[
    {
        "id": 205330,
        "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": 92,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "The China Coasters\n\n85\n\nwere very small, but had very powerful engines and steering gears. Only the high passenger and freight charges enabled them to run at a profit. One of the most important cargoes from the Upper Yangtse was tung oil, which was latterly carried in bulk. This oil was used in the manufacture of high quality paints and lacquers, and was so valuable that the privilege of cleaning out the cargo pumps after discharge was one of the most highly prized perquisites of the engine room staff. The Upper Yangtse was too dangerous for night navigation, so that the Gorge boats anchored each night at dusk, and set off again at dawn. Officers on these ships were paid a special bonus after a season on the Upper River, and also given local leave.\n\nBecause they operated in inland waters, the Yangtse riverboats were exempt from certain of the manning regulations which applied to deep sea British ships. Certificated masters and chief mates were always carried, but sometimes the second mates had no British qualifications, and were either White Russians or Chinese. During the inter-war years these White Russians were often former officers of the Imperial Russian Navy, and without exception were very capable and efficient. On the engine room side the chief and second engineers had British qualifications, but sometimes Chinese third engineers were employed,\n\nThe opium clipper tradition inherited by the 'China coasters' resulted in smart and well run ships, a credit to the owners and crews concerned. The pre-war 'China coasters' were probably the smartest ships in Britain's Merchant Navy, and their bright paintwork, gleaming brass work, and smart red-sashed quartermasters would have gladdened the heart of old Admiral Benbow. Their closest rivals under the Red Ensign were the coasters of the Straits Steamship Company which were based on Singapore, and which traded round Malaya and the East Indies. 'China coasters', apart from officers, had all Chinese crews, while the Straits coasters and their Dutch K.L.M. rivals had Malays on deck and Chinese down below, a good combination in pre-Sukarno days. Sailors and firemen sometimes spent a lifetime on one ship, and often the bosun and Number One Fireman would have started their careers on the same ship twenty-five years earlier. The Arab and Indian practice of the bosun and Number One being responsible for their department was followed on the China coast, and each department was very much a family and clan affair.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214331,
        "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": 189,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "153\n\nsation to the Released British Prisoners and to the Families of those who were Murdered.\"36\n\nThe 16 February issue had a full page illustration, \"Curiosity-Street, Pekin.\"37 The brief accompanying narrative explains that \"Curiosity Street\" was where \"the British officers got rid of much of their superfluous cash in the purchase of doubtful antiquities and modern enamels. ... The street is densely crowded. Carts, horses, ponies, and wheelbarrows obstruct one's movements at every step, and the confusion is increased by the number of British officers, most of them in Chinese fur coats. Boys, sharp as those of London or Paris, are always at hand ready to carry any possible amount of one's purchases to any distance.\"38\n\nGenre subjects such as this also appeared in following issues. \"Sketches of a Peking Cab,”39 “Amusements on the Ice,\"40 “Teahouse in Peking\"41 and an illustration of \"what I had to sketch throught\"42 (\"A Group of Chinese\" who crowded round the artist, impeding his work).43\n\n41\n\nMore formal general subjects also continued to appear: \"The Russian Mission Church in Pekin,”44 “the Chinese General Prince San-Ko-Lin-Sin,\"45 \"a Portion of the Emperor of China's Summer Palace Near Pekin,\"46 “Part of the Imperial Palace, Pekin,”47 and “View of the Gardens and the Buddhist Temple in the Imperial City, Pekin”.48\n\n49\n\nEven the potentially hostile subject of \"Chinese guns\" is presented in a way that includes a complimentary bow to the Chinese, demonstrating that they had mastered a particular technology earlier than European ordnance-makers. The Illustrated London News published a letter from a Royal Navy surgeon, who wrote, “There has been a great noise made of late years through what has been looked upon by scientific men as a new and grand discovery in the manufacture of iron ordnance... Judge, then, my astonishment when, as I was walking through the Taku Forts, at the entrance to the Peiho, I came upon a lot of cast-off Chinese guns evidently very old, but made almost upon these principles and rejected about the end of the seventeenth century, when the famous Ferdinand Verbrist [sic for Verbiest] taught them to manufacture cast guns of brass and iron.50\n\n** 50",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214333,
        "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": 191,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "155\n\nity of the released allied prisoners themselves in a note which states that \"those who were restored to liberty gave their share of the indemnity money to the families of the murdered captives.” 58.\n\nIn the later issues of The Illustrated London News during this period, there is also a continuing attempt to add to the readers' knowledge of China, as for instance, the brief explanation given on 4 May 1861: \"The capital of the Chinese empire contains a great number of palaces and temples decorated with numerous works in marble; but a considerable portion of the area of the city is occupied by squares, gardens, ponds, and even fields. Pekin consists... of two cities, one named the Tartar, and the other the Chinese, besides twelve populous suburbs. The Tartar or Northern City is divided into three distinct parts - a central block called the prohibited city, containing the Imperial palace and the grounds belonging to it; the Imperial city, surrounding it; and the General city. In this last division are situated the university buildings and those of the Russian mission.\" 59\n\nThe cover story of The Illustrated London News on 13 April 1861 carried in response to the return of Lord Elgin from China (his wife had travelled to Marseilles to meet him) is interesting for three things: its recapitulation of the causes of the recent hostilities; its discussion of the considerations that the writer represented as having been weighed during the recent hostilities; and its tribute to Lord Elgin's moral qualities: \"No disaster of modern times ever excited a more stinging feeling of chagrin in this country than that which occurred at the mouth of the Peiho to the allied squadron intended to give both dignity and protection to the British and French Embassies to Pekin. [The reference is to Elgin's earlier attempt to make his way up to Peking, in June 1859, and the defeat of the British navy at the Takoo Forts, referred to above.] It took the public wholly by surprise. It appeared to destroy at a blow all the fruits which we were preparing to gather from the Tien-tsin Treaty. It inflicted a lamentable loss of life. It seriously damaged the prestige of our arms throughout the East. It threw us once more into the midst of the difficulties and uncertainties necessarily attendant upon a war carried on at a distance of 15,000 miles, with an immensely populous, although an essentially unwarlike, empire. It conjured up before us a vague prospect, equally perplexing and inglorious - perplexing, for who could tell by what means and at what risk the Imperial Court could best be reached and reduced to reason? – inglorious,",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    }
]