[
    {
        "id": 210790,
        "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": 141,
        "title": "RAS-1986",
        "content_text": "124\n\nD.L. MICHALK\n\ntheir work, but owing to intense persecution they either left peacefully or gave their lives in martyrdom (Dehergne, 1940). Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Chinese priests were sent by the Bishop of Macao to rekindle the Catholic influence and in 1849 these priests were replaced by French missionaries (Swinhoe, 1872a). The reception of the foreigners was not friendly, the first who arrived was so badly beaten by the people that he died of his wounds (Henry, 1886). The mission never regained its former size, and in 1919, consisted of little more than an orphanage near Haikou run by several nuns and a few priests scattered throughout the island (Moninger, 1919).\n\nIn spite of their long association with Hainan, Catholic priests proved to be a poor source of intelligence concerning the island and its inhabitants, and it was not until Hainan was opened to foreign trade that thorough exploration was undertaken by Europeans. Although James Purefoy (1825), a British sea-captain, described parts of the east and north coasts through which he passed when shipwrecked in 1804, it was the British Consuls, Robert Swinhoe and Frederick Mayers, who unmasked much of the mystery of Hainan by their authoritative writings on its zoology, geography, history and ethnology based on their extensive excursions through the island in 1871 and 72.\n\nThese pioneering observations paved the way for more extensive reconnaissance of the unknown interior of Hainan by the Protestant missionaries, B.C. Henry and Carl Jeremiassen in 1883 (Henry, 1886), which in turn, led to the birth of the American Presbyterian Mission on the island in 1885 (LaTourette, 1929). Like their Catholic contemporaries, however, the Protestant missionaries were viewed with suspicion by the local inhabitants who frustrated all attempts by the Americans to purchase land or secure suitable lodgings.\n\nIt was the medical work of the mission which provided the catalyst for acceptance, and by 1919 there were 32 American missionaries on Hainan, including five qualified doctors. In that year, membership in the 29 churches exceeded 5,000, while 1,500 pupils attended mission schools and 3,000 patients sought treatment at the Presbyterian Hospitals in Haikou and Nada (Moninger, 1919).",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215320,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 97,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "45\n\nChina, Hainan would appear to have been neglected. Before 1949 Hainan was an area which few foreigners appear to have visited, though for much of the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th foreign consuls, customs officers and traders endured their existence, particularly in the northern port of Haikou (Hoihow), the American Presbyterian Mission, the first body of missionaries, only began its work 'saving' Hainan in 1881. Despite the latter, there would seem to be no missionary writings describing the temples and \"idols\" as did Father Doré in Zhejiang and Jiangsu, Shryock in Anqing and others across northern and central China. The old church in Qingzhou Fu, some three miles inland and to the west of Haikou, by 1890 had been converted into a Temple of Longevity, and another church elsewhere in Hainan, had also become a Chinese temple known as the Temple of the Cross.\n\nIn 1882 Mr Jeremiasen, an independent Danish missionary, made an unmolested circuit of Hainan on foot 'proving the friendliness of the people.' He then crossed the island north to south and east to west. Westerners who travel through \"darkest\" China today and write or talk about being the first foreigners within some remote spot, forget or overlook such Christian missionaries who roamed across all areas of China more than a century and a half ago. Even today there are foreign tourists who regard themselves as among the first to set foot in the more remote areas of Hainan. However, what Jeremiasen and others have overlooked are the individual Portuguese and German missionaries whose graves, dated in the 1680s, have been identified on Hainan. Most foreign visitors today also forget or, more likely, have probably never even heard of the eminent Chinese banished to the island during the early days of the periods of forced settlement of the 13th and 14th centuries.\n\nAn aspect of journeys to Hainan a century or so ago, now also long forgotten, was the basic problem of getting ashore from the steamer from Hong Kong. This was often the worst part of the journey. The steamer from Hong Kong touched bottom some three miles or so out to sea leaving the trip ashore to the main port of Haikou by shallow draft sampan across mud flats under less than a foot of water. This required bargaining with the laoda [captain] of one of the many sampans which offered their services to tranship passengers ashore. The native boatmen in a very round-about trip through the intricate channels, sliding over",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]