[ { "id": 204652, "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": 133, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE \n\n119 \n\nThe restriction about navigation beyond Ichang was abolished after the Sino-Japanese War by the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, and three years later the indefatigable Little had the satisfaction of taking his Leechuan from Ichang up to Chungking, the first steamer to navigate the Upper Yangtse. The Leechuan was a twin screw, wooden, steam launch only fifty-five feet long, and too small to carry any cargo. Little acted as his own captain and chief engineer, and the Leechuan had to be pulled up the strongest of the rapids by trackers. Two years later, however, a larger paddle steamer Pioneer, built by Little and a group of associates, made the first commercial passage to Chungking. The Pioneer was built by Denny of Dumbarton, and was 180 feet long, 60 feet beam over the paddle boxes, and had a draft of 6 feet. She carried 150 tons of cargo and many deck passengers, and took seven days between Ichang and Chungking on her first trip. There is a photograph of her in Gleanings from Fifty Years in China by Archibald Little (Philadelphia, 1908), p. 141. Shortly afterwards the Pioneer was commandeered by the British government to bring British subjects down the Yangtse during the Boxer troubles, and she finished her career as H.M.S. Kinshi, the headquarters ship of the Senior British Naval Officer on the Yangtse.\n\nIn that same year of 1900 the British river gunboat Woodlark, which was 145 feet long, by 23 feet beam, but had a draft of only 3 feet, also reached Chungking, and in the following year Woodlark and her sister ship Woodcock reached Sui Fu, 100 miles beyond Chungking. It was in the December of that year that the first of many serious accidents occurred on the Upper Yangtse, when the German steamer Suichsiang went on the rocks at the Tungling Rapids, 36 miles above Ichang, and was a total loss.\n\nThe Yangtse has its source in Tibet, not far from the headwaters of the Yellow, Mekong, Salween, and Irawaddy Rivers. When this became known to Europeans it became the ambition of many travellers to go up the Yangtse as far as possible, and then to cross over the Himalayas into Burma or India. This journey had a fascination for Europeans very similar to that exercised by the Nile and Niger over their fathers and grandfathers. The naval expedition of 1861, which went up the river as far as Yochow, landed three Englishmen there who intended to follow the river to its source in Tibet, and then cross over the Himalayas into India. Captain Blakiston, Lieutenant Saral, and Doctor Barton of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206775, "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": 52, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "46 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nsteamships in India operated on the Hoogly in the early 1820s, mainly as tug boats. \n\nThe first steamship in the Dutch East Indies was the Van der Capellen, a paddle steamer of 230 tons, designed to operate a coastal service in Java. The Van der Capellen was built by a consortium of British merchants in Sourabaya in 1825, and equipped with engines built by Fawcett and Company of Birmingham. \n\nDue to the close association between British India and Canton through the East India Company, it was not long before steamships were introduced on the Canton River. Although he did not live to see his scheme carried through, a Mr. T. J. Robarts of the Company's Canton staff is the pioneer of steam navigation in China. When on leave in London in 1821, just nine years after the Comet was launched on the Clyde, he suggested to the Court of Directors that a steam tug could be usefully employed on the Canton River. Because it was thought that the Chinese might object, his scheme was turned down, but Mr. Robarts decided to go ahead on his own. He ordered two 16 horse-power engines and a copper boiler from Henry Maudslay and Company of London, and a hull of oak frames; all of which arrived at Canton in 1822 and aroused great curiosity and admiration. Unfortunately, bad health caused Mr. Robarts to retire prematurely, and there was no one at Canton able, or willing to continue with his scheme. Everything was therefore sent to Calcutta, and arrived there in June 1822. \n\nThe parts were assembled at Kyd and Company's yard at Kidderpore, and the vessel, known as the Diana, was launched on 12th July 1823. However, the original oak hull was discarded in favour of a new hull built locally of teak. The name Diana was taken from the figurehead which had accompanied the original hull. The total cost of the Diana was 70,000 rupees, and the government declining to take any part in the enterprise--this was financed by a group of Indian agency houses. \n\nThe Diana ran successfully, but not profitably, on the Hoogly for a year, and was then sold to the government for use in the Burma War, 1824-1826. It was Captain Marryat, then the senior naval officer in India, who recommended her purchase to the government. The Diana took part in the first expedition to Rangoon, and proved so useful that she was retained on the Irawaddy for the whole of the war. She suffered at times from overloading, as not", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "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": 207796, "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": 184, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA \n\n169 \n\nto Bhamo that the Irawaddy Flotilla Company doubled its service between Mandalay and Bhamo.* \n\nSimultaneously pressure in Britain from Chambers of Commerce persuaded the government to support the Indian government's plan to resume exploration of the Bhamo-Yunnan overland route, and to request co-operation from China through the British Minister at Peking. The King of Burma was also in favour of resuming trade relations with China, having been advised from Peking that China would like to resume \"the old relationship, and continue the practice of exchanging decennial missions\". \n\nLieutenant Colonel Horace A. Browne, a former Deputy Commissioner in Burma, was chosen as leader of the Burma party, which would go from Mandalay to Bhamo by steamer, and then overland into Yunnan by one of three possible routes. At the same time A.R. Margary of the China Consular Service would start from Hankow—then the limit of steam navigation on the Yangtze—and go by junk to Yochow at the entrance to the Tungting Lake, through the Lake and by the Yuan River to the border of Kweichow, from where he would complete his journey overland. Browne's party arrived at Bhamo on 15th January 1875, and were joined by Margary, who had left Hankow on 4th September 1874, two days later. The latter had had a comparatively uneventful journey, although at some places the population was decidedly hostile. At Yunnanfu, however, the officials were courteous and helpful. All through Yunnan Margary had passed ruined towns and villages, and seen the widespread destruction caused by the recent rebellion. \n\nOn 23rd January the combined party left Bhamo for Yunnan, accompanied by fifteen Sikh guards brought from India by Browne, and an escort of 150 soldiers provided by the King of Burma, who were to go as far as the border. At the last minute Browne decided to go by the Ponlyne instead of by the Sawaddy route, to avoid possible conflict with the Kachin tribesmen on the latter. A few \n\nThe Irawaddy Flotilla Company was formed in 1864 when Todd Findlay & Co. of Glasgow (who had a branch in Rangoon) bought four old river steamers and three 'flats' of the Indian government's Irawaddy Flotilla, which had given good service in the Anglo-Burmese Wars. Hopes of greatly increased trade between Burma and Yunnan were high, and there was keen competition to buy the Flotilla, including an offer from a French company, and one from Mackinnon & Mackenzie, who were then managing agents of the Calcutta and Burma Steam Navigation Company which later became the British India Steam Navigation Company.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 } ]