RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v September 27th October 16th Show of three documentary films made by Mr. Hugh Gibb for B.B.C. Television: "Rituals of Rice" (colour) describes rice growing in Japan and old Shinto practices associated with transplanting and harvest festivals. "Zen" (black and white) is the first film to be made in a Zen Buddhist monastery in Japan. Permission was granted only after several months of negotiation and then the film had to be shot in one morning. "Dance and Drama" (colour) won the Gran Premio award for T.V. documentaries at the Bergamo Film Festival in 1961 and describes the evolution of dance and drama in Japan including the Kagura, the traditional village drama, and abridged performances of puppet plays, Noh and Kabuki theatre. Three further films made by Mr. Hugh Gibb: "The Dyaks" tells the story of the communal life and customs of the Sarawak "Long Houses." "Birds' Nest Soup" was made in the Great Cave of Niah in Sarawak, where edible birds' nests are collected from the walls and ceilings to prepare one of the most expensive delicacies in the world. "Turtle Island" takes place on a small island off the coast of Sarawak where as many as one hundred turtles come in the course of one night to dig their nests and lay their eggs. The film tells the story of the cumbersome process and of the scientific work on these edible turtles, the collection and sale of whose eggs is a considerable industry. The lectures in January and February by Professor S. H. Hansford on "Some Problems of Ancient Chinese Jades and Bronzes" and by Mr. R. D. Bromhall on "Underwater Photography in Eastern Seas" will be included in the Report for the coming year. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 18 LINDSAY RIDE Dr. Robert Morrison. It is easily found, for if one continues straight on through the terrace from the end of the path one comes upon it amongst a group of altar tombs in the south-east corner of the cemetery. Morrison was a member of the London Missionary Society and was the first Protestant missionary in China, arriving from England via the States in 1807. He was a great Chinese scholar, wrote a Chinese grammar, compiled an English-Cantonese dictionary, and, along with a colleague, translated the whole Bible into Chinese. He became the indispensable interpreter and translator of the Select Committee of the East India Company, was taken by Lord Amherst in that capacity on his embassy to Peking in 1816, and was appointed in 1834 by Lord Napier to his staff when he assumed office in place of the East India Company in China. In 1825 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in virtue of his outstanding scholastic achievements, and was also a member of the society under whose auspices we meet tonight — the Royal Asiatic Society. Morrison was buried alongside his wife, and next to her lies their very gifted son, John Robert Morrison, who died just as he was appointed the first Colonial Secretary in Hong Kong. Nearby lies another colleague from the same missionary society, Samuel Dyer, who did much to introduce metallic movable type to replace wooden blocks in the printing of Chinese books and tracts. Along the eastern wall are to be found a number of members of East India Company families, and in the second row parallel to this wall is the second most frequently photographed memorial in the cemetery, that of Sir Winston Churchill's great-great-grand uncle, the 4th son of the 5th Duke of Marlborough, Lord Henry John Spencer Churchill, Captain, R.N. Near him lies a group of naval officers—Lieut. John Astell, Lieut. FitzGerald of the H.M.S. Modeste, and Captain Sir Humphrey le Fleming Senhouse, Senior Naval Officer in the China Seas during the attack on Canton in 1841. The most conspicuous monument in the whole of the cemetery is a tall column near the north wall. It commemorates the life and death of Captain John Crockett who must have made a fortune when in command for some years of an opium storeship at Lintin. Nearby lies one of America's great ambassadors, Edmund Roberts, who served in the West Indies, South America, Muscat, Zanzibar, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r # PRESIDENT'S REPORT 1963 The year 1963-1964 - the fourth year of the Society in Hong Kong after its revival - was a very successful one. The membership has steadily increased each year. At the end of the first year, we had 160 members, of whom 20 were life members; at the end of the second, 266, of whom 25 were life members; at the end of the third year, 280, of whom 33 were life members; and at the end of last year, the fourth, we had a total of 371, of whom 41 were life members. Since then, more than 30 have joined as ordinary members and 2 as life members. The great increase in the number of members last year is doubly welcome in that it reflects the increasing interest of the younger generation in the objects and activities of the Society. It is a healthy and gratifying sign of the intellectual vitality of the young people of the Colony to see them join. We rely largely on them to ensure the future success of the Society. During 1963, we had twelve meetings, all of which were very well attended. On several occasions, the capacity of the City Hall was fully taxed. The expedition to Tung Chung on Lantao Island was a highly popular feature. The lectures given were: January 21st March 4th March 25th April 22nd Professor S. H. Hansford "Some Problems of Ancient Chinese Jades and Bronzes" (Illustrated by colour slides) J. D. Bromhall "Underwater Photography in Eastern Seas" (Illustrated by colour slides made by the speaker) Dr. Maurice Freedman "Social Anthropology and the Study of China" Miss B. T. Chiu "Flowers of Hong Kong" (Illustrated by colour slides taken by Miss Chiu and Mr. F. A. Nixon) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 70 A. D. BLUE middlemen in trade between the two countries. There was a flavour of irony in this, as the Portuguese were to prove as great pirates as the Japanese, Their most famous pirate was Mendes Pinto, who flourished in the latter half of the sixteenth century, and who seems to have been a combination of Sir Henry Morgan and Baron Munchausen. Pinto's exploits are characteristic of Portuguese history during those early centuries, displaying that amazing mixture of gallantry and greed, of religious zeal, bigotry, and cruelty. The eastern seas had always been full of violence, and the arrival of the Portuguese in the early sixteenth century, and the Dutch a century later, increased that violence. The Dutch lacked the religious zeal of the Portuguese, but substituted an equally unattractive obsession with trade. Much of the European trade in the Far East at that time was based on piracy. The Dutch, for instance, were excluded from direct trade with China until 1729, and in their Japan trade in which Chinese silk was the most important commodity they obtained much of their silk by plundering Portuguese and Chinese ships. — The persistence of piracy in Chinese waters for so long after regular trade had been established there by Europeans, was due to the peculiar conditions under which that trade developed. In India, and in the East Indies, European trade was succeeded by a steady increase in European power, although in both places there was a considerable time lag between establishing political power on land and the suppression of piracy at sea. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, British and Dutch naval power had made Indian and East Indian waters comparatively safe for European commerce. The situation in China was very different, however, and piracy continued there for fully another century. Not until after the First China War of 1841-42 were there any centres of European power in China, and the few centres established then were separated from each other by hundreds of miles of Chinese territory. The situation was aggravated by the increasing anarchy and lawlessness which became endemic over much of coastal China from the early nineteenth century, as the authority and power of the Manchu Government declined. When the East India Company's monopoly of the China trade was abolished in 1833, and the trade thrown open to all comers, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 78 FRANK, H. A. L. G. AIJMER 1925 Roving through Southern China, (New York and London, The Century Company). FREEDMAN, M. 1958 Lineage Organization in Southeastern China. London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology No. 18, (London, The Athlone Press). 1966 Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung, London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology No. 33, (London, The Athlone Press). 1967 Personal Communication, 2. 1. 1967. GROVES, R. G. 1965a Report of Field Work in Hong Kong, London-Cornell Project, mimeographed. 1965b 'The Origins of Two Market Towns in the New Territories', Aspects of Social Organization in the New Territories, (Hong Kong, Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch) n.d. HAYES, J. W. 1962 'The Pattern of Life in the New Territories in 1898', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 2. 1966 'Old British Kowloon', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 6. Hong Kong 1963 1964 Hong Kong. Report for the Year 1963, (Hong Kong, Government Printer). Hong Kong 1964 1965 Hong Kong, Report for the Year 1964, (Hong Kong, Government Printer). HSU, F. L. K. 1945 'Influence of South-seas Emigration on Certain Chinese Provinces', Far Eastern Quarterly, Vol. v. HUI KIM-BING 1963 'The Lion Rock and the Deserting of the Coastal Strip and Subsequent Re-occupation of the Region during Early Manchu Rule' Hong Kong and its External Communications Before 1842, Lo Hsiang-lin (ed.), (Hong Kong, Institute of Chinese Culture). INGRAMS, H. 1952 Hong Kong. (London, H.M.S.O.) IZIKOWITZ, K. G. 1963 'Expansion', Folk, Vol. 5. KUO SHOU-HUA 1964 (Chinese Article), English title: History of Hakka Chinese, 4th edn., Taipei. LEE, R. H. 1960 The Chinese in the United States of America, (Hong Kong, University of Hong Kong Press). Lockhart Report 1899 'Extracts from a Report by Mr. Stewart Lockhart on the Extension of the Colony of Hongkong', Government Notification No. 204, The Hongkong Government Gazette, Vol. xlv. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 182 THE LIBRARY Asia; with an appendix of sailing directions for those seas and coasts. 5th ed. Taipei, Ch'eng-wen Publ. Co., 1966. YULE, Sir Henry. Y95 Cathay and the way thither; being a collection of medieval notices of China. New ed., rev. throughout in the light of recent discoveries by Henri Cordier. Taipei, Ch'eng-wen Publ. Co., 1966. The following bound volumes of periodicals are now located in the British Council Library, Gloucester Building, where they may be consulted. They are not available for loan. Asia major, London, vols. 9-11, 1962-1965, East and West, Rome, vols. 14-17, 1963-1966. France. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Bulletin signalétique. Sec. 21: Sociologie, etc., vols. 16-18, 1962-1964. Sec. 24: Sciences du langage, vol. 19, 1965. Japan quarterly, Tokyo, vols. 10-14, 1963-1967. Journal of Asiatic studies, Seoul, vols. 8-10, 1965-1967. Monumenta serica, Los Angeles, vols. 19-25, 1960-1966. Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm. Bulletin, vols. 1-4, 1929-1932; 38-39, 1966-1967. Royal Asiatic Society, London. Journal, 1957-1966. Royal Asiatic Society. Korea Branch. Transactions, vols. 34-39, 1958-1962. Sarawak Museum journal, vols. 9-14, 1960-1966. Sinologica, Basel, vols. 7-9, 1962/63-1966/67. Tōhō Gakuhō, Kyoto, vols. 32-39, 1962-1968. Tsing hua journal of Chinese studies, Taipei, new series, vols. 2-6, 1960/61-1966/67. This collection comprises 14 different titles, and 75 vols. (bound in 60). Hong Kong, 28 April, 1969. H. A. RYDINGS, Hon. Librarian. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r BOOK REVIEWS YING-YAI SHENG-LAN "THE OVERALL SURVEY OF THE OCEAN'S SHORES' [1433] Translated from the Chinese text; with introduction, notes and appendices by J. V. G. Mills. The Hakluyt Society, Extra Series, No. 42, pp. xix, 391. Cambridge University Press, 1970. £11.50 U.K. When the Emperor Yung-lo died in 1424, the Ming dynasty had reached the height of its power. Chinese fleets commanded the eastern seas, and foreign potentates as far west as Egypt acknowledged the suzerainty of the Emperor. Between 1405 and 1433 a remarkable eunuch, Cheng Ho, as outstanding a seaman adventurer as any produced by Elizabethan England, commanded seven overseas expeditions, and visited over thirty countries. Chinese naval, and consequently trading, hegemony extended from Japan to the east coast of Africa. The expeditions usually extended over two years. Setting out from the neighbourhood of Nanking in the autumn, powerful fleets, including sixty or more 'treasure-ships', and twenty-eight to thirty thousand men, moved down the Yangtze to the mouth of Liu creek (near Shanghai), where organisation was completed; thence to an anchorage near the mouth of the Min river in Fukien province where the ships waited for the favourable north-east monsoon. Java, Palembang, Malacca, Ceylon, Calicut, and Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, were regularly visited. On some occasions, detachments from the main force called at Arabian and at East African ports, sailing southward as far as Malindi. On the fourth expedition (1413-15), Cheng Ho was accompanied by a young Chinese interpreter Ma Huan who, on the basis of observations in the course of succeeding voyages with the 'grand eunuch', contributed perhaps the most important record of life and manners in south Asia by any traveller before the arrival of the Portuguese. Ying-yai Sheng-lan, introduced in two parts, the first describing the expeditions under Cheng Ho, and the second discussing Ma Huan and his book, may have been first published in 1451. Its author died about ten years later, scarcely better known than his book which never acquired a wide circulation. Ma Huan claimed ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 081. 600 DOB 品日 Plate 21. The Dragon King of the Eastern Seas (†1) nearing completion. Black wax decoration complete and drying, and awaiting guilding. Plate 22. Tái Shang Lao Chiên (tê*). After application of paper and black wax, and prior to covering in gold leaf. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 Plate 26. Painting the Dragon King of the Eastern Seas (*). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 96 H. J. LETHBRIDGE and China Gas Company, the Hong Kong Electric Company, the Hong Kong Distillery Company, all needed skilled European labour. The Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company employed European foremen, clerks, book-keepers, shipwrights, engineers, boiler-makers, storekeepers, and superintendents. 'Where the eastern seas', J.S. Thomson enthuses, 'bubble up hot to the flame of an equatorial sun, Chinese workmen, with Scotch overseers, turn out six thousand ton steel ships and do battleship repairing worthy of Woolwich or Devonport.' The skilled British mechanic experienced a degree of upward social mobility in Hong Kong: the skilled worker became an overseer, with all the compensations of improved status and salary. 13 Apart from any non-qualified engineers, mechanics and artisans, there were a number of Europeans employed in other low status occupations. We should mention lighthouse keepers, employed by the Harbour Master's Department (later Marine Department), tide-waiters in the Chinese Maritime Customs, whose duty it was to board ships and junks at the various treaty ports, some of whom were domiciled in Hong Kong. They were, like the skippers and engineers of the vessels owned by the Hong Kong, Canton, and Macau Steamboat Company, mostly retired A.B.s from the Royal Navy and non-commissioned officers who had served their time. Lastly, there was a sprinkling of European tailors, hairdressers, milliners, confectioners, bakers, booksellers, printers, photographers, owners of sporting-goods shops, livery stable keepers, and gunsmiths. Most bars and tap-rooms employed Europeans as managers and barmen, though many were not of British nationality. As Macmillan concludes: The bulk of the foreign population is employed in commerce, but the police, revenue, and sanitary staffs, schools, public works, docks, etc., give employment to a large number of overseers and supervisors, mostly engaged direct from home or from military and naval men whose service with the garrison is completed.1 Macmillan, however, forgot to mention the important beachcomber element in the overseer force. 14 European outcastes were mainly prostitutes, nearly all of whom were of working class origin. Many of these women were professionals from the red light districts of San Francisco, Honolulu, Sydney, and Melbourne, who, for one reason or another (usually ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n CHEUNG CHOW - LONG ISLAND 137 the top sawyer in the neighbouring sawpit, and we pass towards that smithy beneath a banyan tree. The sinuous roots of the tree clutch the rock and strain like the arms of some vegetable octopus, and there just below the hanging threads of aerial roots is a tilt, and a furnace. The anvil is curious enough. There is one of the orthodox Chinese pattern but the other is a shell from some field-gun, goodness knows where it was found. Now we are in the main street at its more irregular Eastern end, interrupted here and there by sharp right-angled turns, and small shops begin to line the way. On our right a coffin maker plies his trade, and his workshop has a most attractive "line" of coffins on exhibition which seem to tempt that Chinese grandfather getting on in life, and thinking of providing for the future. Europeans unconsciously avert our eyes from the varnished glory of huge specimens that look like four tree trunks grown into one, but grand-father regards it with quiet pleasure. Some more blacksmith's shops, and a flight of irregular steps, and we are on the terrace of the temple of the Heavenly Queen, already referred to. This terrace overlooks the bay, and is put to practical use, not only as a point of vantage, but also to dry fish and sweet potatoes, and some strange ambiguous stuff. We can see a junk hauled up on the slip-way which was screened by the houses-hitherto. For all the clumsy upperworks her lines are clean and smooth below water, and her big lifting rudder and centre board appeal to the yachts-men. Those cannon in the bows are not for ornament only, for these seas swarm with pirate junks. Just now we will not stop to examine the dusty interior of this temple. Instead we descend into the street once more and continue our westward way. Near this place is a small hospital, a series of clean and pleasant courts and pavilions supported by the Kai Fong. This body is the real ruler of the town, elected by street committees and containing representatives of each of the four tribes. In the street a good-natured crowd drifts along. There is a brown-faced fisherman ashore for a stroll, and to buy cordage or food. He loiters before the chandlers shops, and discusses all topics before coming to the real question of the price of that double block and sheave hanging in the dim place under the ceiling. There are villagers carrying loads of vegetables to the pier, shuffling along with two great loads, one at each end of a bamboo resting on a great callous patch on their shoulders. Women are carrying water ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 130 to commercial goods, as it moved under the Japanese shadow. Under her conception of “incident” Japan had methods of applying pressure to foreign shipping companies, a pressure which in the existing atmosphere of appeasement it was difficult to resist. Following on the occupation of Canton, the Japanese mopped back towards Hongkong, but they left only a small garrison to watch the border. A heavy smuggled trade sprang up, not only over the border, but also by junk through the countless small inlets and bays of the neighbourhood. The Japanese exerted themselves to coerce the Colonial Government to suppress the trade. Their efforts met with failure: until Hongkong was itself submerged in a wider conflict, the Chinese war effort continued to benefit. Hongkong is one of the world's great ports, the offspring of British administrative practice and Chinese commercial fecundity. Every year twenty-two million tons of shipping were entered and cleared. In the harbour the flags of many nations could be seen, from those of the great Western Powers to that of the little republic of Panama. The flags of the Scandinavian nations, of Norway and Denmark, were particularly in evidence, so far from home, witness to the freedom of the seas for which Britain stood sponsor. The volume of trade which passed through Hongkong was naturally restricted by the Japanese occupation of Canton. Cargo vessels called less frequently, but the great liners on fixed passenger schedules continued to go alongside the Kowloon wharves, often two or three at a time, ships of the American President line, the Canadian Pacific line, the Peninsular and Oriental, the Nord Deutscher Lloyd, the Nippon Yoshen Kaisha, the Dutch J.C.L., the Lloyd Trestino, the Blue Funnel, the City, the Messageries Maritimes and many other lines. I was due for home leave and sailed in the new P.& O. liner, the R.M.S. "Canton", on her maiden trip, in December 1938. The passengers lined the rails as we steamed towards the Lyeemoon passage. Did they realise what a remarkable monument to Sino-British co-operation was that lovely green hill side at which they gazed? Hongkong bears happy testimony, in a difficult future, to the benefits that flow from cordial relations between China and the British Empire. Shanghai and Eastern China 1939 Shanghai was the splendid stronghold of foreign interests in the Far ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 29 Seton, Sir Malcolm, 1926, The India Office, G P Putnam's Sons, London and New York Strang, Lord, 1961, Britain In World Affairs, Faber and Deutsch, London Swettenham, F, 1948, British Malaya - An Account of the Origins and Progress of British Influence in Malaya, Allen and Unwin Tan, Ding Eng, 1986, A Portrait of Malaysia and Singapore, Oxford University Press Tarling, N, 1962, Anglo-Dutch Rivalry in the Malay World, 1760-1824, Cambridge Thio, Eunice, 1969, British Policy In the Malay Peninsula 1880-1910, Vol 1, University of Malaya Press Thio, Eunice, 1960, 'The Singapore Chinese Protectorate: Events and Conditions Leading to its Establishment, 1823-77', Journal of the South Seas Society, xvi, 40-80 Tregonning, K G, (1964) 1972, A History of Modern Malaysia and Singapore, Eastern Universities Press Sdn Bhd, Singapore Tripathi, Amales, 1956, Trade and Finance in the Bengal Presidency 1793-1833, Calcutta Turnbull, C M, 1960, 'Bibliography of Writings in English on British Malaya, 1786-1867', JMBRAS, xxxiii, no 3 327-424 Turnbull, C M, 1958, 'Communal Disturbances in the Straits Settlements in 1857', JMBRAS, xxxi, no 1, 96-146 Turnbull, C M, 1970, 'Convicts in the Straits Settlements, 1826-67', JMBRAS, xliii, no 1 Turnbull, C M, 1969, 'The European Mercantile Community in Singapore, 1819-67', Journal of Southeast Asian History, x, no 1, 12-35 Turnbull, C M, 1957, 'Governor Blundell and Sir Benson Maxwell; a Conflict of... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 47 Harbour, and engulfed everything in their way up to a quarter mile (400 meters) inland. At least 200 people were killed (a heavy loss, considering that the area was sparsely populated back then), and the Tai Po Road (one of Hong Kong's few major roads at the time) and KCR were temporarily put out of commission, which isolated the survivors from the rest of Hong Kong for two days.26 In Victoria Harbour (between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island), 28 of the 101 steam vessels present were stranded, resulting in five deaths. Shore facilities on both sides of the harbour were wrecked, including Kai Tak Airfield. Fortunately for this part of Hong Kong, which was and remains the most congested part of the territory, no tidal wave struck here because the eastern entrance at Lyemun Pass was too narrow for enough water to break through. But Victoria Harbour was still vulnerable to strong winds and rough seas, which were what caused all that damage in its vicinity.27 The implications that the "Great Typhoon of September 1937” (typhoons didn't acquire female names until after the war) had on a potential Allied landing in Hong Kong were profound. First, all kinds of operations would be impossible during a typhoon. Everyone would worry about how to take shelter from the storm rather than fight the enemy. Given the expected relative positions of the two sides, the Allies were sure to be more exposed to the elements than the Japanese because they were on the offensive and had to establish LoC inland. Second, Hong Kong was intended to serve as a port of entry for LoC into China. With its extensive waterfront facilities, Victoria Harbour would have served as the primary berthing area for ships, and Tolo Harbour was considered a good secondary anchorage. Depending on the path of any typhoon that hits Hong Kong, Victoria Harbour may be afforded some protection by the mountains that surrounded it on the Kowloon side.28 Tolo Harbour (and neighbouring Plover Cove) was roomy and calm enough for ships - as long as there was no typhoon.29 Once a typhoon hits Tolo Harbour, as it did in 1937, this area is at a disadvantage. Typhoons usually approach Hong Kong from the east or southeast, and Tolo Channel and Tolo Harbour are in the eastern part of Hong Kong. The winds in a typhoon blow in an anti-clockwise direction, which is an arc-like motion from east to west when one is facing north. In the case of Tolo Channel (which is the outlet to the sea ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 32 could see, and it seemed as if it were one vast garden'." Parkinson, Trade in the Eastern Seas (1937) writes: "When the whole [EIC] China fleet was collected there, twelve or sixteen of the largest merchantmen in the world, together with the country ships, the spectacle must have been magnificent." He records that sometimes the Viceroy at Canton would come down to visit the fleet. The ships would be decked to receive the great man, with yards manned and officers in full dress.12 Canton Canton was, and is, the capital of the Guangdong Province. One of the larger and richer cities of the Chinese Empire, and dating back to pre-Han times, it had long been a major sea port for overseas trade, notably in the Tang Dynasty when it had a significant Arab and Muslim population. During the turmoil which accompanied the change of dynasty from Ming to Qing, it upheld the Ming, endured an eleven-month siege in 1650, and suffered a wholesale massacre of its inhabitants. However, it recovered, and by the mid-nineteenth century was credited with a population of around one million persons. It was renowned for its manufactories, carried on by human industry, without the aid of machinery, particularly in silk and cloth, women and children included, whilst trade - international and regional trade - was described as being 'the great business of life'.13 Canton was a walled city (actually two walled cities in one, the Old and the New) with major suburbs along the Pearl River, and to the West.14 As befitted its status, it contained the yamens (office-residences) of many senior government officials, including those of the governor-general of the two linked provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, the governor of Guangdong, the Canton prefect, two county magistrates, the Tartar general, the provincial naval commander, and the like, as well as those officials with charge of other, specialised concerns, and (of special status, since he was responsible directly to Beijing) the Hoppo or Superintendent of Maritime Customs, who oversaw the foreign trade and its accruing revenue. The Foreign Factories (British, French, Swedish, Spanish, Danish and Dutch) of the river suburb were so-called from their being the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 49 NOTES Romanization is always a problem with historical names, places and sources. For the two former, I have usually stuck with historical usage in English, whilst the sources are cited as in the originals. It should always be borne in mind that the predominant speech in and around the city of Canton was Cantonese. I am grateful to the Hong Kong Museum of History for help with illustrations, and to my friend R. Ian Dunn of Sydney for assistance in preparing them for reproduction here. The map used to indicate places comes from Peter Ward Fay's excellent book on the Opium War, published in 1975, and reissued in 1997 with a new Preface. 1 This was replaced by the Treaty System introduced under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking [Nanjing] 1842, which ended the 'Opium War'. 1 4 5 Ljungstedt, Anders (1836). An Historical Sketch of the Portuguese Settlements in China. Viking Hong Kong Publications, 1992, p.61. The full text of the revised edition of 1836. For a good modern account, see Porter, Jonathan (1996). Macau, The Imaginary City, Culture and Society, 1557 to the Present. Westview Press. Davis, John Francis. The Chinese, A General Description of China and its Inhabitants. New Edition in 3 vols (first edition 1836), London, C. Cox, 1851. Vol. I, p. 18. Parkinson, C. Northcote, Trade in the Eastern Seas 1793-1813. London, Frank Cass, 1966 (first edition, 1937), p.57. The Missionary Guide Book: or A Key to the Protestant Missionary Map of the World. London, MDCCCXLVI (1846), p.206. These were large and impressive documents. One in the British Museum dated in 1836 measures 26.25 by 19.5 inches, as recorded by Chang, Hsin-pao (1964) in Commissioner Lin and the Opium War. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, p.7. I saw another in the Guernsey Museum in 1974. Collis, Maurice (first published 1946), Foreign Mud, The Opium Imbroglio at Canton in the 1830's and the Anglo-Chinese War (New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 1968, pp.45-62 for the official and unofficial systems of trading to China in the 1830s, at pp.58-60 especially for comparative figures. See in ================================================================================