RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 26 W. C. HUNTER Friday 12th 1* at At nine this morning received a letter from Macao dated the 8th, in answer to mine of the 5th; all quiet there but everyone ready to be off the moment any trouble was at hand. Delano received, enclosed in mine, a chit from Russell Sturgis which contained much news. The Hercules and Austen left for the Bogue on Tuesday last to deliver their opium and were to be followed by the Jane and Aeriel. The Chinese would only let two vessels come up at a time. The Good Success left Macao on the 9th for Madras, with despatches to the British admiral on the India Station, and the Rob Roy was to leave today for Calcutta. The Exchange sailed for Manila on the 8th; the Nar† Naples, Roza and Benuo Successo and Poppy had also sailed for Manila but the letter does not say if they took opium or not. Mr. Inness was on board the Hercules with Alex. Matthews and Chay. Beal36. The Hercules and Austen had in all over 5,000 chests. Gave two bottles of beer to the Se-Ying37 or lieutenants on guard in the second line of boats in front of the Factories. Had a long chat with several of the officers belonging to Name Hoe's guard relative to matters in dispute. They appear exceedingly friendly but take no interest whatever in what is going on, Saturday, 13, 1839 Last night at 12 o'clock Captain Elliot received a communication from the Commissioner, dated in the morning from the Bogue, in which he requests that the opium ships might be ordered to come up and anchor close to Chinn-up to deliver the opium, instead of Lankeel where there was much inconvenience owing to rough water. He also said that the compradores and cooks were ordered to return but they have not come yet. However it will take some time for the order to be generally promulgated. Midnight I have just returned from a chat of three hours duration held at the Hoppo House or "Custom-House Station" at the water's edge opposite our Factory between two officers, one equal to a captain and the other to a lieutenant, the Custom-House Officer and myself. The Captain, who wore a crystal button, was *Two words illegible. † Part of ship's name illegible. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 40 W. C. HUNTER at Samarang where he served for 3 years. He died at Delft in 1863. (L.T.R.) 32 Viceroy. The Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi at this time was Teng Ting-chen who held this post from early 1836 until early 1840. See Hummel, op. cit., II, 716. (J.L.C-B.) 33 Hoppo. The Superintendent of Maritime Customs at Canton in 1839 was Yu (?). (J.L.C-B.) 34 The Yum Chae. Cantonese pronunciation for the characters (mandarin Ch'in-ch'ai) meaning "an Imperial Commissioner”. (J.L.C-B.) 35 Innes, James Innes (1787-1841), the "storm petrel" of Canton was the 7th Chieftain of the Inneses of Dunkinty, Scotland. He came out to China about 1825 and operated as a Free Trader mostly on his own, but for a time in the firm of Innes, Fletcher & Co. His dealings in opium had not a little to do with precipitating the trouble in 1839. He died in July 1841 and was buried in the Old Protestant Cemetery, Macao. (L.T.R.) 36 Chaye Beale. Thomas Chaye Beale was a member of the firm of Magniac & Co. in Canton as early as 1826. He severed his connections with this firm in the early thirties, and operated on his own till 1845 when he set up a house of agency in Shanghai with Lancelot Dent under the name of Dent, Beale & Co. In 1851 he was Portuguese Consul and Vice-Consul for the Netherlands at Shanghai. (L.T.R.) 37 Se-yin. This is probably a reference to the characters Ssu-ying, the officer in command of a ying which corresponded in some ways to a battalion. However, the rank of a ying commander corresponded more to the Western rank of captain or major. (J.L.C-B.) 38 Ta-lao-yeh. The phrase ta-lao-yeh signifies "revered elder”. (J.L.C-B.) 39 The linguists. Linguists (t'ung shih) were supposed to be able to act as interpreters between the Canton officials and the foreign merchants when instructions needed to be conveyed. The foreigners, for their part, usually enlisted the help of the Hong merchants when they wanted a document translated into Chinese or they needed an interpreter at an important interview. They repeatedly declared that the linguists were useless when it came to linguistic matters. In fact, the linguists appear to have been rather low-grade men of not much education, and able to speak only pidgin English. However, by law a foreign merchant trading at Canton was bound to employ a linguist. Since it was forbidden by the statutes of the Ch'ing dynasty to teach the Chinese language to foreigners, it was reasonable that linguists should be licensed to cope with their language problems. However, in order that the foreigners should not learn much about affairs in the interior, the qualifications needed by a linguist were low and their pidgin vocabulary was restricted to matters of trade. This was part of a deliberate policy which grew up among the officials at Canton, and the linguists merely acted as another cog in the mechanism whereby communication between the foreign merchants and the officials, however minor, was prevented, and the foreigners dealt instead with a number of different unofficial functionaries such as the compradores and linguists. Thus, the foreign merchants were kept at an arm's length and also kept in ignorance. The linguists and their servants mentioned in this journal appear to have acted as general clerks and messengers, as much as linguists. The prefix A or Ah (ya) signifies the status of servant. (J.L.C-B.) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 54 (Wu Ling Kung). The helpful keeper of a Wu Fu Ta Ti temple in Tsoying, sited almost opposite the Kaohsiung Temple of Confucius, named the Five Great Emperors of Fortune, Liu, Chin, Chang, Shih and Chao. He was also able to provide the personal names of each and identified them as five scholars who had died in an attempt to save Fuchou from pestilence demons. Four of the Wu Fu Ta Ti images have standard human faces though with nothing unique to identify them individually; the fifth, however, has a bird's beak on his demonic face and in some temples his skin is blue. No temple keeper has been able to offer a reason for this. Legends about the Pestilence Wang Yeh highlight that all the spirits which became such deities had died an unnatural death, the most popular being the deprivation of the lives of scholars before their due dates of death at the whim of the emperor. Pestilence Wang Yeh were in the main scholars; in some legends ones who had been unsuccessful in the civil service examinations and in others ones who had been successful, who died before their due date either violently or by suicide. This made them spirits to be feared, potentially vengeful and dangerous ghosts who could inflict disease, though through happy circumstances they had all been deified and therefore to an extent placated, and their dangerous potential somewhat nullified. Whilst this article is primarily about Pestilence Wang Yeh now let us turn to local protective deities which also bear the title of Wang Yeh but are not Pestilence deities. The origins of each individual Wang Yeh as related in its cult centre or local village shrine provides a pattern which can best be discerned from the following examples. Legends describe how named individuals, frequently a local who died an unnatural death either fending off bandits, providing for the weak or performing some other public spirited act, were deified. As referred to earlier, the best example of a non-pestilence Wang Yeh is Koxinga, the son of a pirate and a defender of the native Ming dynasty which was crumbling before the invading Manchus, foreigners who later established the final imperial dynasty in China, the Ch'ing. Koxinga drove the Dutch out of their base in Taiwan and for this act, eliminating foreign rule, he became the patron deity of the island. A typical title, which at first would appear to be far from straight forward, is that of the rural temple near Tainan dedicated to the San Lao Yeh (=). The three, Wei (), Chu (✯) and Ts'ao (W) ================================================================================