[
    {
        "id": 204483,
        "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": 115,
        "title": "RAS-1962",
        "content_text": "104\n\nELSPETH MANEELY\n\n16\n\nhill slopes of the western islands and in the Castle Peak area; but perhaps only four places investigated since archaeological work began in the Colony may be dignified by the term \"site\". These are: So Kun Wat #, a series of low hilltops to the west of the Tai Lam Chun reservoir; Lamma Island (Pok Liu Chau14), which really comprises several distinct sites; Shek Pik and Man Kok Tsui, both on Lantau Island (Tai Yu Shan). A report on the findings at So Kun Wat was presented by C. M. Heanley and J. L. Shellshear in 1932 at the first Congress of Prehistorians of the Far East held at Hanoi. Father Finn's publications on the Lamma sites, begun in 1932, have recently been reprinted in one volume, Archaeological Finds on Lamma Island Near Hong Kong.3 The Shek Pik site, on the south-west coast of Lantau Island, was excavated by W. Schofield and J. G. Andersson in 1937 and a report was published in the Proceedings of the Third Congress of Prehistorians of the Far East, Singapore, in 1938. The artifacts uncovered at Man Kok Tsui are similar to those found at these earlier sites and are of three kinds: stone tools and ornaments, pottery and bronze.\n\nBefore describing the discovery of Man Kok Tsui in more detail however, reference should be made to Father R. L. Maglioni's extensive discoveries in Hoifung as they bear a definite relationship to finds in the Hong Kong area. Hoifung lies on the China coast about one hundred miles north-east of Hong Kong. In 1934 Fr. Maglioni, then a priest in the Hoifung region, embarked on a thorough search for prehistoric remains. He located as many as twenty distinct sites. In general the finds were of the same type as those described by archaeologists working in Hong Kong, but Fr. Maglioni was able to distinguish three separate Neolithic cultures. These three he called the SON, SAK and PAT cultures from the capital letters of the romanized names of villages adjacent to the sites. So far Neolithic remains in Hong Kong resemble closely those of Fr. Maglioni's PAT culture, the latest of the three.\n\nIn April 1958, Dr. S. M. Bard first reported Man Kok Tsui as a possible area for investigation by the University Archaeological Team. The site, given the number 30 by the Team, lies at the extreme tip of the northern arm of Silvermine Bay, Lantau Island. It consists of two sheltered, sandy beaches, a flat fertile valley",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f",
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    },
    {
        "id": 204505,
        "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": 137,
        "title": "RAS-1962",
        "content_text": "122\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nQUERIES\n\nPRELIMINARY REPORT ON THE FINDS AT SHEK PIK\n\nAt the beginning of March 1962 a bulldozer employed by Messrs. Dragages on the reservoir site at Shek Pik, south-west Lantau, uncovered coins and pottery on the hillside above the abandoned village of Shek Pik Wai. Unfortunately, the find was not reported by the Company and it was only after a member of the Chief Resident Engineer's staff got to hear of it that steps were taken to recover as much as possible from the workmen.\n\nSome three hundred coins and several small sherds of pottery and porcelain were handed in to the Waterworks Office by the Chief Resident Engineer, Shek Pik and these were sent to the Curator of the City Hall Museum, Mr. J. M. Warner, who passed them to me for a preliminary examination.\n\nOn Sunday, 11th March, members of the Archaeological Team of the University went out to Shek Pik and spent the better part of a day looking round the area which had been cleared by the bulldozers. We managed to recover over a hundred more coins and, which was possibly of greater importance, picked up fragments of porcelain from the site.\n\nThe coins have now been given a preliminary classification in the District Office, Islands. Fortunately, despite their long burial, the characters on most of the coins are still decipherable and it has been possible in all but a few cases to determine to which reign dates they should be assigned. They appear to be copper coins and with the exception of two small groups, have reign titles in the Sung Dynasty (960-1278). Of the sixty reign titles of the eighteen emperors of this dynasty, both Northern and Southern Sung, twenty-nine are represented among the coins which have already been recovered. There is also a group of coins which bear the characters Wang Sung, Shêng Sung, and Ta Sung. These appeared along with coins bearing a reign title, and can also be fixed accurately in time, in these cases 1038-40, 1101 and 1226 respectively. The date of the coins covers the whole length of the Sung period, that is approximately three hundred years from the mid-tenth to the late thirteenth centuries. Besides Sung coins there is a small",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f",
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    },
    {
        "id": 204762,
        "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": 65,
        "title": "RAS-1964",
        "content_text": "54 \n\nK. M. A. BARNETT \n\npreviously described, no longer carries water, and part of which is still used to supply irrigation water to a village. The ancient grave at Lo-A-Tsai on Lamma Island is made of similar stones; and I am inclined to associate also with these people a number of high standing stones, some of which are still cult objects, of which one stands above Bowen Road, another overlooking Sha Tin115 is known to Europeans by the unnecessarily sneering name of the \"Amah Rock\". A stone of this type, standing above a rock pool which looks as though it had been artificially enlarged and made circular, stands between the deserted village of Pak Koks at the south-western tip of Shek Pik Bay128 and the new village to which the ancient Fung2 clan of Fan Puisi were moved to make room for the Shek Pik Reservoir. Another overlooks Long Harbour, and about this one there is some mystery, since every year at approximately the date of the Mid-Autumn Festival a considerable number of women can be seen flocking up the hill to this stone, but all villages within walking distance flatly deny knowledge of any such celebration. This is at best negative evidence, and may not indicate the persistence of a pre-Chinese tradition; for a similar reticence regarding religious celebrations by women is observed at the great Nu-kwa102 temple on Honam Island154 \n\nopposite Canton, which men are seldom allowed to visit. I am trying to plot the positions of all these stone works and believe that when the list is finished, it will arrange itself into three circuits on Lantao Island, one on Lamma Island, two on Hong Kong Island, two on the Saikung126 Peninsula and three or four in the rest of the New Territories. This work might well be taken in hand by someone younger, but it must be someone who is fond of walking; and walkers have a peculiar blind spot when it comes to the collection of this kind of evidence, for I have often had to draw the attention of my walking companions even to the most obvious systems of stone walls which they have been walking right past, or even over, without noticing. The Lo-A-Tsai grave is situated close by a path and the first time I passed it, in the company of five villagers, I asked them what it was though most of them used that path nearly every day, none had ever before noticed the grave! \n\nA piece which is of vital importance and may indeed be what holds the rest of our jigsaw puzzle together is the correct identification of occupied sites on the seashore. There are many",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205861,
        "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": 167,
        "title": "RAS-1969",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n161 \n\nA PAIR OF POTTERY COVERED JARS FOUND AT SHEK PIK, LANTAU ISLAND \n\nThe Shek Pik area in the south-western corner of Lantau Island has yielded archaeological finds of more varied interest than any other area in Hong Kong. Before the construction of the reservoir in the valley (1958-62), it was mainly known by the neolithic sites on the raised beach which W. Schofield excavated in the thirties. During and since the building of the reservoir various archaeological finds of comparatively recent periods have been made. The latest of these finds is a pair of earthenware jars with identical blue and white porcelain bowls as covers. They were discovered in February 1968 and February 1969 by James Hayes who had reported all post-war archaeological finds at Shek Pik†. Both pairs of jar and bowl were broken when discovered and the first pair has now been restored by the City Museum and Art Gallery (see Plates 19 and 20).\n\nThese jars and bowls were located on a sloping hillside west of the former village of Shek Pik Wai (abandoned before the War for sites a few hundred yards lower down the valley). The area had been scoured by bulldozers for 'fill' for the dam and the jars were found in an exposed bank. This was, in fact, the site of the earlier discoveries reported by Hayes. Though located less than a foot away from each other and each about two feet from the surface, the pots were discovered singly as progressive eroding of the bank by rain brought them to light. Mr. WAN On (溫安) of Pui O, South Lantau was with Mr. Hayes on both occasions.\n\nThe porcelain bowls are the first known pieces of Ming blue and white porcelain reported in Hong Kong, at any rate since the War, although they are a type of trade porcelain which is commonly found in the Philippines and in Indonesia. The bowls have fairly straight slanting sides and high foot-rims. They are decorated on the outside with vertical fern leaves (sometimes identified as plantain leaves) with wavy edges and with a band of floral design round the mouth rim. On the inside they are decorated with a double ring near the mouth and with a lotus flower within a circle in the centre. The lotus flower (Sanskrit padma) is one of the \"eight glorious emblems\" in Buddhist art\n\n† See reference to this article at p. 73 of this issue. Ed.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206412,
        "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": 229,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n203\n\nin the upper Aberdeen reservoir area, known to me, that may also have been connected with charcoal burning.\n\nIt would assist if walkers who come across pits of this nature would be kind enough to report them to me, with a map reference, in order to build up information on this little known subject.\n\nOne last point. Herklots asks why kilns are located so high up on the hill sides. Village people have reminded me that there is no point carrying wood down to a kiln when it is easier to put the kiln near the wood supply and carry the charcoal down to the village or the shore.\n\nHong Kong, 1970.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nWHAT INSPIRED SIR JOHN BOWRING'S HYMN?\n\nProf. Carrington Goodrich's reference to the hymn \"In the Cross of Christ I glory\" (Notes & Queries, JHKBRAS Vol.9(1969) pp.151-2) is interesting and although it shows that John Bowring wrote the hymn before he ever visited Macao, the tradition of a very close connection with the ruins of Macao's San Paulo is a very strong one.\n\nI have personally heard from two very knowledgeable persons that Bowring was a great admirer of the old church:\n\nMr. Henry Hyndman was a local resident who was particularly interested in the personalities of old Macao. He was born in 1828, educated in Macao and then Singapore, and worked in Hong Kong and Shanghai before he retired to Macao. In the final stages of his life (he lived to be 98 years old) it gave him great pleasure to talk about the people he knew, among whom was Sir John Bowring, who visited Macao frequently from 1849 to 1859. Mr. Hyndman recalled seeing the English visitor at the foot of the ruins and of how, later, after he was Governor of Hong Kong, Sir John's name came to be associated with the hymn.\n\nIn 1927 to 1928, Sir Cecil Clementi, then Governor of Hong Kong, used to visit Macao and on one occasion at dinner in the residence of the Governor of Macao, Sir Cecil spoke of his youth",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206557,
        "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-1972",
        "page_number": 105,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "REVIEW OF HOUSING CONDITIONS IN HONG KONG\n\n99\n\nby the reduction of available accommodation, that privies for common use were contrary to Chinese social habits and that no compensation was offered to property owners.7 The unofficial (appointed) members of the Legislative Council were most vociferous in their objections to the proposed measures and were successful in obtaining numerous amendments which made the Ordinance of very limited use. However, the restriction over the amount of internal living space was retained but only after heated debate and the use of the official majority vote.\n\nTwo years elapsed before the government again attempted to introduce new provisions in the form of a Building Ordinance. The matter of rear yards was included in the Bill but this was once more forced out by the unofficial Legislative Council members and had to be included in the Crown Lands Resumption Ordinance. A clause was proposed whereby mezzanine floors could only be constructed if provision were made for a vertical clearance of 9 ft. above and below. This was modified at the insistence of the unofficial members so that it would apply only in cases where the mezzanine extended over more than two-thirds of a room; otherwise a clearance of 6 ft. was permitted. Another clause relating to the provision of sufficient windows was eliminated whilst the installation of privies was made optional.\n\nStiff resistance continued from property owners against further proposals put forward by the government to help improve the sanitary condition of the Colony which daily became the cause of greater concern. Nevertheless, the administration did achieve a number of major improvements recommended by Chadwick in 1882. Between 1883 and 1900, for example, over HK$2 million was spent on improving water supplies through the completion of a reservoir at Tytam; another HK$1 million was allocated for the reprovisioning of the sewerage system and the redraining of 9,957 houses; a further HK$660,000 was used for the construction of new markets, animal depots, slaughterhouses, latrines, laundries and other miscellaneous works.\n\n7Letter of 18th July 1901 to the Hon. J. Chamberlain, Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies from J. H. Stewart Lockhart, Colonial Secretary, Enclosure No. 2: Measures to Give Effect to Mr. Chadwick's Recommendations of 1882 Legislation, Blue Book Reports on Sanitation and Housing 1900-1907, Hong Kong, 1907.\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207396,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 164,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "156\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nsteeply to one of the passes, Magazine Gap, through which roads passed from one side of the Island to the other. The hospital had wide shady verandahs but no lifts, and all windows had heavy wooden shutters for use during typhoons. A reservoir for fire fighting purposes had been constructed a little above hospital level and was fed by hill streams. Above that again was the Nursing Sisters Mess. About the same level as the hospital were quarters for warrant officers and a barrack block for male staff, a NAAFI block for recreation and a tennis court together with some lesser outbuildings. Below the hospital was the Sergeants Mess and a residential block for married staff, \"H\" block. There was only one approach road winding up to the hospital, Borrett Road, but there was a subsidiary road, Bowen Road, running along a contour line but not strong enough to take heavy traffic. The hospital was one of the landmarks of the Hong Kong scene when viewed from the mainland. Below the hospital the ground fell steeply to the main road linking the city of Victoria and the Island to the east, and to the Naval Command Headquarters in H.M.S. Tamar, the Naval Dockyard and the headquarters of China Command. The hospital was therefore close to legitimate enemy targets and any margin for error in artillery fire and aerial bombing was reduced still further by the precipitous slope on which it stood.\n\nThe hospital however had nowhere else to go, and Colonel Shackleton the commanding officer used his considerable ingenuity to have two operating theatres with their necessary adjuncts and X-Ray rooms constructed in the basement of the administration block. Engines for generating electricity, one capable of supplying the theatres and X-ray room, the other able to serve part of the hospital as well were installed and were of great value during hostilities and during the long period of captivity. When the hospital was severely damaged and the kitchen totally destroyed very early on by aerial bombs and shell fire, Shackleton speedily got an emergency kitchen operating in the sergeants mess and set up a protective wall of concrete blocks, known to us from a much publicised local court case as \"Mimi Lau's”, on the harbour side of the ground floor wards. Shackleton was a forceful character, apparently not aware of fear, who was ready to cut through any red tape which obstructed his aims. He liked his own way and was not an easy man to have under command, but to those relying upon his administration in war he always provided what was needed.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207407,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 175,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n167\n\nwall would have been breached and a huge volume of water would have swept down hill. The theatres and X-ray department would have been flooded and put out of action as would have been the emergency kitchen in the sergeants' mess, while the approach roads to the hospital would have been further damaged. Fortunately the shell did not explode and after hostilities our sappers successfully removed it to a place where it could do less harm if it exploded. Even so a crack leak was caused in the reservoir wall which caused us much trouble subsequently.\n\nThere was a surprising laxity about the early Japanese arrangements for guarding the hospital, contrasting with their later stringency. I remember climbing to Magazine Gap for exercise and curiosity's sake with a companion after the surrender and then following the road to the Peak for a considerable distance. A few Japanese patrols and sentries did not try to check us provided they were saluted as befitted the representatives of the Imperial Army. Soon however the hospital was wired in, the barrier at first allowing us access to the Barrack and N.A.A.F.I. Blocks as well as to the tennis court, the minor buildings and the ground round the reservoir. The guard post was in Bowen Road immediately below the hospital while the guard barracks were in our former married quarters in \"H\" Block. The Japanese administrators of the hospital lived in the former sisters' mess. The area allowed to us was therefore generous at the beginning, but was drastically reduced later on. Movement outside the wire was prohibited except when on working parties under guard.\n\nThe A.D.M.S., Colonel John Simson, had joined us in the hospital after surrender. He was a short, powerfully built man who had played rugby football for Scotland and had spent a number of years in the Sudan where he was a noted big game shot. In the hospital we were ordered to salute all Japanese officers, N.C.O.'s and sentries. John Simson's salute was a joy to see; with his cap on the back of his head and tilted to one side he would bring a forefinger up to eye level in much the same manner as a countryman at home might have acknowledged the local squire days gone by, except that the gesture was full of what used to be called dumb insolence in our army. The only way in which the salutation could have been more expressive would have been for him to have applied his thumb to his nose at the same time. While in Bowen Road he helped in a number of communal enterprises but sought no part in",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207479,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 247,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n239\n\ntoo much water, a complaint which I imagine rose from a need to save electricity which powered the water pumps in the mains system in the Island. In the first half of 1944 we drained our reservoir twice to repair leaks and on the first occasion we found quite a number of British rifles, pistols, grenades and a substantial quantity of ammunition which British troops had obviously jettisoned during their retreat. During hostilities R.A.M.C. personnel were armed to protect their patients if need be, but all such arms in Bowen Road together with those which had come in with patients had been withdrawn and returned to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps as the end of hostilities approached. I never heard that firearms were ever used by medical personnel. We were never asked to explain the presence of arms after they were discovered in the reservoir. Mains water was cut off intermittently from mid 1944 onwards and in November we read in the Hongkong News that water supplies would be cut off in a large part of the city of Victoria, while we in the hospital were warned that we might possibly get a mains supply on one day out of three. Our engineers thereupon laid a water pipe from the reservoir to the kitchen with tanks which were baths removed from the hospital, at the reservoir and on the kitchen roof. Provision was made for showers and special arrangements were made for gardeners. The sappers were required to extend our water supply to the Japanese guardhouse and they also dammed a nullah above the hospital to provide a supply for the Japanese administration. The pipes were taken from the handrails on the stairs in the hospital and elsewhere, and the work was timely for the mains supply ceased at the end of November 1944. We then chlorinated our drinking water in containers in the wards and hoisted water to the upper ward levels in buckets using a system of pulleys. Thereafter we relied on hill-water for our supplies though in our new quarters in Kowloon after March 1945 the mains supply system was operating.\n\nThe mains supply of electricity, interrupted for a time during hostilities, was restored after our surrender and this was extremely valuable to us in the long months of 1942 and 1943 when we had so many seriously ill men. Each ward had a small electric instrument sterilizer which we were allowed to retain and they proved of the greatest value in preparing drinks, small dishes of food and boiling eggs etc. for patients. Our skilful engineers kept them serviced and they were used as long as we had any current from the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208129,
        "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": 168,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "152\n\nW. SCHOFIELD\n\nused by villagers occurred in 1931, when a man applied for a matshed permit for a small area in the middle of the beach at Tai Wan village on Po Toi. I took a launch there to see the place and found he had picked the centre of an area on which were a large number of poles used by the villagers to support bamboos for drying nets and similar purposes: so after a few enquiries I told the applicant he could not have that place. (That was the day I found a fine shouldered stone adze-head on the path above the village at the 150 ft. contour). Another very different case was that of a house built on a levelled site on a low hill above Muk Min Ha, Tsun Wan: the contractors mishandled the levelling so badly that the earth fill was nearly all washed down into the village and raised its lanes by 2 or 3 feet, making a fearful mess: this was about 1926.\n\nDuring my term of office the resumption of the Shing Mun Valley for reservoir construction was carried through, the D.O. North doing the actual negotiation, which was long and difficult. The problem was where to resettle the five displaced villages, and before a site was found enquiries were made in all directions, even as far afield as North Borneo. Some village elders were sent there to see the area offered, but their report was very adverse; there were too many corrupting influences there to suit their people — all Hakkas — who naturally wished to bring up their children in proper surroundings, not among brothels, opium dens and spirit shops.\n\nOne of the quietest parts of the District was the area of the Lyemun and Hang Hau peninsulas, where the traditional ways of life were kept going, and people rarely dealt in land, or brought their disputes to me. Hang Hau peninsula was served by only two good lines of communication; the Hang Hau ferry from Shaukiwan, connecting with a launch that ran from the east side of the Hang Hau isthmus to Saikung, and a solidly built Chinese paved road running along the ridge north and south down the peninsula. On Nam Tong, by the Fat Tau Mun, stands a fort with a gun platform on the south rampart for light artillery; this was said to have been a pirate stronghold originally. West of this fort lay some old deserted fields, which at the time of my visit were being tilled by a squatter. I suggested to him that he might become a regular land-owner and start paying Crown rent, but apparently the rent suggestion frightened him off, for next year the land was deserted.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208140,
        "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": 179,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n163 \n\nneat grave on the far side of the burnt-out area; where the fire may have started. \n\nh) The cutting beside Tai Mo Shan Road (about 100 metres up hill from the car park) shows the parent rock quite well. The soils in this region, and from here to the summit, are red-yellow podzols. \n\ni) Small mammals that have been identified from the adjacent countryside in recent years include: Paguma larvata (masked palm civet or 果子狸), Melogale moschata (ferret-badger or 獾) and Rattus rattus sladeni (Sladen's roof rat or 司氏屋顶鼠(田鼠)). \n\n3. Stop B-car park near summit (altitude ca 700 m.) \n\nOn many days of the year, as on the day of the RAS visit, this site is covered with drifting cloud or mist which undoubtedly increases the effective precipitation. The vegetation here is a grassland, probably maintained by fire and lack of seed etc. of other life forms. However, improvement is feasible, as may be seen from the reasonable growth of planted trees. \n\na) Extensive views can be obtained from this site: see inset on the sketch map. In order to see Deep Bay (后海灣) it is necessary to walk ca 100 m. down the road & on to the knoll beyond the signals hut. \n\nb) To the west of Tsing Yi Island can be seen the badly eroded hills surrounding the Tai Lam Chung (大欖涌) reservoir. These hills are composed of granite of several kinds. Granite weathers much more readily than the volcanic rock of which Tai Mo Shan is composed, so that the hills are denuded of vegetation and are pale brown in color. \n\nc) The sloping terraces on the far hillside and close beside this car park are intriguing because their original purpose is seemingly unknown. However, recent investigation suggests they were concerned with control of water flow, either retention of water or control of run-off; a record of these terraces is being prepared for submission to the JHKBRAS. Tea bushes (Camellia sinensis) were formerly cultivated on Tai Mo Shan and the sloping terraces",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208154,
        "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": 193,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n177 \n\n26. Water was, of course, Tai Mo Shan's greatest natural resource. Before the construction of the Shing Mun catchwaters pre-war, and those for the Tai Lam Chung reservoir post-war, a tremendous flow of water ran down the mountain. It assisted in the gradual formation of land for houses and cultivation at its two main stream mouths in Tsuen Wan,* and was also used for industrial purposes. Water power drove the 24 incense mills located on the various streams of Tsuen Wan between 1900-1910 and before. (JHKBRAS 16 (1976):282-283). Stream water was also essential to the manufacture of bean curd and bean stick, another very old Tsuen Wan local industry, in which the quality of the product was directly related to the availability of a continually available pure water supply (see pp. 216-218 of this Journal). \n\nPublic Works \n\n27. In any hill area in which streams abound and become fast-flowing torrents in wet weather, there is a need for bridges across which travellers and villagers carrying heavy loads can proceed in safety. Tai Mo Shan has its share of such streams, and there are surviving bridges here and there in the hills and on its lower slopes. Among those known to me the largest is the Po Chai Bridge at Chung Hang, a few minutes' walk from my office in Tsuen Wan. Beside it is a battered slate-like tablet commemorating its repair in the 4609th year of the Yellow Emperor, a curious titling which owes its inspiration to the overthrow of the Ch'ing dynasty in the same year as its reconstruction (see Dingle: 89 for a similar dating that gave me the clue to this one and illustrates the wave of Chinese feeling that linked places as far apart in these two cases as Hankow and Tsuen Wan). The subscribers were the leading villagers and shopkeepers of Tsuen Wan and places linked to it by social and business ties. \n\n28. Another bridge, further up the same valley at a place called Ngo Tei (#) or Goose Land—probably its geomantic name—has no tablet. However it is also an old bridge, and an elderly villager of Pak Shek Kiu, an abandoned hill village higher up, credits its repair fifty years ago by a city merchant from Hong Kong as the 'price' paid to the villages to allow burial of one of his relatives there. \n\n* The old name for Tsuen Wan was Chin Wan (**) or Shallow Bay which directly reflects the effect of the mountain on the bay. It was in use until the late 19th century, being replaced first by Tsuen Wan and then...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208162,
        "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": 201,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n185 \n\ndogs. We observed those at the first but actually visited those at the second, which were close to our path back to Wang Chau. The first of these sites is particularly well placed and the outlook and general air of peace and perpetuity on a most beautiful sunny winter day were unforgettable. Alas for permanence! Though not itself in danger, the land to the rear of the second grave is threatened by a plan to establish a borrow area for development projects requiring soft fill. This would cut into the hills and remove features that are considered by the Tangs to threaten the good geomantic qualities of the grave. Consequently, a number of the persons who had earlier met us at Kam Tin were waiting there patiently to explain the position to us, obviously hoping for our support, and several members of the party walked with them to the ridge behind to see the land and hear their views, as courtesy required. \n\nAll told, this visit was a memorable one. The Society is most grateful to the elders of the Tang family for their courtesy, hospitality and assistance with the day's arrangements. \n\nHong Kong, 1978. \n\nJAMES HAYES \n\nGrave No. 3 is Plate 50 of LO Hsiang-lin and others' Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842 (Chinese version, 1959) and Plate 35 of the English version (1963). Grave No. 5 is at Plates 51-53 of the Chinese version and Plates 36-37 of the English. \n\nROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY VISIT TO TSUEN WAN SATURDAY, 10TH DEC., 1977 \n\n‘A VILLAGE WAR' \n\nA. NOTE ON THE VISIT \n\nIn the 1860's, an ill-natured three-year struggle took place between villagers of Shing Mun, where the Jubilee Reservoir now is, and of Tsuen Wan. A good deal of damage was caused on each side, and many lives were lost. Fortunately, the descendants of the combatants are still living in this area, and it is possible to reconstruct the details of the struggle and to view some interesting relics",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208165,
        "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": 204,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "188\n\nB. THE WAR\n\n1. Contestants\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n(a) The Shing Mun villages, 8 in number and with a population of about 855 in 1928 when they were removed to build the Shing Mun Reservoir.1\n\n(b) The Tsuen Wan villages, some 12 in number with an estimated population of around 1500 in 1900. These villages are still in existence although some of them have been resited because of recent development.2\n\nAll these villagers were Hakka Chinese, so that the struggle was between persons of the same language group. Moreover, since their settlement in these locations in the 17th and 18th centuries, the villagers had given and taken their womenfolk in marriage through many generations, and so were closely related and acquainted with each other. Also, the Shing Mun villagers did at least part of their marketing in Tsuen Wan.4\n\n2. Time\n\nThe war lasted for three years at the beginning of the T'ung-chih reign of the Ch'ing Dynasty, between 1862-1864.\n\n3. Reasons for the Struggle\n\nThe tablet in the Tsuen Wan Tin Hau Temple dated in the 1930s and written by a local Ch'ing scholar-gentry holding the first (hsiu ts'ai) degrees is not very revealing. It merely says that at the time in question law and order was lax and barbaric customs preva3vailed, so that village feuds revived and a fight with weapons ensued between the Shing Mun and Tsuen Wan villages. By implication, the Shing Mun people were, of course, in the wrong. The record continues: \"being outnumbered our boundaries were constantly invaded and our villages were almost reduced to ruins.\"\n\nDr. Betsy Johnson, who took notes on the subject in 1967-68, from one old Tsuen Wan villager whose grandfather had taken part in the struggle, learned that relations with Shing Mun were not very good before the war. However, according to him, it began over a third party, a small hill village in the present Kowloon reservoir area east of Shing Mun which had amicable ties with Tsuen Wan. The old man continued, 'Once some...'",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208618,
        "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": 75,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "48 \n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM, DOWNS \n\nports, visas and so on, and on their return the bus which they had boarded took them only as far as Repulse Bay Hotel. From there they began walking to Stanley, and they had not gone far when the command rang out: Halt!. They saw no one in the gathering darkness and continued on, when suddenly a bullet whistled over their heads. Some British Tommies on sentry duty stopped them and demanded their credentials. These having been verified they were allowed to proceed, none the worse for their experience. \n\nDuring these eventful days, Father Toomey did great work in visiting the Prison, on occasional sick calls. He also went to Point d'Aguilar where volunteers were holding an advance position. He was likewise at the Fort on the Hill when it was being bombed by the Japanese planes. While at the Prison he attempted to visit the interned Italian Fathers, but was not allowed. However, he managed to have delivered to them a Mass kit or two with the necessary supplies. \n\nAt the Carmelite Convent just below our hill, Father Hessler said daily Mass for the Sisters and later on remained with them during the actual fighting at Stanley. \n\nAs the days wore on in the second week of the war, things began to get pretty \"hot\" around Stanley. An occasional shell whistled overhead, reports came in that the Japanese landed in Hong Kong and were even now converging on the Tytam reservoir just to the east of us; in fact, they were even said to have captured a red brick house close by. Finally, on the twenty-second of the month, without warning, eight of the Royal Engineers' coolies who were standing just outside our garage on the west of the house, were wounded by machine gun bullets fired from across the valley. Also a little beggar girl who used to come frequently for food received a flesh wound. We brought them all into our house and laid them on the floor and did what we could for them, bandaging up their wounds. Just across this valley the British had built some ammunition dumps and had placed there an anti-aircraft battery or two. These batteries fired at enemy planes in the beginning but eventually we heard them no more and no doubt they were removed elsewhere, for now the Japanese were in possession of this hill. As a measure of safety we moved our kitchen away from this western exposure and also kept away as much as possible from that end of the house. \n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209875,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1983",
        "page_number": 134,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "112\n\nHaven\".\n\nPui O at present often uses for its name characters meaning \"Shell Harbour\".\n\n1* Yi Long Wan (\"Second Wave Bay\").\n\n1 These villages used to stand just south of Discovery Bay but have since given way to the major housing project of that name.\n\n\" Tai Pak Island is now called Tai Lei (\"Great Profit\").\n\n19 Shau Chau is now called Sha Chau (\"Sand Isle\").\n\n\"Tongkwu is now called Lung Kwu Chau (\"Dragon Drum Island”). \"The Society for the Aid and Rehabilitation of Drug Addicts (SARDA) has had a treatment centre here since about 1960.\n\n31\n\n* Capital of San On District.\n\n** No villages now survive on Hei Ling Chau, which, after the closure of the leprosarium, is now occupied solely by the Correctional Services Department. The remaining villagers were resited to various places on Lantau in 1952-53.\n\n** Chau Kong is now called Sunshine Island (Chau Kung To), after an agricultural rehabilitation programme for refugee families launched there in the 1950s by Mr. Gus Borgeest (of Hong Kong) and others.\n\n\"Kau Yi Tsai is now called Siu Kau Yi Chau, with the same meaning.\n\n**A prewar periodical magazine containing many items of great interest, including Father D.J. Finn's contributions on local archaeology, 1933-36. These were reprinted, edited by Rev. T.F. Ryan S.J., by Ricci Hall, University of Hong Kong, 1958, entitled Archaeological Finds on Lamma Island (M) near Hong Kong.\n\n** Waglan at present uses for its name characters meaning \"Barrier to the Waves\".\n\n#T\n\nRespectively Cheung Shek Pai, Ngan Wu, and Shan Liu.\n\n\" Also known in English as Junk Island. At present the island is known in Chinese only as Fat Tau Chau (\"Buddha's Head Island\").\n\nNam Tong Island is now known as Tung Lung Chau (\"Eastern Dragon Island”).\n\n* This is the Tin Hau Temple (Tai Miu) on Joss House Bay.\n\nAfter partial excavation, it is now listed as an ancient monument under the care of the Urban Services Department.\n\n** Respectively Pak A, Leung Shuen Wan, and Pak Lap.\n\n** These inlets were drowned in the mid 1970s to form the High Island Reservoir.\n\n*Tolo Harbour.\n\nYuen Chau Tsai, see note 2 above.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211973,
        "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": 388,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "363\n\nThey now entered Tai Hong Tsuen. They first worshipped at the san-teng. The party worshipped at a well of Tsi Tong Tsuen. Next they worshipped at Lai-Gaan Tong, and then at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain.\n\nThey made offerings at the spot where Gau Ga Chyun used to be.\n\nThen they proceeded to Wing Lung Wai, where they worshipped first at an altar of the God of Earth and Grain, then at the village gate, then the san-teng, and finally at the ancestral hall of Gwok-Yin Jou.\n\nThe procession turned back and went to worship at the altar for the God of Earth and Grain of Shing Mun San Tsuen, a village of outsiders who moved to Kam Tin when their village, Shing Mun, was destroyed in the 1930s for the construction of the Shing Mun Reservoir. Then the procession entered Tai Hong Wai to worship at its san-teng, village gate, altar for the God of Earth and Grain and well. After this the procession went back to the festival site.\n\nThe procession was received and treated to soft drinks and cakes at Shui Mei, Shui Tau, Sa Bui Leng, Ko Po, Kat Hing Wai, Wing Lung Wai and Tai Hong Wai by the local villagers.\n\nE. Procession of incense II\n\nThis second procession took place on the day after the main day. It was to visit Ying Lung Wai, the village of Hung-Yi's descendants outside Kam Tin, as well as the Yuen Long Old Market and the villages in its vicinity. The other spots were included because the Yuen Long Market had once belonged to a segment of the Kam Tin Dang lineage, and they used to have landed property in the surrounding villages.\n\nThe procession started at 12:40. The equipment involved was more or less the same as the previous day, but I also noticed something I had not seen before: two lanterns saying \"to offer incense\" and two banners saying \"keep quiet\" and \"keep clear\", and burning incense inside a \"pavilion\" on a table carried by poles. There were a very large number of people again, but less than the previous day. The same Dang Jik-Wai, and the headmaster of Mung Yeung School, originally from Ko Po, led the procession.\n\n363",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213279,
        "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": 101,
        "title": "RAS-1994",
        "content_text": "81\n\nThe vegetation on the Peak corresponds to the fung shui woods (where stillborn babies are sometimes buried) positioned at the rear of traditional, symmetrical New Territories' villages. In addition to acting as, so called, 'green dragons', untouched shelter belts and firebreaks, these fung shui groves, which may house a temple or a shrine, are considered almost sacred. These woods also act as barriers against malevolent forces. They are the homes of spirits and gods and are considered essential for the wellbeing of a village.\n\nThere are well over 300 fung shui woods in Hong Kong (Webb, 1995:44), and, although the largest covers as many as 14 hectares they average two hectares each. Historically, they provide materials for culinary, medicinal, ceremonial and structural use, if, for instance, a length of timber is required for repairs to the temple, or bamboo carrying poles are needed for weddings or funerals. Banyans, heung (incense) trees, camphor, bamboo, rose-apple, longan, lychee, mango and breadfruit, some of which play important parts in Chinese folk religion, are common in fung shui coppices. One of the best examples of a fung shui wood is in Shing Mun Country Park, at the north end of Jubilee Reservoir. This wood is reputed to be around 400 years old (Dudgeon, 1994:73).\n\nA well-sited village is not only protected from the elements, such as typhoons, heatwaves and pollution, by fung shui groves. Such a site is also sheltered by hills and spurs. In turn, graves are situated out of sight on a hill behind the village. And so, as is written in Ecclesiastes 1,4:\n\nOne generation goeth and another generation cometh\n\nthe earth abideth for ever\n\nBut sacred woods are not just found in Chinese communities. In India, Nepal, Bhutan and Japan, as well as in various parts of Europe, people have their groves where religious ceremonies are performed. The druids in ancient Britain, who were also bards and soothsayers, had sacred woods. Oaks in Sherwood and other forests were the abodes of spirits. The fruit of the oak, the acorn, was also sacred. So was the mistletoe.\n\nBut even in Hong Kong views can change and modernisation can take its toll. In the mid-1990s, a venerable fung shui banyan in a Lantau village was felled merely to improve television reception.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214059,
        "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-1997",
        "page_number": 127,
        "title": "RAS-1997",
        "content_text": "94\n\nThe tunnel was driven at a rate of about 18 metres/week through granite - surprisingly the most serious problems encountered appear to have concerned the labour, rather than the tunnelling itself, on account of fung shui difficulties and the prevalence of malaria.\n\nTo finalise the KCR project, an 11.5km-long narrow-gauge (600mm) branch line was constructed in 1911-1912 from Fan Ling to Sha Tau Kok on the border, mainly using track and plant which had been utilized in connection with the building of the Beacon Hill Tunnel, and operated until 1928. The civil engineering work was relatively simple, the deepest cutting and embankments being about 5 metres. For most of the route the railway shared bridges with the adjacent road but beyond Wo Hang some six bridges and numerous culverts needed to be built.\n\nWater Supply\n\nThe original inhabitants and new settlers in 1841 obtained their water supply from hillside streams. To augment these sources the first five wells for the city water supply were sunk in 1851. In 1859, the Government realised that the old haphazard supply system was totally inadequate and, following a prize competition for the best plan, implemented a small reservoir scheme in the Pok Fu Lam valley, the dam being little more than a stream intake, from which water was conveyed in 1863 through a 250mm cast-iron pipe to tanks above the city of Victoria.\n\nFrom that time the history of Hong Kong's waterworks was a continual struggle to catch up with the needs of an ever-increasing population and virtually never succeeded until recent years (when the Territory's water shortfall was imported from China). The original Pok Fu Lam scheme was soon scrapped and a new reservoir, with its 11m-high earth dam and a much greater capacity (300 million litres), was completed further upstream in 1871 when the population had risen to about 125,000. The reconstruction of the supply conduit, by means of a brick culvert along the 150m contour (Pok Fu Lam and Conduit Roads), became operational in 1877.\n\nThe first stage of the Tai Tam scheme, the principal feature being a 40m-high masonry-faced rubble concrete dam, was completed in 1889",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579",
        "rank": 0
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    {
        "id": 214095,
        "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-1997",
        "page_number": 163,
        "title": "RAS-1997",
        "content_text": "5.00\n\nRC DIAPHRAGM\n\nINSPECTION SPACE\n\nWEDGE\n\nDetection testing pipe\n\nROCK FILL\n\nTHAT\n\nGALLERY\n\nBLOCK\n\nPITCHING 1½ THICK\n\n50\n\n100\n\n150 FEET\n\nCross section of Gorge dam\n\nGorge Dam Cross-section, Shing Mun Reservoir, 1936 Binnie Consultants Ltd/Binnie Black & Veatch\n\nSTONE TOE\n\n38000\n\n131",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214761,
        "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-1999",
        "page_number": 176,
        "title": "RAS-1999",
        "content_text": "140\n\neverything off just before dark. The AIS is full of naval personnel all trying to find accommodation and food. After a mad scramble, manage to find a bed and retire early, tired and hungry.\n\nThursday eleventh. Commander Millet OC AIS asks me to form antiaircraft and defence posts for Aberdeen as RAF only people with machine guns. I fix up four posts on the roof with tommy gun posts on the verandahs. The AIS makes a wonderful target being only half a mile from the naval dockyard. A hospital has been set up next door to the armoury. For breakfast we get one slice of bread and a little butter and tiffin is the same. For supper, if we're lucky, we get hot stew. Intensive bombing of Aberdeen harbour causing heavy casualties. How we curse the bombers and wish we had a few Gladiators which would make short work of them. Jap fighters are quite slow.\n\nFriday twelfth. Up early and drive in to HK. Buy food, cash a cheque and have a steak at Jimmies. Send cables to Pam and Mother. HK shelled from Kowloon. All our troops evacuated from Mainland. Hear that Walter Rosa, Dick Stanton, Houston Boswall and Bell who messed with us at Kai Tak have all been killed. Small party of Indians still fighting on Devils Peak. Royal Scots fired on in Nathan Road by Chinese fifth columnists using automatic weapons but Scots wipe the whole lot out. Chinese reported assisting Japs on large scale. Amazed at sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse, also Jap successes against Americans. No one however doubts the final outcome and we realize that HK is only small fry in a tremendous issue.\n\nSaturday thirteenth. I set up antiaircraft positions on Bennetts Hill and Reservoir Hill with RAF personnel. CO goes to battle HQ, leaving me in charge. Dolly goes to Little Saiwan and the Colonel to Stanley. After much sweated labour get guns etc. in position. Whimpeys is in charge of Reservoir Hill and I of Bennetts Hill. I return to AIS for the night and at midnight there's a hell of a commotion and everyone is roused as the Japs are supposed to have landed on Aberdeen Island. Whole thing a farce and return to bed.\n\nSunday fourteenth. Set up positions on Bennetts and start digging holes in side of hill for billets. Junior and I dig like mad but, owing to rocks, make little progress. Quiet day except for a few air raids. Bed extremely hard and rain comes in.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214852,
        "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-1999",
        "page_number": 267,
        "title": "RAS-1999",
        "content_text": "THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY (HONG KONG BRANCH) ONE-DAY CONFERENCE\n\nHong Kong: Forty Years of a Growing City Saturday 9 December 2000\n\nOPENING ADDRESS\n\nDR DAN WATERS ISO BBS, PRESIDENT\n\n235\n\n(This Conference was organised jointly by the RASHKB and the Hong Kong Museum of History to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the reconstitution of the Hong Kong Branch. The Conference was held at the Museum of History.)\n\nI am highly honoured to address you all today as we near the close of our 40th anniversary year. As you must know our Branch was re-formed in 1960, after a hiatus of a century. A very warm welcome to everyone. I have received messages from Dr Marjorie Topley, Dr James Hayes and Mr David Gilkes, all past presidents. They sent their best wishes for a successful conference. The RASHKB Group of ‘Friends’ in Britain, has sent us a congratulatory Card.\n\nIf I had been born in the computer age the chances are I would be reading this address from a portable electric brain, as a computer is termed in Cantonese. But several of us taking part in this conference were born many years earlier. Indeed some of us have lived in Hong Kong for longer than the 40-year period (1960 to 2000), which we are reviewing here today.\n\nBut continuing with my introduction: may I say that some of the most successful events our Branch has organised, especially in the 1960s and early '70s, were our one day and weekend symposia (see Appendix). A previous Honorary Secretary, R E Lawry, first proposed them when a small group of RAS members, in October 1963, was walking back to Silvermine Bay. Of course it was on a hill path as the first road on Lantao, or rather track, had only been constructed a few years earlier in order to build Shek Pik Reservoir.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215882,
        "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": 181,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "114\n\nThe unauthorised cultivation of flowering plants and the erection of two pennant stands inside the redoubt may add to the attraction of the sites. However, the careless replacement of the old military path that linked Gough Battery and the 196m site by a new cement path is one example of human actions that can destroy the historic physique of the sites.\n\nThe removal of the remaining beams and roofs over the firing trenches at the Devil's Peak Redoubt by unknown visitors or squatters is another example. The fixing of a pole outside the Yau Tong-facing external wall of the redoubt, which might have aggravated the settlement of the wall, is a third example. Hill fires caused by careless smokers and cemetery visitors are a fourth problem. Hill fires pose a big problem, as they lead to serious soil erosion, though such fires may expose some interesting features for pillbox hunters. The erosion is so serious that many natural and man-made features that existed on the 1:600 government survey plan of 1963 can no longer be seen now. An example is the waterway that drains the 6-inch gun emplacement of Gough Battery to the vicinity of the pillbox on the rock (referred to above) has disappeared.\n\nAlthough the area under study is not part of a country park, the two sites, under government ownership, have escaped the fate of being converted into a service reservoir in the late 1970s and have been protected passively since as a statutory Green Belt zone. Yet, the last government planning proposal to actively manage the area as part of an \"urban fringe park,\" suggested in Metroplan, has yet to be taken up by a government department. It is in this context that the recent construction of a cement path that links the Gough Battery, the 196 m site, and the redoubt could pose a major additional threat to the survival of the remains on the sites, by improving access to a site without any facilities management.\n\nAcknowledgements\n\nThe authors wish to express their thanks to Mr. R.G. Horsnell and Mr. Tim K. Ko for their useful advice on the military aspects of the structures on both sites in the course of finalising this paper. They also thank the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust for providing financial support.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]