[
    {
        "id": 212327,
        "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-1990",
        "page_number": 269,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "246\n\nlater, made up part of the Lombard Insurance Company.\n\nHong Kong Hotel Company\n\nThe Company started in 1866, and the Hong Kong Hotel opened in 1867 on the site of the defunct Dent and Company's offices on the then waterfront at Queen's Road Central. In 1893, in addition to the 'Hong Kong', other leading hotels included 'Windsor' and 'Victoria', in Central, and 'Mount Austin' and 'Peak' hotels, both on the Peak.\n\nThe Professions\n\nAs well as traders, a few British professionals set up practices in Hong Kong in the last century. Victor Hobart Deacon, for example, arrived in the Colony in 1880 to join a firm of lawyers that was already 30 years old. In the 1840s, the nearest lawyer was said to be in Calcutta.\n\nAt about the same time there were a number of people who described themselves as architects, but they were probably only draughtsmen. One such man was named Langer, who arrived in 1842 to supervise the erection of buildings for Jardine's. He was stricken with fever after only working for two months. The civilian architects produced nothing of the calibre of the military architects who designed such structures as Murray House and Headquarters House.\n\nWilson and Salway, architects and engineers, were established in 1872; and Leigh and Orange, although not the first, was among the early practices to be set up. This latter firm dates back to 1874, under the name of Sharp and Danby who were engineers, and in 1894 it became Leigh and Orange. The founding fathers were ex-Public Works Department employees. The Ohel Leah synagogue in Robinson Road, completed in 1902, is one of their buildings, as were the old Queen's Building and the old Prince's Building, both completed in Central in 1904.\n\nOther structures, since demolished, were the entire premises of the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company, at Hung Hom, and the wharves and premises of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Wharf",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215464,
        "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": 241,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "190\n\nBhutan, so when the absolute deadline for bookings came in December, I simply said 'Why not?' and sent in my cheque.\n\nUnfortunately my favourite travelling companion (my wife) was not able to come with me. The start of the RAS trip coincided exactly with the start of her parents' six-week visit to Hong Kong to stay with us. I honestly cannot recall which booking happened first, theirs or mine - honestly.\n\nMountains of reading\n\nI was able to do some rather brief research before the journey, although I was not able to do justice to Brian Shaw's three-page bibliography. (With much relief, I found out later that I was not the only one to have failed in this regard.) I was able to discover that this \"tiny\" mountain kingdom is not so tiny after all, being about the size of Switzerland. Until unification in the 17th century, Bhutan was a series of independent valley-states. Initially influenced by its much larger northern neighbour, Tibet, what is now Bhutan became Buddhist in the 8th century and is now perhaps the staunchest of Buddhist countries. The country was never part of British India, but following a clash in the mid-19th century relations with the Raj warmed and these continued after India's independence. Even so, Bhutan remained for most purposes cut off from the rest of the world until the 1970s, not least due to its remote location in the eastern Himalayas.\n\nIt is almost inevitable, if travelling to Bhutan from Hong Kong, to route via an overnight stopover in Bangkok. But this can hardly be considered a hardship. By the time our evening flight had delivered us to Don Muang airport, and thence to the Windsor Hotel, it was well past midnight and bedtime, although I did hear some enthusiasm being expressed for a neighbouring beer garden.\n\nI awoke the following morning just in time to catch the tail end of breakfast, and then repaired to the room to really sort out the bags I had packed in a bit of a hurry. The rest of the day was spent looking for photographic opportunities along Bangkok's klongs (canals), and trying hard not to think of the 4.15 a.m. wake-up call the following morning.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]