[
    {
        "id": 215473,
        "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": 250,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "199\n\nsnoozed for a lot of the way.\n\nHappily, I was awake when we arrived at the Riverview Hotel because there was a large banner on the front of the building, welcoming us to Bhutan and to the hotel. Mobile 'phones have not yet arrived in Bhutan, and not everywhere has an international dialling service. Thimpu, however, being the country's capital, offers this service at its major hotels. So I made a quick two-minute call to Hong Kong to report in. Two minutes after that there was a knock on my door. A member of the hotel staff was asking if I would like to pay for my phone call now - US$51! A big chunk of my spending money went, just like that - but what a worthy cause!\n\nDinner that night was rather special, preceded by a cocktail reception hosted by our local tour company, Etho Metho. There was Bhutanese music, singing and dancing. Like many similar experiences, appreciation of Bhutanese music is an acquired art. It really did seem to me that the musicians misinterpreted our applause, for each time we clapped they appeared to play the same piece again. But I guess that is just my ignorance showing through. I had a long and interesting conversation with Aum Dago Beda, a most impressive lady and the company's urbane managing director. After dinner there was a thorough and rather complex (for my IQ) briefing from Brian who promised us 'a full day' for the morrow. He was not wrong.\n\nA peer through the gate\n\nDay 3, the eve of Losar (the Bhutanese New Year) started with a fairly leisurely 7:00 a.m. breakfast and 8:00 a.m. departure for the Queen Mother's formal residence. This is set in a very secluded spot up the valley from the capital city. Her estate has a lot of trees in the grounds and a very impressive entrance gate - and that is all we were allowed to see. Usually, tourists were not even able to get as far as the gate, so I suppose we were privileged.\n\nPerhaps one of the most photographed buildings in Bhutan is the Tashichho Dzong, our next destination. This is the seat of government and houses the offices of the majority of government departments. As the King is the head of the government, a role he plays similar to that of the chief executive of a large corporation, a great deal of respect has",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215682,
        "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": 459,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "411\n\nThe British Consulate in Chunking collected subscriptions from amongst the expatriates and other interested people to raise a memorial to Plant. This took the form of a 30 foot high obelisk constructed of dressed blocks of pink granite on a brown sandstone base. It was erected at Xintang Village where the Dragon Horse Stream flows into the Yangtze. The inscription, which was in both English and Chinese, was eradicated by the Red Guards in 1968 after they had, unsuccessfully, tried to blow it up.\n\nUnless it is moved, the monument will be inundated by the raising waters when the dam across the Three Gorges is completed.1 Plant's beloved rapids will become small eddies on the surface of a huge man-made lake. Hundreds of tracker villages will have been moved to other locations, some far from the river. A tradition of 5,000 years endurance will be gone forever.\n\nThe above is an account of Captain Plant's professional life in China. However, gaps occur in both his early professional life and in his private life.\n\nAs you have read, Archibald Little met Samuel Plant at the Oriental Club in 1900. Prior to this time Plant had commanded steamers on the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates but we have been unable to find information on his Mesopotamian career.\n\nWe know Samuel Cornell Plant was born on 8th August, 1866 in Framlingham, Suffolk. His wife, Sophie Alice Peters was born on 29th November, 1870 in Hoddesdon in the County of Hertford to an illiterate shoemaker and his wife. Samuel Cornell and Alice Sophie, as she appears on the Entry of Marriage, were married in the Consulate General in the District of Bushire in the Province of Fars, Persia on 16th April, 1894. His profession is listed as a master mariner, nothing is given for Alice Sophie.\n\nWhat was a young woman of 24 years doing in Bushire and how did she meet Captain Plant?\n\nIn 1921, en route to Hong Kong and home leave, Samuel Plant died on board the \"Teiresias\" on 26th February. His death certificate gives as the cause of death ‘right lobar pneumonia and heart failure.'",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]