[ { "id": 204654, "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": 135, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE \n\n121 \n\nA mere recital of the dates on which the different ports and sections of the Yangtse were opened to foreign trade gives little idea of the difficulties encountered in establishing regular steamer services on the river. Some of these difficulties were political, some economic, and some technical. Physical factors inclined to divide the river into three sections - Lower, Middle, and Upper. The Lower River was the 600 miles from the mouth to Hankow, navigable for ships of up to 10,000 tons in the high water season, and for ships of about half that size all year round. The Middle River was the 340 miles from Hankow to Ichang, and this was navigable for 3,000 ton ships in the high water season, and for slightly smaller ships all year round. The third section was the Upper River, the 400 miles from Ichang to Chungking, which included the famous Yangtse Gorges. At Chungking the bed of the river is 600 feet above sea level, as compared with 130 feet at Ichang, and it is this fall of 470 feet in 400 miles, 1.17 feet per mile, which is the cause of the strong currents and rapids in this section of the river. Only small, very powerful, and specially designed ships could navigate the Upper River. There are some seventy gorges and rapids on the Upper Yangtse, and at some places the river is only 150 yards wide. It is probably the most dangerous stretch of water in the world, and the Chinese estimated that one in ten of junks going through were seriously damaged, and one in twenty lost, while a thousand lives were lost each year. Judging by the many accidents and near accidents, and the callous disregard of life shown by junk men, this is probably an under-estimate. There is some justification, therefore, for an old Chinese saying that \"it is more difficult to ascend to Szechuen than to heaven\". \n\nDuring the high water season ships of up to 1,400 tons could navigate the Upper Yangtse between Ichang and Chungking, but in the low water season ships of less than half that size could do so. Companies operating on the Upper Yangtse, therefore, had two types of ship, one for the high water and one for the low water season. \n\nThere was a bewildering variety of native craft operating on the different sections of the Yangtse, ranging from the large ocean-going junks which sailed on the Lower River and to coast ports, to the smallest junks on the highest reaches of the river above \n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204658, "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": 139, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE \n\n125 \n\nand enthusiasm of Captain Cornell Plant who occupies the place of honour next to Archibald Little in the history of Upper Yangtse navigation. Little met Plant in London when the Pioneer was nearing completion, and infected Plant (whose previous experience of river work had been command of a paddle steamer on the Euphrates) with his enthusiasm for the Upper Yangtse. Plant took over the Pioneer and commanded her on her early voyages, and the Upper River fascinated him as it had Little. After the Pioneer was taken over by the Royal Navy, Plant built himself a large houseboat and traded successfully between Ichang and Chungking for several years, studying the Upper River in its varying moods and seasons. In 1907 he persuaded a group of Chinese merchants and officials in Chungking to make a further attempt to establish a regular steamer service, and the Szechuen Steam Navigation was formed, 40% of the capital coming from official sources. Their first ship, the Shuting, was built by Thorneycroft at Southampton under Plant's supervision, and he commanded her on her first voyage in 1908, and for the first five years of her successful operations.16 The Szechuen Steam Navigation Company's Shuting was soon followed by the China Navigation Company's Shutung, and both ships maintained a regular service between Ichang and Chungking, except for the three winter months — January to March — of low water. Both the Shutung and the Shuting were about 115 feet long with a draft of 3 feet, and both towed a float alongside for both passengers and cargo. If the current was too strong at any of the gorges or rapids the steamer went ahead on her own, tied up at the head, and then pulled the float up after her. Sometimes the steamer half steamed and half pulled herself up by her windlass. For this reason the Upper River steamers had very powerful windlasses and capstans, but even with this help there were some rapids it was impossible to overcome without further help. Then gangs of coolies called trackers, were employed, and there were villages at certain places whose sole raison d'être was to supply these trackers. The first steamer to go up the whole distance from Ichang to Chungking solely under her own power was the Szechuen Steam Navigation \n\n10 Plant joined the Chinese Maritime Customs in 1913 as River Inspector for the Upper River, which post he held at his death in Hong Kong in 1921. He is buried in Happy Valley alongside his wife. See his Glimpses of the Yangtse Gorges, 2nd edn., (Kelly and Walsh, 1936) which contains some interesting photographs.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204662, "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": 143, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE\n\n129\n\nMany of the Chinese government's most ambitious plans are connected with the Yangtse. The bridge at Wuhan, first mooted in 1913, was completed in 1958 at a cost of $35,000,000, and after only two years and four months work. This is of double-deck construction, and 4,465 feet long. The lower level carries a double railroad track, and the upper level vehicle and pedestrian lanes. The bridge crosses the river just below Hankow, and is high enough to allow the largest ocean ships likely to call at Hankow to pass under all year round. Then there is the Three Gorges Dam project, between Ichang and Chungking. This is to provide hydro-electric power, flood control, irrigation, and to improve navigation. A much greater project is the plan to divert Upper Yangtse water into the Yellow River, and surveys have been made to see how much of the Yangtse's flow can be diverted for this purpose.\n\nAt present that part of North and North West China drained by the Yellow River has 51% of the cultivated land of China, but only 7% of the surface water flow; while the area around and south of the Yangtse with only 33% of the cultivated land has over 76% of the surface water flow. From these vast schemes under-way or planned, it is plain that in the future the Yangtse will play an even greater role in China's history than in the past.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205329, "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": 91, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "84 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nChina coasters came from all parts of the Commonwealth, but with a preponderance of English, Irish, Scots, and Welshmen. There was never any lack of Welshmen, and no coaster was complete without its Jones or Evans, invariably prefixed by 'Dai' or 'Taffy'. Australians and New Zealanders were not uncommon, and there were also a few Anglo-Indians. In my time, however, I can recall only one Canadian and one South African. One pleasant feature of coast life was the friendship and harmony between deck and engine departments, something still too rare on home ships. The small number of Europeans on the average coaster may have contributed to this, seldom more than three mates and four engineers, with the radio officer often a Hong Kong Chinese.\n\nThe riverboats were a special species of 'China coaster', and many of their officers spent their entire careers on the Yangtse. The Lower Riverboats, which ran between Shanghai and Hankow, operated a fortnightly schedule, of which three days were spent in Shanghai and two in Hankow. During the summer months of high water, however, some Lower Riverboats continued to Ichang, which extended their schedule to three weeks. Jardines, the China Navigation Company, and the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company each had a daily sailing from Shanghai to Hankow, calling at the intermediate ports, of which the most important were Chinkiang, Nanking, Wuhu, Anking, Kiukiang, and Yochow and Shasi on the Middle River between Hankow and Ichang. The China Navigation Company's Lower Riverboats left the French Bund at three o'clock in the morning, so that they could navigate the tricky Lungshan Crossing at the estuary in daylight, and it was not unknown for junior officers to miss their ship. By catching an early morning train from Shanghai, however, they could rejoin at Nanking in the afternoon, an extreme form of pierhead jump.\n\nIf riverboat men were a special species of 'China coaster', the men who sailed on the Upper Yangtse were a distinct sub-species. The Upper Riverboats ran between Ichang and Chungking, the section of the Yangtse which included the famous and spectacular Yangtse Gorges. The men on these ships had some justification for considering themselves the aristocrats of the China coast. The slightest error in navigation, or the slightest engine mishap, would almost certainly have meant a serious casualty. The Gorge boats", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207794, "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": 182, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA\n\n167\n\ngorges are the Wushan, Witches' Mountain, and Windbox Gorges, which provide some of the most spectacular and awe-inspiring river scenery in the world. There are places where the river is only 150 yards wide, where the passenger on a steamer has the feeling that the almost sheer precipices actually overhang the river. The cliffs in Windbox Gorge are 700 feet high, and it was here that the record rise in the river level of 275 feet once took place.\n\nAbove Wanhsien the valley of the river opens out, and navigation to Chungking and beyond is comparatively simple. Until the Szechwan Steam Navigation Company's second steamer, Shuhun, went into service in 1914, steamers on the Yangtze, like junks, required trackers to pull them up the most powerful rapids, and a unique feature of the Upper Yangtze was the trackers' paths cut in the hillside thirty or forty feet above the river level. At these places junks were often lightened of their cargo and passengers before negotiating the rapid.\n\nIn the year after the Swinhoe expedition the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce supported another expedition up the Yangtze and into Szechwan by the famous German explorer Baron von Richthofen. His report on Szechwan is the most important until then, being the first to include an accurate description of the famous Red Basin of Chengtu, and its legendary irrigation system. This basin, with an area of some 3,500 square miles, is the only large area of level ground in the whole province, and has a population of about six million. Its remarkable fertility is due to the irrigation system introduced by Li Ping in the third century B.C. Li led the Min River through a hill and distributed its waters over the wide plain through a network of canals.\n\nOther notable journeys in Szechwan and West China between the late 1870s and early 1900s, included those of E.C. Baber and Sir Alexander Hosie of the China Consular Service, Archibald Little of Upper Yangtze fame, and A.E. Pratt, the zoologist. Pratt's travels lasted three years from 1887 to 1890. He built his own boat at Ichang to take him through the Gorges and past Chungking to Kiating, from where he journeyed overland to the sacred Mount Omei, over 11,000 feet high. Pratt's travels deserve to be better known, as they were the first in West China to be undertaken for purely scientific purposes. He blazed the trail for the later journeys of the botanists George Forrest, Kingdon Ward, and E.H. Wilson.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207797, "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": 185, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "170 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\ndays later rumours of an ambush by Chinese and Shan tribesmen led to Margary deciding to go in advance as scout, and he left the main party on 19th February with five Chinese companions. Three days later word came back that he had been murdered at Manwyne, with rumours that 4,000 Chinese troops were on their way to annihilate the whole expedition. Before Browne had time to recover from this blow, the camp was attacked by an advance guard of the Chinese force, but was beaten off by the Sikh and Burmese soldiers. Next day confirmation of Margary's murder came from the King of Burma's commercial agent at Bhamo, and on 20th February Browne's whole expedition retraced its steps to Mandalay and Rangoon.\n\nMargary's murder, and deteriorating relations between the British and the King of Burma, prevented further expeditions from Burma; but ironically led to further progress on the Yangtze,\n\nSir Thomas Wade, British Minister at Peking, took advantage of the Chinese government's failure to protect Margary to press for further trade relaxations, and the result was the Chefoo Convention of 1876 between Wade and Viceroy Li Hung-chang. This provided for the opening of five more ports to foreign trade, and of the 400 miles of the Middle Yangtze to foreign shipping. Among the new treaty ports was Ichang, located at the upper end of the Middle Yangtze and 400 miles below Chungking, the main port of Szechwan. When the Convention was ratified in 1885, a supplementary clause provided for Chungking to become a treaty port; but not for free navigation on the 400 miles of the Upper Yangtze between Ichang and Chungking. This was granted after the Treaty of Shimonoseki between China and Japan on the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95.\n\nMore than ten years before this, however, the remarkable Archibald Little had appeared on the Yangtze scene. Little began his career as a tea taster in Kiukiang in 1859, but soon started up business on his own. He was attracted to the possibilities of trade in Szechwan and West China, and fascinated by the problems posed by steam navigation through the famous gorges of the Upper Yangtze. He made a trip by junk from Ichang to Chungking in 1883 to investigate trade and navigational prospects, and in 1887 attempted to run a steamer service between Ichang and Chungking, by the Kuling. This was a Clyde built stern-wheeler of 450 tons", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207798, "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": 186, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA \n\n171 \n\nwhich was brought out in sections and assembled in Shanghai. The Chinese, however, refused to allow the Kuling above Ichang, and after a year of wrangling, Little sold her to the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, reputedly at twice she had cost him, and she was put on the Hankow--Ichang service. \n\nLittle was not disheartened, however, and set himself up in business in Chungking, among other activities specialising in insuring cargoes on the Upper Yangtze. At last in 1898, three years after the Treaty of Shimonoseki, he had the satisfaction of taking his wooden twin-screw launch Leechuan through the gorges to Chungking, acting as his own captain and chief engineer. The Leechuan was too small to carry any cargo, and needed trackers to pull her up the rapids; but this success enabled Little to enlist support from friends and form the Upper Yangtze Steam Navigation Company. The new company built a much larger steamer in Britain, the Pioneer, at Dennys of Dumbarton. This was a paddle steamer 180 feet long, sixty feet across the paddle boxes, drawing six feet when carrying a full cargo of 150 tons deadweight, and several hundred deck passengers. \n\nThe Pioneer made her first voyage between Ichang and Chungking in 1900, a few months after two British river gunboats, Woodcock and Woodlark had also made the passage; but these only drew two to two and a half feet of water. These gunboats, later, sometimes went a further 130 miles above Chungking to Suifu, at the junction of the Yangtze and Min Rivers. A similar type of French river gunboat also made the passage between Ichang and Chungking in 1901, the Orly, under the pilotage of Captain Plant who had commanded the Pioneer on her successful voyage. In later years these, and similar gunboats, made regular patrols along the open stretch of the Upper Yangtze above the rapids and gorges, between Wanhsien and Suifu. \n\nIn December 1900 the first of many serious casualties occurred on the Upper Yangtze, when the German steamer Suichsiang was wrecked at the Tungling Rapid thirty-six miles above Ichang on her maiden voyage. This and the Boxer and other political troubles delayed further attempts to establish a regular steamer service on the Upper Yangtze for many years. When this eventually came about in 1908 it was through the initiative of Captain Plant of Pioneer fame. The Pioneer was requisitioned by the Royal Navy during the Boxer troubles, and used to evacuate British subjects down the Yangtze, and rechristened H.M.S. Kinsha. Afterwards", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212798, "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": 107, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "92\n\nLi Hung-chang ## [1823-1901]\n\nHe was one of the outstanding figures in modern Chinese history; a statesman and diplomat. He was Governor of Kiangsu province at the time of the Taiping Rebellion, and again was a major proponent in the self-strengthening movement in Imperial China during the latter years of the Ch'ing dynasty. He was first a soldier who came to notice during the suppression of the Taiping rebellion and later went on to help develop western economic methods to endeavour to lead China into a greater independence from western domination. He emerged from comparative obscurity commanding a few battalions of field troops with the title of Expectant Tao-t'ai of Fukien in 1859 serving under Tseng Kuo-fan (q.v.) and soon rose to fame.\n\nLiu Ming-ch'uan ## [1836-1896]\n\n劉銘傳\n\nSaid to have been a gang leader who murdered a rich villager. When the Taiping rebels threatened his area, he organised a volunteer corps which became famous as a military leader. He was rewarded by being made an official of the first rank and Commander-in-Chief of Chihli at the early age of 29. Under the command of Tseng Kuo-fan, he defeated the Nien rebels. Some time later, in 1884, he was made Governor of Fukien during the France-Chinese war and ordered to garrison Formosa. Liu was defeated in several lesser battles but held Taipei and was probably saved by a French change of policy when they withdrew from Formosa [Taiwan]. Liu was made Governor of Taiwan in 1885 and relinquished his post in 1891, dying in retirement.\n\nLittle, Robert and Archibald\n\nRobert [Bob] was a failed tea merchant who edited the North China Daily News for eighteen years. According to OM Green, he was the best-loved man ever known in the Settlement [Shanghai]. His brother, Archibald Little, who was not so loved according to others, has been credited with designing and taking the first steamship up the Gorges. He made the first attempt in 1888 but, when he got to I-chang, the officials raised a storm of protest and he had to desist; the Chinese Government afterwards buying up his ships. In 1899, he tried again, with a boat called the Pioneer, and got through from I-chang to Chungking in seven days compared with the three or even six weeks it took a junk to be hauled up by trackers on the bank. Archibald's wife, Alicia, founded one of...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213605, "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-1995", "page_number": 201, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "173\n\nwith a strong visible presence along the colony's first line of defence.\n\nA very comprehensive description of the new observation posts was given in an article by Sub-Inspector M.E. Davis* which appeared in the HK Police Magazine in December 1953:\n\n\"The land frontier of the Colony of Hong Kong extends from Mirs Bay in the East, to Deep Bay in the West, following for the most part the tortuous course of the Shum Chun river. The country is intensely varied. The arable plain at Sha Tau Kok soon gives place to rugged mountains and deep gorges, which gradually fall away until the extensive marshy tracts near Mai Po are reached. Along the border for 16 miles of the length runs the frontier fence. It is, without any overstatement, difficult territory. The frontier area forms part of the New Territories Division of the Hong Kong Police Force, and is commanded by Mr. N.B. Fraser, M.B.E., Senior Superintendent of Police. One of the most important of the several methods of border control in effect in this area is the operation of a chain of Observation Posts\n\nThere are seven of these posts in the chain, covering the whole of the land frontier. Each is within sight of one or more of its neighbouring posts. All are accessible from the frontier road, or by means of jeep track from the roads. Most are located on prominent hill features which gives them an excellent field of observation. The elevation of the highest is over 700' above sea level. The frontier is divided into three sections, each with its complement of observation posts, which are controlled by a parent station in each section. From East to West the stations are Sha Tau Kok, Ta Ku Ling and Lok Ma Chau. The first has only one post, Pak Kung Au, under its control. Ta Ku Ling, the central and largest area has four, Kong Shan, Pak Fa Shan, Nga Yiu and Nam Hang. On the Western flank Ma Cho Lung and Pak Hok Chau posts are controlled by Lok Ma Chau\n\nThe posts are all almost identical in construction. Centrally there is a round, two storied, tower, and jutting from its sides are two long, one storied arms. The plan of the whole is roughly in the shape of a chevron. The upper storey of the tower is the Control Room, equipped\n\n* Deceased-Editor", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214309, "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": 167, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "131\n\nNot only did he write many of the Journal's editorials but also in each edition a number of miscellaneous articles on subjects ranging from hunting in Manchuria and boating as a holiday to the Hall of Antiquities in the Hude Museum in Shanghai - a pet project of his, as well as Scientific Notes and Reviews. His editorials ranged from Shanghai's Position in the World to China's New Industrialisation. A typical editorial described the colossal task facing the leaders of China's Republic and, as the years passed, so his editorials became more and more anti-Japanese. In the great age of European self-confidence these editorials reflected the general mood of expatriates not only in the Treaty Ports but also within the hinterland of China. None of this necessarily precluded a measure of genuine interest in Chinese culture though he, himself, appears not to have been a convinced ‘Orientalist.' He covered a vast range of subjects under broad-brush headings Engineering, Industrial and Commercial Notes; Scientific Notes and Reviews; Educational Notes and Intelligence and Travel and Exploration Notes.\n\nA number of articles written by people whose names have come down to us as authors of well-known books such as Florence Ayscough, L.C. Arlington, Juliet Bredon and James Hutson appeared in the Journal over the years. It would be impossible to list here many of the articles and papers printed issue by issue ranging as they did from tea to river craft, secret societies to criticisms on the Shanghai local artists exhibitions as well as descriptions of expeditions into the interior With Kua-tzu and Camera in the Yangtze Gorges by H. Foote-Carey and in 1923 - Investigation of the Thermal Dissociation of Hydrated Alumo-silicates, Prehnite, Zoisite and Epidote by E. Norin of the Nystrøm Institute, Taiyuan Fu, Shansi.\n\nIn early 1938 Arthur and his wife, Clarice, sold their interest in the China Journal to a new company called \"The China Journal Publishing Company Limited\" based at 117 Hong Kong Road, Shanghai, accepting part of the purchase price in shares of the new company. There were now three directors, H.J. Timperley, A. de C. Sowerby and H.J. Freyn. The manager at that point was a Mr. W.V.D. White with Clarice Moise no longer referred to on the staff of the Journal. Then, on 7 December 1941, after Pearl Harbour, men of the Japanese navy broke into the offices and destroyed everything, including the files, mailing lists, back numbers, and that was the end of the China Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215678, "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-2001", "page_number": 455, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "407\n\nTHE LIFE AND TIMES OF\n\nCAPTAIN SAMUEL CORNEL PLANT, MASTER MARINER AND SENIOR INSPECTOR, UPPER YANGTZE RIVER,\n\nCHINESE MARITIME CUSTOMS\n\nA.C. BROMFIELD WITH ROSEMARY LEE\n\nHow it started!\n\nGrave Number 8496 28479\n\nSection 12\n\nHong Kong Cemetery\n\nIn memory of Captain Samuel Cornell Plant Upper Yangtze River Inspector of the Chinese Maritime Customs\n\nThe first to command a merchant steamer plying the river (1900). Born Framlingham Suffolk 8th August 1866 Died at sea 26th February 1921\n\nAlso in memory of Alice Sophia Plant, Captain Plant's wife and devoted companion throughout his 20 years of toil on the dangerous section\n\nof the Yangtze River between Ichang and Chunking. Born 29th November 1870. Died at Hong Kong 28th February 1921.\n\n(Restored by members of the Merchant Navy Guild, Hong Kong 1957. Researched by\n\nRosemary J. Pyatt, 23rd December 1997)\n\nArchibald Little and the Three Gorges\n\nIn 1859, a young Scot named Archibald Little, (he was a very large man), started working as a tea-taster for a German company in Kiukiang. He came of a prominent, expatriate, Shanghai family, one of his brothers being a doctor in Shanghai and another the editor of the North China Daily News. He soon became bored with tea-tasting and set up in business for himself, becoming interested in many aspects of trade, brokering and insurance. He was one of the first expatriates to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215679, "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-2001", "page_number": 456, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "408\n\nsee the immense possibilities of trade in Szechuen Province and beyond in Tibet. He became convinced that the only way to develop this was to find a way to bring steamers through the Three Gorges between Ichang and Chunking.\n\nLittle, still of the opinion that the Upper Yangtze could be navigated by steamships, made the passage in a junk from Ichang to Chunking in 1887. En route he carefully surveyed the main areas of risk and, on completion of this 400 mile journey, was even more sure that he was right.\n\nHe raised the money to build \"Kuling,\" a stern-wheeler, built on the Clyde and designed specifically for service on the Upper Yangtze. She was shipped out to Shanghai in pieces and reassembled there. However, when she arrived in Ichang, the Chinese authorities would not let her proceed. Apparently the Chefoo Convention stipulated that Chinese steamers had to be the first to ply this section of the river. (This restriction was abolished after the Sino-Japanese War by the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895.)\n\nIn any event, Little had to abandon this attempt to realise his dream. \"Kuling\" was sold to Chinese owners at a vast profit and traded on the Yangtze up to Ichang for many years, but never beyond.\n\nNot in the least deterred, in 1898, Little built a wooden-hulled, twin screw, steam launch named \"Leechuan.\" Once again he made the passage from Ichang to Chunking. Apart from having to be pulled up the stronger rapids by trackers the trip was a brilliant success. (Trackers were Chinese coolies who lived in villages near the rapids on both banks. Several hundred would be employed to haul vessels up the rapids.) Unfortunately, being only 55 feet long and full of engine, \"Leechuan\" carried no cargo.\n\nHeartened by his achievement with \"Leechuan,\" Little returned to London in 1899 to raise money to build a vessel that could navigate the Three Gorges and carry sufficient cargo to make its service financially viable.\n\nHow Samuel Plant came to China\n\nLittle was successful in raising money to build “Pioneer.\" By the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215680, "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-2001", "page_number": 457, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "409\n\nbeginning of 1900 she was under construction at the yard of Dennys of Dumbarton. She was a side-wheeler, 180 feet long, 60 feet beam across the paddle boxes, drawing 6 feet and having a deadweight of 150 tons with accommodation for many deck passengers.\n\nHaving made all the arrangements for \"Pioneer\" to be shipped to Shanghai in pieces, Little returned to London. Whilst having lunch at the Oriental Club with some of his backers and advisors, he was introduced to Captain Samuel Cornel Plant. Captain Plant had recently returned to England having served for several years in command of steamers on the Tigris and Euphrates, rivers well known for their navigational difficulties. When Little learned of the captain's previous experience, he did his best to persuade Plant to come to China and take command of \"Pioneer.\" Plant promised to give the matter some thought. For whatever reason, he subsequently agreed to go along with Little.\n\n\"Pioneer\" was shipped to Shanghai and reassembled. Plant and his wife, Alice Sophia, took ship to China, joined \"Pioneer\" and in early June 1900 the attempt on the Three Gorges began. With Plant in command, \"Pioneer\" made the trip from Ichang to Chunking in 73 steaming hours over seven days. She was held up for three days at Hsin T'an Rapids. On arrival at Chunking she was greeted by most of the expatriates living there and it is said that the banks of the river were black with hundreds of junkmen who had crowded to see this latest barbarian wonder.\n\nThe Aftermath\n\nBad luck again struck Little. There were rumblings of trouble along the river that were to culminate in the Boxer Uprising. The British Consulate in Chunking commandeered \"Pioneer\" and used her to evacuate expatriates from the trouble spots. (It is not known whether Little was compensated for the loss of \"Pioneer\" or not. She was eventually handed over to the Royal Navy, renamed H.M.S. \"Kinshi\" and finished life as H.Q. Ship, Senior British Naval Officer on the Yangtze River.)\n\nPlant's Career\n\nPlant, having left the employ of Little, bought himself a houseboat", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215682, "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-2001", "page_number": 459, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "411\n\nThe British Consulate in Chunking collected subscriptions from amongst the expatriates and other interested people to raise a memorial to Plant. This took the form of a 30 foot high obelisk constructed of dressed blocks of pink granite on a brown sandstone base. It was erected at Xintang Village where the Dragon Horse Stream flows into the Yangtze. The inscription, which was in both English and Chinese, was eradicated by the Red Guards in 1968 after they had, unsuccessfully, tried to blow it up.\n\nUnless it is moved, the monument will be inundated by the raising waters when the dam across the Three Gorges is completed.1 Plant's beloved rapids will become small eddies on the surface of a huge man-made lake. Hundreds of tracker villages will have been moved to other locations, some far from the river. A tradition of 5,000 years endurance will be gone forever.\n\nThe above is an account of Captain Plant's professional life in China. However, gaps occur in both his early professional life and in his private life.\n\nAs you have read, Archibald Little met Samuel Plant at the Oriental Club in 1900. Prior to this time Plant had commanded steamers on the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates but we have been unable to find information on his Mesopotamian career.\n\nWe know Samuel Cornell Plant was born on 8th August, 1866 in Framlingham, Suffolk. His wife, Sophie Alice Peters was born on 29th November, 1870 in Hoddesdon in the County of Hertford to an illiterate shoemaker and his wife. Samuel Cornell and Alice Sophie, as she appears on the Entry of Marriage, were married in the Consulate General in the District of Bushire in the Province of Fars, Persia on 16th April, 1894. His profession is listed as a master mariner, nothing is given for Alice Sophie.\n\nWhat was a young woman of 24 years doing in Bushire and how did she meet Captain Plant?\n\nIn 1921, en route to Hong Kong and home leave, Samuel Plant died on board the \"Teiresias\" on 26th February. His death certificate gives as the cause of death ‘right lobar pneumonia and heart failure.'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216027, "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": 326, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "260\n\none of the ports of call on the routine and customary journey up the Yangzi. It was also within easy reach from Shanghai, no more than a night's sail, with the more adventurous and especially the sportsmen spending a short vacation there. The game varied from wild boar to pheasants and a typical excursion was described by Percival1 who, in April of 1887, was invited by Sir Roderick Runnimede to join him in a voyage up through the Yangzi gorges. Percival wrote that 'it was not a scientific excursion, there were no new countries to discover, no new people to trot out before the world, no new trade routes to open up; it was simply an excursion for health and pleasure combined. In a short time we arrived at the city of Chinkiang [Zhenjiang] itself, the place never having recovered its prosperity since it was burned by the [Taiping] Rebels about 1860. Not more than four or five years earlier [i.e. 1882-3] the shooting around Zhenjiang was all that could be desired; game (principally birds) of every description was most abundant. Sportsmen made Zhenjiang their headquarters. Feathers and fur - everything, in fact, between snipe and leopard - could be found within easy distance. Each year as cultivation advances, population increases, and villages, destroyed by the rebels are gradually being rebuilt, so game is being driven farther and farther into wilder and more remote regions∗. Percival went on to describe how one winter afternoon some years earlier he had joined W. De St. Croix, an old friend, stationed in Zhenjiang in the service of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, and using Zhenjiang as a base they had sailed in the Custom's cruiser up stream to shoot wild fowl. After several days shooting they returned and, on the following day, set off on ponies for the Wu-chow-shang [Wuzhou Shan] Hills, about ten miles south of Zhenjiang to round off the trip with three or four days among the boars and deer.\n\nFrom the early 1890s and for about six years local post offices existed in eleven of the treaty ports issuing their own stamps, one of which was Zhenjiang. A contemporary comment noted that just as many of the stamps were sold to tourists and collectors as were used postally.\n\nZhenjiang down the centuries\n\nZhenjiang has been a place of great importance for a great many centuries. In the beginning, no more than a crossing point for boatmen plying their ferries across the Yangzi, it was known in much earlier times first as Dantu and then as Runzhou. Local historians", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216078, "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": 377, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "311\n\nZhenjiang city has grown beyond all recognition. Since the Communists came to power in 1949 Zhenjiang has suffered the same trials and tribulations as all other cities in China and only within the last decade or so of the 20th century did modernisation and development take off. Today it has wide streets, modern shops, drainage and factories as well as all the benefits, or otherwise, of westernisation. Also, three historical sites have been granted Asia-Pacific Heritage Protection Awards for 2001 by UNESCO. They are the Stone Pagoda, the Guan Yin Cave and a charitable association hall, all on Xijindu Street.\n\n1\n\nNOTES\n\nZhenjiang city walls were said by the British military to have been thirty feet high and five feet thick.\n\nAllom, Thomas (1844) China - in a series of views, displaying the Scenery, Architecture, and Social Habits of that Ancient Empire. London: Fisher, Son and Co Vol. IV p 41\n\n3 The area selected to be the foreign settlement was chosen in 1861 and divided into lots. Ground rent was paid to the Chinese government by leaseholders to whom titles for 99 years were issued through the British Consulate. They would have expired in 1960 had not the treaty port as a whole been formally surrendered [rendited in official parlance to avoid using the word surrendered] in 1929 after it had been decided that minor concessions were more trouble than they were worth.\n\nA\n\nCunynghame, Captain Arthur [1845] The Opium War: London\n\n\"Taot'ai [Daotai] was the term for a Qing dynasty Circuit Intendant.\n\n*Percival, William Spencer (1889) The Land of the Dragon-My Boating and Shooting Excursions to the Gorges of the Upper Yangtze. London: Hurst and Blackett, Ltd. [Percival was a member of H.B.M's Civil Service in China].\n\n'Clennell, WJ (June 1922) The Historical Setting of Chinkiang or a Bit of ‘Consular Bluff Shanghai: New China Review: Vol IV. No. 3 [Clennell provides much greater detail than is offered here].\n\n&\n\nSun Quan's city was built on Beigu Shan.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216240, "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": 539, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "473\n\nmodernity' (p.10) and is a very good read: in places, simply riveting.\n\nThe Introduction sets the style and the content (and quality) one can expect (and get), from the whole book of 371 pages. The chapters are devoted to different aspects of China's modernisation, as seen through the eyes of persons from many levels of society. We see them benefiting, or in many cases suffering, from rapid urban and economic change, in Beijing (especially fast-tracked owing to the coming 2008 Olympics), Shanghai, and in the countryside. We visit West China, and listen to those affected by the immense scale of the Three Gorges Dam. Tibet and Taiwan are also on the menu. There is a chilling and most compelling chapter on \"subversion,\" including an enlightening account of Falun Gong. Interspersed, are fascinating chapters on the writer's family background in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and on her own life in the Colony, from birth until she left to study journalism in Australia in 1981. There are final chapters on the social upheavals caused by the ongoing shift away from state capitalism, and on the new-style problems affecting China's progress towards becoming a developed nation.\n\nMany topics come alive through the wide range of personal stories resulting from the author's oft demonstrated ability to create and utilise opportunities for meaningful discourse in a country where this is, quite clearly, far from being an easy task; whilst her frank and engaging descriptions of how she circumvented difficulties that would have stymied less determined mortals, is itself a valuable commentary on China's bureaucracy and the relationship of government and people.\n\nThe book's popular style is deceptive, because a relentlessly probing approach makes this essentially a serious book, in which the author describes, graphically and convincingly, how China finds herself at present, with all her attendant problems and difficulties. Despite being able to reveal much that is still wrong, and harmful to the nation's progress, she is essentially optimistic in her Epilogue, emphasizing how far China has come in the last decade, and advising her readers that 'China isn't going to collapse' though in need of greater transparency, especially in the financial sector.\n\nWe are left pondering how China's rulers are going to cope with a runaway situation. For this reviewer, the author's experiences whether", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216257, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 16, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "Gillian Bickley, Ph.D., is an English writer, teacher, and speaker, who has lived in Hong Kong for over thirty years, teaching at the University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Baptist University. She taught previously at Universities in Nigeria and New Zealand, and has lectured throughout Britain, the USA and Asia (gbickley@hkbu.edu.hk).\n\nSidney C. H. Cheung, is Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include visual anthropology, heritage and tourism, indigenous people, food and identity. His published books include On the South China Track: Perspectives on Anthropological Research and Teaching (Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, 1998), Tourism, Anthropology, and China (White Lotus, 2001), and The Globalization of Chinese Food (Curzon Press and University of Hawaii Press, 2002) (sidneycheung@cuhk.edu.hk).\n\nEric N. Danielson, studied modern Chinese history under the guidance of Professor Kent Guy at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he earned his History B.A. in 1988. Later, in 1994 he earned his History M.A. from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He has previously published works on Kurdistan, Yugoslavia, and China. He was the co-author of The Yangzi River and the Three Gorges, sixth edition published by Odyssey Guidebooks of Hong Kong in August 2001. For the past six years he has lived in Shanghai, where he has worked as an education consultant and academic manager in China's rapidly growing private education industry (ShangConsultant@netscape.net).\n\nMichael Gillam, joined Dartmouth Naval College in 1945 at the age of 13 and continued his service in the Royal Navy specialising in Minewarfare and Diving. The first of his many visits to Hong Kong was in 1952 as a midshipman en route for the Korean War. Among his subsequent appointments was a year in Iran setting up a diving school in the Caspian Sea for the Imperial Iranian Navy and two and a half years in Singapore with responsibility for diving throughout the Far East Fleet. He returned to Singapore at the end of the 60's as Staff Operations Officer to the Inshore Flotilla that included responsibility for providing Coastal Minesweepers to act as the Hong Kong guard ship.\n\nxvi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216491, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 250, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "4. This final photo is of Junie, his 'old three decker, the largest houseboat on the Upper Yangtse that he and his wife lived in while trading up and down the Gorges after the Navy took over the Pioneer.\n\n200", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]