[ { "id": 204384, "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-1962", "page_number": 16, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "11\n\nNESTORIAN CROSSES AND NESTORIAN CHRISTIANS IN CHINA UNDER THE MONGOLS\n\nA lecture delivered on December 11, 1961\n\nF. S. DRAKE, O.B.E., B.A., B.D.*\n\nI. THE NIXON COLLECTION\n\nThe purpose of this paper is to introduce, to those who may be unfamiliar with it, the F. A. Nixon Collection of Nestorian Bronze Crosses from the Sino-Mongolian Borderland recently presented by the Hon. R. C. Lee and Mr. J. S. Lee to the Museum of the University of Hong Kong, in relation to the great movement which the Crosses represent.\n\nSoon after the attention of scholars was called by the Rev. P. M. Scott1 to these small bronze objects, fourteen of which he had discovered in the shop of a Chinese curio dealer in Pao-t'ou2 near the great northern loop of the Yellow River, the former home of the Christian Ongut tribe, Mr. Nixon, then Postal Commissioner stationed at Peking, began to make his collection, which by the time he left China in 1949 had grown to nearly 1,000 pieces, the largest collection of its kind in the world, and as far as we know, the only one of the collections then made which has remained intact, and therefore is at the present time unique. The collection includes some crosses given by Fr. Mostaert which shepherds had picked up in the sand3. From the beginning opinion among scholars was divided as to the original purpose of these bronze pendants, of which the majority were shaped like Greek crosses; but Pelliot among others came out strongly in favour of their Christian origin,4 expressing a view which now predominates. Especially interesting was the opinion of Fr. A. Mostaert, a Belgium missionary and well-known authority on the Mongols, stationed at Borobalgasoun on the\n\n£\n\n* Professor Drake is Professor of Chinese in the University of Hong Kong and Editor of the Journal of Oriental Studies.\n\n1 Discovered August 1929. Described in The Mission Field, Feb. 1930, and in The Chinese Recorder, Feb. and Nov. 1930,\n\n2 See letters to Mr. Nixon, now in the University of Hong Kong Museum.\n\n3 Paris, Revue des Arts Asiatiques, 1. VII, 1931, P. Pelliot: 'Sceaux-Amulettes de Bronze avec Croix et Colombes'.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204653, "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-1963", "page_number": 134, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "120 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nShanghai, travelled by junk from Yochow to Pingsan on the Yunnan border, 1800 miles from the mouth of the river; but were then forced to turn back because of the unsettled state of the country.\n\nIn 1894, the Australian A. G. Morrison,15 successfully completed a somewhat similar journey. Travelling alone and by the customary methods, Morrison went up the Yangtse from Shanghai to Chungking, and then across Western China and the Shan States into Burma, a total distance of 3,000 miles. Morrison was unable to speak Chinese, but travelled in Chinese dress, and experienced nothing but kindness and hospitality all the way. He went from Shanghai to Hankow as a deck passenger on the Jardine steamer Taiwo, paying a dollar a day extra to the steward for foreign 'chow'. From Hankow to Ichang he again travelled as a deck passenger on the China Merchants steamer Kweili, then the only triple screw steamer on the river. At that time Ichang was the last open port on the river, and no foreign ships went past there. For the next stage to Chungking, therefore, Morrison hired a small sampan called a \"weipan\", with a captain and crew of four. This stage of nearly 400 miles through the Yangtse Gorges took 15 days, which was a record at the time, and cost him the equivalent of £2-16-0 in copper cash.\n\nIn his journey up the river Morrison noticed that many of the largest trading junks flew foreign flags, thus avoiding paying “likin” at the various provincial and regional boundaries. Under treaty regulations they only paid an ad valorem duty of 5% on their cargo, which was collected by the Chinese Maritime Customs at Ichang or Chungking. Morrison left the river soon after Chungking, and travelled overland for the remainder of his journey. He found food plentiful and cheap everywhere, and opium growing all along the Chinese section of his route. The total cost of his whole journey from Shanghai to Bhamo was under £20.\n\nSir Reginald Johnston, a British consular official, followed fairly closely in Morrison's footsteps in 1906. He started from Peking, going from there to Hankow by rail, and then up beyond Chungking by steamer and junk, finally going overland to Mandalay.\n\n15 Later to become famous as \"Chinese Morrison\" of the Times.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204657, "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-1963", "page_number": 138, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "124\n\nA. D. BLUB\n\nwith the Middle River steamers for the next stage of Ichang. At Ichang another change was made into the Upper River steamers for the journey through the Gorges to Chungking, where motor launches took over for the final stages to Sui Fu and Chengtu. In the high water season some of the Lower River steamers extended their run to Ichang, and some of the Upper River steamers extended their run to Sui Fu, but Chungking was usually regarded as the upper limit of navigation for all practical purposes.\n\nChungking became internationally famous when it became China's war time capital. Before that it was comparatively unknown to the outside world, although, under various names, a city has occupied the site for some 4,000 years. It is a unique site, a high, rocky bluff on the peninsula formed by the junction of the Yangtse and the Kialing Rivers, nearly 1,400 miles from the mouth of the Yangtse, and in the very heart of China. At this point the normal variation between high and low water seasons is 75 feet, and has been known to reach 100 feet. In the low water season the city is reached by innumerable broad flights of steps leading up from the river, most flights having 240 steps. The transport of goods from the river to the city provided work for an army of porters and ponies. Until 1934 all the water for the city was carried up those steps by coolies who earned the equivalent of a farthing for a load of two heavy wooden buckets.\n\nWhen A. G. Morrison passed through the city in 1894 he estimated the population to be about 200,000. He described the coolies as being hungry and wretched in the midst of plenty, and riddled with malaria and phthisis. Although he estimated that about 40% of the men and 5% of the women were opium smokers, he thought it a law-abiding city. Szechuen is one of the richest provinces in China, and Chungking's exports included silk, hides and skins, bristles, tung oil, musk, rhubarb, and wool, some of these things coming from Tibet.\n\nThe loss of the German steamer Suichsiang in 1900 and a narrow escape of H.M.S. Woodlark in the same year, coupled with the Boxer troubles, postponed the establishment of a regular steamer service between Ichang and Chungking for several years. When this was eventually established in 1908 the honour belonged to a Chinese company, the Szechuen Steam Navigation Company. The formation of this company was largely due to the inspiration", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204672, "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-1963", "page_number": 153, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n137\n\nIt is therefore a delight to read such a work as Mr. Cranmer-Byng's An Embassy to China. Produced by an historian, and one moreover who combines integrity with an uncommon knowledge of the East, this book is indispensable to an understanding today of the problems that East and West have inherited in their dealings with one another.\n\nThe main body of the book consists of the Journal kept by Lord Macartney on his embassy to the Emperor Ch'ien-lung in 1793. He describes his journey to Peking, beyond the Great Wall to Jehol, and back by the Grand Canal and by river to Canton. There follow a series of \"observations\", compiled by Macartney from his own shrewd judgment and from data supplied by members of his entourage, on subjects such as the Manners, Religion, Government, Population, Arts and Sciences, Language etc. of China under the Ch'ing Dynasty.\n\nThe first 58 pages of the book contain an Introduction by the editor, in which he comments on early Anglo-Chinese relations, paints a brief biographical picture of Lord Macartney, and discusses the embassy, the manner of its reception, and its results. The final pages of the Introduction lead up to the Journal itself, its style, content and the method used by the diarist in compiling such a detailed account of his mission - an account written by a professional diplomat, skilled at seeing behind the facade, patient in negotiation, lucid in recollection and description.\n\nLooking back today from our vantage point in time nearly two hundred years later, it is easy to see that Macartney was given an impossible task. Remote in her geographical isolation and sublimely ignorant of world affairs, China had sealed herself for centuries in a false cocoon of imagined cultural superiority. The eighteenth century was both too late and too early for any European power to overcome the supreme complacency of the Imperial Court and Government. From the mid-sixteen hundreds onwards, Western nations, notably the Dutch, the Russians and the Portuguese had sent embassies to China, but all had failed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204716, "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": 19, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "W. C. HUNTER \n\nengaged in the lucrative trade drew out of the country large amounts of silver. Lin Tse-hsu, Governor General of Hupeh and Hunan wholeheartedly threw his support to those who memorialized the throne requesting stringent measures to prevent the use of opium within the country, and to cure addicts. Moreover, Lin took direct action and seized caches of opium, 12,000 ounces and 5,000 pipes. As a result of his success in combating opium addiction and forceful condemnation of the sale of the drug he was called to Peking by Emperor Tao-kuang and appointed Imperial Commissioner to examine the opium traffic at Canton. He arrived at the provincial capital in early March, 1839. For several years prior to 1839 nearly 30,000 chests had been imported annually there.\n\nFateful events immediately took form. Lin warned the western merchants of dire results if the iniquitous trade did not cease. His threat was followed by the demand that within three days they offer a bond that no opium would be imported. A counter proposal was made to turn over to Commissioner Lin about 1000 chests of the drug which he summarily rejected. On March 22, he demanded that Lancelot Dent, one of the principal importers be given to Chinese officials as a hostage until all opium was given up. The western merchants insisted that Dent could be surrendered only on condition that his personal safety was guaranteed. The Chinese merchants doing business with foreigners were frightened by the action of their own government. Some of them were deprived of their buttons of rank and two appeared in public with chains around their necks. Under these circumstances the Hong (the association of Chinese merchants trading with the western merchants at Canton) pressed the foreign community to comply with the ultimatum of Lin and deliver up Dent.\n\nIn the midst of this seething situation, on March 24, Captain Charles Elliot, British naval officer and Chief Superintendent and Plenipotentiary of the China Commission arrived from Macao. He entered the foreign compound with great difficulty inasmuch as the river had been blockaded and the streets leading to the foreign section had been barricaded. The predicament of approximately 300 western people seemed most serious since food and water were in short supply and a large encampment of Chinese troops was close at hand. Canton was cut off from formal communications from Macao which was nearly sixty miles distant", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204932, "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-1965", "page_number": 40, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "The Population of China\n\n33\n\nTheir country without a fixed purpose to return to worship in the ancestral hall — to bring sacrifices to the tombs of their fathers; but it may be doubted if one in ten revisits his native land. The loss of life from disease — from bad arrangements — from shipwreck and other casualties, amounts to a frightful percentage on those who emigrate,\n\nThe multitudes of persons who live by the fisheries in China afford evidence not only that the land is cultivated to the greatest possible extent, but that it is insufficient to supply the necessities of the overflowing population; for agriculture is held in high honour in China, and the husbandman stands next in rank to the sage or literary man in the social hierarchy. It has been supposed that nearly a tenth of the population derive their means of support from fisheries. Hundreds and thousands of boats crowd the whole coast of China — sometimes acting in communities, sometimes independent and isolated. There is no species of craft by which a fish can be inveigled which is not practised with success in China — every variety of net, from vast seines embracing miles, to the smallest hand-net in the care of a child. Fishing by night and fishing by day, fishing in moon-light, by torch-light, and in utter darkness, fishing in boats of all sizes, fishing by those who are stationary on the rock by the sea-side, and by those who are absent for weeks on the wildest of seas, fishing by cormorants, fishing by divers, fishing with lines, with baskets by every imaginable decoy and device. There is no river which is not staked to assist the fisherman in his craft. There is no lake, no pond, which is not crowded with fish. A piece of water is nearly as valuable as a field of fertile land. At day-break every city is crowded with sellers of live fish, who carry their commodity in buckets of water, saving all they do not sell to be returned to the pond or kept for another day's service. And the lakes and ponds of China not only supply large provisions of fish — they produce considerable quantities of edible roots and seeds which are largely consumed by the people. Among these the esculent Arum, the Water Chestnut (Scirpus tuberosus) and the Lotus (Nelumbium) are the most remarkable.\n\nThe enormous river population of China, who live only in boats, who are born and educated, who marry, rear their families, and die — who, in a word, begin and end their existence", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204933, "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-1965", "page_number": 41, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "34\n\n―\n\nSIR JOHN BOWRING\n\non the water, and never have or dream of any shelter other than the roof, and who seldom tread except on the deck or boards of their sampans,\n\nshow to what an extent the land is crowded, and how inadequate it is to maintain the cumberers of the soil. In the city of Canton alone it is estimated that 300,000 persons dwell upon the surface of the river: the boats, sometimes twenty or thirty deep, cover some miles, and have their wants supplied by ambulatory salesmen, who wend their way through every accessible passage. Of this vast population some dwell in decorated river boats used for every purpose of license and festivity — for theatres, for concerts — for feasts, for gambling — for lust, for solitary and social recreations: some craft are employed in conveying goods and passengers, and are in a state of constant activity; others are moored, and their owners are engaged as servants or labourers on shore. Indeed their pursuits are probably nearly as various as those of the land population. The immense variety of boats which are found in Chinese waters has never been adequately described. Some are of enormous size, and are used as magazines for salt or rice; others have all domestic accommodations, and are employed for the transfer of whole families, with all their domestic attendants and accommodations, from one place to another; some, called centipedes, from their being supposed to have 100 rowers, convey with extraordinary rapidity the more valuable cargoes from the inner warehouses to the foreign shipping in the ports. All these, from the huge and cumbrous junks, which remind one of Noah's ark, and which represent the rude and coarse constructions of the remotest ages, to the fragile planks upon which a solitary leper hangs upon the outskirts of society — boats of every form and applied to every purpose, exhibit an incalculable amount of population, which may be called amphibious, if not aquatic.\n\n―T\n\nNot only are land and water crowded with Chinese, but many dwell on artificial islands which float upon the lakes, islands with gardens and houses raised upon the rafters which the occupiers have bound together, and on which they cultivate what is needful for the supply of life's daily wants. They have their poultry and their vegetables for use, their flowers and their scrolls for ornament — their household gods for protection and worship.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204943, "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-1965", "page_number": 51, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "44\n\nSIR JOHN BOWRING\n\n(No. 3.)\n\nCANTON, 29TH JUNE, 1855.\n\nDEAR SIR,\n\nIn respect to the question of the Population of China, I have nothing new of any general application to the subject. It would be a good service to the statistics of the race, for Hienfung to make out a general census, as his grandfather did, now forty-three years after the last.\n\nThe visits made to villages and towns in this prefecture since the breaking out of disturbances last June, have strengthened rather than diminished one's faith in the accuracy of the census. Large towns, like Shihlung, Kiúkiáng, Kinchuh, Fuhshán, Sintsiun, and others, have been found to contain even larger numbers than the representations of the Chinese had led one to believe. Fuhshán occupies even more ground than Canton, rather than less; and several observers agreed in estimating the portion which was burned last autumn as large as the entire western suburbs of Canton. Sintsiun is estimated at Half a Million, though data are wanted to confirm this figure. You will see a list of villages enumerated by Mr. Bonney in the Anglo-Chinese Calendars for 1852 and 1853, all of which were situated within a radius of two miles of Whampoa, or on Fa-té island, west of Macao passage. Few spots in the world maintain a denser population than the delta of Pearl River, nearly all of which is included in the prefecture of Kwangshan, which is about one-ninth of the whole province. Its density of population doubtless is greater than any other equal area in the whole province; for if the whole contained as many, the entire amount could hardly be less than thirty millions instead of nineteen millions as now reckoned.\n\nThe Registrar General must needs be content with an approximate estimate, from the nature of the case, our inability to make minute personal examination, and the lapse of time since the last general census. Hue, I see, estimates the combined population of Wúcháng, Hányáng, and Hánkau in Húpeh, at the high figure of Eight Millions, if I remember aright, for I have not the book to refer to; this is more than I have seen any one else reckon it. He", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205320, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "EXPANSION AND EXTENSION IN HAKKA SOCIETY\n\n75\n\nVaillant 1920, p. 85. Leaving this discussion open, there is still reason to assume that both the disturbances in Kwangtung and the Hakka expansion to the south were correlated with a search for new areas for resettlement.\n\n28 'A dreadful internecine strife, in which 150,000 at least, perished, took place between the Hakkas and Pún-téis in the south-western districts of the Canton province, from A.D. 1864 to 1866, and arms and even armed steamers, were procured from Hong Kong by both parties. Ball 1925, p. 282.\n\nA Hong Kong resident reports that the Peninsula of Kowloon presented for several days in August, 1862, the novel aspect of an animated battlefield, as the Punti inhabitants of the neighbouring villages were engaged in a bloody warfare with Hakka settlers at Tsimshatsui.\" Eitel 1895, p. 380. See also n. 27.\n\n29 \"Every year is marked unfortunately by an increasing influx of unattached and often undesirable characters from Chinese Territory, most Hakkas from the Wai Chau and Hing Ning District. It is impossible to keep track of the movements of these persons, and many of them are tempted by their opportunity of acquiring unlawful gains by means of robbery, kidnapping, 'White pigeon', and kindred offenses. It is hoped that these undesirable additions to the population will be considerably curtailed before long.\" New Territories Report 1917, p. J2.\n\n30 The quarry-men are nearly all Hakkas from Kweishin, who settle at the quarries until they have made some money and then return home.\" New Territories Report 1899-1912, p. 55.\n\n31 This type of extension might also have served as reconnaissance for a future settlement of a permanent kind. The following note from the New Territories could be interpreted in this direction:\n\nIn the 24th year of the reign of the Emperor Kwong Shu, which was 1897, there came to the Land of the Jumping Dragon a Hakka by the name of Kong Tai Kuen. Up to that time none but Tangs had lived there. Kong rented a house and became a tenant-farmer. He recommended two of his relations to come along also, but they stayed only three years and then returned to the Kong ancestral village at Li Long north of the Shum Chun river, while Kong Tai Kuen gave up farming in the Jumping Dragon Land and moved to Fan Ling, Ingrams 1952, p. 162.\n\n32 I use the word 'sojourner' in a freer sense than Paul Siu, to whom the term implies a stranger 'who spends many years of his lifetime in a foreign country without being assimilated by it;' Siu 1952, p. 34. My term signifies a person who temporarily lives geographically separated from the locality constituting his main focus of social interest.\n\n33 SCPH 1965; Hong Kong 1964, p. 30. Apart from going abroad, some young men from Plum Grove Village and Big Stream Village work as police constables in Sha Tin and Kowloon. One man from Grass Field Village works in a textile factory in Kwun Tong, New Kowloon,\n\n34 This is confirmed by other sources. For instance, the New Territories Report 1900 remarks upon the fact that 'Hakka women work as hard, if not harder, than their men,' (p. 269). An observant traveller noticed that in Mei Hsien in Kwangtung, the Hakka district where both people in Big Stream Village and Grass Field Village had their clan foci.\n\n'it seems to be mainly the women who do the hard work. They do not bind their feet. The women are strong and erect, though excessive toil begun too early in life may account in part for their tendency to be undersized... the women do all", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205871, "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-1969", "page_number": 177, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n171\n\ntung. On the military side these events included two assaults on Canton itself, nearly four years of military occupation of the city (5.1.1858 - 21.10.1861) and various punitive expeditions on the Canton river and inside the province. On the civil and diplomatic side were the sequence of events connected with the question of entry to Canton, which the British held to have been promised them under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. This culminated in the triumph of the Canton Viceroy in 1849 who was able to defer entry still further on the grounds of the rooted opposition of the gentry and people of the province to this step by their officials — though deferment was also due to Bonham's conviction that the real key to Canton lay not by warlike action there as in the North. These years also saw economic crises at Canton occasioned, among other factors, by the opening of four other treaty ports under the Nanking Treaty, and a wave of growing lawlessness across the province culminating in the great disorders of the 1850s in the wake of the Taiping rebellion.\n\nMr. Wakeman's theme is the re-emergence of local militia in the early 1840's to assist in repelling the British forces and their continuance through the later years of the entry question (1846-49); the part they played in local defence against the Red Turban and other rebels, pirates and banditti in the early 1850s; their efforts against the British attack in 1857-58 and, under secret orders from Peking, in the guerilla struggle against the British in Canton in the first period of the occupation, until diplomatic agreement in the North led to their being told to desist.\n\nHe traces the ebb and flow in official attitudes to the local militia from encouragement to discouragement, from enthusiasm to apprehension. He describes, too, the methods by which the militia were raised and financed and shows how they were a two-edged weapon to Government and people alike. Mr. Wakeman also traces the rise and wane of anti-foreign attitudes in Kwantung during this period and the paradoxical change from bitter enmity to a realisation, at least in Canton and its surrounds, that British troops were a guarantee against a multitude of threats from lawless elements. The treatment is masterly and authoritative, being based on a wide variety of sources in English and Chinese; the book is compelling and the narrative moves smoothly.\n\nIn this review I shall confine my remarks mainly to the militia. First of all I wish to comment briefly on the use of the English", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206016, "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-1970", "page_number": 96, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE\n\n91\n\ntrade for their own China Navigation Company. During most of the inter-war years a Norwegian company also operated a weekly service between Swatow and Bangkok in opposition to the China Navigation Company; but the latter's faster and more modern ships enjoyed the lion's share of this trade. The Singapore trade was an inheritance from the Blue Funnel Line, and came to the China Navigation through their close connection with the Holt family.\n\nFor several decades before the First World War much of the emigrant trade to Indonesia was in the hands of German companies, but when German overseas shipping was eliminated after the outbreak of war in 1914 this trade passed to Dutch companies, in particular the K.P.M. and the J.C.J.L. lines. Previous to 1890 a consortium of Dutch planters had employed coolie brokers in Singapore and Malaya for recruiting purposes, and Malaya was always something of a reservoir of Chinese labour for much of South-east Asia, especially for Indonesia and Siam. Entry into Malaya was easier than elsewhere, and there were more frequent and cheaper shipping services between south China and the Straits. It was always a comparatively simple matter for Chinese—authorised or unauthorised—to cross the short Malacca Straits into Indonesia or the ill-defined boundary between Malaya and Siam.\n\nThe Indo-China Steam Navigation Company was not nearly so deeply involved in the southern deck passenger trades as the China Navigation Company, but their Japan-Calcutta ships took part in the Straits trade on their way up and down the coast, and their Hong Kong-Sandakan ships had a near monopoly of the comparatively small trade to British North Borneo. Most coasters on the Hong Kong-Shanghai service called at Canton and carried deck passengers, but there was also a small fleet of specially designed river steamers employed between Hong Kong, Canton, and Macao, which provided daily and nightly services between the three ports, and thus an out and in connection for emigrants. The Canton river steamers were smaller editions of the Yangtse steamers, and their night departure from the Praya at Hong Kong, when they were a blaze of flamboyant and garish lights, was a spectacular sight before the Second World War. The six or seven hour passage between Hong Kong", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206244, "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": 61, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "LETTERS FROM CHINA 1835-36 \n\n55 \n\naverage of one in a fortnight! Moreover, I can't swim a stroke. Thus, the house-top is my esplanade and Champ-de-Mars every morning and evening; and seriously, the view from it is very interesting at least to an eye not palled by long repetition of it. All Canton, the City, and the Suburbs (far more extensive than it) stretches away below you on the north, with its strange curved roofs and gables, such as you always see painted in China tea-cups; and now and then the pinnacles of a joss-house, or temple, with tall flag-staffs; until the eye takes in a most beautiful hill some 2 to 3,000 feet high, and perhaps three miles away from you in a straight line. There stands an enormous Pagoda at the foot of this hill, towering prodigiously many stories above all the trees and houses around it, and with a tree (which looks a merest shrub) growing on its summit. That hill is the finest thing here; I wander over it—I mean in spirit—every morning that day breaks on it drawing out all the tints of the scene; there are half a dozen fissures in one part, which I look on as thunder-rifts; and a delicate whitish line creeps up one shoulder, which I take to be a path-way for those happy, happy, thrice-enviable and most-favored Chinamen who can walk thereon without being bamboo'd to death for the offence! The river opposite the Factories joins another great branch only a few yards higher up, and the remote shores of the united stream above, show yellow with harvest, and painfully rural to the poor bird in the cage. The country there stretches away into hills too, but perhaps 15 or 20 miles away, a long and very high range—several indeed—which break the horizon nearly half its circuit. Down the River, i.e., to the S.E., the stream curves like an S, and thereby, from your point of view, a forest of masts, of all heights and sizes ever used in boats, is visible in one coup-d'oeil, such as I never saw before. I should not say boats, though; for most of them are the masts (single sticks!) of junks from 2 to 600 Tons Burden. Their number is perfectly prodigious. You see the horizon beyond and near this, striped with one or two delicate lines of alternate land and water from the windings of the noble river, the last line of all being perhaps ten miles off. It is over there the sun rises to you, else you could not see that tiny thread of water inlaying the meadows. Not a single European ship is in sight here, and only a few sailing boats and wherries. All the European ships are down at Whampoa reach, some 12 or 13 miles away.\n\n—\n\n—\n\n—", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206768, "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-1973", "page_number": 45, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "YAUMATEI TYPHOON SHELTER, HONG KONG\n\n39\n\ncourse of that storm; but clearly the turning point in the typhoon refuge scheme had now been reached. On the 6th August, 1908 the Governor submitted for the acceptance of the Council the following resolution.\n\nBe it resolved that on and from 1st January, 1909 the owner, agent or master of every ship entering the waters of the Colony shall pay the following dues to such officer as the Governor may from time to time appoint. For all river steamers 5/6 ths of a cent per ton register. All other ships entering the waters of the Colony 2 cents per ton register.\n\nThe Yaumatei typhoon shelter was therefore to be financed by an impost placed on shipping entering Colony waters. The prolonged arguments of the preceding years as to how the Colony was to find the money for the new typhoon shelter were resolved by the introduction of this impost.\n\nIt was not to be anticipated that such a proposal as this, hitherto objected to by commercial interests, would pass without strong justification for it being advanced by His Excellency himself, and he did this in the course of a speech at the next meeting of the Council on 20th August, 1908. Thereafter matters continued apace. On the 25th February, 1909 a report on the proposed boat shelter at Mong Kok Tsui was tabled and in August 1909 the first reading of an Ordinance to authorize the construction and maintenance of a harbour refuge and the extinguishment of various marine rights was introduced to Council. Thereafter another altercation broke out in the Council on the introduction of the Liquor Ordinance which was to provide for the collection of duties upon intoxicating spirits, so it was not until October, 1909 that the matter of the typhoon shelter could next be proceeded with. However all submissions to the Legislative Council were finally completed in November, 1909. Nearly a year later, in October 1910, the Director of Public Works advised members of Council that a contract worth just over 2 million dollars had been let concerning the construction of the detached breakwater, and completion was anticipated in five years.\n\nIn 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914 work on the typhoon refuge continued steadily as the papers tabled before the Council indicate. Europe became engulfed in the First World War, but largely unaffected the life of the Colony continued, as did steady progress on the develop-\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206778, "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-1973", "page_number": 55, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "EARLY STEAMSHIPS IN CHINA\n\n49\n\nAlexander and Company of Calcutta. In 1846 she was bought by Jardine, Matheson and Company, and remained in their service until she was lost in the early 1870s.\n\nIn 1835, Jardine, Matheson and Company brought out the small steamer Jardine, intending to run her as a passenger and dispatch boat between Canton, Lintin, and Macao. She arrived at Lintin on 20th September 1835, but was never allowed to run on the river. The Canton Register of 13th November described one of her first excursions, contributed by a passenger.\n\nWe all assembled on board the steamer Jardine, alias 'fast ship Greig' (the name of her captain), and getting under weigh went round the different vessels lying in the anchorage, some of whom cheered the little craft on her experimental trip; she then started to make a tour of the island, which she accomplished in a little better than an hour; on her return she made another circuit round the shipping, and being cheered returned the compliment with a salute. It was indeed a pleasing scene; to see the velocity with which the little vessel (although not at her full power) ploughed the waters of the deep, and the readiness with which she answered her helm; to hear the echo of the music (which was kindly supplied by the commanding officer of the Balcarres, and which continued to play during the trip) reverberating from the adjacent hills, and made more distinct still by the still calm of the evening; to see the setting sun gilding the western horizon with his last, expiring rays; the shipping at anchor; the blue hills which on nearly every side bounded the view; the whole scene being heightened by the presence of the colleens, produced a calm in the mind, foreign to those engaged in the busy world; indeed, here you might have beheld in the reality all that the speculative imagination of the lover of romance could picture to itself.\n\nUnfortunately, Chinese reaction was much less enthusiastic. No reply was received to a letter signed by all the foreign merchants at Canton and sent to the hoppo through Howqua, the senior hong merchant; which requested permission for the Jardine to run on the river as an unarmed passenger boat. Eventually a trial run from Lintin to Canton was attempted, but the Jardine was fired on from the forts on both sides of the Bogue, and a Chinese district official who was approached said that the orders were peremptory that the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206781, "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-1973", "page_number": 58, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "52 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nand Canton. Jardines were neither owners or agents of the Corsair, but there seems to be no doubt that they sponsored this service. The Corsair had been built in 1827 for the Irish Sea service, but after several years went out to Australia. She arrived in China from Australia early in 1846 consigned to Jardines, and soon afterwards was making two trips per week between Hong Kong and Canton, and also doing occasional towing and salvage work. She continued on the river until July 1849 and then disappears from the scene, probably because of her age, either being dismantled or allowed to fall to pieces.\n\nFrom this time British and American steamers appeared at Hong Kong at short intervals, most for the river service, but some for service between Hong Kong, Shanghai, and intermediate ports. Landmarks from the British point of view were the entry of the P. and O. into both the river and the coast services, and the formation of the Hong Kong and Canton Steam Packet Company. The P. and O. started their mail service from Ceylon to Hong Kong by the Lady Mary Wood in 1845, operating this in connection with their Suez-India service. Early in 1849 they put their iron paddle steamer Canton on the Canton River service, a steamship much superior to any of the others then operating on the river. When the Canton suffered severe damage through running on a sunken rock, she was replaced by the Sir Charles Forbes, which the Company chartered from the Bombay Steam Navigation Company. When the Canton returned after repairs, she was put first on the Hong Kong-Amoy service, and then on the Hong Kong-Shanghai service. The P. and O. originally ran these ships mainly as feeders for their overseas ships, and charged very high freights. In 1854, however, and about the time the Hong Kong and Canton Steam Packet Company was about to be liquidated, the P. and O. increased their river service and made it more attractive to outsiders.\n\nThe Hong Kong and Canton Steam Packet Company was formed in 1847, Alexander Campbell of Dent and Company and Alexander Matheson of Jardine, Matheson and Company being the men mainly responsible. Nearly all the foreign merchants in Hong Kong and Canton took shares in the new company, the first steamship company to be formed in China, although they knew that the P. and O. were on the point of improving their river service. Two sister ships were ordered in England, and the first of these, the Canton arrived in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206970, "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": 41, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG\n\n35\n\nCollège Stanislas at Cannes. In 1877 he entered the military academy of Saint-Cyr;22 after passing out from Saint-Cyr, he joined the famous Saumur cavalry school. He was to remain a magnificent horseman all his life.\n\nThe turning point in Morès' life came in 1881 when he met Medora von Hoffmann, the daughter of Louis von Hoffmann,23 a New York banker of German extraction, who had a villa, like Morès' father, at Cannes. Morès resigned from the army and in February 1882 married the petite, blonde Medora, who was to bear him three children. In August 1883 they travelled to the New World and Morès soon after started work in his father-in-law's bank.\n\nMorès was an astute banker but when his cousin, Count Fitz-James, returned from a hunting expedition to the Dakotas and regaled him with tales of his adventures, he decided to throw up his banking career and head west to the area of the Dakotas called the Bad Lands. In April 1883 Morès, together with William Van Driesche, set out by Northern Pacific Railway from Chicago for the Little Missouri River. After an inspection of the country he decided it was ideal for cattle ranching. He bought a large tract of land, built his own town--Medora--and a twenty-eight room château24 on a spur overlooking the river and the new town.\n\nThe Marquis, who had begun to fence off his land, soon made enemies among the badmen of the area. Three in particular – Luffsey, O'Donnell and Wannegan--on several occasions attacked the château at night and their gunfire was returned by the intrepid Marquis and Van Driesche. The series of incidents culminated in the ambushing of the trio by the Marquis and two of his cowboys. Luffsey was killed, the other two wounded and taken prisoner. The incident did not end there, for the Marquis was charged with murder, held in custody and nearly lynched by an excited mob.\n\nMorès established his own abattoir, meat-packing and processing plant at Medora and hoped, thereby, to undercut the prices for dressed meat set by the monopolistic 'beef barons' of Chicago--the Armours and Swifts--but he was opposed not only by them but by their business allies, the railroad magnates. By 1885 it was clear that Morès' cattle empire was tottering, that he could not compete with the stockyards of Chicago, and that his scheme to provide cheap meat to Westerners and Easterners alike had totally failed. He returned to New York with his family, but at once attempted", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207039, "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": 110, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "104\n\nMICHAEL SMITHIES\n\nhome of the Lao royal family and the small royal palace at the foot of the Phu Si or central hill sets the modest tone of the town. Its temples are so numerous that it would be impossible to detail each one, and unrewarding, for many are extremely simple, testimonies to the faith of an unaffected and devout people.\n\nThe most splendid is undoubtedly Vat Xieng Tong, originally approached from the Mekong river up a broad stairway. It is the largest temple in area and the compound has a number of interesting buildings; the vihara has high curving roofs coming down very low to the sides and surmounted by an elegant dort xoi fa (flowers pointing to heaven), the many-pronged symbol of the universe, each point tipped with a tiered parasol, that is to be found on nearly every Lao temple roof. The carved portico is striking and the inside of sober simplicity; the altar has a large antique Lao Buddha statue and the ceiling is coffered and painted. The runnels with decorative dragon-head spouts used in ordination ceremonies are kept in many temples in Luang Prabang and there is a good example in Vat Xieng Tong. At the back of the altar, on the outside wall, is a mosaic representing the tree of life, and nearby a small chapel to a Lao hero, Sri Sawai, is entirely covered with charming mosaics on a red background. There are a number of other chapels in the grounds, as well as a small building for a prayer drum. The most opulent of these is undoubtedly the building containing the royal funeral carriages; the carving and gilding is almost overwhelming on the outside, and if the inside of the building is simple, the objects it contains are not; the royal funeral carriages are masterpieces of carving which, until the present king changed the tradition of burning them after the cremation of the monarch they had borne, used to disappear without trace.\n\nAlong the main street going towards the Phu Si is Vat Sene, with a three-tiered roof in the Lao style. The entrance is elegant and raised on octagonal columns and the walls are decorated gold on a red background. Nearby is Vat Pak Khe, one of the most unusual temples in Luang Prabang, with Siamese style frescoes inside and on one of the entrances are supposed to be represented Dutchmen and on a window Venetians. Certainly the objects of the panel carver's attention are European and the style of the dress dates from two to three centuries before the founding of the temple in 1861. Father de Leria visited Vientiane between 1642 and 1647 and his information is recorded in Father Filippo de Marini's book", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207792, "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-1976", "page_number": 180, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA\n\n165\n\nboats as far as Bhamo, and then partly by land and partly by water into China. Other exports were amber, ivory, precious stones, betel nuts, and edible birds' nests; while in return Burma got raw and wrought silk, velvet, gold leaf, preserves, and chinaware. Similar reports came from other sources. By 1850, the possibility of extending trade from Yunnan into Szechwan was envisaged, and the glowing prospect of an extensive market for British goods in West China became an obsession among many British officials and merchants in Burma and India.\n\nCaptain McLeod's mission of 1836 is the first official British attempt to find an overland route to China. McLeod went from Moulmein, the port in the newly acquired province of Tenasserim, via Kungtang to Kenghang, a Shan state on the border of China. Here he failed to get permission to enter Yunnan, being told that if the British wanted to trade with China they should go to Canton, and that if he still persisted in wanting to enter Yunnan he would require official permission from Peking. McLeod had to admit defeat, and turned back.\n\nAfter this came a succession of other ventures from Assam and Burma, all—for one reason or another—failures. These culminated in the famous and ill-fated Dual Mission of 1874-75, which led to the Margary Affair.* This was a joint attempt to explore West China from the Burmese and Chinese sides. Previous to this the only important attempts to find a route between Burma and China from the eastern side had been Captain Blakiston's in 1861 and T. T. Cooper's in 1868.\n\nThe Royal Navy's expedition of 1861 which went up the Yangtze to establish the first treaty ports on the great river—Chinkiang, Kiukiang, and Hankow—continued 153 miles beyond Hankow to Yochow. Here they transferred Blakiston's party to junks in which they continued for another 1050 miles to Pingshan, nearly 1800 miles from the sea and 400 miles above Chungking. It had been intended to follow the Yangtze to its source in Tibet, and then cross the Himalayas into India. Because of unsettled political conditions at Pingshan and beyond, however, they were forced to turn back; but they had obtained valuable information about the Middle and Upper Yangtze.\n\nSee pp. 169-170 below.\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207795, "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-1976", "page_number": 183, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "168\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nMeanwhile exploration continued from the south. Between 1866 and 1868 the French under Doudart de Lagrée and Francis Garnier made their famous expedition from Saigon by the Mekong River through Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos to Talifu and Kunming in Yunnan. The Panthay Rebellion was then at its height, and the Chinese authorities refused them permission to proceed further up the Mekong. Garnier, who had succeeded to the leadership after Lagrée's death, had to abandon his plan to explore the sources of the Mekong, and turned east across Yunnan to the Upper Yangtze at Iping. Here boats were obtained to take them on the four weeks journey to Hankow. Garnier saw enough of the Mekong to realise that it could never rival the Irawaddy, let alone the Yangtze, as a trade route to West China, and French interest shifted to the Red River route from Haiphong through Tongking. During an enforced delay on the Siamese border, Garnier made the first thorough survey of the ruins of Angkor, and his expedition is important in that it encouraged French ambitions for an Indo-Chinese Empire.\n\nThere was no clear policy on the part of the various British parties concerned with developing trade with West China, nor over the best way to reach this region of supposed inexhaustible wealth. Lack of accurate information is also a constant theme in the history of British relations with West China. However, penetration and exploitation from the West, that is from India and Burma, attracted greater public and official support in Britain than that from the Yangtze by the China traders, though by 1874, a combination of circumstances led to a co-operative effort being made from both East and West, the aforementioned Dual Mission of 1874-75, which I shall now describe.\n\nThe Panthay Rebellion finally came to an end in May 1873 when the Imperial troops captured Momein, this completing the reconquest of Yunnan after eighteen years of civil war. During the ensuing period of rehabilitation the provincial authorities tried to revive the Burma-Yunnan overland route, and caravans reappeared after nearly twenty years' absence, undeterred by disbanded soldiers and lawless hillmen. By May 1874 the British Political Agent at Bhamo reported that more caravans were passing between Burma and Yunnan than for many years, and that British and Chinese merchants were sending such large consignments of goods", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207800, "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-1976", "page_number": 188, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA \n\n173 \n\nlords then fighting for power in Szechuan. Before the 'Incident' closed nearly a month later, another two China Navigation Company ships had been seized by Yung Lin. All available ships of the Yangtze Squadron were involved, and H.M. ships Dispatch, a light cruiser, and Hawkins, the flagship of the China Station, had been sent to Hankow. In addition the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company's Kiawo had been requisitioned by the Navy to carry reinforcements to Wanhsien. During the sometimes severe fighting which occurred at times, the chief engineer of the Wanliu and seven servicemen lost their lives, and several others were wounded. It was nearly two years later, and after Chiang Kai-shek had expelled the left wing elements of the Kuomintang and his Russian advisers, before the situation on the Yangtze returned to something approaching normal.\n\nAfter the Royal Navy took over the Pioneer, Captain Plant built a junk and traded between Ichang and Chungking, and made a thorough study of the Upper Yangtze. In 1908 he persuaded a group of Chinese business men and government officials to form the Szechwan Steam Navigation Company, forty per cent of the capital coming from official sources, and the balance from private Chinese merchants. The Company's first ship, the Shutung, was built by Thorneycrofts in Southampton under Captain Plant's supervision. She cost £26,000 and arrived at Ichang in 1909. The Shutung was 115 feet long, sixteen feet beam, and six and a half feet depth, and was described as 'a mass of machinery.' She towed a float alongside in which her cargo and passengers were accommodated, and in spite of only being able to carry sixty tons dead-weight of cargo, twelve first and sixty-six steerage passengers, was a great success financially and comparatively trouble-free. The Shutung's success was largely due to Captain Plant's intimate knowledge of the Upper River, his ability to inspire confidence in Chinese official and commercial circles in Chungking, and in his Chinese crew. Until 1914 the Shutung was the only steamer on the Upper Yangtze; but in April of that year she was joined by the Shuhun, a larger and more powerful sister ship, also built in Britain, sent out in sections, and assembled in Shanghai. At the same time the Szechwan Railway Company, then planning a railway from Hankow to Chungking, put three smaller steamers on the Upper Yangtze. Two of these ran between Ichang and Chungking, and the third between Chungking and Suifu. By 1914, therefore, the technical", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207997, "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-1977", "page_number": 36, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "20\n\nLEIGH WRIGHT\n\nseveral other rivers or streams flowing in, cause a muddy deposit, on which the houses are built. At high water they are surrounded; at low water, stand on a sheet of mud. On nearing it, we were encompassed by boats which preceded and followed us, and we passed the floating market, where women, wearing immense hats of palm-leaves, sell all sorts of edibles, balanced in their little canoes, now giving a paddle, now making a bargain, and dropping down with the tide, and again regaining their place when the bargain is finished. The first impression of the town is miserable. The houses are crowded and numerous, and even the palace does not present a more captivating aspect, for, though large, it is as incommodious as the worst. We had been seated but a few minutes when Pangeran Usop arrived, and directly afterwards the Sultan. He gave us ten leaf-cigars, and sirih, and, in short, showed us every attention; and, what was best of all, did not keep us very long. Our apartment was partitioned off from the public hall, a dark-looking place, but furnished with a table brought by us, and three rickety chairs, besides mattresses and plenty of mats. We were kept up nearly all night, which, after the fatigues of the day, was hard upon us.\n\nFurther observation confirmed us in the opinion that the town itself is miserable, and its locality on the mud fitted only for frogs or natives; but there is a level dry plain above the entrance of the Kiangi river, admirably suited for a European settlement; and across the Kiangi is swelling ground, where the residents might find delightful spots for their country-houses. The greatest annoyance to a stranger is the noisome smell of the mud when uncovered; and all plated or silver articles, even in the course of one night, get black and discoloured. The inhabitants I shall estimate moderately at 10,000, and the Kadien population are numerous amid the hills.\n\nAnd yet another graphic picture of the city of Brunei written in the early part of the present century. This is an observation by C. A. Bamfylde, an officer in the service of the Raja of Sarawak, Charles Brooke,11\n\nIt may be as well here to give a description of Brunei and of its Court.\n\nThe Brunei river flows into a noble bay, across which to the north lies the island of Labuan. Above the town the river is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208163, "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-1977", "page_number": 202, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "186 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nrelating to it. The tour will include a visit to the Tin Hau Temple at Miu Kong, Tsuen Wan, where there is a memorial to the war and a tablet to the Tsuen Wan villagers who were killed. Also to the Kwan Tei Temple at Kam Tin, where part of the Shing Mun villagers were resettled in 1928, which contains a tablet to the Shing Mun villagers killed in the struggle. \n\nFrom the Tsuen Wan ferry pier, the party went first by coach to the Shing Mun reservoir, sometimes called the Jubilee Reservoir because of its completion at the time of King George V's jubilee year (1935). A picnic lunch on one of the vantage points with barbecue and sitting out facilities was followed by a talk by Dr. James Hayes, Tour Leader, on the history and livelihood of the former villagers who lived in the valley for nearly 300 years before their removal in 1928 for the reservoir project. \n\nAfter lunch, the party moved to Kam Tin where the main body of the Shing Mun people moved in 1928. Here our intrepid and helpful bus driver got into difficulties in a confined space between a USD refuse trailer and the gate to the school compound. He was rescued by the action of a group of Members who dismantled a tied up, projecting hawker cart whilst, with characteristic energy and flair, Professor Tony Reynolds directed the driver, conjuring up visions of problems expertly handled many years ago in far Yenan!* \n\nAfter this episode, we were welcomed by the village representative Mr. Cheng Siu-fong (*) and the Headmaster of the Shing Mun New Village School, Mr. Cheung Sze-man (X). We were entertained to tea in the school which has an interesting history. It bears the same name as the old school at Shing Mun Tai Wai built for the villagers by their leaders very many years before their removal in 1928. After the move to Kam Tin it was reprovisioned in the ancestral halls and in 1958, under a subsidized village school building programme supported by the Education Department and New Territories Administration, it transferred to the present six classroomed school building. \n\nOver tea our hosts told us something of the village history after the move to Kam Tin. The main difference was in livelihood, because their agricultural holdings by purchase and rent were only a fraction of those held at Shing Mun, inevitably since Kam Tin had been long densely settled by the Tang clan and later inhabitants. \n\n* See his article at pp 43-54 of this Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208772, "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-1979", "page_number": 229, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "202\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nsister, now a spirit, had proffered good advice, he built a folk religion shrine in her honour. Her cult thrived, so much so that her image is revered by Ch'aochou emigrants in most areas of South Thailand and, so the story goes, also in Singapore and in Nakorn Sri Thammarat.\n\nThe Bangkok god carver claims that Miss Lin is the only Chinese deity with a special urn donated by the King of Thailand who is well known for his tolerance towards and encouragement for other religions. He is said to have bowed in her honour before her image which consists of a simple, seated country girl with bare feet and large hands, dressed in working clothes Plate 3. Her festival is celebrated in her temples each year on her birthday, the 15th of the first lunar month.\n\nHong Kong.\n\nMarch, 1980.\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nTHE TEMPLE OF THE SUPREME RULER,\n\nNEAR SUNG WONG TOI, KOWLOON*\n\nIn the thirteenth century A.D. the Southern Sung Emperor Tuen Chung was attacked by the Mongol Conquerors of the North. Driven from his provisional capital at Hang Chow, the Emperor retreated southwards through Fukien and on to Kwangtung province, stopping temporarily at more than 30 places on his way. Besides the well known Palace at Ngai Mun in the San Wui district of Kwangtung, that at Sau Shan by the Pearly River has been fully described in the Imperial Records which were published in the Yuen Dynasty. Such buildings provide evidence of the efforts of the Sung Emperor and his ministers to make that stand against their enemies which has long been cherished in the people's minds.\n\nIn the spring of 1277 during the second year of his reign, the Emperor left Kam Tsz Mun of Wai Chau district in Kwangtung and reached Mui Wai. In the fourth moon he arrived at Kwun Fu Cheung, a district which included present day Kowloon, the New\n\n*This heading and the following text are taken from a memorial tablet erected in the Urban Council's Rest Garden at Lomond Road, Kowloon, site of this former old temple. A Chinese tablet is also provided.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211733, "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": 148, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "123\n\nat Law Fong (Luofong), and so on to Sham Tsun via Wong Pui Ling (Huangbeileng). Between Wo Hang Au and Law Fong most of this old road survives as a rough, unsurfaced jeep track. The halfway point between the two towns was taken to be the summit of Miu Keng, and it was at that point that the nunnery was founded.\n\nThe site is a steeply sided valley. The headwater of the Ping Yuen River has cut what is almost a ravine between the mountains to north and south. The old road ran on a ledge about fourteen feet wide cut into the northern slope of the ravine. The nunnery is built immediately beside the road, to the north, facing approximately south, on two platforms cut into the face of the slope. The site is very remote, nearly a mile from the next nearest buildings in any direction. The only fields nearby were a few tiny plots scattered along the floor of the ravine, which provided vegetables for the nuns.\n\n*\n\nThe nunnery consists of a rectangular block of buildings almost square, about 48 feet broad and 46 feet deep. It is divided into four sections by three walls which run from the front to the back: the sections are not all of the same width, with the first (from the west), and particularly the third, being wider than the second and fourth. The second, third, and fourth sections have a common roof. This consists of two transverse gables, separated by a gap, which forms a Tin Tseng in the third section, but which is covered over by a flat roof in the second and fourth sections. The height of the gables is sixteen feet from ground level for both the front and rear gables. The first section has its own roof, rather lower, gabled at the back, but sloping inwards from all sides to a Tin Tseng at the front. All the roofs are of tile, laid on beams which rest immediately on the side walls: no beam-and-strut construction is to be found.\n\nThe buildings are, as mentioned above, built on two platforms, the rear one, furthest from the road, being some three feet seven inches above the front one. This height difference requires steep flights of steps to link the front and back portions of the building, except in the second section, where no steps were provided as there is no intercommunication between the front and rear parts of the building in this section. The front platform is about two and a half feet above the road level: steps linked the road and the entrances into the nunnery in the first and third sections. There was no courtyard or enclosure: the nunnery opened immediately onto the road in front, and backed immediately onto the tree-covered", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211782, "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": 197, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "172\n\nstationed in Shanghai during the 1860s were nearly always open air ones. But sometimes a theatrical company co-operated with one of the bands, like the Amateur Burlesque Company on June 29, 1864. Otherwise, performances took place on the Bund, or Embankment, along the river, which was the favourite promenade of the foreigners as well as the most prestigious section of the Settlement. Records have come down to us of concerts by the French 101st regiment in March 1861 (“By permission of Colonel Pouget [who was the commanding officer of the regiment JH] we are authorised to state that the band of the 101st regiment will perform every Sunday and Thursday (weather permitting) before the headquarters of General De Montauban at Messrs Rémi, Schmidt & Co. [this was in the French Concession JH] between the hours of 3 and 4”*. Further concerts by the Rhenish Band and the band of the 67th regiment in June and July 1864 provided entertainment which “the residents evidently appreciated (...) large numbers (...) congregating during the performances”.67\n\nProfessional musicians\n\nFrom time to time professional musical artists visited Shanghai, and, as with the travelling dramatic companies, 1864 and 1865 were a golden age for the public. In the first decades of the twentieth century Shanghai was honoured with recitals by, to name just a few, Feodor Chaliapine, John MacCormack, Fritz Kreisler and Amelita Galli-Curci, but during the fifties and sixties it was only the lesser gods that came to the city. In fact, hardly any one of the artists in this period can be traced in contemporary reference works. This does not mean, of course, that they could not have been capable musicians able to provide enjoyment during an evening. That such was not always the case, though, has already been shown by the criticism drawn by the performance of Prof. Shonbrun, which led the Herald to state that \"in this remote place we have so few opportunities of hearing really good music that we hunger for it and can ill brook disappointment\".68 But then there were Messrs Desvachez and Grossi whose concert in February 1865 had \"called for favourable comment at the hands of our music critic\".69\n\nYet, bearing in mind the conditions of travel in the 19th century, it is amazing enough that European musicians were at all willing to undertake an Asian tour with only very uncertain financial prospects.\n\n\"The first public concert (properly so called) that has ever been given", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211904, "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": 319, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "294\n\nIn fact since reaching Java I never enjoyed such good health. Captain Moate continually jokes me about my stoutness. I am really getting quite a corporation, in spite of having my clothes continually saturated with perspiration. Even now as I write the perspiration stands in great drops on the backs of my hands.\n\nOur diet holds out wonderfully well, in fact we laid in a good store in Batavia. Every morning I have a great dish of rice and curry. It is a capital dish and the condiments in the curry tend to strengthen the stomach, so that I can now almost digest a brick bat. I mean to live chiefly on it at China if all is well. Today there has been a pig killed, so tomorrow there comes a feast of liver and crow and roast pork. Meat here never keeps over a day, even under the most favourable circumstances.\n\nA few days more and with a fair wind we ought to finish our journey. I shall begin to pack up tomorrow. I brought a piece of American Drilling at Batavia. I got forty yards for eight rupees. Already I have made myself two pairs of trousers and nearly finished a third. I cannot however finish them off before reaching China. All on board in the cabin dress in white, as is the universal custom in Java, and China.\n\nMy cabin is like a little oven on account of the hot sun shining on it all day. At night I sleep with my window open and of course never think of bed clothes. It is only towards morning that the temperature of the room becomes bearable. All day nearly I sit on deck under the awning, where there is generally a fresh breeze blowing when there is a breath of wind. Walking about or taking exercise is an utter impossibility on account of the heat.\n\nI find however the benefit of taking nothing of stimulative drinks. I am always myself, which is more than I can say of the rest of the folks. Only fancy a man taking these things during the day:- at seven o'clock a stiff glass of grog, made with full quarter pt [pint] of rum. Ditto at eleven, at twelve, at five, at eight and at midnight. At dinner a large glass of beer, and three or more glasses of port or sherry. I might have just as much if I liked to drink it, only I know a trick worth two of it. Captain Moate is almost if not quite a slave to spirits. He envies me for looking so stout, while he is continually troubled with a dysentery and is quite thin.\n\nA The Chinese has come off rather badly lately on account of this", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212195, "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": 137, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "14\n\nThe business section of Hongkong is compressed into so small an area that the hotels are just round the corner from any office. It would often be convenient to meet for cocktails before a meal, and in this way the habit had grown of doing business outside the office, either seated at a small table, or with one foot on a brass rail.\n\nWhen the Chinese Government evacuated Nanking in November 1937, the various Purchasing Departments moved to Hongkong, which, with the closing of the Yangtze, had become the main port of entry for supplies into China. The ships docked alongside at Kowloon, or discharged their cargoes into lighters in mid-harbour.\n\nThe railway between Hongkong and Canton had been completed nearly forty years previously, but the railway from Hankow on the Yangtze to Canton was only opened to through traffic in March 1937. That was before the war with Japan broke out, and in line with its anti-foreign policy, the National Government refused to connect the Hankow railway at Canton with the line from Hongkong. The intention was to inconvenience transhipment of cargo at Hongkong on to the railway and to favour use of the small steamers which sailed up the shallow waters of the Pearl River to Canton. This shortsighted policy was now quickly reversed and a connecting loop put in so that cargo loaded onto rail at Hongkong could go straight through without further handling to Hankow.\n\nMy business was mainly with the Chinese Government Purchasing Departments, and very efficient they were. They drove such hard bargains that the staff might have been Scots, though most claimed to have been trained in the States. The Hongkong government gave every facility for the traffic and there can be no question but that the existence of Hongkong as a British colony at this time was a great help to the hard-pressed Chinese.\n\n―\n\nAs regards the administration of Hongkong by the Colonial Office, by almost any western standard it was good. It was essentially better than anything that could be found in China or in Chicago but it was by no means perfect. The administration suffered from the defects of bureaucracy.\n\nThe civil servant who enters the colonial administration must pass a stiff examination; but once he has passed it, he can expect regular", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212202, "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "121\n\nday to Changsha. The capital of Hunan, the province with a long history of anti-foreign fanaticism, is situated on the Siang river, which flows down to the Yangtze above Hankow. In summer the middle-river steamers come up as far as Changsha, but in winter the level over the sand flats where the river passes through the Tung Ting lake, near its mouth, is so shallow that even the specially designed river gunboats cannot pass. One British gunboat generally wintered at Changsha.\n\nThere was no concession, and in the course of time the foreign community had congregated on a long sand bar, which made an island in the river, opposite the city. The few bungalows were grouped round the Club. It was a simple life with tennis and walks for relaxation. Normally Changsha connected with the outer world by ship through Shanghai, but now for over a year that channel had been closed by the war and the number of the foreign community, usually not more than a couple of dozen, was reduced. It did, however, include two British tank officers, loaned to the Chinese army, whom I had last seen in Nanking. They now depended for their supplies on the new railway to Hongkong. I left my car here and went on to Hankow by train.\n\nIt was nearly twenty years since I had last been in Hankow, years crowded with change, not only material but also intellectual. Hither junks from the far north-west of China, in Shensi Province, came down the Han river. From here they could sail a leg up the Yangtze, and proceed along the Siang river, until their mast-tops showed a view towards Kweilin. To the west, through the famous gorges, the small steamers fought the current to Chungking 700 miles distant; and 600 miles downriver, past Kiu Kiang, Wuhu, and Nanking, lay Shanghai and the sea. The railway in normal times ran north-east to Peking and south to Canton and Hongkong. On the opposite bank, a kilometre away, the provincial capital, Wuchang, showed; larger than Hankow and, across the Han, where that river made an angle with the Yangtze, the industrial town of Hanyang belched its smoke. Of the Concessions along the water front, only the French retained its status. The British Concession had been returned at the time of the Chen-O'Malley negotiations ten years previously; the German and Russian Concessions had reverted to China after the Great War, and the Japanese Concession had been evacuated soon after the Lukouchiao (Marco Polo Bridge) incident.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212483, "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": 37, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "17\n\nthe 550 specified wills, 67 of the testators were at the time absent from Hong Kong, being only 12.2%. Mostly they were in Canton and Macau and nearly all of them were in retirement or were there for medical reasons. 19 Table 2 shows Hong Kong merchants held properties, mainly landed properties, not only in Hong Kong, but also in Canton, Macau and Shanghai as well as other parts of China.\n\nTable 2\n\nProperties Held by Hong Kong Merchants in China, 1850-1906\n\n \n \n 1850-70\n 1871-80\n 1881-90\n 1891-1900\n 1901-1906\n \n \n Canton\n 3(4)\n 9(11)\n 7(8)\n 14(14)\n \n \n \n Macau\n 1\n 1(1)\n \n 5(?)\n \n \n \n Shanghai\n \n 1(1)\n \n \n \n \n \n Rest of China\n 1(2)\n \n \n [(?)\n \n \n \n Total\n 1\n في\n 3\n 9\n 10\n 20\n \n\nnote:( ) number of places where landed properties located Source: HKRS#144\n\nHong Kong-Canton-Shanghai Network\n\nAfter 1842, British commercial interests on the Chinese coast were dually extended from Canton to Hong Kong and Shanghai. The newly opened port in Shanghai was flocked to by Cantonese merchants, compradors and foreign employees with Western merchants.20 Though Shanghai was opened for trade in 1843, the real development of Shanghai began during the 1850s. Cantonese emigrants came to Shanghai with the hope of making a fortune from foreign trade, particularly in the 1850s when the Taiping Rebellion disrupted trade in South China. Cantonese merchants had early established a presence in Shanghai. The Cantonese guild was established as early as 1710. As a scholar said, Cantonese merchants were a more national rather than a regional type. After 1843, they mostly came from Zhongshan prefecture and the Hong Kong Macau area, a region within the Pearl River estuary. Shanghai and Hong Kong were cities of immigrants, the number of outsiders surpassed the natives. Statistics confirm this impression. In 1885 immigrants represented some 85 percent of Shanghai's population.\n\nThe first Shanghai taotai after the Opium War, Wu Jianzhang, was a Zhongshan native who came from the merchant family of Samqua of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212628, "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": 182, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "162\n\nammonal, 50 lbs, if properly placed under the track will lift a locomotive ten feet into the air and throw it far enough off the track will lift a locomotive ten feet into the air and throw it far enough off the track, to make it difficult for the usual type of railway repair-crane to reach it to lift it back.\n\nWhile in Hunan, information came through that the Japanese had started to advance from Hangchow in the direction of Kinhwa and it looked as if they might cut off our part of the front. I made hurried arrangements to return; but before we left I was disconcerted to learn from the Chinese general, X....., under whom the British contingent in Hunan worked, that I was to come under his orders. General Ku had placed us under an Army Group Commander, whose headquarters were in the village next to ours; and I could not understand the advantage of now being placed under a General whose headquarters were 1600 kilometres away and, moreover, in another war zone. It looked as if the work we had commenced in Eastern China was to be wrecked; I saw General X...... and he assured me the change was a mere formality and would make no difference to the work we were doing. Later events, however, were to show that my uneasiness was fully justified and that we had become a pawn in high level politics.\n\nThe news of the Japanese advance on Kinhwa got worse. I loaded the lorry with all the stores we could beg or borrow, and we set out on a return journey which was to prove exciting. In addition to Michael and Doctor Petro, and the driver and a mechanic, I had been able to collect two Chinese medical orderlies, who had escaped from a detention camp in Hongkong, and a Hongkong wireless operator. I still hoped I might one day have a wireless set. The lorry was grossly overloaded and we nearly lost it next day when crossing on the Siang river ferry. We had to collect volunteers to help us to unload it hurriedly, as the ferry arrived on the far side with such a heavy list that we could not drive the lorry off. Further on a tyre blew out; we also received news not only that the Japanese were on the point of occupying Kinhwa, but that they had commenced a push from Nanchang to the east along the Kiangsu-Chekiang railway to meet their troops who were advancing from Hangchow. It became a race to see if we could reach Yingtan before the Japanese, and as we had no more spare tyres, we could not risk continuing with an overloaded lorry; we had to dump some of our previous cargo. We were not to see it again for six months.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212748, "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-1992", "page_number": 57, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "42\n\nbreach of good manners, but the veteran told me that the pony was a very nice one, presented to him by the late Marquis Tseng, and then added the doctor, you see I have the regular Peking wheels, not those flash Shansi wheels, and my man does not wear an official hat. This last item is another fault rather than a virtue, which shows that thirty-two years' constant residence has not sufficed to enable the good doctor to learn all the niceties of Chinese etiquette.'\n\nAmongst the scores of interesting items about his various achievements minor themes emerge such as his ability to play Chinese chess. This he used to while away the long hours during the lengthy trip up the Yangtze in early 1868 when he played with Fan Ho-ting. On a somewhat contradictory note he later claimed that General T’ang Chiung had taught him how to play wei-ch'i [Chinese chess] in his camp at Chung-an Chiang in Kueichou in 1868/9. Though Mesny said that he could beat several good players in camp he never seen anyone beat T'ang who was famous for his ability at the game.\n\nThere were however occasional instances of inexplicable ignorance, more often than not surprising in view of the depth and width of his knowledge but never the less excusable as they were nearly always on specialised subjects, such as the story he related about the turtle and snake. Mesny, both in a letter to a Shanghai newspaper in March 1883 and in his Chinese Miscellany some twenty years later, referred to seeing a snake and turtle together crossing the Chung-an river below Kueichou. During his lengthy description of his first Kueichou campaign he states that he was at an elevated position on the bank of the river at the foot of the bluff where the Commander-in-Chief had his headquarters, when he saw a turtle swimming with its head out of the water about thirty yards off. His shot, he saw in the clear water, had beheaded the turtle which sank fast and half cut through the neck of the snake which floated to the surface dead. He then went on to describe how the snake had been connected,\" mating to conceive the most venomous of reptiles called the pang pang-she or cudgel snake or the ch'ing-chu piao, a small dark-coloured springing or darting or leaping toad-like reptile. People told him that when a turtle and snake were so coupled they were referred to as kuei-she er chiang-chun, that is 'a turtle and snake both military commanders', which meant that they were to be feared or dreaded. That particular shot of Mesny's was reported far and wide in quick time. This, mused Mesny in another section of his Miscellany, proved to Mesny what the Chinese have often asserted, that is, the snake and turtle love one another\n\ni", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212822, "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-1992", "page_number": 131, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "116\n\nAmerican air forces based in China and to the extensive establishments supplied to train and equip the Chinese Expeditionary Force, as the army which had been built up in Yunnan by the Chungking government to assist in driving the Japanese out of Burma was called.\n\nI was sent to Kun-ming to see about giving assistance to the Myosa of Kokang, prince of a small Burmese border state. The longest unnavigable river in the world, the Salween, rises in Tibet, flows through China, and enters Burma at about the level of Bhamo. For a stretch the river flows from east to west; to the north of it the territory is still China, to the south lies Kokang. The river then leaves China altogether, bends south, and lower down at Kunlong receives the Nam Ting flowing in from the east. The Nam Ting forms the southern boundary of Kokang, while the mountain-tops that divide the Salween watershed from the next river to the east form the state's eastern boundary. The stones marking this boundary were set up in 1898 as a result of the agreements made at that time. Kokang also spreads across the Salween to the territories of the large Shan state of North Shenwi, of which Kokang is actually a sub-state. The greater part of Kokang though is sandwiched between the Salween and China. Kunlong is the site of one of the most frequented of the Salween ferries, and it is down the valley of the Nam Ting that the projected railway from Kun-ming to Lashio, connecting China with Burma, will run. The embankments to carry the line had been nearly completed before the Japanese advance into Burma put an end to the work. To the south of the Nam Ting are situated the Wa states, inhabited by wild head-hunting tribes.\n\nThe Myosa of Kokang was a most loyal subject of the British crown, and because of that loyalty he was to suffer great injuries. When the Japanese advanced up the length of Burma in 1942, the British troops, who were covering the western flank, that is the flank towards India, withdrew into India. The civil administrative staff of the Shan States also withdrew to the west, while the Chinese armies, on the eastern flank,\n\n\"One British administrative officer, Evans, withdrew from Kengtung, away to the south of Kokang, into south-west Yunnan. He had established cordial relations with the Chinese troops there, and with their assistance organised local levies, drawn from the dispersed ranks of the Burma Rifle regiments; he used these to wage a small campaign of his own against the enemy until he was killed during an assault on a position manned by Siamese troops. He died unknown, unsupported, unrewarded, but not unsung, because at a time when throughout the East the British star was thought to have set for all time, this lonely man left a record of British pluck which will long be remembered on the border.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213271, "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-1994", "page_number": 93, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "73\n\nOne would expect in Japan, a country that has adopted so much of its culture from China, that people believe in fung shui. It was introduced there during the Tang Dynasty, and, in the 'Land of the Rising Sun', it is called in Japanese (using the Cantonese pronunciation) fong wai hok (the 'School of Direction'). But the art is not nearly so common as in Chinese communities, and, while it is sometimes used for designing commercial buildings, harmonious gardens and landscapes in Japan, it is not used for graves. The cities of Nara and Kyoto are said to have good fung shui and this was also supposed to have been a consideration when the Imperial Palace was planned.\n\nFung shui, as practised in Vietnam, is closer to the Chinese doctrine than the Japanese version, and in Vietnam some cities, as in China, are said to have been planned according to geomantic principles and the power of nature.\n\nIn China, both Peking and the Forbidden City were laid out on fung shui principles. The latter was planned as a cross superimposed on a square. The chessboard or grid pattern, and the north-south axis and gates at four quarters were considered important, as were the three encircling walls allowing for circulation. All these provide balance, harmony and protection against both the enemy and evil spirits. In the eyes of the Chinese, when the Forbidden City was planned the world was square, and, consequently, most walled villages are also square. The whole idea of considering balance and form, including a variety of shapes, sizes, together with 'open lungs', is not inconsistent with the ideas of modern planning.\n\nIt has even been postulated that, in the 17th century, once the Jesuit missionaries had gained the confidence of the Emperor in China, they tried to have fung shui stamped out. Yet some Jesuits took fung shui ideas back to Europe, some claim, where the priests used the principles for laying out parks (Pennick; 1979).\n\nKorea has the 'symbol of creation' (yin and yang) on its national flag, and its version of fung shui is similar to the Chinese version (Yau, 1976-passim).\n\nTo mention, briefly, additional examples. In Malaysia, a site that faces a river or a valley is considered good for building a house. In Africa,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213812, "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-1996", "page_number": 164, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "136\n\nWe coasted along, and could only move by using the sweeps behind, and the six oars in front. Capt Drummond and I took each an oar, and had a long pull. Just before we entered \"Deep water Bay\" we found the tide had turned and the current was dead against us. So we came to anchor, and the other accompanying ships did the same, all near each other, for fear of pirates. When the anchor is cast the boy who attends to the Religious ceremonies, ascends the poop with a roll of paper which he lights and waves to and fro and then throws overboard. Then the gongs began to ring at a fine rate, to frighten away the evil spirits, and at last the shouts of the men gradually died away in the stillness of the night; and only an occasional shout was heard from the distant shore from the huts of the fishermen, who were boiling their nets in very large coppers.\n\nWe had previously taken tea, and Mr Lechler had addressed the passengers in the hold: and then, it being late we prepared to turn in for the night. We had our evening devotion, and as we knelt on the deck in the moonlight, and listened to the voice of prayer, breaking the stillness of the waters, in the sight and hearing of the heathen around us, I felt a sensation which words cannot describe. Then as we rose and sang \"From all that dwell below the skies,\" there was something so soothing, so comforting in the music, that as the last notes died away in the distance, and all was calm and still, I felt transfixed to the spot. \"Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast,\" and never did I feel its power more than on this occasion.\n\nMessrs Irwin and Drummond slept on the deck, while I tried to sleep down below in the small box, with Lechler. But sleep I could not. A tooth began to ache, and gradually increased to such an extent that at 1 o'clock I got up, and went round to the man on the watch and all the Chinamen I could find, to beg a morsel of tobacco to put into it. At last one fellow gave me a piece, which though it did not prevent the pain, yet gave me so much relief that I got nearly an hour's sleep. At 3 o'clock the tide turned and we again got under weigh, after which there was no more sleep for me. The night before, I was up till after two o'clock writing for the Bishop: so that I was quite worn out.\n\nThe wind was against us, what little there was, and so we had to scull and row all the way. At daylight we were entering the river, and after a good wash, and breakfast, we were ready for action. The men", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214295, "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": 153, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "116\n\nThere was a gap of nearly twenty years between the first and second China Wars. It would have been expected that, in this period, the Chinese would have updated their arsenals and have been able to defend themselves more effectively. Whilst, as already seen, this was done to a degree, they were not able to overcome all the problems. The biggest problem was probably the attitude of those in charge, which is so often difficult to alter in any institution, particularly the armed forces. Hence, in the second war the story was much the same, although the batteries at the Pei Ho river were able to repel the European navies and delay the end of the war by a year.\n\nIn conclusion it can be seen that not only did the Chinese suffer a great disadvantage in the technology of their weaponry, but they also were behind in training and discipline, factors which turn brave men into efficient troops. Obviously there is more than fighting to any war, and political, economic and social factors all have an influence on events. However, in order to gain a full insight into the wars between China and the Western powers, it is necessary to understand the military aspects. Fortunately the military men, like so many Victorian travellers, have left records of their experiences. This paper draws on some of those records and aims to put them in context with the development of weapon technology that was taking place at the time. The range of weapons being used by the two sides spanned centuries of development and their coming together is, in itself, a fascinating story.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Keith Stewart Mackenzie, Narrative of the Second Campaign in China, London 1842, p. 92 notes \"the Tartars making a most determined resistance, standing by their guns till the sailors cut them down, hand to hand.\"\n\n2 Captain Granville G. Loch R.N., The Closing Events of the Campaign in China: The Operations in the Yang-Tze-Kiang and Treaty of Nanking, London 1843. P. 107. Loch is horrified by \"old men, women and children, cutting each other's throats, and drowning themselves by the dozen.\"\n\n3 Loch R.N., op. cit., p. 113.\n\n4 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 62 notes \"for both (Admiral) Kwan and his second in command, fell by bayonet wounds received in their breasts, whilst gallantly", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214303, "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": 161, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "125\n\nnotes on nature and hunting in Manchuria. He founded the first natural history museum in China, at the Anglo-Chinese College and this brought him to the notice of directors of museums in the United States and England.\n\nWe have little idea what he did between his return from the Duke of Bedford's expedition and the start of the next expedition nearly three years later, the Clark expedition of 1908/9, which again sought specimens. This time they again set out from Taiyuan to the west, across the Yellow River into Shensi and then on to the north-west, into Kansu province travelling up the Silk Road as far as Lanchou. It was a well-financed private expedition with Sowerby taken on as the Naturalist and though not spelled out - the interpreter. Their route took them through Yulin, a city in the Ordos desert in Shensi province, noted for its large Buddhist temple. This was selected as the first main stopover where they remained undisturbed within the temple compound. Sowerby, brought up in Taiyuan, spoke the local dialect and was able to converse with the local officials and obtain their co-operation and assistance. They remained in Yulin over the winter during which time the Emperor and the Empress Dowager died in Peking. This event brought the second most senior Chinese official in Yulin to the compound to break the news and warn the party of the general apprehension that the deaths of their Majesties might bring about a revolt against the dynasty. Clark, who was also an amateur astronomer, had been seen by Chinese peering through his telescope at the night sky leading the second most senior Chinese official to ask Sowerby whether Clark had foreseen this calamity? Sowerby's answer that he had foreseen it led the official to demand to know why Clark had not passed on the warning to him. Sowerby was able to answer that the official knew full well that it would have been treason for anyone to even suggest that such a thing would take place before it happened. This satisfied the awed official, though the warning of possible unrest left the expedition in a quandary. They decided that the best move would be to set off at once for Sian [now known as Xi'an], the provincial capital, where they would expect to have better protection. On reaching Yenan, some short distance to the south of Yulin, en route for Sian they were assured that the situation was stable and once more settled down for a while, hunting and prospecting locally. After several weeks of visits to Loyang and Honan Fu [now Chengchou] in a neighbouring province, whilst Clark returned to Shanghai to settle a family matter, they continued on to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214957, "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": 53, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "8 \n\nposed as to whether the Chinese as a whole were \"anti-commercial\" or whether it was only the government. Greenberg believes that \"trade in the long run mattered little to the Chinese economy.\"2 A further factor contributing to distrust of foreigners and the consequent restriction in contacts and trade was fear of European expansionist policy apparent to the Chinese in Tibet, the East Indies, the Philippines, Burma, and Nepal. \n\nBy the 1830s British demand for tea had become enormous; tea worth twenty million pounds sterling was imported into Britain annually. It was paid for from huge profits made on the sale of smuggled opium. Many foreign firms in Guangzhou, other than British, had engaged in the lucrative trade, with two notable exceptions,13 Britain accounting for more than 80% of the trade. Dissatisfied with the capricious nature of its trade in Guangzhou, Britain made three high-level attempts to form full diplomatic relations with Beijing, sending embassies under Macartney in 1793, Amherst in 1816, and Napier in 1834; all failed. The last two reached no further than Guangzhou before being unceremoniously sent back. But it may be of interest to deal in some length with Macartney's Mission because it seemed to succeed; that it failed was the most significant disaster in relations between the two nations, eventually leading to war. \n\nAfter a long journey, Macartney's Embassy embarked on Chinese boats to proceed up Baihe (Peiho) River on the 9th of August 1793. The following day they reached Tianjin (Tientsin) where they met the Emperor's envoy at a formal ceremony, which, however, lasted a mere 20 minutes. After staying in Beijing for some two weeks, they set out for Chengde (Jehol) where, on the 30th of September, they met Emperor Qianlong (1736-1795). Lord Macartney was graciously permitted to dispense with kowtow; it was agreed that the salutation was to be made on the right knee. According to Macartney, the Emperor was polite, and the conversation, conducted through interpreters, was lively and interesting. Moreover, the various scientific instruments, which were brought as gifts, were examined with obvious interest. The Embassy was told that they should depart on the 7th of October. Three days' grace was promised but immediately withdrawn, ostensibly because the Emperor was concerned that an early onset of cold weather would inconvenience the Ambassador. To reach their ships at Zhoushan (Chusan) Island, the Embassy had to travel across China, partly overland and partly by rivers - a journey that took nearly two months. It has", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216055, "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": 354, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "288\n\nconsul was nearly hit by a bullet that entered his office through the window. This same consul was involved during student protests later the same year when the police quarters were set alight and the students rampaged through the town intent on killing foreigners. He and his family were only saved by the timely arrival of Chinese soldiers, and escaped by river down to Shanghai.\n\nToday the Zhenjiang Museum occupies the former British Consulate at 85 Boxian Lu in Boxian Park at the heart of the old town. Amongst the items on display in the grounds is an anchor said to have been from H.M.S. Amethyst, the frigate of the British Yangtze Flotilla, which, after weeks of being blockaded, stuck on a sand bank, escaped downstream despite having been badly damaged by shell fire from the PLA [People's Liberation Army] during their thrust south across the River in 1948 to liberate China from the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek. British efforts to seek a diplomatic solution involved Edward Youde, a twenty-four-year-old third secretary at the Embassy, who volunteered to reach the senior PLA military officer at Yangzhou to seek a safe-conduct pass for the Amethyst to sail unmolested downstream back to Shanghai. He first had to obtain passes to permit him to cross the line between the Nationalists and the Communists. After several days of adventures and lengthy cross-country hikes, sometimes under fire, Youde reached the senior PLA officer and his request was forcibly rejected. His mission a failure, he returned, again amidst numerous adventures to report to his Ambassador in Nanjing. He later became better known as Sir Edward Youde, one of the last Governors of Hong Kong.\n\nChristian missionaries\n\nThere were Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries, Anglicans and the 'faith missions', Baptists, Presbyterians and the Lutherans, and so on, as well as the individual evangelicals, zealous saviours of souls. The most important aspect of this work, though most would not see it in this light, was by setting an example, though this in no way belittled their social, medical and educational work. Medical missionaries, another dedicated breed, were an exception with their professional abilities being widely welcomed not only by Chinese but also by the Europeans within both treaty ports as well as in the remoter parts of China in which they lived and worked.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216231, "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": 530, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "464\n\nyou would laugh when I told you the name of the ch'uu.\n\n'Dang me if it isn't a great big white whale\n\ngot into our river; that sure makes a tale !'\n\n&\n\nPeter was happy once we'd been inside\n\nthe Trashigang dzong with its floorboards so wide.\n\nBut as for the rest of the travelling herd,\n\nour Peter was clear - he just gave them the bird.\n\nNo, that's not quite fair; he's Hon. Sec. of the RAS,\n\nand has to make sure that good things come to pass.\n\nIn the matter of birthdays, a party to make,\n\nthere's never a doubt that our Pete takes the cake!\n\nMarlene came a cropper on the road from Pele La;\n\nfell down on the black ice - nearly got hit by a car.\n\nBut she came up smiling - Marlene's never sad for long.\n\nShe was right as rain next morning when we visited a dzong.\n\nAnd finally, Kevin and Sarah and Rocky,\n\nmy time's nearly up - you should count yourselves lucky.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216405, "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-2003", "page_number": 164, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "114\n\nIn the meantime two machines from HERMES carried out their aerial survey work for the day.\n\nAs the ship was due to return to Shanghai the opportunity was taken to give passage to the Lindbergh's and to their aircraft.\n\nOn Saturday afternoon, 3rd October HERMES commenced her passage downstream and three days later anchored off Woosung. Here the Colonel and his wife disembarked. The following morning our ship proceeded up to moor at her buoys off Shanghai. Here the damaged Sirius was off-loaded into a lighter and later was shipped back to California for repair at the factory.\n\nAt Shanghai on Monday, 2nd November 1931 HERMES slipped from her buoys at 0726 hours and proceeded downstream to Woosung. There she altered course to starboard and at 1500 hours passed the Yangtze River Fairway Buoy on passage to Hong Kong.\n\nIt was not to be the usual uneventful coastal voyage.\n\nIn response to an S.O.S. message the next evening HERMES increased speed to fourteen knots to close the Japanese steamer RYUJIN MARU aground on the Tan Rocks near Turnabout Island. Just over two hours later our ship anchored in 21 fathoms. The night was dark, the sea rough, and a light rain was falling. Nearby HERMES found that S.S. SHANTUNG had also responded to the S.O.S. message and already had arrived at the scene of the grounding.\n\nThe stricken ship could not be made out by searchlight so Captain Mackinnon fired star shell. By the light of these the ship was sighted clearly and was seen to be on nearly an even keel and free from the effect of breaking seas. Since she was not in immediate danger and the weather was poor Captain Mackinnon decided to wait until daybreak before attempting any rescue operations. Also he informed SHANTUNG that she could proceed.\n\nEarly the following morning, Wednesday, 4 November, HERMES weighed and shifted to a position only seven cables - 1,400 yards - from the wreck and anchored in 22 fathoms. Subsequently Captain Mackinnon was to note that this move was not without risk:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216440, "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-2003", "page_number": 199, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "149\n\nNewchwang (Niuzhuang) and elsewhere - that might extenuate, but could not justify, Japan's action at Chefoo. The Japanese issued a statement, which ran as follows:\n\nThe status of China in the present struggle is unique. Nearly all the military operations are carried on within her borders, but she is not a party to the conflict. Nevertheless, her territories are in part belligerent and in part neutral. That condition of things is, as regards International Law, an anomaly and a contradiction, and in this case it was made the object of a special understanding ... and it seemed that any such occupation or use of neutral Chinese territory or ports by the Russian force would give effect to the proviso in the Japanese engagement which would justify her in considering ports so occupied or used as belligerent. From Port Arthur Russia sought in Chefoo an asylum from attack, which her home port had ceased to afford her. In taking that step, Russia was guilty of a breach of the neutrality of China... and with the termination of the incident the neutrality of the port was revived.\n\nChina augmented its force in the Shanghai river with a modern cruiser, with orders to arrest Russian vessels which had sought sanctuary at Wusong. They registered all the names, ages and official titles of the Russian naval personnel on the vessels at Wusong, and the list checked from time to time to ensure that none were missing. Russian warships which escaped from Port Arthur before its capture also took refuge in Chefoo where they were disarmed. These and other Chinese acts revealed their new-found courage and were, almost certainly, due to Japanese successes in the field.\n\nChinese reports of Russian violations and intrusions on neutral (Chinese) territory were frequent, notably in Kashgaria and other parts of Chinese Eastern Turkestan (present-day Xinjiang). They also frequently violated various parts of Mongolia and Manchuria west of the Liao River in direct contravention of the international agreement made at the commencement of the war by both belligerent powers.\n\nAt the end of January 1905 Russian forces suddenly appeared before Kashgar (Kashi), expelled the Chinese garrison, consisting of a Chinese major and some 200 locally-born Chinese soldiers in the old town, and the Tidu or Provincial Commander-in-Chief and five", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216508, "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-2003", "page_number": 267, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "219\n\nLuoyang at Binglingsi (where a ferry took Silk Road travellers across the Yellow River) also shows influence from further west, this time from Gandhara (see below). These caves date from around 420. Indian influence was significant too in the magnificent complex of four hundred and ninety-two caves at Dunhuang, 'the art gallery in the desert', nearly fifteen hundred kilometres (as the crow flies) northwest of Chang'an. The practice arose at Dunhuang of travellers making offerings for a safe trip as they set off into the Taklamakan desert, or for a safe return, in the form of commissioning Buddhist devotional cave paintings. Dunhuang also became a monastic centre, particularly flourishing after the great fair at Zhangye (nine hundred kilometres northwest of Chang'an) in 609, which was sponsored and attended by the Chinese Emperor Yangdi. Among those who travelled to attend this fair were people from twenty-seven different nations, according to Tucker. This indicates the greater freedom of travel established by this period, and it is not surprising that Gandharan influence is to be seen in Dunhuang's paintings, although Tucker argues that their style is distinctively Chinese.\n\nClearly, by the time of the Zhangye fair, the Silk Road was thriving. By then, Xinjiang Province (meaning 'New Dominion') had been firmly in Chinese hands for four centuries. The roaming hordes of nomads that had formerly menaced travellers on the routes through the Province had been brought to heel by Chinese military control and lines of forts extended west into the desert beyond Dunhuang. One of the most important power groups beyond the Taklamakan desert with which the Chinese had established good relations beginning with Wudi's efforts in 105 BCE was the Kushan Empire (c. 2nd century BCE to 3rd century AD), the territory of which straddled the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush, and is now occupied by Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. It had been established by a formerly nomadic tribe, the Yuezhi, which had settled after fleeing west from the nomadic Xiongnu. The Kushan Empire, with its provinces of Bactria and Gandhara, was the primary nexus of cross-cultural interaction along the Silk Road, straddling as it did the mountains and passes between the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Persia, and the plains and great river valleys draining northwest into Europe. It was in the Kushan cities of Peshawar (now in Pakistan) and Mathura (India), where magnificent schools of art emerged that blended western and eastern influences and that, in turn, spread further east into China. For example, in what is now the north of Pakistan, then known as Gandhara, Greek sculpture strongly influenced statues of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]