[ { "id": 205355, "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": 117, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "110\n\nREV, MR. KRONE\n\nseveral times taking a cruise in his Tea-cup, the mountain was named after it “Poi-tou.' \n\n\"Poi-tou.\" Among the common people, however, the mountain is known by the name \"Shing-shan\", or holy mountain. The rough, barren, mountainous country I have described, has given birth to many superstitions and legends. Some of the huge stones on the hill sides are supposed to represent the tiger, the dragon, and the phoenix. The stones on some hills are said to have locomotive powers, and to pursue any adventurous traveller who attempts to mount their sides; other stones are said, when touched, to have the power of producing pains in the stomach, and others to emit white vapours from their surface. But these matters are of but little importance to us; of more interest are the caves which are found in some of the mountains. The most remarkable of these caves is near the market-place of U-shek-ngam, &, at the base of the mountain. For some centuries this cave has been used as a temple, and its aspect is so changed by the architecture and furniture which have been introduced, that one cannot get a good idea of its natural size and appearance.\n\nNatural History. Quadrumana, A number of small monkeys inhabit the island of Lintin; but this animal is not found in any other part of the district, though Chinese books relate that in former times they were found on 'Ng-tung, and most of the high mountains of the district.\n\nQuadrupeds, — The Chinese tiger, which seems to be a true tiger, is found about 'Ng-tung, and in the neighbourhood of most of the high mountains. It sometimes reaches a considerable size, weighing 200 catties, or 266lb. It feeds generally upon pigs and dogs, and the country people say it occasionally carries off a grass-cutter, but this seems doubtful. It is taken in traps, and is a great prize to its captor, as it will bring him in a sum of $150 to $200; for the bones are in great repute as a tonic medicine, and the flesh is eaten with the idea that the courage of the devourer is improved by the meal.\n\nMore than one species of deer, a fox, and a badger, have also been seen, and a large ant-eater -- the flesh of which is considered a delicacy, and is also supposed to possess medicinal powers. There are many snakes, and among them a large species of python, which sometimes grows to the length of twenty to twenty-four feet;", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208149, "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": 188, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "172\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nAll remarkable mountains are supposed by the Chinese to have some spiritual influence over the affairs of mortals. The rough, barren, mountainous country I have described, has given birth to many superstitions and legends. Some of the huge stones on the hillsides are supposed to represent the tiger, the dragon, and the phoenix. The stones on some hills are said to have locomotive powers, and to pursue any adventurous traveller who attempts to mount their sides: other stones are said, when touched, to have the power of producing pains in the stomach and others to emit white vapours from their surface; of more interest are the caves which are found in some of the mountains (JHKBRAS 7(1967): 110).\n\n12. Krone writes of our own Castle Peak:\n\nThe mountain is reckoned one of the eight wonders of the Canton Province. Some of its large granite boulders are said by the priests to represent various mythological monsters; and several springs well up near the top, which are also esteemed supernatural wonders by the Chinese. The mountain is often visited by students and literati, and its wonders and beauties have been celebrated by them in many verses. The legends connected with the mountain seem not to be very clearly understood. (JHKBRAS 7(1967): 109).\n\n13. In the case of the more famous mountains of the Kwangtung province alone, mythology, legend and history have endowed them with fame over hundreds and even thousands of years. This is due in part to the constant visits of famous poets whose poems are so widely read over the generations that they alone are sufficient to make them sacred and immortal.* Yet our own lesser mountains seem to have had at least one such visitor. In the history of the T'ang family of Kam Tin we read of the famous Sung poet and painter PO Yu-sim, ‘Legends have attributed to him magical powers, and he is supposed to have appeared and disappeared in all the \n\nIn the introduction to his Anthology of Chinese Literature, Vol. 2 (New York, Grove Press Inc., 1972) Cyril Birch writes 'Scholar-officials were subject to a life of movement, and no one could travel very far without lighting on a place celebrated in the verse or prose of an earlier visitor. It might be a hilltop temple or a lakeside pavilion, a mountain pass or an ancient battlefield, a city gate or a particularly awesome cliff. (p. xxvi).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208657, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 114, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n87\n\nthey may not visit or talk to us. We understand they have been allowed to retain their servants, and have a good supply of food. They have a very small compound in which to recreate.\n\n12-A Mrs. Greensburg, Catholic, died at the Hospital today. No bread today.\n\n13~~One slice for supper. First meal, rice and raisins only. More British internees arrive from Hong Kong; namely, the telegraph and radio men; also the Colonial Secretary. Rumor of a Red Cross ship bringing food to us. It has, in fact, already left San Francisco!\n\n14- Father Quinn leads the songfest. More British arrive in Camp.\n\n15- Sunday. Father Allie preaches in the morning and the Bishop in the afternoon. If you want the impossible done, go to the Maryknoll Sisters. No one may leave or enter this Camp under any consideration, yet today, Sister Paul and two other Sisters wangle permission to do so, from the Japanese officer in the Prison, in order to go to Carmel for vestments and other things for our coming Holy Week ceremonies. They almost get permission to go to the Cathedral in Hong Kong, but were stopped by the gendarmes, who were quite incensed that they had gotten out of the Camp.\n\n16-Father Vincent Walsh quite ill, with some former intestinal trouble. He does not go to the Hospital, but the doctors attend to him in his room. At present we have two British doctors, Dr. Hackett and Dr. Talbot, assigned to take care of us Americans. More English arrive. Father Haughey gets his face slapped for some infraction of some kind of a rule. Curfew and roll call now the order of the day.\n\n17-St. Patrick's Day brings us some sunshine. In the evening at St. Stephen's Hall, Father Charles Murphy directs an Irish entertainment, featuring Father Madison in an Irish history skit. After the show, dancing was permitted by the Japanese authorities, in other words, the gendarmes, for they are our keepers. Brother Anthony returns from the Hospital. Mr. Tcheng, the Chinese comprador in charge of our rations, is reported to be seriously ill, and leaves. A Japanese, Mr. Yamashita, now takes charge. This, we hope, augurs an improvement in our food rations.\n\n18 No soya beans since February 24; no salt for three days, and the ration of milk for babies has been reduced. Evidently the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210622, "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": 229, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "210\n\nTHE COUNTRY BOY WHO DIED FOR HONG KONG*\n\nLargely, I suppose, because I experienced over four years of active service and action myself — in the deserts of North Africa and Italy in World War II — when I have seen the remains of fortifications and slit trenches on the hills of Hong Kong, I have often pondered on the battle, in 1941, for this \"outpost of Empire\".\n\nWhen I joined the Hong Kong Government, in 1954, the war was still fresh in people's minds. Time has passed quickly, however, and there is a danger that brave deeds will disappear forever.\n\nWhile the courage shown by Company Sergeant Major (CSM) John (Jack) Robert Osborn has been recorded, few people know much about him. Indeed it was not until 1982 that I learned he was born in the County of Norfolk, England, not far from my home town.\n\nThe Village of Foulden is an unspoiled, peaceful place, but at the turn of this century it was even more isolated.\n\nFor a number of years a group of anonymous, horse-drawn caravans made its way, every year, from the Fen Country to tiny Foulden. The gypsies, who occupied these \"homes-on-wheels\", earned their livings as dealers, and by making clothes-pegs and rock (a kind of confectionery). They also managed to obtain part-time work on the land, for instance at harvest time. While no villager got to know them well, the Osborn family always spent longer in Foulden than the other Romanies.\n\n* Plate 11.\n\nAcknowledgements\n\nThe author is grateful to many people, too numerous to name individually, for their assistance in the research and preparation of this article. This article was first published on 22nd December, 1985 in the Sunday Morning Post and is reprinted with the author's permission.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211907, "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": 322, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "in our family prayers, as you sailed down the Channel and set out on your voyage to China. I hope this will find you arrived in Hong Kong, and we shall await with much interest your first communication. There will be just time to answer this before Mrs Smith and I embark D.V. on October 4th.\n\nI am glad to find that Mr Beach is likely to be in China on your arrival. He will kindly direct you until my arrival, as to your course, and I doubt not you will find in him a kind friend, and a prudent counsellor.\n\nMrs Smith if she were with me would write in the expression of our best wishes and kind remembrances.”\n\n(I must omit a lot for want of time.)\n\nI remain, my dear Mr Fryer\n\nYours very sincerely,\n\nG. Victoria.\n\nET\n\n297\n\n^His portrait hangs over the drawing room fire place. I often look at the old chap as he hangs there. From what I have seen and heard of him I cannot help really liking him. Everybody seems to love him and speak of him with the greatest respect and veneration.\n\n^Mr Beach is a good sort of fellow. As rough and blunt as you can imagine, but under the rough exterior I believe he has a manly warm heart. There is no \"gammon” about him. We agree remarkably well together, and he leaves everything to me, although I would rather he should not do so. For a clergyman and chaplain however, I think there is not anything like the amount of the elements of religion in him that are necessary. He is too much like a gay young man.\n\nA Mr Cleverly, the Surveyor General, is a middle aged man, and a thorough gentleman. He pleases me much. Mr Beach goes in a few days to Tien Tsin, where he remains, so that I shall be all alone. He will give up everything to my control, and I can do what I like till the bishop comes.\n\nI had no idea that the institution was so large, or that the duties required", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213607, "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": 203, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "175\n\nthere are rainwater catchments discharging into underground water storage tanks.\n\nOuter defences consist of a dannert or barbed wire topped chain link fence, slit trenches, barbed wire entanglements, and at some locations concrete bunkers sunk into the hillside. Dense thickets and tangled undergrowth form a natural defence outside the perimeter. A later Police Commissioner, Charles Sutcliffe, who came to Hong Kong from Tanganyika, had the idea of improving the natural defences by planting the Mauritius or Cape Thorn. His idea was to cultivate the thorn all along the border fences and around the observation posts as a general security measure. The plan was not successful as the plant did not grow very well and in most areas never really developed as expected.\n\nThe man who gave his name to the new observation posts and whose idea it was to build them, was Duncan William MacIntosh, C.M.G., O.B.E., who assumed command of the Hongkong Police Force on Nov. 22, 1946. At the age of sixteen he joined the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1920 and served with that force until 1922 when he joined the Airdrie Burgh Police. In 1929 he was appointed an Inspector of Police in the Straits Settlements and was interned in Singapore during the occupation. After the war he became Acting Commissioner of Singapore Police, from where he was posted as Commissioner to Hong Kong in 1946.\n\nCommissioner Macintosh was responsible for reorganising the Hong Kong Police Force after the liberation, and to him goes the credit for laying the foundations on which so much of the present efficiency of the force depends. One of his most important tasks was to improve the low morale among the men under his charge. He set about this by beginning a long battle to upgrade police pay, conditions of service, and above all living accommodation. He also concentrated on improving professional standards, and reorganised the Police Training School. He succeeded in his efforts in boosting morale, improving recruitment, and established an esprit-de-corps essential to the running of an efficient police force.\n\nAfter leaving Hong Kong in 1953 on retirement, Mr. MacIntosh accepted appointment as Adviser to the Iraqi Police and spent some time in Baghdad. He died at his home in Surrey, England on September", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214429, "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": 287, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "253\n\na quick sweep of the area then douse. 'Douse lights' was the official term used when passing an order. Coast artillery searchlights could not be used in an anti-aircraft role as they had very little elevation.\n\nThe Bluff Head Battery\n\nThe Bluff Head Battery was set up as an improvised emergency battery sometime after 1938 in the event of war. Although no two batteries were exactly alike they all conformed to a general pattern. A typical emergency coastal battery, such as that set up on the Bluff, would consist of two guns either fitted with their own gun shields or mounted in temporary steel framed casemates covered with sandbags which would later be rebuilt in brick or concrete, with sunken expense magazines or shell stores and air-raid shelters or dugouts for the gunners between them. There would be two searchlight emplacements, one on each flank of the battery, so that the guns could be used at night. A battery observation post equipped with range finder, predictor, and fire-control equipment would be sited behind the guns, if possible on higher ground, otherwise in a two or three storey tower, or in a convenient nearby building.\n\nThe battery would have been surrounded by barbed wire entanglements, and protected by infantry defences such as pillboxes, sandbagged machine-gun emplacements, and slit-trenches. The searchlights were housed in small brick or concrete shelters protected by steel shutters, each searchlight powered by its own diesel-engined generator housed in a small engine room at the rear of the shelter. Alternatively wet cell accumulator batteries in series could be used and probably were at Stanley, as a number of carbon rods, which were a component of this type of battery, have been found discarded in old bunkers and several old battery charging rooms have also been found. Emergency sandbagged searchlight emplacements could also be set up quickly if required.\n\nOther Gun Emplacements\n\nA mobile anti-aircraft battery, 18th AA Bty, 5th AA Regt RA, is known to have been captured at Stanley on 25 Dec 1941. An AA position is shown on old wartime maps on the spur above Tai Tam Tau,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215631, "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": 408, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "359\n\nunusual downward-hanging flowers with nine pure white petals, and rich red stamens, and also found a large specimen of the quite rare Michelia doltsopa, also with rich white, scented flowers. A Metasequoia glyptostroboides gave us one of many chances to benefit from Maggie's knowledge, and showed again how recent so much of our knowledge is. The tree was spotted in 1941 by a forester in Sichuan who, being unable to identify it sent leaves to Beijing. By extraordinary coincidence, a Japanese palaeobotanist was working on three-million-year-old fossils of the same tree, thought to be long extinct, and in 1946 the connection was made between the two. Like the Ginkgo biloba, therefore, this is a fossil survival - and whereas it is struggling to survive in its remote Sichuan valley, thanks to gardens like this it is actually thriving in Britain, and is now widely available. This was a theme we came across in several gardens: British horticulture feeding plants back to their original countries.\n\nHeligan is now one of the best known gardens in Britain, thanks to the televising of its restoration. Its 80 acres had almost disappeared into jungly luxuriance thanks to some 70 years of neglect, and were only \"re-discovered\" in 1990 thanks to a conversation in the pub at St. Ewe between its new owner John Willis, and one Tim Smit (now Director of the Eden Project). The gardens as we see them now are the design commissioned from Thomas Gray by Henry Hawkins Tremayne in 1780, and the last major planting was done before the First World War. Of the 22 gardeners then, all signed up; two thirds were killed, and none returned. The Tremayne family had six houses, and moved to Crone Manor, leaving Heligan tenanted but the gardens neglected, and the rest, as they say, is history.\n\nWe were taken around Heligan by Colin Howlett, whose familiarity with the project since its inception gave us a wonderful insight into its work. Many of the early plantings still visible are the results of Joseph Hooker's 1848-1850 collecting in Sikkim, which were distributed by himself and by Kew almost immediately on his return: 23 of the rhododendrons at Heligan are Hooker plantings, as is the Crinodendron, and the Magnolia campbellii collected by him is now the largest of the magnolias at 60 feet in height. Thanks to the long neglect of the gardens, however, many of the rhododendrons have hybridised, with the result that Heligan now has the job of identifying and naming many new hybrids; this is also true of its camellias.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215633, "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": 410, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "361\n\nThe Mediterranean and Tropical biomes are not planted in order to try to recreate sections of those floras in toto, but more to provide examples for the message, which is an understanding of the importance of biodiversity. And unlike the other gardens where plants are grown to perform at their best, Eden grows them to perform \"to type\"; e.g. rhododendrons are grown on the rather scrubby soil they would have in the wild, which in Cornwall of all places provides a great contrast in results and was interesting to us in particular. However, as Tim Smit himself has admitted, conditions in the biomes are still not \"real\": tropical trees are growing far faster and with smaller root systems, for lack of any wind or storms, for instance. And at the moment, insects are excluded, so that the staff must actually play God, and pollinate plants by hand.\n\nIf our guide was typical, the staff at Eden are genuinely convinced of the value of their work: he was hugely enthusiastic, (and rather frighteningly asked if he could read my notes, so that he could see which parts of his tour had come across best) and we were booked for the full tour, encompassing both biomes. Eden is the biggest event in Cornwall, and suffers a little from its success in that it is rather impersonal, but it is hugely impressive and very well organised. Maggie, who knows its creator Tim Smit, said that she felt that they were learning as they went along, and that having established an educational base they may move on now to more academic research in order to ensure the project's long-term interest and value. Some research is already carried out, particularly into the plant diversity of the Oceanic islands, and Eden also propagates examples of rare plants, such as Impatiens gordonii, of which only 250 examples remain in the wild, in the Seychelles. A more unexpected aspect of Eden was the amount of modern sculpture installed about the site. In the Humid Tropics biome, a \"shimenawa\" has been hung above the rice exhibit area by two Japanese artists: a huge swag of rice straw signifying a sacred space in the Shinto religion.\n\nTregrehan is run by Tom Hudson, himself a modern-day plant collector, though as a native New Zealander, his collecting comes not only from the Far East, but much of the southern hemisphere as well. At first glance it is a very traditional landscape of walled gardens and woodland walks, but one soon descends into a tree-shaded valley where the garden makes a radical departure into planting from the landmasses", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]