RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 142 RONALD C. Y. NG its appearance, two copies of this significant contribution to the geographical world were presented to the Society by J. L. Southey in 1868, but for a century the authorship and the identity of this 'Italian missionary of the Propaganda' remained unknown. Considering the difficulties presented by the rugged terrain and the unsettled times under which the observations were made, the map has a remarkable degree of accuracy and contains a wealth of information. Although it cannot be ascertained whether Mgr. Volonteri had received any cartographic training, either before or after he entered the priesthood, the map displays no sign of amateurism and, indeed, it won several enviable awards in various European exhibitions, including the Milan Cartographic Exhibition of 1894, in the years immediately following its appearance. Other things apart, the fact that it is probably the first ever bilingual map of its kind must place it in a class of its own. There are several features of the map that merit close attention. The longitudes shown are reasonably accurate, but the latitudes are some 2 minutes north of their true positions. Apparently Mgr. Volonteri did not make the actual measurements himself, but had copied the grid from a previously existing source. It would be an impossible task to determine which particular version he adopted but it is fairly certain that it had not originated from British sources, for an official map of Hong Kong Island published twenty years earlier by the Government had the longitudes and latitudes in their correct positions. Naval charts might well have been consulted in the process of plotting the coastline because of the inclusion on the map of the depths of water - information which would obviously be of little relevance to the priest who must have compiled the map for some utilitarian purposes. The quality of the coastline has a great variation in accuracy. In spite of the highly irregular coast due to submergence, Mirs Bay, Tolo Harbour, Tide Cove, Hebe Haven and the eastern approaches of Victoria Harbour are not only packed with sounding records but are also depicted accurately down to the uninhabited islets. On the other hand, for the remainder of the map, the accuracy of the coastline is most disappointing. There could be two possible explanations for this. It was either that coastal charting was still in progress and had not yet covered the western parts or that Fr. Volonteri might have improved on an outline from an earlier smaller-scale map for the areas with which he ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 A BRITISH WARTIME CHART SHOWING HONG KONG 131 The name "Iron River" given to the present-day Hebe Haven may be related to the fact that Ma On Shan to the north has iron-ore (Magnetite) deposits on its south western side. It would seem to indicate that the deposits were known in the eighteenth century, if not worked. Mers (Mirs) Bay is shown as being very small. A number of soundings near the entrance indicate the visit of a ship, so the error in its size and shape would seem to be yet another indication of poor visibility causing errors in observation. Suggested Identification of Place Names (Alphabetical Order) Botoe Is. East Brother (Siu Mo To) Cape Lintin and Bay South West Point and Deep Bay Castle Land Nam Tau Peninsula Chang Cheou Is. Cheung Chau Chin-falo Tsing Yi Island Co-chee Ma Wan Island Co-long Kowloon City False Hook Wong Chuk Kok (on Lamma Island) Fan-Chin-Cheou or He-ong-kong Hong Kong Furado or Poo Toy Po Toi Island (N.B. Fury Rocks, 1 Sea Mile to N.E. on modern charts) Hay-tae-man Bay Tai Shan Bay Ichou Chi Chau I of Gatto Shek Wu Chau Iron Point Fat Tau Point Keyzers Hook Fan Lau Point Lammon Lamma Island (Nam A Island) Lang Shitoe or Chato Id. Lafsami Lantoe or Magpyes Island Lantao Island Lantoe Bay Bay at Sham Tseng Lentua Lantao Island-Peninsula north of Cheung Chau Lintin Lintin Lon-ko Lung Kwu Chau ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 132 HENRY D. TALBOT Lo cheou-Lo Chau (Beaufort Island) = Mers Bay Mirs Bay Mew Is.-Mo Chau Nako chau-Papai (Nei Kwu Chau or Hei Ling Chau) Nine-pin-Ninepin Group Po-ke-long Point=Lei Yue Mun Point Psang-chau-Kau Yi Chau Ragged Island Steep Island Rat Island or Ling Ting-Ling Ting R. Povado or Iron River-Hebe Haven Sin-can-hien-Hsin-an Hsien (San On Yuen) or, rather, the district city of Hsin-an Singan Islands-Siu Chau and Tai Shan Shu-lap-ko Is.-Chek Lap Kok Island Sui-pak Siu Kau Yi Soko Cheou Is. the Soko Islands Song-kco Sung Kong Ta baco=Chung Chau Tat-hong Moon-Tathong Channel = Tay Pak Peng Chau Tay-pak-hoe Green Island (or perhaps the sea between Hong Kong and Lantao Islands) Tsa-cheou Is. =Sha Chau Tsan-Cheou-Kau Pei Chau (off Cape D'Aguilar) Tysa=Small island 1⁄2 mile south of East Brother Wang Laang-Waglan Island NOTES 1 Cf. The British Museum General Catalogue of Printed Books (London, 1961) Vol. 100, Col. 222. The British Museum Catalogue of Printed Maps. Charts and Plans (London, 1967) Vol. 7, Col. 359, Morse, H. B. The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China 1635-1834 (Oxford, 1926-29) Lists of Ships. 2 Cf. Bonacker, W. Kartenmacher Aller Lander und Zeiten (Stuttgart, Hiersemann, 1966) p. 200, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 225 any physical sense, for there is no mechanism for such a transfer. Filial children benefit from the virtue of their parents' graves; how is a mystery. If they live close enough they must tend the graves, but their separation from them by mere distance is no bar to their receiving the virtue. 58. Few people seem to doubt that descendants are affected by fung shui. But there is also a popular belief, not shared by some geomancers, that the virtue stored up in a grave can be tapped by strangers. And from this idea stem the attempts at poaching on sites; attempts, that is to say, to bury one's dead in the immediate neighbourhood of a grave which has demonstrated its efficacy. Geomancers may say that the virtue is confined to one tiny spot in the grave, the site having been chosen to accord with the special characteristics of its occupant, and that the area round the grave will avail nobody. On the other hand, they will also certainly say that a new grave close by the old may well destroy its virtue by altering the conformation of the site. So that poaching is a serious offence and may be the cause of bitter disputes. I came across no such case myself, but there is evidence that quarrels of this sort have been known in the New Territories. (For early evidence see the Administrative Reports on the Northern District for 1909 and 1910; a system of grave registration was introduced in 1909 to overcome these difficulties). Generally people in the New Territories are able to protect their graves against encroachment and it is only in special cases that one can see the effect of the belief that the virtue of a site may be tapped. In a valley leading from Fei Ngo Shan and overlooking Hebe Haven there is a large official cemetery (Pak Fa Lam) which appears to have come into existence because it contains the tomb of Sun Yat-sen's mother. Sun's success is attributed by many people in Hong Kong to this grave; in consequence, it has attracted to it a host of other graves, despite the prohibition placed by the Administration on burial there. (Sun's failures as well as his successes can be read from the grave of his mother, as I shall show presently, but people who 'buy' plots in the cemetery are presumably not concerned with this qualification). 59. Geomancy in the open countryside entails scattered burial. Each new omega-shaped grave involves the search for a new site. Burial grounds amounting to cemeteries are very rare, and when they are found they usually turn out to be used for people who were not old residents of the New Territories. A New Territories Page 240 Page 241 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 37 The differences in house form and use between 1950 and 1970 reflect nothing less than the complete substitution of one cultural-occupational group for another. In 1950 Kau Sai's houses were inhabited by families who followed the occupational patterns and sexual division of labour common among Hakka speakers in the eastern part of the New Territories, among whom village shopkeepers and temple caretakers (where these exist) are almost the only exceptions to a general rule of able-bodied male absenteeism. By 1970 there was only one Hakka family in Kau Sai. Its male head was the (new) temple caretaker who also ran a small shop. All the other houses were occupied by fishermen's families, whose men do not have to leave home to find work. The change had two major sources: the former, being a particular historical event peculiar to Kau Sai may be quickly related here; the second, being the local manifestation of the general movement of socio-economic change among the Boat People not only of Hong Kong but of South China as a whole is part of the major theme of this book. The Removal of the Hakka It so happens that Kau Sai Bay lies near the central portion of a range for firing practice which is drawn in a wide arc on the seaward side of the British Army's camp near Sai Kung on the mainland. It is obviously inconvenient for gunnery practice to have to operate with a safety angle, but this is done and to the best of my knowledge no serious damage has ever occurred. However, the villagers were not slow to demand compensation whenever a shell fell anywhere on, or even near, either of the two islands. In order to put an end to what they probably correctly deemed would become a perennial drain on their resources, Government and Army agreed that it would be wise to resettle the villagers elsewhere. (This was, indeed, one of the earliest of the resettlement programmes for which the Hong Kong authorities later became famous). When I took up residence in the spring of 1952 negotiations were already far advanced. A new village was in process of building at Pak Sha Wan (Hebe Haven) on the bus route to Sai Kung, and the move was to be made in a few months' time. Every householder in Kau Sai was ================================================================================