (London, Saunders and Otley, 1844)\n\n\"An Artillery Officer in China, 1840-1842,\" Blackwood's, 1964.\n\nThe Cree Journals, The Voyages of Edward H. Cree, Surgeon R. N., as Related in his Private Journals, 1837-1856 Edited and with an Introduction by Michael Levien. (Exeter, Webb & Bower, 1981)\n\nJack Beeching, The Chinese Opium Wars (Hutchinson of London, 1975)\n\nCaptain Sir Edward Belcher, Narrative of a Voyage Round the World, performed in Her Majesty's Ship Sulphur, During the Years 1836-1842. Including details of the Naval Operations in China, From Dec. 1840, to Nov. 1841 (London 1843, Dawsons of Pall Mall reprint, 1970)\n\nStanley Lane-Poole, Sir Harry Parkes in China (London, Methuen & Co., 1901)\n\nEdgar Holt, The Opium Wars in China (London, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1964)\n\nSir Henry Keppel, A Sailor's Life under Four Sovereigns (London, 3 vols., 1899)\n\n1881)\n\nLaurence Shadwell, Life and Campaigns of Lord Clyde (London, 1881)\n\n\"Oh for the Joys of England! Lt Rolando Bridgman's Letters From China and Hong Kong, 1842-1843\", in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society Vol.14 (1974)\n\nSir John Francis Davis, Chinese Miscellanies: A Collection of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216154, "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": 453, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "387\n\nenvironment (mostly the burning of fossil fuels to produce oxides of nitrogen and sulphur) or from something in the museum, such as the wood or paint imperceptibly deteriorating and emitting gases.\n\nTo reduce the amount of pollution, conservators test materials, chemically, to see if they are emitting pollutants. There are measures to reduce the amount of pollution emitted such as painting or encasing the material with impermeable sheeting. To get around these problems the latest generation of display cases are made of metal and glass. At the time of writing these cases can be seen at the Museum of Art exhibiting gold and jade artefacts in the first floor exhibition gallery. The cases can only be opened with a special lock, the air within the case is cleaned and the humidity controlled to a set level, with machinery that is inside the case, below the artefacts.\n\nInsects are a source of constant needed vigilance for us; discretely placed around the museums are traps similar to those bought at supermarkets and they monitor fauna. An insect outbreak at a museum is a matter of serious concern because the food source is often likely to be an artefact. Also because insects inside museums are not subject to natural selection, i.e. survival of the fittest, having regard to the amount of food available, they are likely to thrive at the artefact's expense.\n\nConservators also have a key role in teaching curators the basics of conservation.\n\nActive conservation\n\nWe call controlling the above problems preventative conservation, but we also have to do active preservation work on particular artefacts. This is hard to describe succinctly as conservators get such a variety of artefacts to work upon, suffering from a wide range of problems and which can only be cured by applying one of many different methods. This is one reason that the author finds his profession so enjoyable.\n\nConservators have a very influential role in the history of an artefact being worked upon and the profession has developed a range of professional ethics. Some of these are:\n\n2 But the author has probably broken most of these rules though, at one time or another.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216157, "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": 456, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "390\n\nThis reacts with the chloride ions to stop them reacting further.\n\nVegetable tanned leathers are susceptible to sulphur pollution and form a fragmentary fibrous red material called red rot. The leather needs to be stabilised by applying chemicals. As an interesting aside, the scientist Michael Faraday, who did much of the pioneering work on electricity, also worked on this problem, so we like to claim him as one of us too.\n\nAnother 19th century conservation discovery is Bryne's disease. Bryne discovered that sea shells can react with the organic acids emitted from wood and turn chalky (Bryne, 1899).\n\nAnalyses of artefacts\n\nThe third aspect of the profession is that we can study the object scientifically to study how it was made or how it is degrading. The instruments of research our section have include ultraviolet and infrared lights to detect under-layers of paint. A photo-spectrometer measures colours and gives a colour three numbers. This is useful for studying decay and testing how close colour matched paint is to the original. A metallographic polisher can prepare cross sections through specimens of metals, ceramics, stones and wood to help in the identification of materials and to study the manufacturing technology. The section also has three X-ray machines. Incidentally, this is not extravagance by the government. Each performs a different rôle in terms of size and the voltage at which it operates.\n\nThe section recently took delivery of an infrared analyses machine. This helps identify organic materials. IR radiation is fired at a tiny organic sample of a glue, resin or wax-like substance that is under analysis. Each chemical substance absorbs a typical spectrum of radiation; so by comparing the radiation absorbed by the material with a library of results, an identity for the substance can be determined.\n\nConservators are very skilled individuals. Ideally, we should be scientific craftsmen with an interest in history/art. We can also, through conservation, invoke a wide variety of other disciplines such as anthropology, botany, ceramic science, dating techniques and electroplating, through to zoology", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]