RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f NESTORIAN CROSSES 23 From this time on discoveries were frequent. In 1885 two Nestorian cemeteries were discovered in Tokmak (Semirechinsk) with stones from about 610 graves, some engraved with the outline of the now familiar Nestorian Cross, associated with inscriptions in Syriac dating from A.D. 1267 to 1316.3 In 1890 stones engraved with Nestorian Crosses were found at Hsi-wan-tzu in Sui-yüan province, north-west of Kalgan.23 But perhaps the most important Nestorian relics in China, after the Tablet of Sianfu, are the T'ang dynasty manuscripts found in 1908 in the sealed cave-library at Tun-huang, commencing with the 'Gloria in Excelsis Deo' with its important List of Scriptures and Historical Note (probably dating from about A.D. 781), the 'Jesus Messiah Sutra' dated A.D. 641, the earliest Nestorian document preserved in China, and three other T'ang Nestorian manuscripts, written probably between that date and the period of the Sianfu monument (A.D. 781).24 + In 1919 two beautifully carved Nestorian crosses, with short Syriac inscriptions, possibly from the chancel of a church, were found at Fang-shan in a Buddhist monastery called to this day 'The Monastery of the Cross' + (perhaps the one where Mark and Barsauma dwelt) south-west of Peking.25 In 1933 several Chinese scholars sought for and found the ruins of a 'Ta-ts'in Monastery' ★ (Nestorian Monastery) at Chou-chih in Shensi province, described in poems by the famous Sung dynasty poet Su Tung-p'o in 1062.26 In 1935 gravestones engraved with Nestorian crosses similar to those from Fang-shan were found at Pai-ling Miao TEM in Sui-yüan province (on the edge of Mongolia).27 In a number of places, too numerous to note in detail here, stone tablets have been found engraved with dated edicts of Yüan dynasty times, sometimes in the Mongol language, sometimes in Chinese, and sometimes in both, for the protection of 22 Saeki, Nestorian Documents and Relics, 2nd ed., 1951, Part II, chap. 4. 23 Saeki, op. cit. p. 426. 24 Moule, op. cit. p. 53; Saeki, op. cit. chs, III to XIII. 24 Saeki, op. cit., p. 430, and Moule, op. cit., Fig. 12. 24 Hsiang Ta, Tang-tai Ch'angan yû Hsi-yü wên-ming, App. II, 'Notes on the Ta-ts'in Monastery at Chou-chih' 向達著,唐代長安與西域文明, Yenching Monograph Series II, 1933. 27 Saeki, op. cit., pp. 423-4. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION 37 reports that twenty-four villages near Canton joined together to build a large house for "general consultations" because of the increase of crime in the area, especially from the Triad society. The inter-organization of the villages was "fairly comprehensive in its scope of activities. Again when the Taiping threatened in North Kiangsu in 1859, villages in five districts built walls round themselves and set up defence organizations, many of which operated on an inter-village basis. Eleven villages in Shensi had a common defence system, and while other communities were punished for not deterring the Boxers, they were spared, because they regarded the Boxers as enemies and killed them. Summary and Discussion The relative strength of organizations based on religious ideology or using religious elements at the village level, and their contribution to community stability and integration, appear to have depended on a number of factors and their relation to each other in turn. Important among them were: the degree of social differentiation in the community; differences in kinship affiliations; differences in wealth and education; also the numerical size of the village; its relation to other communities in the area and to those living outside communities; its proximity to town centres; the general economic conditions obtaining in the area at a particular time; and to some extent the virtue and competence of locally-based officials. Such factors also helped determine which type of organization would become the most important for a community. State cults were probably more successful in their aim with villages possessing gentry members and nearer to centres of government, but would be limited in their intended effect by other interests of persons able to use them. The cults were made use of by the already influential (and usually rich) on the whole in order to realize aims connected with their roles as local leaders and members of kin-groups. They could, however, through helping to realize such personal ambitions, aid in village integration: canonization of ancestors of village leaders, especially those of lineage villages, could bring prestige to a village and give it an additional symbol of solidarity. It could also, however, lead to competition and disharmonies between influential persons when their numbers were large. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h TRADITIONAL CHINESE REGIONAL ARCHITECTURE 131 North China: Generally speaking, much of the northern area of China is dry, dusty and barren land. It suffers from continental temperature ranges which cause differences of 65°-70°F between summer and winter. The limited and unpredictable rainfall results in uncertain agricultural output. The Yellow River, which runs through the region, is a determining factor in the lives of the Chinese who live on its banks. The river bed is higher than much of the surrounding land and must be controlled and watched constantly. Under these geographical conditions, the land is often ravaged by the extremes of flood and drought bringing great famines. A large section of the North is comprised of the loess highlands in the provinces of Honan, Shansi, Shensi and Kansu. The soil in this area is of fine yellow-grey grains which have been laid down in thicknesses of from a few feet to two hundred and fifty feet. As the loess is blown into the region from the northwest, it forms vertical cleavages which result in steep cliffs. Not only is the soil extremely fertile, it also holds moisture well and thus in this region of little rainfall, crops can still be grown. The loess soil has also been used by the Chinese to solve their housing problems. A second major region of the North, which is important to this study, is the North China Plain which has been built up from the silt of the Yellow River. The Plain is often raked by severe duststorms from the loess region. Here in this flat land, the Chinese had to devise an architecture which protected them from the harsh extremes in climate. South China: Throughout the dynasties the Chinese have expanded southward and have developed the valley of the Yangtze River. As early as the reign of Ch'in Shih Huang-ti (221-210 B.C.), the rulers and military forces fought to subdue and colonize the fertile land of the South in order to bring prestige and glory to their thrones. Because of the successive invasions of the barbarians, the Chinese fled to this region to seek peace and a new start. A final reason for the continuous mass migrations to the South was to escape the oppression of the government and the large landowners. The land in the South was very fertile which appealed greatly to the settlers and, in contrast to the North, the South became comparatively more prosperous. In this tropical and subtropical climate the growing season is much longer than in the North and allows for double cropping in most areas. From the beginning the South became a food supplier for the North. The rainfall, especially from typhoons and monsoon rains, is heavy although unpredictable. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 134 LINDA F. SULLIVAN this adaptation of feng shui was much more severe but in most cases the principles were followed. The Chinese sought ways in which to build their houses according to their economic and social conditions but never forgot the principles of feng shui. This paper will now describe the numerous, different examples of regional domestic architecture in an attempt to illustrate the ways in which each family in its own way tried to deal with the problems of privacy, protection, and personal needs in building its living and working space. EXAMPLES OF REGIONAL DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE: North: The first homes to be described are the caves of North China. They are not the same as the subterranean pit dwellings of the Late Neolithic Ages but rather are dug at a ninety-degree angle into the sides of mountains. These caves are found in the loess region stretching across Honan, Shansi, Shensi, and Kansu provinces where through vertical cleavage the soil mixed with water has hardened to form steep cliffs. Here the winters are long and bitter with a strong Northwest wind sweeping the region. The extremely limited rainfall is highly variable and often comes as a cloudburst. The land is barren of trees and because of the lack of timber, these cave dwellings have formed the typical dwelling of the region. This cave in Honan is based on a plan for a free-standing house but has been built into the side of the cliff. The superstructure is basically a courtyard system with the main gate positioned at the southeast corner (North-South axis). The building on the left within the courtyard is for receiving guests, and thus the privacy of the man's cave is maintained. In other words, as the townhouse courtyard plan had provided for a system of "graduated privacy", the cave dweller has adapted this system to his specific location and circumstances. This particular cave complex has two storeys. The first level has three caves of which the left and middle ones each have two rooms which are used for living space, while the right side cave has an additional third room for storage. As one comes out of the left-hand side cave, there is a stairway leading to the second-level platform at the back of which there are two more caves. It should be noted that the Chinese have developed a system of interlocking support in the construction of these caves. The second-level platform is reinforced in front and on its surface and is supported... * See also Fig. 1 at the rear of this article. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 46 W. A. REYNOLDS here, the surveillance is curiously haphazard and capricious. We could not see that we were followed on leaving; perhaps they have given up checking on foreigners". We had also been to a large reception given by General Chou En-lai on January 7th which was attended by General Marshall and, from the Kuomintang; Chen Li-fu, Feng Yu-hsiang and Dr. H. H. Kung, together with the Chungking establishment of Ambassadors, Consuls etc. The Journey There The route followed is shown in Fig. 1.* The convoy finally set out on a misty morning on January 21st intending to cross the Yangtse by the upper ferry. Disaster overtook us within four kilometres. Going down a steep slope the driver of the leading truck missed his gear change and ran off the road into a paddy field. The truck finished up on her side (Plate no. 6). With help from the base garage, she was hauled out, (Plate no. 7), the Garage Manager directing. The convoy returned to base, spent a day straightening and reloading and set forth again on January 23rd. The route went through Sui Ning, San Tai, Mien Yang over the Chien Men Kuan or Sword Gate Pass to Kwang Yuan and then over another Pass, Ch'i P'an Kuan or the Gate of Shensi, in the Mi Ts'ang Mountains to Pao Ch'eng.† North of Mienyang the 'new' motor road follows the route of the old Imperial Highway to Ch'eng-tu. Impressive “pai lo's”, fine trees and stone bridges mark the route (Plates 8 & 9). Just after Pao Ch'eng is the famous Buddhist temple Miao-T'ai Tzu, where we stopped for a visit. A place of peace and beauty to which one might dream of retiring for a while. In Pao-ch'eng the scene is very different from the Szechuan towns over the mountains to the south. This was the southern limit of the camel trains coming down from Sinkiang and Kansu, some with loads of dried Hami melon. Perhaps some of the flavour of the place is given in a quotation from a letter home: "We spent one night in Pao-ch'eng and as we came up across the bridge in the late afternoon, the long flatness of the Han-hui Ch'u valley behind us, lines of camels drinking at the river side were mirrored P.54 Plates 6-19 at rear illustrate the article. + The romanisation of place names is that used in the Times Atlas of China since this is the detailed reference most easily available to Western readers. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 210 NOTES AND QUERIES Despite its rapid development in Southern Kiangsi, during the period 1904-1911 the religion was subject to occasional harassment from the prefectural authorities and the local Boxers (more or less similar in nature to the Boxers in North China). The latter even attempted to burn one of the churches of the Chun Hung Kau. In 1912 a law protecting freedom of religion was introduced. Therefore, despite the general unrest in the provinces, there was no longer any real threat to the propagation of the religion. In 1925, a new church was added to the original main church in Wong Yue Shan in Kiangsi. Outside Kiangsi, the religion also spread to central and south China. After the death of Liu, it began to spread into Fukien and Kwangtung and other provinces. The number of the churches of the religion founded in China from 1862 to 1937 is as follows:- Kiangsi Fukien Honan Szechwan Kiangsu Kwangtung Hupeh Hunan Kansu Anhwei Taiwan Shensi Hopeh 85 7 3 22 8 6 1 5 1 3 1 28 23 20 Total: 205 Propagation Overseas Hong Kong A follower of the religion, Chu Sau-kui (***) went to Hing Ning (A) in Kwangtung to preach in 1901 at the orders of Lai Yan-cheung. As there were many natives of Hing Ning who were operating business undertakings in Hong Kong, Chu was invited to preach there. He came to Hong Kong in 1904 to preach. A native of Hing Ning residing in Hong Kong, Yeung Sin-sam (#☀) founded a Ming Tak Tong (*) at 1160, Canton Road, Kowloon. Tsui Tao-shun (##) of Wai Yeung (✯∞) founded the Sing Kwong Tong (†) in Shaukiwan in 1936. Yim Tao-wan (LLT), also of Wai Yeung, founded the Chun Ning Tong (†*) in Des Voeux Road West in 1938. In 1947, a Leung Yi-ku (第二站) of Nan Hoi founded the Kwong Ming Tong (光明堂) in ... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 121 day to Changsha. The capital of Hunan, the province with a long history of anti-foreign fanaticism, is situated on the Siang river, which flows down to the Yangtze above Hankow. In summer the middle-river steamers come up as far as Changsha, but in winter the level over the sand flats where the river passes through the Tung Ting lake, near its mouth, is so shallow that even the specially designed river gunboats cannot pass. One British gunboat generally wintered at Changsha. There was no concession, and in the course of time the foreign community had congregated on a long sand bar, which made an island in the river, opposite the city. The few bungalows were grouped round the Club. It was a simple life with tennis and walks for relaxation. Normally Changsha connected with the outer world by ship through Shanghai, but now for over a year that channel had been closed by the war and the number of the foreign community, usually not more than a couple of dozen, was reduced. It did, however, include two British tank officers, loaned to the Chinese army, whom I had last seen in Nanking. They now depended for their supplies on the new railway to Hongkong. I left my car here and went on to Hankow by train. It was nearly twenty years since I had last been in Hankow, years crowded with change, not only material but also intellectual. Hither junks from the far north-west of China, in Shensi Province, came down the Han river. From here they could sail a leg up the Yangtze, and proceed along the Siang river, until their mast-tops showed a view towards Kweilin. To the west, through the famous gorges, the small steamers fought the current to Chungking 700 miles distant; and 600 miles downriver, past Kiu Kiang, Wuhu, and Nanking, lay Shanghai and the sea. The railway in normal times ran north-east to Peking and south to Canton and Hongkong. On the opposite bank, a kilometre away, the provincial capital, Wuchang, showed; larger than Hankow and, across the Han, where that river made an angle with the Yangtze, the industrial town of Hanyang belched its smoke. Of the Concessions along the water front, only the French retained its status. The British Concession had been returned at the time of the Chen-O'Malley negotiations ten years previously; the German and Russian Concessions had reverted to China after the Great War, and the Japanese Concession had been evacuated soon after the Lukouchiao (Marco Polo Bridge) incident. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 32 them during his journey across the province in 1879 and accepted their offer of sworn brotherhood. He later explained that he had done so to prove to them that Englishmen believed in cultivating and cementing friendship with all civilised beings of whatever creed or nationality. He also mentioned several times his 'never-to-be forgotten friend and brother, Yü Te-k'ai, an officer in Kueichou of the fifth degree of civil rank, the confidential correspondent to the C-in-C beside being commandant of the battalion of guards.' It would have been interesting to have learned the views of these sworn brothers about Mesny. Although Mesny described quite a substantial number of contacts with Chinese officialdom and his views on the very senior officials, he frequently simply referred to the names and titles of senior Chinese officials with or for whom he had worked or by whom he had been interviewed in such a manner as to imply a personal relationship which, in the majority of instances, raises suspicions that he was trying more to bolster his own ego in his passing years and convince himself as well as his readership. However, he also had many an axe to grind and debts of personal slights to repay and these he undertook with great relish in his Miscellany. He sat, in his fifties, in Shanghai, after a life of action, musing over Chinese officialdom's ingratitude, lack of foresight, ineptitude etc. taking pleasure from the opportunity afforded him to write about those who had earned his displeasure. Mesny had particular respect for one very senior Chinese official, Tso Tsung-t'ang, whom he first met when Mesny called to pay his respects during the winter of 1867 in Hankow. After discovering Mesny had been a captive of the Taipings at the age of 25 and spoke French and English, he offered Mesny an appointment as French and English Secretary on his staff, with a recommendation to the Emperor for the civil rank of Fourth Degree. He also offered to take Mesny on his impending campaign to the North-west of China where Tso had just been appointed Governor-General of Shensi and Kansu provinces and C-in-C of the Imperial Forces. The offer was scuppered by the refusal by the local British Consul, Medhurst, to provide a British passport as Mesny's parents had written objecting to his involvement in recent escapades, and capture by both the Taipings and Imperial forces whilst running the blockade. Mesny was next involved or very nearly involved with Tso in 1879 when Mesny trekked from Canton to Tso's headquarters in Hami in the extreme North-west to offer him a French loan. However, Tso had been recalled to Peking just ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 98 Likin ✰✰ : [li-chín] An arbitrary tax, originally of one cash per tael 釐金 on all kinds of produce, known to foreigners as the 'tax of one-thousandth', imposed in 1853 with a view to making up the deficiency in the land tax caused by the Taiping and Nien-fei troubles. Hence its common term, a 'war tax'. Lorcha: A vessel having a hull of Chinese build but rigged with European masts and sails, and usually manned by a European captain and a Chinese crew. Mace: The tenth part of a Chinese tael [q.v.] or ounce. Miao-tzu #7: shoots or sons of the soil: one of the larger of the southern Chinese aboriginal non-Chinese races subjugated by the Chinese, whose revolt in the 1860s lead to Mesny being employed by the Chinese army. This was not their first revolt; they had rebelled against Imperial rule at the end of the eighteenth century when their widespread revolt in Kueichou and Hunan provinces was put down with great difficulty owing to the mountains and forests covering that part of the world. Mixed Courts: Instituted in 1865 in the Shanghai International Settlements [q.v.] for the hearing of cases between Chinese residents in the Settlements, between Chinese and foreign residents, and where foreigners were the defendants, provided always that they were unrepresented by a Consul on the spot. All suits were tried by a Chinese official having the rank of sub-Prefect, with the assistance, in cases where foreigners were concerned, of an assessor of the same nationality. Muslim Rebellion: the rebellion in the northern Chinese provinces of Shensi and Kansu between 1862 and 1873. Nanking: the major city on the Yangtze and capital of Ming China. The 'Southern Capital', held by the Taipings from 1850 to 1864. Nestorian Christians: The church which first introduced Christianity into China, at the close of the 6th century AD. Nien-fei : [lit. The Twisting Robbers], The official designation of the large bodies of rebels who ravaged the plains of north China for a number of years. They referred to themselves as Nien-Tzu [The Coilers or Twisters] from their peculiar manner of formation in battle. The Nien ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 116 American air forces based in China and to the extensive establishments supplied to train and equip the Chinese Expeditionary Force, as the army which had been built up in Yunnan by the Chungking government to assist in driving the Japanese out of Burma was called. I was sent to Kun-ming to see about giving assistance to the Myosa of Kokang, prince of a small Burmese border state. The longest unnavigable river in the world, the Salween, rises in Tibet, flows through China, and enters Burma at about the level of Bhamo. For a stretch the river flows from east to west; to the north of it the territory is still China, to the south lies Kokang. The river then leaves China altogether, bends south, and lower down at Kunlong receives the Nam Ting flowing in from the east. The Nam Ting forms the southern boundary of Kokang, while the mountain-tops that divide the Salween watershed from the next river to the east form the state's eastern boundary. The stones marking this boundary were set up in 1898 as a result of the agreements made at that time. Kokang also spreads across the Salween to the territories of the large Shan state of North Shenwi, of which Kokang is actually a sub-state. The greater part of Kokang though is sandwiched between the Salween and China. Kunlong is the site of one of the most frequented of the Salween ferries, and it is down the valley of the Nam Ting that the projected railway from Kun-ming to Lashio, connecting China with Burma, will run. The embankments to carry the line had been nearly completed before the Japanese advance into Burma put an end to the work. To the south of the Nam Ting are situated the Wa states, inhabited by wild head-hunting tribes. The Myosa of Kokang was a most loyal subject of the British crown, and because of that loyalty he was to suffer great injuries. When the Japanese advanced up the length of Burma in 1942, the British troops, who were covering the western flank, that is the flank towards India, withdrew into India. The civil administrative staff of the Shan States also withdrew to the west, while the Chinese armies, on the eastern flank, "One British administrative officer, Evans, withdrew from Kengtung, away to the south of Kokang, into south-west Yunnan. He had established cordial relations with the Chinese troops there, and with their assistance organised local levies, drawn from the dispersed ranks of the Burma Rifle regiments; he used these to wage a small campaign of his own against the enemy until he was killed during an assault on a position manned by Siamese troops. He died unknown, unsupported, unrewarded, but not unsung, because at a time when throughout the East the British star was thought to have set for all time, this lonely man left a record of British pluck which will long be remembered on the border. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 47 time included the Father and Mother, had been stolen and whilst only one of the original images of the Seven Sons has been recovered, new large images have been made of the others; meanwhile, large images of the two parents are awaiting donations before being carved. Handsome murals on the walls of the main hall of this same temple depict scenes from the lives of the Yang family, including one of Yang Yeh's wife being presented at court. An image of a subordinate general who served under the Yang's stands on a separate side altar though his name and details have now long been forgotten. In a temple complex in Ang Mo Kio in Singapore, recently relocated there by the State following the demolition of the original temple to make way for a new housing estate, the main altar contains images of the father and his seven sons, with the sons referred to as Marshal Yang 楊元帥, Yang the Second 楊二帥, Yang the Third 楊三帥 etc., or as Yang Erh Shih and Yang San Shih, etc. The temple keeper at first was uncertain whether the image of the father and the First Son were present but eventually decided that there were sufficient images to assume that they were. Two cult temples in northern China, one at Ku Pei K'ou in Hopei, some sixty or so miles north-north east of Peking and another across the Yellow River from Pao-te in northern Shensi, are both close to the Great Wall just inside China. Both temples have images not only of the father and mother but also of the eight sons, the two daughters and the wives of two of the sons. Images of the First, Second and Third Sons' have not been noted individually on their own altars in southern Chinese communities; however, images of the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Sons have all been identified by temple keepers, individually or in groups of Seven, with details listed below. The Fourth son, Yang Yen-hui and Yang Ssu Lang, Yang Ssu Yeh, as Yang Chi-yeh-di Ssu-tzu, Lif, known as Yang the Fourth, is also referred to as the Fourth son of Yang Chi-yeh. He is the main deity in a temple in Taipei where the only image of this son, alone, has been noted and where he is generally known as The Fourth Commissioner of Chin-hu. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 124 school in Chefoo in Shantung province before returning to England where he attended the Bath Art and Technical School. There he studied art before switching to Bristol University to read for a BSc in science. He would appear to have given up his higher education following the shattering of his romantic aspirations when he ran away to sea and worked his passage to Canada. He toiled for a while in Canada before returning to his parents in Taiyuan in 1905 with vague plans to hunt and explore the wild and barren areas of north China; he was twenty at the time. In practice he took up a teaching appointment at the Anglo-Chinese College in Tientsin and only during the vacations was he able to hunt and seek specimens for the natural history museum he was establishing at the college. From the vague evidence available he would appear to have remained at the school for only a matter of a year as he was invited at the end of the final term to join the Duke of Bedford's expedition to collect zoological specimens in Shensi province for the British Museum. Shensi is the neighbouring province to Shansi and lies to its west. The Duke of Bedford's expedition travelled through Sowerby's home province of Shansi where they lived for a week or so in one of the typical village cave houses of the Yellow Earth country, in a village some fifty miles west of Taiyuan. From there they continued west, across the Yellow River to Yenan in Shensi and on into the Ordos desert. Their return route took them north to the Great Wall, which they then followed to the east before turning south to Taiyuan down the main route through Shansi. The whole expedition took some five months and Arthur Sowerby would have been just twenty-one. It was during this expedition that Sowerby discovered a new species of jerboa [kangaroo rat] which was sent back to the British Museum and subsequently named after him, Dipus sagitta sowerbyi. Coming from a missionary family he would have had little or no financial support from his father and would have needed to work for a living. He was sponsored for a number of years by a wealthy American, Robert Sterling Clark, who remained a friend for most of Sowerby's life, and although it is no more than supposition he may well have continued teaching at the Anglo-Chinese College in Tientsin especially in view of his marriage in that city in 1910, at the age of twenty-six. The long vacations would have been an advantage enabling him to gather the material he later used in the China Journal, especially his ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 125 notes on nature and hunting in Manchuria. He founded the first natural history museum in China, at the Anglo-Chinese College and this brought him to the notice of directors of museums in the United States and England. We have little idea what he did between his return from the Duke of Bedford's expedition and the start of the next expedition nearly three years later, the Clark expedition of 1908/9, which again sought specimens. This time they again set out from Taiyuan to the west, across the Yellow River into Shensi and then on to the north-west, into Kansu province travelling up the Silk Road as far as Lanchou. It was a well-financed private expedition with Sowerby taken on as the Naturalist and though not spelled out - the interpreter. Their route took them through Yulin, a city in the Ordos desert in Shensi province, noted for its large Buddhist temple. This was selected as the first main stopover where they remained undisturbed within the temple compound. Sowerby, brought up in Taiyuan, spoke the local dialect and was able to converse with the local officials and obtain their co-operation and assistance. They remained in Yulin over the winter during which time the Emperor and the Empress Dowager died in Peking. This event brought the second most senior Chinese official in Yulin to the compound to break the news and warn the party of the general apprehension that the deaths of their Majesties might bring about a revolt against the dynasty. Clark, who was also an amateur astronomer, had been seen by Chinese peering through his telescope at the night sky leading the second most senior Chinese official to ask Sowerby whether Clark had foreseen this calamity? Sowerby's answer that he had foreseen it led the official to demand to know why Clark had not passed on the warning to him. Sowerby was able to answer that the official knew full well that it would have been treason for anyone to even suggest that such a thing would take place before it happened. This satisfied the awed official, though the warning of possible unrest left the expedition in a quandary. They decided that the best move would be to set off at once for Sian [now known as Xi'an], the provincial capital, where they would expect to have better protection. On reaching Yenan, some short distance to the south of Yulin, en route for Sian they were assured that the situation was stable and once more settled down for a while, hunting and prospecting locally. After several weeks of visits to Loyang and Honan Fu [now Chengchou] in a neighbouring province, whilst Clark returned to Shanghai to settle a family matter, they continued on to ================================================================================