RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch ORASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 61 His other major life work, A Dictionary of the Chinese language, 1819-1822, is not included in the collection either, but there is a copy elsewhere in the University Library. The Dictionary was published with a generous subsidy from the East India Company who brought Mr. Thoms out from England with a press and materials especially for the job of printing it. He arrived in Macao in September 1814 and after many difficulties over manufacturing moveable types, the first volume was printed by January 1816. Four works of Julius von Klaproth (1783-1835), the German sinologue contemporary with Morrison, are listed in the printed catalogue but now only one survives, Asia Polyglotta, Paris, 1823, containing comparative word lists in various Asiatic languages. This brings to mind the bitter attacks von Klaproth made on Morrison's integrity as a Chinese scholar, printed in the Nouveau Journal Asiatique and quoted by Morrison in the Memoirs. The French sinologue, Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, (1788-1832) joined in the attack against Morrison. Von Klaproth seems to have been even more belligerent than the majority of sinologues are towards each other, as his reviews of his colleagues' translations from the Chinese in the same journal show. Von Klaproth even sunk so low as to try to get Sir J. F. Davis, then in the East India Company's service and later Governor of Hong Kong, to join in the attacks against Morrison, by promising that if he did, he would write a laudatory article about him in a forthcoming journal. Davis' reply was, + + I cannot help regretting that you should indulge in such hostility to Dr. Morrison concerning whom I must declare that I agree with Sir George Staunton in considering him as 'confessedly the first Chinese scholar in Europe'. It is notorious in (England) that he has for years conducted on the part of the E.I. Co., a very extensive correspondence in Chinese in the written character; that he writes the language of China with the ease and rapidity of a native; and that the natives themselves have long since given him the title of (Lao Shih Ma). This testimony is decisive, and the position which it gives him is such, that he may regard all European squabbles regarding his Chinese knowledge as mere Batrachomyomachia. The French sinologue mentioned above, Abel-Rémusat, the first man to be appointed to a chair of Chinese at a European University, was originally represented by three books in the catalogue, only one of which is now left, Elémens de la Grammaire Chinoise, 1822. A book little noticed now is Translations from the Chinese and Armenian by Charles F. Neumann, 1831. It contains ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d FAN LAU AND ITS FORT 91 11 A lorcha is a specialized fighting craft from Macau that combined a Western-style hull (for speed and maneuverability) with Chinese batten sails and rigging (for easier sail-handling and disguise). 12 Charles F. Neumann, History of the Pirates (š), who infested the China Sea from 1807 to 1810, (London, John Murray, 1831) P. 58. 13 J. R. Morrison, A Chinese Commercial Guide (Canton, Office of the Chinese Repository, 1848) pp. 70-71. 14 The Last Year in China to the Peace of Nanking as sketched in Letters to his Friends by a Field Officer actively employed in that Country (2nd edition, revised, London, Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans 1843) pp. 51-52. 15 There is, in addition, the possibility that the fort had a temporary garrison in 1834 see the imperial directive given respecting defence and patrolling at Lantau and Macao quoted by J. L. Cranmer-Byng in his brief note "An old fort at Tung Chung on Lantao Island” in J.H.K.B.R.A.S. Vol 3 (1963) pp. 144-145. 16 Hong Kong Government. New Territories Administration. Block Crown Lease Demarcation Districts 322 and 327, Shek Sun village, Lantau Island. BIBLIOGRAPHY CITED J. J. L. Duyvendak, "Sailing directions of Chinese voyages", T'oung Pao vol. 34 (1938), pp. 230-237, "The true dates of the Chinese maritime expeditions in the early fifteenth century", T'oung Pao vol. 34 (1938), pp. 341-412. Luis B. Gomes, Monografia de Macau, Macau, 1951. Hongkong Government. A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hongkong, Kowloon, and the New Territories, Hongkong, 1960. Lo Hsing-lin, Hongkong and its External Communications before 1842. Hongkong, 1963. J. R. Morrison, A Chinese Commercial Guide, Canton, 1848. Charles F. Neumann, The History of the Pirates who infested the China Sea from 1807 to 1810, translated from the Chinese original, London, 1831. Ch'ing dynasty work: Chinese Sources Mo Pei Chi (AA) A.D. 1621 The provincial Gazetteer of Kwangtung: Kwong Tung Tung Chi (♬✯ ih sk) 1864 edition The District Gazetteers for the following: San On Yuen Chi (%) 1819 edition Tung Kwun Yuen Chi ✯✯✯) 1797 edition Heung Shan Yuen Chi (3) 1827 edition O Mun Kei Leuk (39 1932) 1800 edition ================================================================================