[ { "id": 204479, "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": 111, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "100\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\nexerts itself with unprecedented vigour and hardihood in local affairs. No dispute arises but one or more of these social pests thrusts himself forward between the contending parties, and no fraud on the revenue or wholesale extortion is free from their similar influence\". Lockhart (through Governor Blake) says that the New Territory's literati \"have hitherto lived by irregular \"squeezes\" from the people\" and he blamed the opposition to British rule to them and to \"gamblers and bad characters banished from Hong Kong\" and not to the people who were incited by the gentry and elders. See Papers 1899 pp. 520 and 554.\n\n26 Papers 1899 p. 194.\n\n27 Papers 1899 p. 554.\n\n28 Arthur H. Smith Village Life in China (Edinburgh, Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, about 1900) p. 121.\n\n29 These affected the coastal and riverine regions of Kwangtung. See C. F. Neumann's Translations from the Chinese and Armenian with notes. 1. History of the pirates who infested the China Sea from 1807 to 1810, (London, John Murray 1831). This includes, pp. 97-125, a very interesting account of an enforced stay of eleven weeks and three days with the pirate fleet in 1809 by Richard Glasbrooke, the mate of an East Indiaman. The pirates spent a considerable time on and near Lantau, which must have suffered from their depredations. The clan record of the HO family of San Tsuen, Pui O, on the south side of the island mentions pirate raids and a decision to fortify the village with walls which can still be seen, with several embrasures for cannon.\n\nPiracy continued until a much later date. The Cheung Chau police station was attacked and burnt in 1912, necessitating its removal and enlargement, one of the Cheung Chau ferries was pirated in 1923, and in 1925 a band of sixty robbers from the Delta entered Tai O by way of Po Chue Tam creek, killed a woman and made off with young men and a fair amount of booty without any difficulty. The Police Station is situated at the other end of the town and knew nothing of the attack until it was over. See Administrative Reports, District Officer, New Territories 1912, 1923 and 1925.\n\n30 Papers 1899 p. 528.\n\n31 Foreign Office Report 1606 on Trade of Canton 1894.\n\n32 Salt was smuggled into China from Tai O as the government monopoly and price ring made it profitable to do so. See also Enclosure D to Sir Matthew Nathan's despatch No. 59 of 11 January 1905 in Correspondence relating to Kowloon-Canton Railway which mentions rice smuggling from Shum Chun and Deep Bay into Hong Kong. The export of rice from China was forbidden, and checked by the Imperial Maritime Customs.\n\n**F O Trade Report No. 1778 for 1895.\n\n34 F O Trade Report No. 1983 for 1896.\n\n33 Papers 1899, p. 540.\n\nBrenan, with his thirty-two years' service wrote feelingly \"The Chinaman is happiest who never sees an official, who does not even know the name of one\". J N CBRAS XXXII (1897-98) 37.\n\n31 Foreign Office Trade Report for Canton No. 1606 for 1894.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204766, "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": 69, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "58 \n\nK. M. A. BARNETT \n\nfrom the point of view of my present subject, the event which ushered in the new age is the capture of Canton in +878 by the Huang Chao146 rebels. Between this event and the re-incorporation of Canton's territory into China in +971, by which time the earliest Chinese had already a firm grip on what is now Hong Kong, the Liu76 family gave five emperors to the Nan Han99 Dynasty at Canton. This family was allied by marriage with the Cheng163 and Tuen families which successively at this period ruled the powerful kingdom of Nan Chao;100 with the Ma89 family which ruled the kingdom of Tsu1 and no doubt, if the evidence could be pieced together, with many other peoples. For we are told that the emperor Liu Chang78 had a Persian princess in his harem, and among the many Arab travellers who visited Canton there must be some who left a description of these flamboyant half-Chinese rulers, with their eighty or more palaces, the walls of which were encrusted with pearls, their bloodthirsty exuberance and, what shines even through the disapproving accounts of the Chinese historians, their courage and administrative skill. The name Po On3 revived by the Republic of China as the name for the district of which geographically, Hong Kong is a part, was adopted by the Canton rulers in obvious reference to the pearls for which this district was at that period famous. The statement in the San On Yuen Chi123 that the name comes from the hill called Po Shan north of Nam Tau8 city is the \"cart before the horse\". The pearls were fished in great numbers somewhere near Tolo Channel, probably in Double Haven where the name Chue Tong Wat162 survives as a bay on Kar O Island.\" They were then transported overland along the route marked by a chain of forts over the pass northeast of Tai Po Tau34 village, through Kau Lung Hang, over the present golf course and skirting the Pat Heung2 marshes to the present Ping Shan, and across the creek to the fort of Tuen Mun4 which I mentioned earlier in this paper. The route, I would have you observe, almost at every point passes one of the chief settlements of the Tang44 clan who are, I believe, together with all the old Cantonese-speaking clans of this territory, the descendants of the soldiers stationed here in the Nan Han Dynasty and its successors for the express purpose of guarding these precious pearls. They were as I have said encouraged, when too old to serve with their arms, to settle down", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205348, "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": 110, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "LAND AND LEADERSHIP IN THE H.K. REGION OF KWANGTUNG 103\n\nmany Punti villages from \"squeezes\" formerly levied on them, \"especially the Hakkas\".\n\n13 The market town of Tai O had a land population of 2,248 and a boat population of at least several thousands, many of whom lived in mat-huts over the water and were therefore part of the settled population. Sessional Papers 1911, p. 103 (26 and 38). The Hong Kong Government's Administrative Reports for 1911, District Officer South, mentions 221 mat-shed permits in respect of pile huts in Tai O Creek. There were said to be 8 schools in Tai O or district at a New Territories School Census in April 1912, with an average attendance of 21. See Appendix G to Orme's Report in Sessional Papers 1912, p. 63.\n\n14 See for instance Hugh D. R. Baker, \"The Five Great Clans of the New Territories\" in JHKBRAS, Vol. 6 (1966), pp. 25-47 and his references at his note 9 to Sung Hok-pang's prewar articles in The Hong Kong Naturalist.\n\n15 The schedules of ownership attached to the Block Crown Leases for 1898 New Territories' villages show this general pattern of peasant ownership very clearly. They are kept in the District Offices of the New Territories Administration.\n\n16 A hint of the strength of superstition at this time is given by Orme, op. cit., paras. 97-98,\n\n17 They held, in addition, a considerable number of mortgages from Shek Pik people. Those recorded in the 1904 Block Crown Leases for the Shek Pik Valley may well be less in number than in 1899 because, in the intervening years, it was reported that mortgagors were making great efforts to recover unencumbered ownership, e.g., Sessional Papers 1902, Mr. Stewart Lockhart's 'Report on the New Territory for the Year 1901' p. 4. It is not entirely clear from the context whether this was a general reaction or limited only to New Kowloon,\n\n18 Hong Kong Government Gazette, 8 April 1899, p. 546 under the heading ‘Local Government in the Villages'. The information about there usually being four Tung in any administrative district comes from the former magistrate mentioned in the same paragraph of the text. He was in charge of ## and ✯✯ in Hupeh for part of the first decade of this century.\n\nWhere no sources are cited, the text is based on information obtained from old inhabitants, some of whom knew Cheung Kwong-chuen and Kung Fong-tsai personally, and from documents in Chinese relating to the land and money transactions of these two men and those of the third, Chan Fu-shing, that have been made available to me through the kindness of their present owners to whom I am much indebted for their courtesy and cooperation. I am also grateful for help with translation, especially to Mr. Chan Kwun-ngok, and for the ready help of many Lantau residents with my enquiries,\n\nAddition to Note 8. The quotation in the text comes from Professor Ho's \"The Examination System and Social Mobility in China, 1368-1911\", Proceedings of the 1959 Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society, pp. 60-65.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206063, "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": 143, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "138 \n\nS. F. BALFOUR \n\ninto two parts: the one, Tanka and Hoklo, and the other, Punti and Hakka. \n\nThe Tanka live for the most part in boats. They support themselves almost entirely by fishing. Their only industries are net and rope-making, and dyeing with betel nut. They are rarely shopkeepers and never agriculturalists. In certain centres they form vast congregations of craft of all sizes but the nearest thing they achieve towards living on the shore is a kind of dwelling formed from what was originally an old boat too leaky to stay afloat which has been placed on struts. The very curious town of Tai O on Lantao Island is an example of this peculiar culture-dwelling. Whole streets of house-boats line the creeks, their front doors giving onto the water which is reached by a ladder. Every household has a boat moored beneath it and the traffic of boats to and fro is comparable to that of a town. Except that sometimes the struts of these dwellings are formed of granite slabs, probably borrowed elsewhere, there is a complete absence of stone or even of any notion of construction. The houses are constructed of old planks nailed together without system, their roofs are very poorly thatched with dried grass, there are no rooms beyond a covered verandah on which the cooking is done and an interior bedroom with one raised corner which forms a bed for the whole family.* \n\nOn the other hand, their boats are extremely well made. The biggest junks are constructed either for trawling or line fishing in deep water. They are made of teak or pine wood and have high sterns with accommodation for several generations of families. A feature which has apparently only been recently adopted in Europe is their water-tight compartments, so that if a leak is sprung, only one part of the ship need be baled out. Another feature which is more efficient than our European sailing craft is the rudder full of holes that can be easily turned without impairing its breaking value. The ships are cared for most regularly. Careening is done once a fortnight for pine wood craft and once a month in the case of teak. It is rather typical of their makeshift methods of house-building that they use the grass most suitable for careening in thatching their house-boats, \n\nThe Hoklo are also boat dwellers and are found in most of the main anchorages but their numbers are more frequent towards the east of the region, and in parts of Mirs Bay they predominate over \n\n* See also pp. 197-200 of this Journal. Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206124, "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": 204, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n197\n\ntook place locally, in the areas just across the Sino-British border at Sha Tau Kok. The villagers of these three places became alarmed for the fate of their cherished Tin Hau image and brought it into British territory for safety. They also brought back two incense burners (†) dated in the 2nd and 3rd years of Kuang Hsü (1876-78) that had been donated by local shops and fishermen in one case and by Lin Ma Hang (A) natives then in Australia (J).\n\nThe leaders of the three villages then combined to form the Sha Tau Kok Three Villages Tin Hau Temple Building Committee (沙頭角三鄉籌建天后廟委員會) and obtained a temporary building permit from the Tai Po District Office to erect a temple for the image. The temple is situated at map reference KV 140962 at the west end of Kong Ha Village in the Frontier Closed Area. It is under the management of a special trust, the Sam Wo Tong (*) constituting one manager each from Tong To, Tan Shui Hang and Sha Tsui villages.\n\nPhotographs of this new temple and of the Tin Hau image which inspired such devotion can be seen at Plates 30 and 31.\n\nPlace names used in this note can be found in A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories. (H.K. Govt. Printer, n.d. but 1960) pp. 216-218.\n\nHong Kong, 1970.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nPILE HOUSES AT TAI O, LANTAU ISLAND, HONG KONG,\n\n7TH JANUARY 1937\n\nEditor's Note\n\nThe following details of some of the interesting pile houses or matsheds on stilts that survive in considerable numbers in Tai O Creek to the present day are taken from one of Mr. Walter Schofield's notebooks, under the date given in the heading. Mr. Schofield (1888-1968) served in the Hong Kong Cadet (Administrative) Service between 1911-1938 in various posts, including those of District Officer South, Chief Assistant Secretary for Chinese Affairs and First Police Magistrate. He was also a well-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206125, "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": 205, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "198\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nknown geologist and archaeologist. A few notes and articles from his pen on Hong Kong subjects appeared in Vols. 8 and 9 (1968 and 1969) of this Journal.\n\nThese pile houses are the habitation of Tanka,(4) the boat people of South China, and Tai O has long been a considerable fishing port and market town, indeed the principal and only one of any size on Lantau Island. At the 1911 census of the Colony the land population was 2248 persons and was probably outnumbered by the floating population which stood at 5413 for the whole of Lantau. The pile huts were probably there long before the British took over the New Territories in 1899 following the Convention of Peking, 9th June, 1898. One of the early administrative reports of the District Officer, South (1911) mentions taking over responsibility from the Harbour Office for issuing licences to pile dwellers at Tai O Creek, when 221 new matshed permits were issued at $1 p.a., and in 1916 it was stated that there were still as many as 350 matsheds there.\n\nFires were always a hazard to these dwellings of wood and palm leaves. A big fire was noted in the 1916 report and it is no surprise to read in a later report of a really big one in 1926 when 300 matsheds were destroyed. Fortunately there was no loss of life, due, it was related, to it being high tide at the time of the fire.\n\nTyphoons, too, were a constant menace to these frail structures and in 1927, the year after the big fire, the District Officer notes that a typhoon caused great damage to the matsheds.\n\nThe photographs at plates 26 to 29 are by Mr. Schofield, and the plans at Figs. 1 and 2 are re-drawn from his notebook. I am greatly indebted to Mrs. Katherine M. Schofield for permission to reproduce her husband's valuable notes. The italicised sentences are my additions. The aerial view of Tai O Creek at plate 25 is by courtesy of the Hong Kong Government.\n\nMr. Schofield's Text\n\nThe accompanying plan (Fig. 1) is of a typical shed at Yee Chung (二涌) Second Creek, Tai O. It measures 9′ in width and 29′ 2′′ in depth (32′ 5′′ including the 1 metre deep veranda) and is 7′ high. It is 8′ above the waters of the creek at mid", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206178, "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": 258, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "Plate 26. Fronts and backs of sheds at Tai O Creek, 19th January, 1937.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206179, "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": 259, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "Plate 27. Backs of sheds at Tai O Creek, 19th January, 1937,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208124, "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": 163, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "MEMORIES OF THE DISTRICT OFFICE SOUTH \n\n147 \n\nkept the raiders under fire from the slope behind, but they got away with their plunder, including some arms and ammunition. The Captain Superintendent of Police at the time, F. J. Badeley, a cadet officer, retired soon after, and the story went that the Governor, Sir Henry May, who came in July 1912 after about eight years as Colonial Secretary and two years in Fiji, took this opportunity to get rid of him because he was 'persona non grata' to him. (There were said to be several such in the Service). The Government took the hint given by the pirates and built a new police station on a much more commanding site well inland, surrounded by barbed wire.\n\nTalking of New Territory police station siting, the Tai O station was originally to have been built close to the village, but the local elders put up representations against it, and the presence of mosquitoes in the village may have provided an argument for its present siting beyond Shek Tsai Po. Silting of the harbour may also have influenced the Government. But I have heard that what influenced the villagers was the existence of gambling houses which yielded them a good profit, and they knew that with the police among them the hope of their gains would be gone. In 1925 they had their reward. A boatload of 60 pirates from the Delta landed at Po Chu Tam, marched along the creek-side road and plundered the village, murdering a woman and kidnapping two men. They got away without interference. Government promptly 'locked the stable door' by stationing an armed Indian police guard - later replaced by village scouts in a matshed close to the mouth of Po Chu Tam creek for several months, about 50 yards from the site of an old Chinese stone-built guard station dating from the era of Japanese piracy in South China. Apparently the Police knew nothing of the raid till all was over. I think all that happened was that the sergeant in charge was transferred to another station.\n\nWhen I first took charge of the District Office, the 'black gold' rush had been over for three years, the bottom having dropped out of the tungsten market with the coming of peace; but the lime-burning and sand-digging boom was in full swing because of the roadmaking and building then going on in Hong Kong and Kowloon. (These were times of anarchy in China). Thus I had to deal with one or two applications for land for limekilns. These kilns were thickest on Ping Chau; but Nei Kwu Chau and Tsing Yi also had kilns, and another was put up at Hang Hau. This distribution is due partly", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208128, "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": 167, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "MEMORIES OF THE DISTRICT OFFICE SOUTH \n\n151 \n\nof 1926 at Taipo, when in a large matshed on the reclamation there the New Territory elders treated Sir C. Clementi and the leading members of the Service to a big banquet and speeches, the leading feature being that except for the sharks' fin soup all the food came from the New Territory and its waters. The points I remember best are: a bowl of air-bladders of Sargassum seaweed, which I found quite palatable; a game of chai mui in which the late A. E. Wood took part; the collapse under me of two bentwood chairs in succession, which helped to relieve the boredom of the European element and perhaps others.\n\nDuring my periods in office I made an attempt to get the Chinese communities and villages owning forest lots to look after them and to plant trees. Free seed was distributed and planting instructions given, and a forest guard appointed to supervise and watch results. The difficulties of forest conservation in such scattered and isolated areas were certainly formidable: one was that the boat people could land almost anywhere and steal trees; another, that the grasscutters who annually collect fuel in autumn are quite likely to cut and take young seedlings: to say nothing of true disease and caterpillar infestation, often very serious. One bad case was at Tai O, where an entire hillside was laid bare at one swoop by its licensee instead of being cut in stages, and I told him to get it replanted. I don't remember the sequel, as I was transferred not long after. The denuded hillside faced west, and lay across the Po Chu Tam creek from Tai O market. Another great difficulty was to find forest guards who would do their job: a former A.D.O. North once minuted 'Where forest guards abound, there do abuses much more abound!'\n\nThe careful investigation of applications to use land was more than once impressed on me by experience. Desire to develop apparently unused land may mislead a D.O. into sanctioning the spoliation of an object of natural beauty, the monopolizing of an area in common use by a village community, or such damage to hill slopes as to cause villages or fields to be flooded with mud and soil wash, or the erection of a gimcrack structure of bad concrete instead of a brick or stone village house in harmony with its surroundings. Proposals for forest development may turn out to be schemes for evicting villagers from areas where they hold forest rights; though proper forest lot maps should make such schemes impossible. An instance of an application designed to monopolize an area already", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208133, "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": 172, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "156 \n\nW. SCHOFIELD \n\non the ridge.* Further afield, on the Hang Hau peninsula, is the paved road referred to above, which runs as far as Ha Yeung: and on Nam Tong, commanding the strait, is the robbers' stronghold with its gun platform. Porcelain near its gate looked fairly modern, from what I remember. Remains of a similar kind can be found on the other islands of the Southern District. Just above the village of Shek Sun at the west end of Lantau stands a Dutch fort built about 1610, rectangular in plan. A few cannon balls and other relics have been found in it, but it is very overgrown and needs clearing if any research is to be done there, or sightseers enabled to visit it. The old fort and cannon protecting the small yamen were repaired when E. W. Hamilton was D.O., I think between 1927 and 1929: I remember that one room in the yamen was inscribed shu shat (library). Another relic of old coast defences, close to Tai O, is the old Chinese guard station already referred to, outside Po Chu Tam creek, and quite ruined. On the south coast, near Shek Pik, a very ancient rock carving on a cliff was found quite recently. In the outlying islands are three interesting structures: one is on the North Soko island, where in a small valley on its south coast are two converging lines of megaliths. The other two are on Sha Chau, one a stone burial chamber on the south isthmus in the form of a 'kistvaen,' the other a ruined guard station on the flat area northwards of the chamber, with an earthwork protecting the landing place to eastward.\n\nNo doubt there are many other places of interest, especially temples and their contents: one of the finest is the Pak Tai temple in Cheung Chau, with its coloured relief showing the local ferry boat nearing the pier in Hong Kong harbour. Lastly, there is one place of much interest with which I had to deal in 1917 or 1918. The Tang grave at Hau Tei, beside Tsun Wan, made in the Sung dynasty, was naturally affected by the new Castle Peak motor road and a projected reclamation of the shallow sea area beyond it. The Tang elders come to the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, where I was 2nd A.S.C.A.,† and partly I think on my suggestion the hill of the grave was made into a public park, so as to preserve its surroundings and outlook. The grateful elders presented me with a 'fung shui' map of the grave site for my efforts on their behalf; and the good influence of their virtuous ancestor continues to augment the prosperity of their descendants, and of Hong Kong generally, if there is anything in 'fung shui'!\n\n* See Mr. Schofield's note in JHKBRAS 9 (1969): 154-156.\n\n† Assistant Secretary for Chinese Affairs.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209861, "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": 120, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "98\n\ncave with a low pass behind it across to the other side of the island.\n\nFurther west, Tai Ho (\"Big Ditch\") and some other villages lie in a small plain with a bad harbour.\n\nNear the middle of the north coast is Tung Chung (\"East Creek\") which was once the most important place in Lantau; it has the biggest plains, the most villages, and the best harbour for small boats in the island. The harbour is, however, too shallow for anything bigger than a launch, and is silting up with hill wash and river muds from the Delta.\n\nTung Chung was the administrative centre of the island, and a station of the Taipang coast defence force was built here. This was the only Chinese yamen in the islands, and a library building still exists, showing the place was once, and perhaps still is, a scholastic centre. It was fortified, and the headquarters of a squadron of war junks: the guns of some of its batteries were dug out of the sand by my predecessor in office and mounted on the yamen wall on cement carriages.\n\nThese guns may be connected with a naval action in 1857. H.M.S. Auckland, with the steam tender Eaglet, saw five mandarin junks in the harbour as they sailed north from Tai O to Namtau. They returned and attacked them. The captain of the Auckland goes on:\n\nOwing to the shallowness of the water I had to anchor in three fathoms, the ship grounding as the tide fell, otherwise we should not have been within range.\n\nThe Eaglet, on taking up a position near the junks received the fire of five batteries in addition to that of the junks, and soon expended her ammunition, having received three or four shots in her hull, Mr. Ellis (her commander) coming for ammunition, I sent the Auckland's boats to tow the Eaglet, to destroy the junks, the Auckland attacking the batteries and junks with shell and round shot at the same time.\n\nA smart fire was kept up on both sides for a short time; the boats of both vessels then charged and fired the junks;\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209862, "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": 121, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "99\n\nthe men were then landed and stormed a battery of thirty guns (which had been silenced by the Auckland) and spiked the guns.\n\nThe junks were all armed, one carrying sixteen, the others twelve guns each, besides a large number of 2-pounder swivels, jingalls, and matchlocks, and plenty of ammunition; the latter igniting rendered the destruction of junks complete\n\nIn an affair of this nature under a heavy cross-fire from five batteries and four junks, some loss must occur. [Two officers were wounded and one seaman killed and five wounded.]\n\nThe enemy must have suffered severely, the boarders having turned the junks' guns on them as they were escaping to the shore.\n\nOn the 16th [next day] I directed the Eaglet to return to Hong Kong; the junks were still burning, but at the time of Auckland's departure (at noon) nearly consumed.\n\nThe enemy have thus lost five fine vessels of their fleet.\n\nTung Chung now is purely agricultural: it has twenty-nine villages and hamlets, while behind it is a large area of forest, including one of the few remaining patches of ancient woodland.\n\nAbove the plain is a mountain ridge reaching 2,700 feet in height. On its summit is a line of bungalows put up by missionaries for summer holidays. On the flank of Lantau Peak across the plain is a Buddhist monastery, whose head has recently built a bridge across the Ma Wan Creek, and a small jetty for boats.\n\nThe old yamen of the Taipang commander's subordinate still exists, and is one of the places where the District Officer can hold a small debts court.\n\nFrom Tung Chung a road goes over the hills to Tai O via a high plateau full of Buddhist retreats, temples, and fasting halls, often used by Chinese\". There has been a big increase in the numbers of these Buddhist retreats since the so-called \"anti-superstitution\" campaign in China.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209863, "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": 122, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "100\n\nFurther to the west is Shalowan (\"Sand Snail Bay\") a big village with a fine beach and a fine wood behind it for “fungshui”. The villagers defend their beach against sand diggers with firearms; it guards their paddy fields behind. There is a settlement of early man on the headland near the village; old fields just behind the site are, apparently, for dry crops.\n\nIn a suitable light ancient log slides can be seen, running straight down the steepest hills, on this stretch of coast.\n\nBetween Shalowan and Tai O the only place of note is Sham Wat (\"Deep Dene\"), a narrow valley with two or three tiny hamlets.\n\nJust to the east of Tai O is Po Chu Tam (“Precious Pearl Pool\"). The name may either preserve the memory of a pearl fishery or enshrine a local legend: pearl oysters were once to be found in Hainan only 200 miles away. Po Chu Tam is the back door to Tai O, from it a navigable creek runs down to Tai O town. Po Chu Tam has a big temple with a shed for dragon boats; the head and tail are kept in the temple. On a low headland nearby is a ruined Chinese fort: its work is now done by an Indian guard, put there after a piracy in 1926. Another protection is an old wall with a gate, which stands across the path from Po Chu Tam just outside Tai O. Any active man could out-flank it by going up the hill.\n\nTai O (\"Big Haven\") is the biggest town in Lantau, with over 2,000 people. It was recently building an electric light and power station, run on oil. The town straggles along the shores of its creek, and has a small agricultural plain behind it. About 3 miles up into the hills is a big Buddhist temple, with a number of \"fasting halls\"; these have lately built a bridge and widened the path going up hill. Tai O salt is made in big salt pans, but is of poor quality, and only fit for salting fish. The creek cuts off the hills on which the Police Station stands from the town: it is crossed by a sampan ferry which is leased by auctions held by the elders of the place. In the wider part of the creek is a substantial settlement of boatpeople. They live in huts built on piles driven into the creek bed. These piles are often of stone, but often also of wood or bamboo. The huts are lashed to the piles with wire.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209865, "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": 124, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "102\n\nThe first valley is that of Shek Pik (\"Rock Wall\"). This lies right under the steep south-west face of Lantau Peak. The main village stands at some distance from a creek with a big sandbar which makes a good harbour for small boats. To the east is a little hamlet, Tung Wan (\"East Bay\"), where a sandbar has silted across the mouth of a stream, making a marsh. A bay a little west of the creek faces the surf, and so has no landing and is in consequence deserted except for cultivation and pasture1a.\n\nShui Hau and Tong Fuk (\"Creek Mouth\" and \"Banked Happiness\"), which form the second group of villages, have poor landing-places. They lie at one end of the long stretch of beach which extends to Pui O (“Cup Haven\")14 which is the name of the third group of villages.\n\nThe chief features of Pui O are its fine woods with their ancient trees: the very long sand-spit enclosing a lagoon where boats can lie: and the double storm beach, the second one to the rear being the older. There is an old brick or pottery kiln built on this beach. Passes go from Pui O to Mui Wo and Shap Long.\n\nBeyond Pui O to the southeast is a rugged granite peninsula; it only has one village of importance, Tai Long (\"Great Waves\"). This village has one very fine sand beach with another to the west, which, because it is much more exposed, has no village15. To the east of Tai Long are the wells from where the Cheung Chau waterboats get their water.\n\nOn the north coast of this granite peninsula are bays and hamlets where sand junks used to dig sand. At its innermost point is Shap Long (\"Ten Ridges\", but this translation is particularly doubtful), a plain with a sandbank in front; the sea is so shallow sand junks cannot approach. A few years ago an epidemic of smallpox made the villagers think something was wrong with their abode, so they left the houses all standing and moved into huts further down the valley, on its northern side.\n\nThe next point of interest on the Lantau coast is the Silver Mine Bay, a beautiful valley with a big sand beach in front, and with four villages, Mui Wo (\"Plum Nook\"), Tai Tei Tong (\"Big Land Pond\"), Luk Tei Tong (\"Deer Land Pond\"), and Pak Ngan", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211854, "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": 269, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "art \n\nof \n\nFrench \n\nconcession \n\nYANG KIM PANG \n\nGATE \n\nSTREET \n\nRace course \n\nTEMPLE \n\nBARRIER \n\nCHURCH \n\nNOISSIW \n\nROAD \n\n244 \n\nROAD \n\nROAD \n\nROADE \n\nROAL \n\nNORTH \n\nBRIDGE \n\nTHE \n\nSTREET \n\nᄆᄆᄆ \n\nBUND Shanghai Club \n\nWONG \n\n- \n\nPOO \n\nAVENUE \n\nS \n\nCONSULATÉ \n\nOf \n\nBRIDGE \n\nSTRECT \n\nKIRK \n\nROAD \n\nCHURCH \n\nROAD \n\nSOD CHOW \n\nAmerican \n\nROAD \n\nCREEK \n\nVoĮsseɔuo; \n\nAIVER \n\nTHE \n\nb Theatre Royal \n\nTae-ming Theatre \n\nOlympic Theatre \n\nd \n\nLyceum Theatre \n\nAppendix I!! \n\nPlan of Shanghai \n\nBUND \n\nPart \n\nStar \n\nHouse \n\nHotel", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 } ]