[
    {
        "id": 209778,
        "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": 37,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "shopkeeper, land speculator, auctioneer and entrepreneur; William Tarrant, Land Office clerk and later editor and proprietor of the newspaper Friend of China, Charles Markwick, auctioneer for the Government; Hugh Mackay, shopkeeper his lot No. 4 was resumed in 1859 for nonpayment of Crown Rent; and Wong Ah Hoy, one of the original So Kon Po cultivators.\n\nWong sold his lot in 1852 to Chang On Kee, a merchant trading at Hong Kong, who in turn sold it to George Duddell in 1857. Duddell had already bought in 1851 the lots of Markwick and Tarrant. Thus all the arable land of the valley was in his possession, except the lot of Mackay which reverted to the Government shortly after. Duddell added to his holdings by purchase from the Government in 1853 of Farm Lot 13. This was between his valley lots and So Kon Po village.\n\nIt was probably in the 1850's that Duddell experimented with growing coffee plants in the valley. Evidence of the project was still to be seen in 1878. The Hong Kong Daily Press in that year published a series of articles on places of interest around Hong Kong. The issue of 17 December 1878 gave directions for a walk to the \"Coffee Plantation\". The hiker was directed to proceed to the Race Course, passing the Obelisk and keeping straight on over a bridge to the gardener's cottage. There he was to turn to the right for one hundred yards, with the race course on his right and a densely wooded hill on the left, and follow the footpath up the hill through the trees. On descending the hill on the other side, he would find himself near some huts occupied by Chinese quarry-men or stone-masons and on the path leading to the coffee plantation. The writer noted, however, that \"the coffee shrubs are now neglected\".\n\nGeorge Duddell, having retired from Hong Kong some years previously, sold his So Kon Po land to William Keswick, of Jardines, in 1884. The lots, whose twenty-one lease had been extended to seventy-five years, were regranted to Keswick as Inland Lots 955, 1018, 1019, 1020 and 1021. Keswick transferred the present site of St. Paul's Convent and Hospital to a Jardine enterprise, the Hong Kong Cotton Spinning, Weaving and Dyeing Company. This was in 1898. The property was bounded to the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
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    {
        "id": 212584,
        "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": 138,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "118\n\nThis obelisk, now in the Government Cemetery, stood then at the junction of Queen's Road East and Leighton Road. It commemorates officers and men of HMS Vestal who, in 1847, were killed, drowned or died in Hong Kong.\n\nCremation\n\nIn this study cremation took place two days after the funeral service because the previous day was inauspicious. Only close family members sat in the hearse accompanying the body to Cape Collinson Crematorium. The ceremony was simple. All relations made three bows, each of the three sisters poured one cup of rice wine which was placed together with food on the altar. The dead person's 'spirit shrine', made of rattan and paper, was burned. The family then crossed back over the Harbour to the Buddhist Hall to pay respects. There a group of lay nuns, who addressed one another as 'brother' (兄弟), chanted mantras.\n\nAlthough until AD 1370 bodies of Buddhist laity were frequently cremated3, the Han Chinese have a long tradition of burial with human remains returning to nature and affecting feng shui. The body should remain in contact with earth, it is traditionally believed. The final resting place should have good soil, luxuriant trees and grass. This belief is still strong in some quarters. To beat an April 1st, 1993, deadline, after which all corpses in Jiangsu Province have been cremated, 40 old people committed mass suicide in March so that they could receive a traditional burial.\n\nBurial has been considered more desirable by Han Chinese than the custom of many Muslim Chinese minority groups with bodies being eaten by vultures.32 The Book of Changes (I Ching) records that in primitive society Han Chinese left their dead in the wilderness, covered with leaves. Later, when they came to believe souls went on to another world, they began to protect bodies by placing them in graves.\n\n34\n\n33\n\nHong Kong, like China, has for several years campaigned in favour of cremation. Feudal superstitions have had to be overcome. In 1958/59, only 1.65 per cent of corpses were cremated. In 1989/90, the figure stood at 70 per cent. Because of chronic land shortage there are few cemeteries in Hong Kong where the body can rest in perpetuity. When buried they are usually exhumed after six years (times have varied from five to 10 years). The bones (designated yang, but flesh is yin)",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214513,
        "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": 371,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "340\n\ncommander's residence. Indeed, its present use is a naval canteen. The sleepy staff were somewhat surprised to see an invasion by foreign tourists, but they allowed us to wander all over the house as if it were our own. Later research pinned this house down as being the governor's residence, as opposed to \"Government House\".\n\nFrom this vantage point it is possible to look into the naval base. There is not much of interest, except for one smart but small building towards the northern end of the base that looks as though it could have been the former customs house. It has a four-storey tower with a very tall flagpole and a large verandah overlooking the sea. My previous visit in 1996 afforded me a closer look at this well-preserved building, but only by gaining unauthorised entry to the naval base. The front gates were, naturally, guarded - but a door into one of the external walls had a sign that a canteen was doing business up the stairs. Up I went - and then down I went on the other side, but only very briefly. Much as I liked what I saw, I did not fancy spending a few years there.\n\nBack at the governor's residence, comparing notes and old photographs with a naval officer who had just strolled up the hill for lunch, we established that the actual Government House still exists, but that it is firmly inside a military compound. Nothing daunted, we found the place - inland and a mile or so to the west of where we were. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, no amount of pleading with the guards at the gate could get even a foot inside. But we could get a glimpse of the roof of the building in question - just through the gate and to the right - about 100 yards away, partially hidden by trees. The details that we could see confirmed it as being the former British governor's residence.\n\nDuring lunch, Jessie and a few others wandered off in search of the King's Hotel, the Hongkong Bank building and a few other places from her past. Unfortunately they did not find any.\n\nThe only other point of interest that we saw was an obelisk, in the middle of a traffic island near the seafront, commemorating \"the taking back of Wei Hai from the British after years of pain.\" Lucky, I suppose, that Wei Hai was not subjected to as much pain as Hong Kong.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214520,
        "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": 378,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "347\n\nAs can be imagined, this news was met with somewhat derisory comments. To give due credit to the long-suffering guides, permission was eventually obtained (thanks to a half-hour conversation on a mobile phone) for our bus to travel through the town and past the railway station, but we could not take any photographs. I somewhat facetiously asked if the four of us who looked the part could take pictures, and the answer was that they could! Well, this was China, after all!\n\nThe first attractions of the day, however, were a couple of hill-top forts. Not only were these open to all and sundry, but they were also very well maintained and signposted. It seems that every hilltop around Port Arthur had a fort or gun emplacement on its summit. The first we visited was the North Fort on East Cockscomb Hill, to the north-east of the town. This features a very extensive fort (dilapidated rather than ruined, but very clean and well looked after) and a small Museum of the Japanese-Russian War. A good view could be had from here over the bay in which Captain Arthur moored and of the rest of the town of Lushun. Most of the hills around have some sort of monument or obelisk on the top, and this one is no exception. Strangely, however, the obelisk here was erected by the Japanese and has a long Japanese inscription, all of which is intact. No surprise, therefore, that there were coachloads of Japanese tourists (from the Imperial Asiatic Society, no doubt).\n\nThe second hill was the famous 203 Hill, so named because it is 203 metres high. This hill is a bit nearer to the town, and so a clearer view could be had of the forbidden territory. Atop this one was a 20-foot high metal obelisk resembling a rifle bullet. The inscriptions here were Chinese, but there was a fair amount of graffiti including some in Russian. Also on view was an anti-aircraft gun (our so-called experts had not even heard of the Russian air attacks in 1894!) and well-preserved assault trenches.\n\nNext came the hard-earned whizz through the town, with the four of the party designated as photographers for the rest of us. The sole object of this foray was the railway station, the actual end of the line that linked this extreme end of the Russian empire to Moscow. More symbolic than beautiful, the station was well worth the trouble it took just to see it. Very small and twee, it is only about the length of two modern-day railway carriages, but the small hall is topped by an onion",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214540,
        "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": 398,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "Obelisk atop Hill 203, Port Arthur\n\n367",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214915,
        "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-2000",
        "page_number": 11,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT ............................................................ XIV\n\nFRIENDS OF THE HKBRAS (UK) REPORT .......................... xxvii\n\nHON. AUDITOR'S REPORT ....................................................... xxx\n\nHON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT ................................................... xlii\n\nARTICLES\n\nSolomon Bard - Tea and Opium ............................................... 1\n\nTeresa Kowalska - Tea, Ivory and Ebony: Tracing Colonial Threads in the Inseparable Life and Literature of Han Suyin ........ 21\n\nBrian C. Fawcett - The Chinese Labour Corps in France, 1917-1921 ............................................................... 33\n\nKeith Stevens and Jennifer Welch - The Celestial Ministry of Time ............................................................... 113\n\nKeith Stevens - Images on Popular Religion Altars of the Heroes Involved in the Suppression of the An Lushan Rebellion (AD 755-763) ........................................................ 155\n\nDan Waters - The Two Obelisks at Tai Tam ....................... 185\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nKeith Stevens - Patron Deity of Prostitutes: Zhu Bajie ........ 195\n\nBarbara Park - A Walk along Harlech and Lugard Roads ...... 197\n\nDan Waters - Designatory Letters after an RAS Member's Name ............................................................... 205\n\nDan Waters - Photographs from the HKBRAS Photographic Exhibition held in January 2001 at the City University ........ 207",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215132,
        "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-2000",
        "page_number": 228,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "185\n\nTHE TWO OBELISKS AT TAI TAM\n\nDAN WATERS\n\nOn being driven around Hong Kong Island for the first time, in January 1955, the two large Obelisks on the southeastern side, one north and one south of Tai Tam Harbour, attracted my attention. Although I asked people about them at the time, as well as in succeeding years, I was able to glean little useful information.\n\nDr Solomon Bard, an historian who lived in Hong Kong for over half a century, wrote that the two Obelisks are each nearly ten metres high and that they may be mistakenly taken for commemorating an historical event (Bard, 1988:69). He continues that the Royal Navy erected them at the turn of the century (around 1900) as navigational aids. They are in line. That is they are on the same longitude, running north-south, and they are exactly one nautical mile apart.\n\nSomewhat contradictory to Bard a Hong Kong Government Marine Department manual quotes that the two Obelisks are nine metres high and three-quarters of a mile (presumably sea miles) apart, in line, bearing 358 degrees, and that they lead into the Bay. When one is standing overlooking the Harbour and gauging the distance across the water with one's eyes, Bard's figure of one nautical mile appears more accurate. In fact, if one scales the distance from a chart in my possession it does turn out to be one nautical mile, from obelisk to obelisk (Tai Tam Bay, Chart; 1894). Such obelisks are often called beacons in nautical language.\n\nThe squat, northern Obelisk stands high up on what is sometimes known as 'Obelisk Hill.' See Plate One (Mok, 1995:16). Its counterpart, the southern Obelisk, at the foot of so-called 'Red Hill,' is lower down with its seaward side painted white so it is more conspicuous. Like a sentinel it stands on the rocks with its base about 40 feet above the sea, depending on the tide, to the westward side of the entrance to Tai Tam Harbour. Made of concrete, both Obelisks are of similar size, appearance, and construction as one can see from Plates One and Two. Up until World War Two there was little scrub on the hillsides and the upper Obelisk could be seen more clearly (see Plate One). They both have bases about seven feet square, and the upper parts are each divided into",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215133,
        "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-2000",
        "page_number": 229,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "186\n\nfive sections. When I visited the higher of the two Obelisks, in 1994, it had what appeared to be a plastic anchor, about seven inches long, wired to the eastern side, about half way up the Obelisk. It seemed to have been added as an afterthought. On my visit in May 2000 the anchor was no longer there. There are no permanent inscriptions or markings on either of the beacons and they are not lighted.\n\nI understand however, from long-time RAS member Arthur Hacker, that at one stage some wag had painted on the upper Obelisk the words.\n\nTO MY\n\nBELOVED DOG\n\nFIDO\n\nRIP\n\nWhen Hacker saw the words, around 1980, they were faint, flaking and hardly legible. The lettering was, however, professionally done (Hacker, 2000).\n\nHistory tells us that, before the British took possession of Hong Kong Island in 1841, passing ships replenished their water supplies not only at Waterfall Bay, near what is now Wah Fu Estate at the western end of Hong Kong Island, but also at Tai Tam (Empson, 1992:19). There must have been a pretty sizeable waterfall fed from the Tai Tam Valley, from which relatively pure water was obtained before the Tai Tam Reservoirs as we know them now were constructed. A tunnel was constructed first, from 1883 to 1888, to bring water into the City of Victoria. From then on, off and on over the years, various reservoirs were constructed. They included the Bye-wash, the Intermediate and the Tai Tam Tuk Reservoirs. The commemorative stone to denote the completion of this complex water supply scheme was laid, adjacent to the main road, by the then Governor Sir Henry May, on 2 February 1918. When considerable amounts of building materials were being shipped through Tai Tam Bay, and then on into Tai Tam Harbour for the construction of these reservoirs, the two Obelisks would no doubt have been useful as markers. The construction of these reservoirs",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215134,
        "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-2000",
        "page_number": 230,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "187\n\nvirtually cut off the supply to the waterfall other than when they are overflowing, for instance after a heavy storm.\n\nApart from pleasure boats and other small craft, Tai Tam Harbour was used more in the 19th century than it is today. During the period 1806 to 1819, long before Hong Kong was taken over by Britain, James Horsburgh, a hydrographer with the East India Company, surveyed the waters around the Island. He wrote that Tai Tam afforded shelter from almost all winds (Liu Shuyong, 1997:24). It is not of course a harbour as we sometimes know it with wharves and godowns. It is an inlet, which provides a place for ships to shelter. To illustrate again the Harbour's use as a place for protection from the elements mention is made of ‘tactical manoeuvring and target practice,' in February 1878, by the Royal Navy (White Ensign-Red Dragon, 1997; 39). It continues, 'The 20th February being very misty the fleet remained at Tytam Bay.'\n\nPeople naturally ask when exactly were the two Obelisks first erected; who erected them; and what purpose did (or do) they serve? As a start, with the aims of answering such questions, two Chief Inspectors, H J W Chetwynd-Chatwin and Keith Francis, both then serving in the Royal Hong Kong Police Force, arranged an informal meeting, in 1994. The meeting took place in a bar at a police officers' mess in Wan Chai. It was followed by a curry lunch. About a dozen people were invited who, it was felt, could contribute. They included the Government Director of Marine and RASHKB member R S Hownam-Meek who spent his career in shipping with Jardine. A couple of weeks or so after the meeting the topic of the Obelisks was raised by Radio Television Hong Kong. Little of real substance emerged from the meeting or the ‘phone-in radio programme. The late Arthur May, then a retired civil servant, did however ‘phone in to say that, as a youth, he went to live at Tai Tam in 1919. He also recalled that when he sailed around the Harbour in the 1920s the two Obelisks were definitely already there.\n\nThe Hydrographic Data Centre, at Taunton in England, maintains that information was received from the Commander-in-Chief, China, that two beacons, each 30 feet high, had been erected. These were first inserted on Admiralty charts by 'Notice to Mariners 755' of 1900 (Atherton, 1996:94). I have a chart showing Tai Tam Harbour, dated 1894, which shows the Obelisks, but Atherton informs me that this is a",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215135,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 231,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "188\n\ncopy which was corrected in 1900. Earlier versions do not, apparently, show the two Obelisks. It seems then that the two Obelisks were erected in their present forms at the end of the 19th century. I was, however, told by a Chinese Chief Inspector of the Royal Hong Kong Police, at the informal meeting organised by Chatwin, that at one stage in his career the Chief Inspector had served in the Tai Tam district. There he had met an elderly, retired police officer who informed him that, before the two concrete Obelisks were constructed, two timber obelisks stood in about the same places. This is purely oral history and, although it may well be true, I have not been able to trace anything more about them. Joseph Aspdin did not invent artificial Portland cement until 1824, in Britain. It would take time for its use to spread around the world. This meant that if obelisks were erected in the middle of the 19th century, in Hong Kong, they would likely have been made of some material other than cement concrete.\n\nThe two beacons were probably used by shipping, then, as navigational aids when entering the Bay, and sailing on into the Harbour, to avoid hazards or for use in times of bad visibility. In a Government Antiquities and Monuments Office paper a master mariner, Mr A Davidson, is quoted as saying that following the courses of the two Obelisks, 'in line,' results in a course which clears a patch of rocks lying across the entrance to Tai Tam Bay. These rocks, he states, are now lighted (Antiquities and Monuments Office, 1980).\n\nBearing in mind that just about all useful records from the Government Harbour Master's Office and the Public Works Department were lost during the Japanese occupation (1941 to 1945), it has not been possible to trace who erected the two Obelisks although attempts have been made to do so (Lack, 1994). It could have been the Public Works Department. It could have been the Royal Navy itself through its Royal Naval Dockyard. Until the late 1950s this was situated where Admiralty is today, in Central District. If it was the Royal Navy one would have thought there would have been some marking on the Obelisks, such as the Admiralty fouled anchor. One would also perhaps have expected the concrete finish of the Obelisks to have been better although they have stood the test of time.\n\nCould the Obelisks have been used for other purposes? Sometimes two sets, each comprising two beacons, are erected to clock ships in a",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215136,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 232,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "189\n\nspeed test over a set distance. This is done, for example, for ships built on the Firth of Clyde, in Scotland (Sinclair, 2000). The late James A W Deacon, Superintendent of Lights in the Hong Kong Government Marine Department, told me they tried unsuccessfully to find a place for timing ships over a measured sea mile on the south side of Hong Kong Island. Eventually such a \"course\" was, it is understood, set up at Tseung Kwan O (Junk Bay), in the eastern New Territories. It seems unlikely that the two Obelisks at Tai Tam were ever used for timing ships because of their rather 'tucked away' positions. There is also no evidence of there ever having been a second pair of beacons in the vicinity.\n\nAre there other possible uses for the two Tai Tam Obelisks? I was informed firstly in the late 1970s by a master mariner and senior civil servant in the Government Marine Department, that a Royal Navy Officer, who had served in Hong Kong before World War Two, had told him that the two Obelisks had been used when submarines submerged during tests. This practice came into being (so it was said) because of the loss of HM Submarine Thetis, on 1 June 1939, on its maiden dive with the loss of 99 sailors and civilians. A diver who went down to try to effect a rescue was also lost. Only four occupants managed to escape from the submarine using the Davis Escape Apparatus. The Royal Navy Officer told the senior Marine Department Officer that submarines were sent to Tai Tam Bay, after repairs or refits in the old Royal Naval Dockyard. At Tai Tam they could dive to periscope depth, in line between the two Obelisks. Then, if anything were to go wrong, the submarine could be traced and the crew rescued hopefully relatively quickly. The now retired Marine Department member of staff acknowledges that he never had material in writing to support this statement but he believes the information was given to him in good faith.\n\nWhen this information was put to Guy Clarabutt, who served in Royal Navy submarines in Hong Kong before World War Two, he said he had never heard of such a practice (Sinclair, 2000). Neither could he remember the two Obelisks at Tai Tam (Waters, 2000). I spoke to a young British naval officer stationed at HMS Tamar, on Hong Kong Island, in 1995. He felt that such a practice was highly unlikely. In 1997, however, I raised the same question with Commodore PJ Melson CBE, Chief of Staff and Deputy to Commander British Forces. He, as",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215137,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 233,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "190\n\na very seasoned sailor, felt that it could well have happened. It is not of course suggested that the two Obelisks were erected specifically for the use of submarines. As the public relations officer from the Clyde Submarine Base points out, the fact that they were erected about 1900 makes this 'very doubtful' (Trayhurn, 1995).\n\nConclusions\n\nIt appears then that the two Obelisks were set up in their present form around 1900. The general consensus is that ships took sightings, using the two Obelisks as 'head marks', and then followed 'sight lines' and sailed through Tai Tam Bay into Tai Tam Harbour, which provides a sheltered anchorage. There is no written evidence that the beacons were ever used for the timed 'measured mile' or for markers for submerged submarines although the latter cannot be ruled out.\n\nIt must be stressed that this paper is by no means definitive and it is hoped that other researchers may be able to add to what has been written above.\n\nAcknowledgements\n\nAcknowledgements must be given to H J W Chetwynd-Chatwin and Keith Francis, for initial efforts, which largely got this project started in the first place. A considerable number of persons have, in fact, been involved to some degree. My sincere thanks go to everyone named in the text or in the bibliography. A special thank you must go to Alan Lack, past Deputy Director of Marine and to Ken Atherton of the Hydrographic Office at Taunton, England, and to Remy K M Woo and David M Hodson in Hong Kong.\n\nBibliography\n\nAntiquities and Monuments Office (1980, March), typed notes about, 2 Obelisks (at Tytam Reservoir Area).\n\nAtherton (1995), 'Obelisks in Hong Kong', The Mariner's Mirror, The Journal of the Society for Nautical Research, England, vol. 82, no. 1, February 1996.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
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    {
        "id": 215139,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 235,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "The 30-foot high Obelisk, which stands not far from Shek O Road high up on Obelisk Hill. Until the Second World War there was little scrub. In this picture it obscures half the Obelisk.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215140,
        "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-2000",
        "page_number": 236,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "Car\n\nلا\n\nпроду\n\nThe second, identical, Obelisk stands on the rocks close to the sea,\n\nat the foot of Red Hill The Author stands alongside (Photograph courtesy David M Hodson)\n\n20\n\n193",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215236,
        "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": 13,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "Elizabeth Teather - Deathspace in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Seoul: A Review of Recent Research, 1995-2001 .... \n\nChiu Hang Shi - Unicon Dancing in Pat Heung \n\n329 \n\n341 \n\nKeith Stevens - A Contentious Christian Missionary in Central China, 1887 \n\n353 \n\nKirsty Norman - Friends of the HKBRAS Trip to Cornwall....... 357 \n\nDavid Akers-Jones - Tea and Opium: Some Further Notes on Macartney's Role \n\n367 \n\nJennifer Welch - Coincidence? \n\n... 373 \n\nDan Waters - Another Donation to the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society \n\n375 \n\nRichard Garrett - Taipa Fort and a Nineteenth Century Cannon 379 \n\nPeter Halliday - More Thoughts on Han Suyin's A Many Splendoured Thing: A Tribute to Ian Morrison...... \n\n391 \n\nRosemary Lee and A.C. Bromfield - The Life and Times of Captain Samuel Cornel Plant \n\n407 \n\nAnon. - More on the Two Obelisks at Tai Tam \n\n417 \n\nBOOK REVIEWS \n\nDan Waters - Long Night's Journey into Day: Prisoners of War in Hong Kong and Japan, 1941-1945 \n\n419 \n\nJames Hayes - Heaven is High, the Emperor Far Away:Merchants and Mandarins in Old Canton \n\n423 \n\nPatrick Hase - Hong Kong Metamorphosis \n\n427 \n\nPeter Halliday - Searching for Frederick and Adventures Along the \n\nWay. \n\n430 \n\nX",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215425,
        "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": 202,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "151\n\nthey stand free of the wall in a way that is not usual in the more orthodox building practices of architects, but which had many precedents in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Iberian altarpieces. They appear in the four storeys of the front as if they were delineating the nine vertical bays of a large post-Tridentine altarpiece (Fig. 17).\n\nAlthough both Hugo-Brunt, of the Department of Architecture of the University of Hong Kong, and Professor J. B. Bury have already noted that they are freestanding, their arguments for the façade follow a different line. As an architect, Hugo-Brunt was sensitive to the fact that much of the architectural elements of the façade were used in a highly unorthodox decorative way.23 But neither Hugo-Brunt nor J.B. Bury connect this feature to either retables or retable-façades.\n\nHowever, Professor George Kubler, of Harvard University, has noted that the theme of the projecting column with entablature, in which a continuum is formed in order to lead the eye upwards, is one that would later become a characteristic feature of Latin American retable-façades.14\n\nLikewise in the façade of St. Paul's each column supports the column directly above it in order to create a vertical ascent that leads the eye upwards.\n\nThe columns' bases, shafts and capitals were laboriously carved from three separate granite blocks, with practically all the shafts carved out of one piece. They could almost be the highly decorative wooden supports of an altarpiece, with no genuine functional purpose. Although the unorthodox employment of classical columns and other architectural features is characteristic of Italian Mannerism, this kind of decorative, juggling use of supports and pinnacles is much more typical of the artistic idiom of Mannerist altarpieces in Spain and Portugal.\n\nContemporary accounts are obviously right in praising the classical erudition shown by the designer of the façade. However, closer inspection reveals that not all details conform to orthodox classical canons. Some of the subsidiary sculptures adorning the façade are of Chinese or Japanese origin. At the extreme sides of the two upper attics, right next to obelisks, there are four Chinese lions emerging in front of squat corner obelisks or ornamental balls on pedestals (Fig 18). Another",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215456,
        "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": 233,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "182\n\nFig.18 Detail of corner Chinese lion and decorative obelisk, third storey.",
        "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",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215688,
        "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": 465,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "MORE ON THE TWO OBELISKS AT TAI TAM1\n\nA LONG STANDING RESIDENT OF HONG KONG2\n\n417\n\nThe author advises that, when he was a child in the 1930s, in Hong Kong, he was told that the two obelisks had been erected by workers from the Tai Tam Dam project. In the early stages of construction, many workers had been afflicted by malaria. The construction company, however, obtained supplies of quinine, which was administered to the work force, and which effectively quelled the outbreak.\n\n'Original Note in Vol. 40 - Ed.\n\n* The author prefers anonymity - Ed.\n\nPage 465\n\nPage 466",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
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]