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S. G. DAVIS

The sites at Tai Wan, Hung Shing Ye and Yung Shu Wan on Lamma Island have been most fruitful and have provided the material that was excavated and studied by Father D. J. Finn, which is partly on display today. The report of finds at Tai Wan came in a most interesting way. Mr. Tom Man Long (who happily is present with us tonight) was building the service reservoir in the Botanical Gardens opposite Government House when he noticed that the sand being used for the concrete had fragments of pottery and several axe-heads. Mr. Tom, as a keen collector of Chinese art and pottery, recognized the antiquity of the pottery and reported his discovery to the Waterworks Department who in turn notified Professor Shellshear. He visited Tai Wan and immediately recognized the richness of the site. At a later date Father Finn was asked by Professor Shellshear, who was going on leave, to interest himself in the finds. Father Finn wrote, "I was very glad of the invitation and luck seemed to confirm the vocation. A few days after that, while I was still regarding any active participation as remote, I almost crushed a piece of obviously old pottery under foot as I walked past a sand-heap on a jetty at Aberdeen. The next step was to find where the sand came from. Having found out that and having got there, I found myself at the site from which I knew Professor Shellshear and his friends had already reaped a rich harvest.”

It was a fortunate day for archaeology when Father Finn began his work on Lamma. He brought an expert knowledge to the study and rapidly revealed tremendous archaeological treasures by thorough, careful digging. The results of this work were meticulously reported in The Hong Kong Naturalist from 1933 to 1936 and still later combined in one complete volume under the editorship of my friend, Father F. Ryan, S.J.

Many of the best finds from the Lamma sites are in the British Museum. They were sent there by Professor Shellshear and were examined by Mr. Soame Jenyns, the curator for the Far East section. Mr. Jenyns had been in Hong Kong as a young administrator and had studied Chinese art. Outstanding among the specimens is a bronze sword about eleven inches long and distinguished by a zoomorph design in three panels along the blade. This sword has been dated as Warring Kingdoms Period, (421-221 B.C.). A bronze-socketed celt with a distinctive design
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S. G. DAVIS

The findings of the Man Kok Tsui site showed similar remains to those reported by Father Finn and Dr. Schofield at Hung Shing Ye, Yung Shu Wan and Tai Wan on Lamma Island and Shek Pik on Lantau Island. There was also a similarity of seashore settlements on raised beaches and low hills. Geologically however the sites are dissimilar. The Lamma sites are on granodiorite, Shek Pik on volcanic rock and Man Kok Tsui on porphyritic granite.

Although the finds at Man Kok Tsui were not as varied as those from the other sites mentioned above, the area of study was wider and closer attention was given to the relative position and distribution of finds. These showed a rough zoning of finds leading to a possible theory of "working", "dwelling" and "burial" areas.

The map of archaeological sites and positions of discovered remains indicates the richness of our Hong Kong area. Recent site studies have been made at Ha Tsuen, Deep Bay; Fanling; Upper and Lower Shek Pik villages, Lantau Island; and at Kau Sai Chau, Rocky Harbour (27).

During the levelling of the Shek Pik Reservoir in March 1962 the bulldozing machines brought to light coins clearly dated in age from A.D. 713 to 1226 (Tang Dynasty to Sung). Also found were richly glazed potsherds,

These finds come from poor farming land, until recently malarial and with no nearby natural resources of economic value. They might have been the property of a rich man (or party) who was possibly in transit or resting, or as has been suggested was the property of the court of the boy Sung emperor, Ti Cheng. In A.D. 1277 when the Mongols were extending their control over China, Ti Cheng in his flight stayed for some time in Kowloon City. Later he crossed the mouth of the Canton River over to Chung Shan, and thus probably travelled along the southern shore of Lantau Island, going ashore for food and rest.

In 1954 when the Shek Pik area was being surveyed for a reservoir, the University Team was first to do archaeological work there by trenching across the sandy raised beach, where in 1938, Professor W. Schofield had reported artifacts. During the work, a rock carving behind the beach was found about 200 yards from the seashore on the east side of the valley. It was cleaned up and later in 1958 had a protecting wall built round it,
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123

happened recently at Tong Fuk on Lantau Island, a multi-clan Cantonese village with a population of 198 at the Hong Kong Census of 1911. Its present population is about the same number. In 1958 the scheme to build a new reservoir at Shek Pik was confirmed and work went ahead on the dam and associated works. Behind Tong Fuk there were to be catchwaters for which an access road had to be constructed to the west of the village. This led to difficulties with the villagers, because in feng shui ideology the place was held to be the seat of the White Tiger. They therefore requested a ceremony known locally as a tun fu (符) — to propitiate the gods and spirits who would, as they thought, be aroused by digging earth and blasting stones in this particular place.

Precedents were cited by the village elders. They said they had carried out such a ceremony thirty-five years before, following several unexpected deaths in the village. The inhabitants had worshipped at the Hung Shing (廟) temple on the beach nearby, praying for the removal of the malignant influence. It transpired that a villager had cut stone from this particular spot to build a house. The elders then invited a Taoist priest — a Hakka — to come from one of the neighbouring villages to carry out the propitiatory observances usually made under such circumstances. They also said that a similar ceremony had also been conducted twenty years before in the adjoining Cantonese village of Shui Hau, this time by a priest engaged from the urban area. Deaths had also occurred there and had been traced to one of the villagers having constructed a cowshed in front of his house on ground with feng shui properties.

Returning to the 1958 case, the elders proposed to call in the services of the nephew of the priest who had supervised the ceremony thirty-five years before. He was a man of forty years of age who had followed in his uncle's footsteps. Such persons are known locally as feng shui hsien sheng (風水先生).

This ceremony was supposed to cause considerable inconvenience for the villagers, in theory if not in practice. One week of vegetable diet was obligatory for all and there was also a three-day prohibition on entering and leaving the village: that is, if the ceremony was to realize its full value. This meant that no cows could be grazed or grass or firewood cut on the hills; nor, presumably, could men go out to work in the fields.
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and living in a resettled village, on their field observations relating to urban development. In November we had a talk on diplomatic systems in East Asia as part of general philosophies of state by Dr. Frank W. Ikle and in December Dr. Ralph Smith, a visiting historian specialising in Vietnamese society at the School of African and Oriental Studies spoke on the Cao-Daist and Hoa Hao religious sects. Another visitor to Hong Kong—visiting professor in anthropology at The Chinese University—Professor Francis L. K. Hsu, spoke to the Society in January giving his views about Chinese motivations and values and comparing them with Western values and motivations as he sees them. In February we held our symposium: this time on Architecture and the development of Hong Kong. We were fortunate enough to obtain the kind services of Mr. Tao Ho here, a well-known local architect and designer, who gathered a team of experts to talk on problems of community and town planning, building, mass transit and the historical development of ethnic clusters in relation to building. This was very well attended and there was some lively discussion. We look forward to seeing the papers in publication: Mr. Ho is presently editing them for the Society. The last lecture of the period was given by Professor Daffyd Evans of Hong Kong University who spoke on early European residents in Hong Kong. We look forward to seeing some of these talks in print in the Journal.

Foreign tours are now an established feature of our annual programme. This period included a tour of Burma guided by Mr. Michael Smithies, a former Secretary of your Society, now resident in Indonesia, who has led past tours so successfully. It was organised this end by Ms. Helga Werle of your Council. This was also a very successful venture and I understand that it has been followed by a reunion of tour members who are anxious to have more of the same.

For the future: Ms. Werle and Mr. Smithies, and also Dr. Leigh Wright are offering tours abroad—to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Indonesia, Korea, and Borneo—dates will be decided on the basis of majority response to several offered to members in a recent circular. A visit to Tai Mo Shan is also planned for this weekend (April 3), and will include the Shing Mun or Jubilee Reservoir. Talks and notes will be given on history and ethnography of the area, plant and insect life, and birds of upper Tai Mo Shan—by Dr. James Hayes.
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W. SCHOFIELD

used by villagers occurred in 1931, when a man applied for a matshed permit for a small area in the middle of the beach at Tai Wan village on Po Toi. I took a launch there to see the place and found he had picked the centre of an area on which were a large number of poles used by the villagers to support bamboos for drying nets and similar purposes: so after a few enquiries I told the applicant he could not have that place. (That was the day I found a fine shouldered stone adze-head on the path above the village at the 150 ft. contour). Another very different case was that of a house built on a levelled site on a low hill above Muk Min Ha, Tsun Wan: the contractors mishandled the levelling so badly that the earth fill was nearly all washed down into the village and raised its lanes by 2 or 3 feet, making a fearful mess: this was about 1926.

During my term of office the resumption of the Shing Mun Valley for reservoir construction was carried through, the D.O. North doing the actual negotiation, which was long and difficult. The problem was where to resettle the five displaced villages, and before a site was found enquiries were made in all directions, even as far afield as North Borneo. Some village elders were sent there to see the area offered, but their report was very adverse; there were too many corrupting influences there to suit their people — all Hakkas — who naturally wished to bring up their children in proper surroundings, not among brothels, opium dens and spirit shops.

One of the quietest parts of the District was the area of the Lyemun and Hang Hau peninsulas, where the traditional ways of life were kept going, and people rarely dealt in land, or brought their disputes to me. Hang Hau peninsula was served by only two good lines of communication; the Hang Hau ferry from Shaukiwan, connecting with a launch that ran from the east side of the Hang Hau isthmus to Saikung, and a solidly built Chinese paved road running along the ridge north and south down the peninsula. On Nam Tong, by the Fat Tau Mun, stands a fort with a gun platform on the south rampart for light artillery; this was said to have been a pirate stronghold originally. West of this fort lay some old deserted fields, which at the time of my visit were being tilled by a squatter. I suggested to him that he might become a regular land-owner and start paying Crown rent, but apparently the rent suggestion frightened him off, for next year the land was deserted.
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169 

the Law Fau Mountains northeast of Hong Kong. In the event that there is not, it must be accepted that this little essay is no more than a start, since the preparation of a satisfactory record would require a lot more time than I possess. However, given perseverance it would be possible to create such a gazetteer for our mountain.

6. A typical Chinese gazetteer usually begins by dealing with boundaries and administration, then proceeding to geography, including streams and hills, local customs, natural products, and so on to settlements, buildings, temples, markets, fords and bridges, etc. There is usually a section on past events and historical relics, including stone inscriptions, another on poems and literature i.e. writings by local persons or on local matters, and so finally to a large section dealing with the lives of famous persons connected with the area. For present purposes, I shall not tie myself rigidly to a gazetteer framework though I shall mention items that 

form the subject of any such work.

Settlements 

7. For hundreds of years the mountain had its upland villages. Before the war, there were a considerable number of old settlements situated above the 500 feet contour line, and thus located on the mountain-side and on its upper slopes. On the south, east and west - I know little of the north—the largest group of these were the 8 villages of Shing Mun (17) mostly occupied by the ramified offspring of a single clan (Cheng ) settled in the main village, Tai Wai (PIA). A recorded 855 persons from these places were removed in 1928-29 to prepare for the construction of the Shing Mun Reservoir, going to a number of places elsewhere in the New Territories and some beyond into Kwangtung. Besides the Shing Mun group there were in 1899 another six upland villages located on the south, east and west sides of the mountain.* 

8. These all gained their main living from agriculture, on padi fields and dry cultivation on small patches of flat land in the hills. The highest rice fields were cultivated at some 1500 feet above sea level. At the present day, save at Chuen Lung, the villagers have mostly left and cultivation has been largely abandoned.

Chuen Lung, Pak Shek Kiu, Sheung Fa Shan, Ha Fa Shan, Sheung Tong and Ha Tong Lek.
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177 

26. Water was, of course, Tai Mo Shan's greatest natural resource. Before the construction of the Shing Mun catchwaters pre-war, and those for the Tai Lam Chung reservoir post-war, a tremendous flow of water ran down the mountain. It assisted in the gradual formation of land for houses and cultivation at its two main stream mouths in Tsuen Wan,* and was also used for industrial purposes. Water power drove the 24 incense mills located on the various streams of Tsuen Wan between 1900-1910 and before. (JHKBRAS 16 (1976):282-283). Stream water was also essential to the manufacture of bean curd and bean stick, another very old Tsuen Wan local industry, in which the quality of the product was directly related to the availability of a continually available pure water supply (see pp. 216-218 of this Journal). 

Public Works 

27. In any hill area in which streams abound and become fast-flowing torrents in wet weather, there is a need for bridges across which travellers and villagers carrying heavy loads can proceed in safety. Tai Mo Shan has its share of such streams, and there are surviving bridges here and there in the hills and on its lower slopes. Among those known to me the largest is the Po Chai Bridge at Chung Hang, a few minutes' walk from my office in Tsuen Wan. Beside it is a battered slate-like tablet commemorating its repair in the 4609th year of the Yellow Emperor, a curious titling which owes its inspiration to the overthrow of the Ch'ing dynasty in the same year as its reconstruction (see Dingle: 89 for a similar dating that gave me the clue to this one and illustrates the wave of Chinese feeling that linked places as far apart in these two cases as Hankow and Tsuen Wan). The subscribers were the leading villagers and shopkeepers of Tsuen Wan and places linked to it by social and business ties. 

28. Another bridge, further up the same valley at a place called Ngo Tei (#) or Goose Land—probably its geomantic name—has no tablet. However it is also an old bridge, and an elderly villager of Pak Shek Kiu, an abandoned hill village higher up, credits its repair fifty years ago by a city merchant from Hong Kong as the 'price' paid to the villages to allow burial of one of his relatives there. 

* The old name for Tsuen Wan was Chin Wan (**) or Shallow Bay which directly reflects the effect of the mountain on the bay. It was in use until the late 19th century, being replaced first by Tsuen Wan and then...
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29. Yet another bridge, in Central Tsuen Wan, still has its protecting shrine in place, with a stone tablet inscribed to the Fuk Tak Kung (福德公) of the Wing Fuk Bridge (#). The cyclical date would make it 1945 (which is obviously too late) 1885, 1825 or earlier. There is no means of telling which it is, but its style and appearance indicate an early date. Incidentally, all three bridges noted above have lost their original appearance, having been repaired post-war with concrete and reinforcing steel bars.

Conclusion

30. A recent visit to the mountain took me from Lead Mine Pass, above the head of the Shing Mun Reservoir, to a point east of Chuen Lung, along paths formerly opened by villagers but in most cases now widened by the Agriculture & Forestry Department of the Hong Kong Government to assist their fire prevention and fire fighting activities.

31. The route ran through the Sei Fong Shan area, where there are many graves: so named (四方山) because there is access to it from four sides i.e. Tai Po, Pat Heung, Kwai Chung-Tsuen Wan and Chuen Lung (on Route TWSK). Then through the abandoned fields and village site of Nam Fong To, a single lineage village of the Law family (羅氏), evacuated in 1928 to Wo Hop Shek near Fan Ling (NT) for the construction of the reservoir. The site was enclosed by a thick low rubble wall and stands amid large boulders and (now) many trees. From the Tsuen Wan side the last stage of access was across a large stream and up a steep flight of stone (boulder) steps. West of the village the hills on both sides, but especially the opposite side of the valley, were marked by steep slides of water that became water-falls in places. Further on, the path overlooked the valley of Wu Yeung Shan (烏羊山) with many abandoned fields. The village of that name, on the main lower path to Wo Yee Hop village (*) and Kwai Chung, was inhabited by a branch of the Chengs (鄭氏) from Shing Mun Tai Wai. Moving SW and passing along the slopes of the mountain above Wo Yee Hop and Lo Wai well above catchwater level we encountered a few more graves placed in good locations. Also patches of abandoned cultivation built up here and there on stone-walled terraces above the path.
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185 

dogs. We observed those at the first but actually visited those at the second, which were close to our path back to Wang Chau. The first of these sites is particularly well placed and the outlook and general air of peace and perpetuity on a most beautiful sunny winter day were unforgettable. Alas for permanence! Though not itself in danger, the land to the rear of the second grave is threatened by a plan to establish a borrow area for development projects requiring soft fill. This would cut into the hills and remove features that are considered by the Tangs to threaten the good geomantic qualities of the grave. Consequently, a number of the persons who had earlier met us at Kam Tin were waiting there patiently to explain the position to us, obviously hoping for our support, and several members of the party walked with them to the ridge behind to see the land and hear their views, as courtesy required. 

All told, this visit was a memorable one. The Society is most grateful to the elders of the Tang family for their courtesy, hospitality and assistance with the day's arrangements. 

Hong Kong, 1978. 

JAMES HAYES 

Grave No. 3 is Plate 50 of LO Hsiang-lin and others' Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842 (Chinese version, 1959) and Plate 35 of the English version (1963). Grave No. 5 is at Plates 51-53 of the Chinese version and Plates 36-37 of the English. 

ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY VISIT TO TSUEN WAN SATURDAY, 10TH DEC., 1977 

‘A VILLAGE WAR' 

A. NOTE ON THE VISIT 

In the 1860's, an ill-natured three-year struggle took place between villagers of Shing Mun, where the Jubilee Reservoir now is, and of Tsuen Wan. A good deal of damage was caused on each side, and many lives were lost. Fortunately, the descendants of the combatants are still living in this area, and it is possible to reconstruct the details of the struggle and to view some interesting relics
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NOTES AND QUERIES 

relating to it. The tour will include a visit to the Tin Hau Temple at Miu Kong, Tsuen Wan, where there is a memorial to the war and a tablet to the Tsuen Wan villagers who were killed. Also to the Kwan Tei Temple at Kam Tin, where part of the Shing Mun villagers were resettled in 1928, which contains a tablet to the Shing Mun villagers killed in the struggle. 

From the Tsuen Wan ferry pier, the party went first by coach to the Shing Mun reservoir, sometimes called the Jubilee Reservoir because of its completion at the time of King George V's jubilee year (1935). A picnic lunch on one of the vantage points with barbecue and sitting out facilities was followed by a talk by Dr. James Hayes, Tour Leader, on the history and livelihood of the former villagers who lived in the valley for nearly 300 years before their removal in 1928 for the reservoir project. 

After lunch, the party moved to Kam Tin where the main body of the Shing Mun people moved in 1928. Here our intrepid and helpful bus driver got into difficulties in a confined space between a USD refuse trailer and the gate to the school compound. He was rescued by the action of a group of Members who dismantled a tied up, projecting hawker cart whilst, with characteristic energy and flair, Professor Tony Reynolds directed the driver, conjuring up visions of problems expertly handled many years ago in far Yenan!* 

After this episode, we were welcomed by the village representative Mr. Cheng Siu-fong (*) and the Headmaster of the Shing Mun New Village School, Mr. Cheung Sze-man (X). We were entertained to tea in the school which has an interesting history. It bears the same name as the old school at Shing Mun Tai Wai built for the villagers by their leaders very many years before their removal in 1928. After the move to Kam Tin it was reprovisioned in the ancestral halls and in 1958, under a subsidized village school building programme supported by the Education Department and New Territories Administration, it transferred to the present six classroomed school building. 

Over tea our hosts told us something of the village history after the move to Kam Tin. The main difference was in livelihood, because their agricultural holdings by purchase and rent were only a fraction of those held at Shing Mun, inevitably since Kam Tin had been long densely settled by the Tang clan and later inhabitants. 

* See his article at pp 43-54 of this Journal.
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B. THE WAR

1. Contestants

NOTES AND QUERIES

(a) The Shing Mun villages, 8 in number and with a population of about 855 in 1928 when they were removed to build the Shing Mun Reservoir.1

(b) The Tsuen Wan villages, some 12 in number with an estimated population of around 1500 in 1900. These villages are still in existence although some of them have been resited because of recent development.2

All these villagers were Hakka Chinese, so that the struggle was between persons of the same language group. Moreover, since their settlement in these locations in the 17th and 18th centuries, the villagers had given and taken their womenfolk in marriage through many generations, and so were closely related and acquainted with each other. Also, the Shing Mun villagers did at least part of their marketing in Tsuen Wan.4

2. Time

The war lasted for three years at the beginning of the T'ung-chih reign of the Ch'ing Dynasty, between 1862-1864.

3. Reasons for the Struggle

The tablet in the Tsuen Wan Tin Hau Temple dated in the 1930s and written by a local Ch'ing scholar-gentry holding the first (hsiu ts'ai) degrees is not very revealing. It merely says that at the time in question law and order was lax and barbaric customs preva3vailed, so that village feuds revived and a fight with weapons ensued between the Shing Mun and Tsuen Wan villages. By implication, the Shing Mun people were, of course, in the wrong. The record continues: "being outnumbered our boundaries were constantly invaded and our villages were almost reduced to ruins."

Dr. Betsy Johnson, who took notes on the subject in 1967-68, from one old Tsuen Wan villager whose grandfather had taken part in the struggle, learned that relations with Shing Mun were not very good before the war. However, according to him, it began over a third party, a small hill village in the present Kowloon reservoir area east of Shing Mun which had amicable ties with Tsuen Wan. The old man continued, 'Once some...'
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Continuously to the present, since elders in both communities were boys and reportedly before, worship of these heroes has been carried out twice a year, at the times of the first and second padi harvests (described as 春分*). It even continued throughout the Japanese Occupation, a hard time when traditional practices were sometimes dispensed with and not taken up again. Such practices, whilst tending to keep each community together, also had the effect of perpetuating a rift; and the existence of such shrines did nothing to reduce the endemic bickering that characterized much of local society at that time.

NOTES

1 Sessional Papers 1928 (see the District Officer North's report which follows at Part C to the Notes for this Visit).

2 See Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (Hong Kong Government Printer, n.d. but circa 1960): 148-152.

3 Copies of genealogies of the Cheng (#) Tang (*) and some other local lineages have been recently deposited in the Chinese Library, University of Hong Kong.

4 They also went to Tai Po Market and to North West Kowloon.

5 YEUNG Kwok-shui (#) of Yeung Uk, a small single lineage settled since the Ch'ien Lung period.

6 Local place name of the district city of Hsin-an.

7 Gazetteer: 154.

* Gazetteer: 150. Lo Wai is claimed to be the oldest of the Tsuen Wan villages.

9 See e.g. G. N. Orme's Report on the New Territory 1899-1912 in the Hong Kong Government's Sessional Papers 1912: paras 58-60; and the file CSD1903 Ext/17, minutes of 6 April and 5 May 1905 in Public Records Office of Hong Kong.

10 Gazetteer: 150-151.

11 GR.

12 Shek Lei Pui (†) was the name of a village moved to Sha Tin in the 1920s to make way for an extension to the Kowloon Reservoir. See H.K. Government's Administrative Reports 1924, page Q146, para. 4.

13 Gazetteer: 151.

14 The Tin Hau Temple inscription says a wooden tablet, worshipped for 70 years.

15 of Sam Tung Uk, Chairman of the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee and Chairman of the New Territories Heung Yee Kuk, died 15th October, 1956: para. 119 of District Commissioner, New Territories' Annual Departmental Report 1956-57.

16 From the names listed it seems likely that, as stated by informants, friends and relatives of the Shing Mun people from the Pat Heung (Gazetteer: 170) aided them in the war against Tsuen Wan.

17 According to the Tsuen Wan tablet, the fighting took place with sharp weapons. (i).

18 This name was a purely Shing Mun description and does not appear in Gazetteer which only refers to the other Pat Heung to the north.
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NOTES AND QUERIES

[This is perhaps the feud Lockhart mentions on page 51 of his Report.] There is also the case of the Ha Tsuen Tang who sold the Cheung Sha Wan clan land [see appendices]. The first murder case heard in the New Territories is thought to have some connection with this dispute. Tang Cheung, a Ha Tsuen Tang, was captured during the resistance and "executed" for posting British petitions. This event, in turn, is cited by Kam Tin Tangs as further evidence of treason on the part of their clan brothers.

32. One question that came up was the relationship between the local Tangs and the Tung Kwun Tangs. We have assembled a great deal of documentary evidence which illustrates the broad range of defense activities performed by braves from Tung Kwun (Intelligence reports at the time of the resistance estimate over 1000 braves from Tung Kwun were stationed in Yuen Long). Behind a nunnery near Sha Po (9), a well-kept grave bears witness to the memory of those troops killed in the fighting who were buried secretly by the Kam Tin Tangs. The nuns still perform ta chiu ceremonies for their spirits, at intervals of 10 years.

33. A biography of Ng Ki-Cheung, or Ng Sing-chi ({✯✯) would illuminate the transitional period 1898-1930. On the one hand he is considered, by the Sha Po villagers, as being "The Hero of the New Territories,” a literatus (Sau Tsoi) who led the revolt of 1898 against the British and, in later years, against Tang efforts to reassert land rights. His name figures prominently in the Extension Papers, in which he is implicated in the Tang Cheung murders and other related resistance events. His confession is particularly interesting, as it implicates many Tangs in the crime. He received a sentence of life-imprisonment, which was later commuted "to still the hearts of the loyal natives."

34. The 1930's were particularly eventful years in and around Kam Tin. The Chengs (i) moved in, after being relocated due to the building of the Shing Mun Reservoir at Tsuen Wan by the Hong Kong Government. The villas (1) built in Pat Heung with Overseas Chinese and Warlord support, became nuclei for non-Tang settlements unbound by the traditional system.* The last tax-revolt against the Tangs was successfully carried out by Sha Po villagers, an event which coincided with the disappearance of sai-man and mui-chai.

e.g. Ng Ka Tsuen immediately south of Kam Tin which is populated by descendants and relatives of a wealthy Overseas Chinese.
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Natrix aequifasciata Barbour

233

The first specimen of this species known from Hong Kong was sent to me by the Police on 8 May 1978 for identification. It is a juvenile, having bitten the boy who caught it in a stream near Shing Mun Reservoir in the New Territories on 7 May 1978.

A second specimen, also immature, was kindly given to me by Dr. Frank F. Reitinger. He had found it inside a tunnel in a catchment channel near Shek Kong Village in the New Territories while collecting at night on 17 June 1978.

According to Pope (1935, p.95), Natrix aequifasciata is an inhabitant of mountain brooks and is known from various localities in Kwangsi, Kwangtung, Hainan, and Fukien in China. In a recent publication (Anon., 1977), it is listed also for Yunnan, Kweichow, Kiangsi, and Chekiang provinces in China.

Opisthotropis balteatus (Cope)

On 25 May 1977 I received a live immature female of this snake from Mr. R. J. Clibborn-Dyer, who had found it early that day on the Ting Kok Road close to Shuen Wan in the New Territories. The place where this specimen was found was beside an abandoned waterlogged paddy-field, through which a stream flowed into the sea.

Opisthotropis balteatus is known to occur in Southern China (including Hainan), Vietnam, and Cambodia. It frequents mountain streams, and Pope (1935, p.168) concludes it to be an inhabitant of low to moderate altitudes.

Opisthotropis kuatunensis Pope

Two immature specimens of this little-known snake were given to me by Mr. Jerry K. S. Lee, who collected them in the central area of the New Territories mainland. The first was found at about midnight on 16/17 November 1974 in a catchment channel near Shek Kong Village. The second he found on the night of 13/14 July 1978 in a stream at an altitude estimated to be about 823 metres on Tai Mo Shan.

The type and fifteen paratypes of this species were collected by Pope in Chungan Hsien in north-western Fukien, China. In describing the habits of Opisthotropis kuatunensis, Pope (1935, p.170) remarks that: ‘... it inhabits the highest forest cascades of the
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203

straw was used mostly as fuel, and in the repairs of the irrigation canal dykes. At second harvest the rice was cut as close to the ground as possible - the sweet potato harvest did not need this fertiliser, and, the ground being dry it would not rot quickly enough. Also straw was more valuable in the winter as it was needed to feed cattle, and to lay along the furrows where vegetable or sweet potato seeds had been planted to protect them from the birds. Just before and after the War the British army would come to Tai Wai in autumn to buy spare straw to feed army horses. Wai H.L. acted as broker and could make 30 cents on a load.

Calculating the harvest

Both at Tai Wai and Wong Chuk Yeung the quality of the harvest was calculated by counting the grains of rice in the heads. In Tai Wai a good harvest was where each head had 120-140 grains, in Wong Chuk Yeung 80-100 grains (120 was also known). In upland fields Tai Wai occasionally had harvests with only 8-10 grains a head. The density of growth was assumed constant - in Wong Chuk Yeung 80-100 grains presumed 2 piculs per tau, in Tai Wai 120-140 presumed 3-4 piculs etc. The estimates were regarded in both villages as reasonably accurate.

Irrigations

The Tai Wai fields were irrigated by means of lateral irrigation canals taking water from main streams. A dyke was built across a main stream (Shing Mun River or Tin Sam Nullah), damming up the waters behind it. These were then led into an irrigation canal running along the river bank, roughly parallel to it, but at a higher level. In order to lead the river waters into the irrigation canal the dyke was built aslant the river. With this method the irrigation canal could provide water efficiently to large areas of land. Where the river had raised its bed above surrounding land levels, a dyke across half the river was adequate. At the end of the irrigation canal it was best to build a fish pond into which any excess waters could be allowed to fall. Water would only flow back into the main river if the pond overflowed. In low water years the water in this pond could be lifted with the shui-ch'e (a hand-operated water wheel) and so the pond could be used as a reservoir, otherwise as a fish pond. Because of the risk of flooding the fields in very heavy rain times the main irrigation canal required sluices to close the flow and force the flow back into the main river above the fields. Tai Wai had 3 such systems. The Tin Sam valley had a similar system; from a dyke at Hin Tin water was led between Tin Sam and Keng Hau to a pond opposite the Che
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270

P.H. HASE, J.W. HAYES AND K.C. IU

In the 1970s when District Officer and Town Manager, Tsuen Wan, my contacts with local village people established that there were families in Lo Wai which had tea bushes on the mountain slopes of Tai Mo Shan. The Hui (4) family of Lo Wai village collected tea from wild bushes near the present radar station at the very top of Tai Mo Shan. One old man, born in 1896, used to collect ten catties a week during the season, commenting that the best time for plucking the leaves was in the third lunar month: the leaves become older and coarser thereafter. This type of tea was described as wan mo (雲霧) ("cloud mist"). He began doing this when he was about 10 years old, selling to other villagers and not to shops or teahouses. He also collected medicinal herbs on the mountain. Another favourable location for wild tea trees on this mountain, he said, was Nam Tong To (南塘肚) where the Shing Mun villagers collected leaves from wild tea bushes there of the same type. Such trees could not be replanted and grown elsewhere, he stated. Separately, old Shing Mun villagers living in Kam Tin since their removal there in 1928 for construction of the Jubilee Reservoir, themselves confirmed their taking of leaves from trees in this locality. In the foothills west of Tsuen Wan, villagers of Yau Kam Tau also collected leaves from wild tea bushes.12

Lantau island possessed a rather special type of red "tea", with a brilliant red infusion, known as tsz pooi tin kwai (紫背天葵). Tsz pooi tin kwai was described to me as being “half herb half tea”. It was used as a kind of cooling tea (清熱茶) for “over-heating” from food or drink, sore throats and the like. The leaves came from a plant growing between cracks in rocks and stones in high gulleys where there was much moisture. The people of Tong Fuk village on south Lantau, at the foot of the Fung Wong mountain, used to collect these from upper slopes. It was also collected by the women inmates of the religious houses of Ngong Ping and others living at the Po Lin monastery there. Some of the produce found its way to shops in Tai O market where one of the leading shopkeepers, chairman of the Rural Committee, gave me some at intervals. According to Shiu-ying's Hu's An Enumeration of Chinese Materia Medica (Hong Kong, Chinese University Press, 1980) page 153, it is to be described in English as the Tea Begonia (Begonia fimbristipula) and in Chinese as (紅天葵/紫背天葵).13
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2

for 1959 and 1972 when he was on leave). After the Kwong Chow was demolished, these events were held in the Ying King Restaurant, in Wanchai. Many architects, engineers, surveyors, Public Works Department staff, and contractors attended these functions. Speeches were made, and all present, at a given moment, paid their respects by bowing three times to a portrait of Lu Pan.

But a builder's life is not all brandy and shark's fin soup. Steep, rugged, rocky Hong Kong is not ideal terrain for many projects. In the early days of the Colony, when roads and reservoirs were built (the first reservoir, at Pok Fu Lam, was completed in 1864), there was little in the way of mechanical equipment. It was not until 1962 that the first crane was used to construct a building, the Hilton Hotel (originally named the American Hotel).

Even today, for structures up to 150 metres high, the ubiquitous bamboo, which typifies an exemplary man's life in that it grows tall, straight, and yet is flexible and versatile, with rings marking important achievements in a person's career — is still used for scaffolding. It bends rather than breaks and is about one-third the price of steel. Bamboo is, or has been, also used for making (among other things) chipboard, woven bed mats, furniture, water pipes, fishing rods, summonses for secret-society meetings, and Chinese medicine. In addition, bamboo shoots provide a tasty dish.

10

Although some old building techniques, like bamboo scaffolding, are still in use, many have long since disappeared, along with the ancient structures built using them.” A few of the latter are, however, still left." These include "walled" villages, such as Kat Hing Wai at Kam Tin, and the 600-year-old, three-storey Tsui Shing Lau at Ping Shan in the New Territories. This was built in a geomantically favourable location to placate the God of Literature and originally had seven floors. But the upper part was damaged in typhoons. This Man Pat (its local name) Pagoda was built to improve the performance of the Tang clan of Ping Shan in the imperial examinations. Academic results indicate the edifice proved effective.

In the urban area, Victoria Prison, off Arbuthnot Road in Central, which was completed in 1843, is said to be the oldest jail still in use for that purpose in the Commonwealth. Hangings used to take place there (the last in Hong Kong was at Stanley Prison on November 6, 1966),
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363

They now entered Tai Hong Tsuen. They first worshipped at the san-teng. The party worshipped at a well of Tsi Tong Tsuen. Next they worshipped at Lai-Gaan Tong, and then at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain.

They made offerings at the spot where Gau Ga Chyun used to be.

Then they proceeded to Wing Lung Wai, where they worshipped first at an altar of the God of Earth and Grain, then at the village gate, then the san-teng, and finally at the ancestral hall of Gwok-Yin Jou.

The procession turned back and went to worship at the altar for the God of Earth and Grain of Shing Mun San Tsuen, a village of outsiders who moved to Kam Tin when their village, Shing Mun, was destroyed in the 1930s for the construction of the Shing Mun Reservoir. Then the procession entered Tai Hong Wai to worship at its san-teng, village gate, altar for the God of Earth and Grain and well. After this the procession went back to the festival site.

The procession was received and treated to soft drinks and cakes at Shui Mei, Shui Tau, Sa Bui Leng, Ko Po, Kat Hing Wai, Wing Lung Wai and Tai Hong Wai by the local villagers.

E. Procession of incense II

This second procession took place on the day after the main day. It was to visit Ying Lung Wai, the village of Hung-Yi's descendants outside Kam Tin, as well as the Yuen Long Old Market and the villages in its vicinity. The other spots were included because the Yuen Long Market had once belonged to a segment of the Kam Tin Dang lineage, and they used to have landed property in the surrounding villages.

The procession started at 12:40. The equipment involved was more or less the same as the previous day, but I also noticed something I had not seen before: two lanterns saying "to offer incense" and two banners saying "keep quiet" and "keep clear", and burning incense inside a "pavilion" on a table carried by poles. There were a very large number of people again, but less than the previous day. The same Dang Jik-Wai, and the headmaster of Mung Yeung School, originally from Ko Po, led the procession.

363
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397

the Yuen Ka Walled Village

E, Mui Wo, Shek Pik, Tong Fuk

塘福,Shek Mun Kap 石門甲,Shui Hau 水口, Shek Lau Hang 石榴坑, Ngau Au 牛凹, Sha Lo Wan, Shek Tau Po石頭莆,Yi O 二澳 and Yau Ku Long. Also, Hakka villages were found at Tai Ho, Pak Mong, Wang Long and Ling Pei Walled Village at Tung Chung." The population on the island increased, and they depended on fishing and farming.

Nowadays, Mui Wo, Pui O, Shui Hau, Tai O and Tung Chung have developed into towns; Shek Pik Village has been removed, and a reservoir built on that site. However, many villages founded in the Ching Dynasty still remain with little development.

NOTES

ANTHONY SIU KWOK-KIN

1

The inscription of the 42nd year of Chien Lung (1777) on the stone tablet in the Hau Wong Temple of Tung Chung bears the name "Tai Hai Shan".

1 See Chapter 19 of Kwong Yu Kei, Ming edition.

1

1 See Chapter 2 of Yuet Man Chuen See Kei Leuk, 1684 edition.

See Chapter 7 of Lin Tien-wai and the writer's Essays on the History of Hong Kong Prior to British Colonisation, Commercial Press, 1984. It is now known as Lantau Island, and in some newly published maps of Hong Kong, it is also known as Tai Ho Island.

+

See S. G. Davis and May Tregear's Man Kok Tsui, Archaeological Site 30, Lantau Island, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Univ. Press 1961; and “An Archaeological Site at Shek Pik”, Journal Monograph I, Hong Kong Archaeological Society 1975.

7 See Chapter 29 of the Tung Kwun Yuen Chi

8 See Chapter 1 of the Tung Kwun Yuen Chi, 1464 edition.

非 See Tsang Yat Man's "Hai Nam Chaak, an old Salt Pan on Lantau Island" 大嶼山鹽田學, No. 284, Cosmorama Pictorial, Hong Kong.

9 As Note 8.

See Tsang Yat Man's "A Textual Research on the Ins and Outs of the Rebellion of the Natives of Tai Hsi Shan – Now Tai Yu Shan of Hong Kong - in the third year of Ching Yuan of Emperor Ning Tsung of South Sung Dynasty" 南宋寧宗慶元三年, Chu Hai Journal No. 11, October, 1980.

12 See Chapter 67 of the Kwangtung Tung Chi, 1558 edition.

13 See Tai Hai Shan 大箂山 in Ng Loi 吳榮's Nam Hoi Ku Chik Kei 南海古鏞記, Chapter 61-1 of Su Fu, Shun Chih edition.

14

See Chapter 12 of the Kwangtung Tung Chi, 1697 edition.

+

15

As Note 4.
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The vegetation on the Peak corresponds to the fung shui woods (where stillborn babies are sometimes buried) positioned at the rear of traditional, symmetrical New Territories' villages. In addition to acting as, so called, 'green dragons', untouched shelter belts and firebreaks, these fung shui groves, which may house a temple or a shrine, are considered almost sacred. These woods also act as barriers against malevolent forces. They are the homes of spirits and gods and are considered essential for the wellbeing of a village.

There are well over 300 fung shui woods in Hong Kong (Webb, 1995:44), and, although the largest covers as many as 14 hectares they average two hectares each. Historically, they provide materials for culinary, medicinal, ceremonial and structural use, if, for instance, a length of timber is required for repairs to the temple, or bamboo carrying poles are needed for weddings or funerals. Banyans, heung (incense) trees, camphor, bamboo, rose-apple, longan, lychee, mango and breadfruit, some of which play important parts in Chinese folk religion, are common in fung shui coppices. One of the best examples of a fung shui wood is in Shing Mun Country Park, at the north end of Jubilee Reservoir. This wood is reputed to be around 400 years old (Dudgeon, 1994:73).

A well-sited village is not only protected from the elements, such as typhoons, heatwaves and pollution, by fung shui groves. Such a site is also sheltered by hills and spurs. In turn, graves are situated out of sight on a hill behind the village. And so, as is written in Ecclesiastes 1,4:

One generation goeth and another generation cometh

the earth abideth for ever

But sacred woods are not just found in Chinese communities. In India, Nepal, Bhutan and Japan, as well as in various parts of Europe, people have their groves where religious ceremonies are performed. The druids in ancient Britain, who were also bards and soothsayers, had sacred woods. Oaks in Sherwood and other forests were the abodes of spirits. The fruit of the oak, the acorn, was also sacred. So was the mistletoe.

But even in Hong Kong views can change and modernisation can take its toll. In the mid-1990s, a venerable fung shui banyan in a Lantau village was felled merely to improve television reception.
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The Shing Mun Valley scheme was started in 1923 and initially a 2km-long 3m-diameter tunnel was driven to Shek Lai Pui. Subsequently, the largest pre-Pacific war reservoir was constructed, which was to double the Territory's total water storage capacity to 27,000 million litres; it was formed by the main Gorge Dam, which was the highest in the old British Empire at that time (1936), and the subsidiary 25m-high earth/rockfill/concrete core Pineapple Pass Dam. The remarkable Gorge Dam, 85m high with a bold and probably unique design, consists of a downstream shoulder of rockfill faced with pitching and an upstream face comprising a slender near-vertical reinforced concrete diaphragm wall supported by a massive concrete thrust block. Between the upper part of the thrust block and the downstream rockfill, there is a narrow wedge filled with sand for the purpose of taking up any settlement of the rockfill and to cater for possible earthquake movement. Any leakage through the upper part of the diaphragm can be observed from an inspection gallery behind it. Elaborate experiments were made to determine the correct design of the reservoir overflow bellmouth in order to reduce vortexing and to neutralise the destructive vacuum forces which could occur at the base of the bellmouth overflow shaft. For this investigative work, the young Geoffrey Binnie was awarded a Telford premium by the Institution of Civil Engineers. Subsequently, preliminary investigations for the Tai Lam Chung scheme were started shortly before the outbreak of the Pacific war, by which time the Territory's population had risen to about 1.6 million.

As a result of an acute water emergency on the Island, work started on a 300mm steel pipe cross-harbour main in 1929, the sixty-two 30m-long bolted sections taking less than 2 months to lay, and a further 450mm main was laid in 1935. Due to corrosion problems, it was necessary to replace these pipes in 1939 with two 530mm steel pipes, protected with a 12mm-thick cement lining on the inside and a 60mm coating of vibrated concrete on the outside, which were laid on reinforced concrete blocks bedded on rockfill with a protective rubble mound on the east side of the pipelines to prevent damage from dragging anchors.

These pre-Pacific war water schemes not only involved building dams but also needed construction, often in difficult site conditions, of a multiplicity of extensive catchwaters, tunnels, trunk mains, treatment plants, service reservoirs, pumping stations, and distribution mains in
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997
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5.00

RC DIAPHRAGM

INSPECTION SPACE

WEDGE

Detection testing pipe

ROCK FILL

THAT

GALLERY

BLOCK

PITCHING 1½ THICK

50

100

150 FEET

Cross section of Gorge dam

Gorge Dam Cross-section, Shing Mun Reservoir, 1936 Binnie Consultants Ltd/Binnie Black & Veatch

STONE TOE

38000

131
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