[ { "id": 205601, "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-1968", "page_number": 143, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "138 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nsaid to have been of the Buddhist faith and to have lived in China in the early part of the eighth century; or to one of their patriarch-successors. These sects share a common ideology, have the same goals, and some have a similar system of rank and appointments, even possessing the same rank-names and terms of address. Some of these sects are, like Hsien-t'ien Tao, vegetarian, that is to say they demand a permanent vegetarian diet (and also sexual abstinence) from their rank-holders; and some, generally speaking the more recent off-shoots, are non-vegetarian. It is only the vegetarian sects which are organized through vegetarian halls. \n\nSome of the other sects operating in Hong Kong today and recognised by Hsien-t'ien Tao to be related to it are P'u-tu Men: \"The Salvation Sect\" and Kuei-ken Men: \"The Sect of Reverting to the Root [of Things],\" which are both vegetarian; and T'ung-shan She: “The Fellowship of Goodness\", which is non-vegetarian and was particularly active in the period leading up to the founding of the Chinese Republic and immediately afterwards. \n\nThe ideology of these sects is known by Hsien-t'ien Tao rather confusingly as Hsien-t'ien Ta-tao: \"The Great Way of Former Heaven\". It is syncretic, incorporating elements from a number of sources but most importantly from Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism, and from Taoism, and the Yin-Yang cosmology which received general acceptance by the Chinese in traditional times. In combining all these elements however Great Way ideology, as we will refer to it here, produces an original synthesis: a system of ideas distinct from any other. The religion divides time into three major epochs, or cyclical periods, during each of which it is supposed that Absolute Truth comes into the world, is taught by a major Buddha and other distinguished sages, and then, unless men have made efforts to prevent it, becomes distorted and finally disappears. The disappearance of Truth from the world is followed by a major catastrophe (there might also be minor, localised disasters during each period due to minor Truth distortions). All sects in the group believe we have already passed through the first of these periods which was followed by a great flood; some believe we are in the second period now (dominated by Sakyamuni Buddha) which will be followed by a great fire unless we act to prevent it; and a few believe we are actually in the third period which will be followed by a wind catastrophe (interpreted by the sect Kuei-ken Men as an atomic war). It is in this final period that the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205607, "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-1968", "page_number": 149, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "144\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nheld the third highest of six ranks which may be taken by members of the sect (the two highest are reserved for men only). This rank is known as Yin-ên (314) “Conducting (or Guiding) Grace\" and entitles the holder to the middle name of Ch'ang (g). For a full list of ranks in various of the sects see \"The Great Way of Former Heaven......\" by Marjorie Topley, cited below.\n\nThis lady's father, said to have been an ordinary tenant farmer, and a native of Fa Yuan district, Kwangtung, had held the Chêng-ên rank in the sect, one below his daughter's. He died in the second year of the Republic (1913-14) and the daughter, his only child, followed him into the religion. Photographs of both these persons can be seen at the hall.\n\nThe founder of this hall was also said to have been in charge of the YEE WOH hall (*) in Canton, but on the Japanese occupation of South China in 1937-39 she and a body of her followers removed permanently to the WING LOK T’UNG in Ngau Chi Wan.\n\nOne of the present inmates of this hall was previously with the founder in Canton, having followed her into the sect at the age of 9 (she is now over 60 years of age). Her mother was said to be a cousin of the founder.\n\n2. Kam Ha Ching She (#4)\n\nThis hall was built in the 16th year of the Chinese Republic (1927-28). The founding lady was of the same rank as the founder of the above hall and like her had previously been in charge of a vegetarian hall in Canton, the SHUI WOH T’ONG (#) before coming to Hong Kong.\n\nThe SHUI WOH T'ONG and the YEE WOH T'ONG above, form part of a group of halls of the sect known to members as the “WOH groups\", because they each have WOH as part of their name. They are not to be confused with the secret society of this name.\n\nThe establishment of the KAM HA CHING SHE was said to have been a result of an increasing following among women from Hong Kong who visited the founder in Canton. Deciding to establish a hall in the Colony she set up the MAN YUAN T’ONG (*) on a floor in rented premises in Third Street, Hong Kong island, probably about the year 1910. The growing number of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205721, "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": 27, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "CHINESE UNOFFICIAL MEMBERS OF COUNCILS\n\n21\n\nOn Ho Fook's retirement from the Legislative Council in 1921, he was succeeded by Chow Shou-son (later Sir Shouson Chow) who, together with Sir Robert Hotung, were often referred to as the two grand old men of Hong Kong in the 1940's and 1950's.\n\nChow was born in 1862.* In 1874, he was sent, together with 29 other Chinese boys, by the Manchu Government to the United States to pursue higher western studies. This was the third of four batches of young Chinese scholars who, through the efforts of Yung Wing, were sent to America by the Manchu Government in the years 1872 to 1875.25 Young Chow was eventually admitted to Columbia University where he remained until 1881 when the Chinese Educational Mission in the United States was disbanded and all the boys were brought back to China.\n\nWhile in North America the Chinese boys, totalling 120, were under the supervision of some ignorant and stupid Manchu officials who did not understand what the boys were learning and who were not in sympathy with their activities. These officials sent back to China reports saying that instead of concentrating on their academic studies, the boys were taking part in all sorts of barbarian games and athletic activities. Worst of all, some of the boys were going out with American girls and were being converted into Christians. A report ended by a recommendation that they must be returned to China immediately, otherwise they would lose all interest and patriotic feelings towards China. This recommendation was readily accepted and the boys were back in China in 1881. Many of the boys made good use of the knowledge they acquired and turned out later to be leading engineers, railway builders, diplomats and admirals in China.\n\nChow Shou-son was at first assigned to the Chinese Customs but later became, at various times, Manager of the China Merchant Steamship Navigation Company in Tientsin and Managing Director of the Peking-Mukden Railway. He also held appointments in the Foreign Ministry and was at one time a Chinese consul in Korea. After the founding of the Chinese Republic in 1911, he came to Hong Kong to engage in business and later became Chairman of the Boards of Directors of the Bank of East Asia, the China Entertainment and Land Development Company and the China Emporium.\n\nHis family had been settled in one of the Hong Kong villages for nearly two hundred years. See JHKBRAS vol.7(1967), pp.164-166.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206805, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "76\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\nThe hands are made of wire (Plate VII) which facilitates the fastening of the sticks or arms, but their appearance is ugly.\n\nThe sticks have the length of chopsticks. Made of iron, they form a small ring at one end and have a wooden handle on the other, to prevent the sticks from slipping out of the hands. The third stick is thicker and is hooked into a hole at the puppet's back from below. The puppeteers tell that in Ch'aochow some puppets were considered so precious that they were handled with sticks made of pure gold.\n\nNeither the waist nor the stick is movable.\n\nThe Historical Background in Ch'aochow\n\nAlthough well proportioned and even beautiful, this puppet has many technical disadvantages compared to the Cantonese rod-puppet or the Fukienese string or glove-puppet. The reason for this incongruousness can be found in the dominance of Ch'aochow's ancient leather shadow-puppet tradition, which was definitely well established in the Ming dynasty in that area. One can assume that it existed earlier but any proof is lacking so far.\n\nIn Ch'aochow these shadow-puppets were cut out of cowhide (which is very rough when compared to the donkey-hide used in North China or Szechuan) which was coloured. They have two-jointed arms and legs and are handled with three sticks attached to the hands and the back of the two-dimensional puppet. The author has seen such Min-nan shadow-puppets in Taiwan, and some old Ch'aochowese confirmed that the Ch'aochow ones had exactly these features. By the end of the last century, supposedly under the strong influence of the extraordinary perfection of the string and glove puppets of Ch'uan-chou, Fukien, a new type of puppet evolved, a hybrid with the beauty of a Ch'uan-chou puppet, but handicapped in movement by the technique of a two-dimensional puppet. The name paper-shadow-theatre chih-ying-hsi was also applied to the new puppet. These two kinds of puppets existed side by side for one generation, and according to witnesses the leather shadow-puppets disappeared in the 1920s.\n\nIt is yet possible to receive first-hand accounts of the time when puppets were much used. An educated elderly Ch'aochow gentleman, Mr. Su related that in his childhood, at the beginning of the Republic, there were still 3 different kinds of puppets: shadow, horizontal stick-puppets and a third kind which he describes as...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206981, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 52, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "46 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nOn the island Mayréna lived alone in a shack with a French poodle. He did not collect birds' nests, a task he left to his fellow European, but the feathers of birds of paradise. It seems that he took another 'wife—the twelve-year-old daughter of a local village chief. But he soon began to suffer acutely from paranoia, barricading and fortifying his shack and interrogating at the point of a rifle all who approached. He also suffered from delusions; he walked around gesticulating and talking to himself. He was now more than a 'king in exile', he was a 'mad king'. \n\nFor Mayréna's last days we must rely on the testimony of J.F. Owen,46 the Collector of Kuala Rompin on the mainland, who visited Tioman and made friends with Mayréna. In November 1890 Mayréna visited Owen at Kuala Rompin. The morning after he drew up his will, and executed it formally in the presence of Owen, who was a magistrate. Then he called Auguste, his poodle, and set forth for a stroll along a jungle path. Soon he returned in great pain and claimed to have been bitten by a poisonous snake. He died soon afterwards in the presence of Owen. He was buried, Lineham states, at Kampong Jawa on the Rompin and his grave was marked by a plain block of chengal wood.47 There was no inscription. ‘But if you chance to visit Tioman', Sir Hugh Clifford writes, \"the natives of the place will point out to you a number of strange-looking quadrupeds, half-pariah, half-poodle, and with pride will inform you that these are \"ânjing pranchis\" (French dogs); and these uncouth descendants of the well-beloved and redoubtable Auguste are the only traces left upon this little fairy island marking it as the erstwhile refuge of Marie David de Mayréna, Comte de Ray (sic), and King of the Sedangs'.48 \n\nThe Marquis de Morès' nirvana was as strange as Mayréna's. Back in Paris he discovered that he could not go ahead with his scheme to construct a railroad in Tongking because of opposition from Ernest Constans, Minister of the Interior, who had just driven from France another ambitious soldier who, too, had left the French army. This was the sentimental General Boulanger, who was later to commit suicide over his mistress's grave at Brussels. Morès, as a result of what he felt was a personal conspiracy against him, became an implacable enemy not only of Constans but of the regime, the Third Republic, that Constans served. He had also become an anti-semite, principally because of his experiences with the Jews in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209133, "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-1981", "page_number": 36, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "22\n\nSTEPHEN MORRIS\n\nship. He may resist for a time and continue to be ill, or the spirit, in order to make his point doubly clear, may not reveal his intentions at a simple domestic caring for the sick ceremony; and so the patient goes on being ill. But sooner or later he has to undertake the next curing ceremony called escorting the spirits.\n\nThis ceremony lasts three nights, and is a considerably more elaborate and expensive affair than a simple caring for the sick; and a household is unwilling to go to the expense unless it is very necessary. In its essentials, however, the procedures are the same as in the caring for the sick, except that in three nights a great many more spirits can be summoned to advise and help than can be done in one night, especially if more than one shaman is employed. In most cases the curing of an illness stops at an escorting of the spirits ceremony. If, however, the condition is serious or persistent, or if the attacking spirit really means to establish a permanent relationship of friendship with the patient and so turn him into a shaman, then the sick person has to go on to the third and the last ceremony, the cradling ceremony. But before doing that, a man will do everything else he can to cure himself because the ritual is expensive, and, as the Melanau say, 'it is the end of our medicine'. If it fails there is no more to do but die. Indeed in the two previous ceremonies spirits may well have advised him to try more Malay herbal medicine, to see what a Chinese doctor can do, or even go to one of the European dressing stations, which are not unlike the barefoot doctors of the Republic of China, and which in Malaya and Sarawak have existed for seventy or eighty years,\n\nBut to return to the cradling ceremony. It lasts five days and nights and can go on for seven or nine. Except for the annual cleansing of the village itself, a cradling ceremony is the most festive occasion on which humans and spirits meet. It is called 'cradling' because the patient is placed on a swing made of rattan rope hung from the rafters of the house, and is swung backwards and forwards to be possessed by the spirit who is attacking him and who wants him for a friend. If this is the cause of the illness the fact that the patient is willing to sit on the swing is a sign that he has surrendered and is willing to accept the friendship, and even to become a practising shaman if that is what the spirit wants. Whether the spirit will insist on the patient's becoming a practitioner is an open question; for even spirits are not wholly unreasonable, and will not often insist on an aristocrat's undergoing the indignity and loss of all good manners involved in frequent possession and trance in public. Besides, to be really effective,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209178, "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-1981", "page_number": 81, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "RELIGIOUS RESPONSE TO MODERNIZATION IN TAIWAN THE CASE OF I-KUAN TAO\n\n67\n\nchanged reality than were the old religious symbol systems. The adoption of Western science and philosophy and Western religion can be interpreted as a means of finding legitimation systems which are compatible with the new conditions created by modernization. They have the advantage of reconciling the consciousness to the reality of modern society, at least they do it better than the traditional legitimation systems. But they have one crucial shortcoming: they are not able to symbolize the Chinese cultural identity.\n\nAt this point we come back to the role of traditional religions. In so far as they are traditional they express continuity and identity. But, on the other side, in so far as they are traditional they contain many elements which do not harmonize with the changed reality. However, only dead traditions are unchangeable. There are many signs that religions in Taiwan today are changing. This is obviously true of Buddhism. In the case of Taoism it is more difficult to demonstrate since recent research has put the emphasis on the revival of the Taoist tradition and not on changes in this tradition. As to popular religions, I have tried to give some hints as to what is going on. The tendency towards universalism is just one element. There are others which could not be dealt with here, and many which await further research. In any case we should be aware that traditional religions in present-day Taiwan may not just be survivals of a bygone age doomed to extinction, but living traditions which could even gain importance in the future.\n\nNOTES\n\n1\n\nCf. C. K. Yang, Religion in Chinese Society. (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967) pp 294–340\n\n2 Cf. Chin Yao-chi, Ts'ung Ch'uan-t'ung tao hsien-tai (Taipei, 1979, third edition).\n\n3 Of course, in the People's Republic there were other factors which made a great impact on the religious life, esp. the official anti-religious propaganda and the suppression of religious activities.\n\nYang, op. cit., pp 363–377\n\n• \"As a result of industrial development, farm population has gradually moved to urban areas. The share of employment in agriculture decreased from 59.3 per cent in 1952 to 27.3 per cent in 1977, while that in industry increased from 14.5 per cent to 37.6 per cent in the same period.\" (China Yearbook 1978, p 165)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210553, "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-1985", "page_number": 160, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "141\n\nemancipation is at the very least one of the sources of the malevolent behavior that Romans sometimes attributed to their ancestors. The jurist Gaius observed that \"the children whom we beget in civil marriage are also in our authority (potestas). This right is peculiar to Roman citizens; for scarcely any other men have over their sons a power such as we have” (Inst. 1.55). It would be difficult to exaggerate the extent of this paternal authority, the notorious patria potestas. In theory, at least, the head of the Roman family enjoyed absolute control of its property, and possessed the power of life and death over all of his unemancipated children (who were said to be in potestate). He could at his discretion order the exposure of a new-born child, sell his children into slavery, transfer the labour of a son now fully grown to a third party in payment of a debt, or compel his son to divorce his wife, even after children had been born to the union. Until the father was dead, a mature Roman citizen still in potestate did not have a legal personality, and could neither establish an independent household nor accumulate property in his own name, unless his father agreed to emancipate him through a cumbersome procedure of fictive sale.\" Roman literature is replete with morally uplifting stories of fathers who put their sons to death for breaches of discipline (cf., inter alia, Livy 8.7), but there is nothing imaginary about Aulus Fulvius, a senator executed out of hand by his father in 63 B.C. (Sall. Cat. 39.5; Dio Cass. 37.36.4). Under such circumstances, it would be surprising indeed if the Romans did not harbour ambivalent feelings when their fathers died.*\n\nDuring the middle and late Republic, however, this authoritarian family structure began to dissolve, and in the first and second centuries A.D. it came under systematic legal assault. During the reign of Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138-161), for example, fathers were stripped of their authority to compel their children to divorce against their will (Paulus, Sent. 5.16.5). We have already seen that in this period the bond between kinship and property was also slowly breaking down. The latter had a significant impact on the cult of the dead we have noted the shift from personal to corporate worship exempli gratia. Hence it might be expected that a son who was emancipated from his father's jural authority and who could not realistically expect to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212710, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 19, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "4\n\noff with a whole pound, 'the foundation of his fortune' which induced him to go to sea as a sailor. He then sailed away, at the age of 12, and in the course of the next six years visited various parts of the world including Australia, Africa and the Americas before finally settling in China in 1860 during the last days of the Arrow War [better known perhaps as the Second Opium War].\n\nMesny arrived in China at the start of the era known to the Chinese as the 'post-unequal treaties', an extraordinary period of readjustment in Chinese thinking. He arrived in a China whose rulers were an alien dynasty, the non-Chinese Manchus from Manchuria whose dynasty, the Ch'ing, ruled China between 1644-1911. Mesny's era covered the gradual collapse of the dynasty and its fall, followed by the first years of the Republic.\n\nWilliam Mesny spent a total of 59 years in China during which time he first, for some thirteen years, led a life of high adventure and, later, one which he lived to the full but at the same time one which appears to have fluctuated between the verge of success and pathetic failure. As it stands the later years of Mesny's life, following his short military career, fall into four periods; first, trekking across China, second, his life in Shanghai whilst still hoping to make his fortune; third, his time there when that hope had all but disappeared and finally, his last days, apparently alone in Hankow. The story contains elements which can only be guessed by reading between the lines in his Miscellanies, sadly without the help of other written or oral records.\n\nI have attempted to provide a chronology of Mesny's life from the multitude of snippets and asides he provided in his Miscellanies. This will be found at Appendix B. The great majority of the research in the UK has been carried out by Dr R G Tiedemann of SOAS in the University of London to whom I am also greatly indebted for both his advice and comments, as I am too to Miss Lucie Mesny of St Lawrence in Jersey, for her memories and photographs. However, any errors are mine alone.\n\nApart from the autobiographical portions of the Miscellany we have to rely upon the tiny smattering of family memory still available, two obituaries from Shanghai English language newspapers and what little has been written about Mesny by others who knew him in China. It is unfortunate that other living descendants of William Mesny have fought", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213971, "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": 40, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "course, think about The Little Man; it can't think about little men.\" This is not to decry what individual officers could, and usually did, do for personal complainants in specific cases.\n\nSir David Trench had his own ideas; thoughts from on high are less easily smothered than unsolicited disturbances from below. The received wisdom, which equally impressed most of the interlopers, was that since most of the population might want to return home across the border at some time, the electoral roll would be far too fluid to embrace a stable, identifiable and representable society; and that in any event direct elections to Legislative Council (Legco) were unthinkable, because they would be hi-jacked by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Kuomintang (KMT) from Taiwan; the fundamental Chinese political battle would then be fought out in the streets and on any hustings of Hong Kong, which the Chinese People's Republic (CPR) would never be willing to stand idly by and watch being conceivably won by Hong Kong Chinese Nationalist sympathisers. However Trench recognised that Legco was not the only possible forum for expression of popular feeling.\n\nTrench had no problems with sharing some of the lifestyle of the taipans and Chinese millionaires who were so noticeable among those traditionally appointed by governors to Exco and Legco, and whose nature he did little to change; despite the familiar jibe that he ranked third, after the taipan of the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation and the Chairman of the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, all knew that in the last resort he recommended the names of Executive Councillors to the Secretary of State. In his earlier days, however, he had preferred the raffish and disrespectful ambience of the multi-racial Foreign Correspondents' Club to that of the Hong Kong Club, Fanling [the Governor's official residence in the New Territories Hon. Editor] and the Jockey Club; while he enjoyed the actual sports of golf and racing for their own sakes; he never lost touch with his humbler post-war acquaintances in the Chinese community, such as his language teacher. He insisted that the introductory review chapter of one year's colonial annual report should spell out the wide sweep and valued authority of the great number of statutory, non-statutory and ad hoc committees which he believed to be a valid response to critics who would not understand why the people had no democratically elected voice in his councils. Yet his broad sympathies told him that, even so,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214304, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "126\n\nSian and Lanchou where once more they remained for a while. Here people were more hostile. The area already barren was also suffering from a drought. Clark decided to move south towards the Tibetan border where the situation was more favourable; however, before they could do so the Indian surveyor of the party had set up his instruments on a local peak known to the local population as the seat of the deities controlling the wind and rain. The locals saw him carrying out mysterious incantations on the top of their holy mountain and believing that he was the cause of the drought they beat him to death. This was the end of the expedition, which promptly returned to Peking.\n\nClark took the large collection of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects and botanical specimens back to the US National Museum in Washington and in 1912 a book embodying the results of the expedition was published by T. Fisher Unwin in London under the joint authorship of Clark and Sowerby entitled Through Shen-Kan. This was the start of Sowerby's fame as a scientist and explorer and for the next twenty or so years he continued his collecting expeditions, financed by Clark, with the specimens being sent to the US National Museum.\n\nOnce more we have no idea what he did between the end of the Clark expedition in 1909 and the end of 1911, apart from getting himself married. In late 1911, one year after the revolution which brought the Republic into being, he took part in what came to be known as the Shensi Relief Expedition. The expedition's task was to rescue and lead to safety as many foreign missionaries as possible. Setting out in December 1911 they trekked to Sian where the whole area was in a state of political upheaval following the overthrow of the dynasty. Bandit hordes were rampaging and had taken over much of the countryside. After a number of hair-raising experiences they were successful, returning to safety and Peking in early 1912. He was twenty-seven at the time.\n\nHe described this in some detail in an appendix to P H Kent's The Passing of the Manchus, published in London in 1912 by Edward Arnold. The appendix, written in the third person was pseudonymous, though a note at the bottom of the page reveals that originally it had been written by Mr A de C Sowerby for the Peking and Tientsin Times.\n\nHe returned to Tientsin where his family had been taken to safety from Taiyuan and from which he planned to set out into the peaceful areas of Manchuria to explore and continue his collecting of specimens. He made four separate expeditions into Manchuria and parts of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 } ]