RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 11 THE STUDY OF ASIA: A HERITAGE AND A TASK Inaugural Address delivered on April 7, 1960. F. S. DRAKE, O.B.E., B.A., B.D., Professor of Chinese, Hong Kong University. The study of Asia by the West is the result of the total impact of East and West through the ages, in which traders, soldiers, administrators, travellers, preachers, and scholars all have a part, and in which a study of the language and literature of the peoples of Asia is an essential element. So far as Europe is concerned the study of Asia commences with the Greeks. The Greeks were in contact with Asia in three directions: along the coast of the Black Sea they were in contact with the Scythians; in Asia Minor they lived under the shadow of the Persian Empire; through Egypt they were in contact with the sea routes to India and beyond. These three directions indicate three great geographical divisions of the subject around which we can, I think, arrange the historical, cultural and linguistic studies. First the grasslands of Central Asia, from the steppes of Russia to the plateau of Mongolia, home of the nomadic races from the Scythians to the Mongols; second, the Oriental Empires connected with the great river valleys and deltas from Iran to India and China; third, the islands and peninsulas from South-east Asia to Korea and Japan, including the China coast. I. The Scythians are graphically described in the pages of Herodotus, and his description is verified by the finds of archaeologists in the tombs of their chieftains in South Russia and the Caucasus region. The virile 'nomad animal style' of the ornaments in bronze and gold found from the Caucasus to the Siberian side of the Altai, and from the Altai through Mongolia to the borders of China, indicates the extent and the character of the nomadic tribes. But the chief source of our knowledge of the nomads is to be found in the series of Chinese dynastic histories. The Chinese were in continual contact with the nomadic peoples along their northern frontier from Manchuria to Turkestan—the line of the Great Wall. The struggle between the nomads and the Empire, based on agriculture, is the great theme of Chinese history. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch ORASHKB and author 14 Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 The retreat of the Macedonian army was followed by the complicated history of North-west India, the present Pakistan, in which invasion followed invasion, Bactrian Greek, Indo-Scyth, Ephthalite and Turk, and dynasty followed dynasty, of which that of the Guptas was one of the most illustrious. But the impact of the Greeks, though it was eventually absorbed, lasted for a long time, and its effect is still to be seen in the abundance of Graeco-Buddhist sculpture unearthed in the ruins in the Buddhist monasteries in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, reaching even to the confines of North-west China. To the Greeks of Alexander and of his successors, we owe a large part of our early knowledge of Persia and of Northern India. When the power of Islam had spread through Western Asia, the Moslem Arabs and Turks became the intermediaries between East and West. The Crusades were one, but not the only, answer of the West to the Moslems, The way of St. Francis was another, But yet another was that of Raymond Lull, who, born as it were before his time, advocated the study of Moslem philosophy and the Moslem tongue as a preliminary for the preaching of the Gospel. Meantime Moslem learning in Latin translations, and even the Greek authors, translated into Arabic, and from Arabic into Latin, reached the Western World. The Mongol dominion became divided. The Mongol rulers of Persia, and the partly Turkish partly Mongol rulers west of the Pamirs became converted to Islam. The dominion of Timur arose, and the Moghuls of India followed. First-hand accounts in Persian and Arabic now became added to the study of the Mongol regime. I refer in particular to Juvaini's History of the World Conqueror (between 1252 and 1260), by one who had served as a high official under the Mongol conquerors. From henceforth Islam contributed to the philosophy, poetry and art of the Persians, and the study of Islamics formed part of the study of Persia. Before leaving the subject of Persia one can only refer in passing to the mystic philosophy and poetry of Persia, the beauty of Persian miniatures, Persian rugs, and of Persian architecture. III. Finally we come to the sea-route to India and China, and the islands and peninsulas from South-east Asia to Korea and Japan. In the course of his travels Herodotus had visited Egypt, where he had learned about the navigation of the Red Sea, and recorded that Phoenician sailors in the service of the king of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 15 Egypt had sailed through the Red Sea, and keeping the land on their right had rounded Africa and returned through the Straits of Gibraltar; on the way they had found that the sun appeared for a time on the north side. A hundred years later, after Egypt had fallen into his hands, Alexander had founded the city of Alexandria on the western side of the delta of the Nile. The city was destined to become the second city of the Roman Empire. Connected by canal with the Red Sea, and making use of the newly understood monsoon winds (A.D. 47) for crossing the Arabian Sea, it became the chief port of the maritime trade with Persia, India, and the regions beyond. References to this maritime trade exist in the Chinese histories as well as in the writings of the Greeks. In A.D. 97 a Chinese envoy, Kan Ying, travelling from Central Asia reached the shores of the Persian Gulf, and was informed by the seamen whom he met that the sea-route from the Gulf proceeded first south-west and then north-west to the port of Wu-ch'ih-san (Alexandria), the return journey taking three months with favourable winds, and two years with unfavourable winds. The Chinese records speak of the Persians and the Indians trading by sea with Ta-ts'in (the Chinese name for the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire: Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor) and of the fact that the profits were ten-fold. They speak also of traffic between India and China by sea, and record that in A.D. 120 two jugglers who claimed to have come from the Roman Orient (Ta-ts'in) reached Burma, and were sent by the king of Burma as a present to the Emperor of China, via the Burma Road. About the same time a book was written by an unknown Greek sailor called The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea giving a port-to-port description of the voyage down the Red Sea and around the Indian Ocean to the Malay Peninsula (The Land of Gold) 'under the very rising of the sun, with a notice of China beyond. Shortly after this in the 2nd century A.D. the Geography of Ptolemy was written at Alexandria, where Ptolemy gathered together and systematized all that was known to the Western world about Asia and Africa. In particular he plotted the longitude and latitude of the places known, which when transferred to a modern map give surprisingly accurate results, reaching to China itself. From this time notices of the sea-route increase, both on the Greek and on the Chinese side. The Chinese histories in particular show a rapidly increasing knowledge in the early ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author 16 Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 Christian centuries of the new states of South-east Asia, formed under Indian influence in Indo-China, Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula. During the Middle Ages the navigation of the Southern Seas was in the hands of the Arabs. But after the rounding of the Cape, direct contact between Europe and the East by sea was restored. It was mainly by the sea-route that India, China, and South-east Asia became known to modern Europe. In this the Portuguese navigators played an all-important part. Passing over the rivalries of the Western nations we come to the days of the East India Company. In India the Moghul empire had reached its height, fine examples of its art remaining in the Moghul architecture of Pakistan and North-west India, and Moghul miniature painting. But with the Moghul Moslem law had come to India, and it was soon recognized by the East India Company that the study of Moslem languages was necessary for the government of India. So Islamics now became part of the study of India as of Persia. In 1783 Sir William Jones, a brilliant linguist who had mastered Persian and Arabic during his student days in England, was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature in Bengal. In 1784 he proposed the forming of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and became its first President. Becoming aware of the importance of Sanskrit, he became the founder of Sanskrit studies in the West. In accordance with Warren Hastings' decision in 1776 that Indians should be ruled by their own laws, he undertook the immense task of compiling a complete digest of Moslem and Hindu law, a task which he left unfinished at his death eleven years later. It was from India that the Western study of Tibet commenced, initiated by Catholic missionaries, of whom the most eminent was Desideri who lived for many years in the great Sera monastery at Lhasa, and wrote the first comprehensive account of Tibet. Meantime the Jesuit missionaries had proceeded eastwards in the wake of the Portuguese to Malacca, Macau and Japan. It was from Macau that Matthew Ricci entered China in 1580 and in course of time reached Peking, where a beginning was made in the study of the Chinese Classics and Histories, which led to the first real knowledge of Chinese civilization in the West. It was now realized that the 'China' at the end of the sea-route was the same as Marco Polo's 'Cathay'. At the beginning of the nineteenth century modern Sinology commenced with Robert Morrison at Canton, and continued with a number of able scholars, too numerous to mention here, of whom James Legge with his translation of the Chinese Classics into ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 19 the density of nesting birds is considerably less owing to the lack of suitable cover and nests are in any case difficult to find, there is a wide variety of nesting birds ranging from the great family of egrets and herons, with eight or nine species, through a list including the Black-eared Kite, White-bellied Sea-eagle, Francolin, Koel and Crow-Pheasant, drongos and mynahs, bulbuls and babblers down to the Tree-sparrow and Spotted Munia—altogether a large range. Now I shall discuss Hong Kong's birds in more detail, taking them roughly in the order of the new Check-List* so that gaps, especially in the case of rarities, may be filled in by reference to that book. The Great Crested Grebe and the Little Grebe are both common winter visitors but are very localised. The favourite haunt of the former is Deep Bay, whilst up to forty of the latter may be observed on Tai Lam Chung Reservoir. They are rarely seen in breeding plumage and are consequently rather dull-looking. In Deep Bay, along with the Great Crested Grebe one may also see quite large numbers of cormorants, big black diving birds which feed voraciously on fish. An even larger companion of these two varieties in the same area is the Spotted-billed Pelican. Up to twenty of these enormous white birds may be seen, especially at low tide, during the coldest months. One of the greatest attractions to bird-watchers in the Colony, particularly in June and July when there is little else to see, is the great variety of egrets and herons which visit and nest here. There are the small Yellow Bittern and Little Green Heron which may be seen in the mangroves on the edge of Deep Bay; the Great, Little, Swinhoe's and Cattle Pond Herons which nest widely in heronries throughout the northern New Territories; and the lonely Reef Egret which nests on Tung Lung Island, Waglan, and perhaps elsewhere in the southeastern part of the Colony. These birds are an ever-present source of delight with their fine plumage and graceful flight and movements. There are others in the same family, such as the Grey and Purple Herons, but they unfortunately are only visitors. Despite the abundance of water surrounding the Colony and a good deal of suitably marshy ground in the north-west, duck are by no means common, and apart from the Falcated Teal at the mouth of the Shum Chun River, and the Yellow-nib Duck and Teal in evening flight near Lok Ma Chau, very few can be expected. This is a pity, for duck are exciting birds to watch. Annotated Check-List of the Birds of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, South China Morning Post Ltd., 1960. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f 100 J. W. HAYES exerts itself with unprecedented vigour and hardihood in local affairs. No dispute arises but one or more of these social pests thrusts himself forward between the contending parties, and no fraud on the revenue or wholesale extortion is free from their similar influence". Lockhart (through Governor Blake) says that the New Territory's literati "have hitherto lived by irregular "squeezes" from the people" and he blamed the opposition to British rule to them and to "gamblers and bad characters banished from Hong Kong" and not to the people who were incited by the gentry and elders. See Papers 1899 pp. 520 and 554. 26 Papers 1899 p. 194. 27 Papers 1899 p. 554. 28 Arthur H. Smith Village Life in China (Edinburgh, Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, about 1900) p. 121. 29 These affected the coastal and riverine regions of Kwangtung. See C. F. Neumann's Translations from the Chinese and Armenian with notes. 1. History of the pirates who infested the China Sea from 1807 to 1810, (London, John Murray 1831). This includes, pp. 97-125, a very interesting account of an enforced stay of eleven weeks and three days with the pirate fleet in 1809 by Richard Glasbrooke, the mate of an East Indiaman. The pirates spent a considerable time on and near Lantau, which must have suffered from their depredations. The clan record of the HO family of San Tsuen, Pui O, on the south side of the island mentions pirate raids and a decision to fortify the village with walls which can still be seen, with several embrasures for cannon. Piracy continued until a much later date. The Cheung Chau police station was attacked and burnt in 1912, necessitating its removal and enlargement, one of the Cheung Chau ferries was pirated in 1923, and in 1925 a band of sixty robbers from the Delta entered Tai O by way of Po Chue Tam creek, killed a woman and made off with young men and a fair amount of booty without any difficulty. The Police Station is situated at the other end of the town and knew nothing of the attack until it was over. See Administrative Reports, District Officer, New Territories 1912, 1923 and 1925. 30 Papers 1899 p. 528. 31 Foreign Office Report 1606 on Trade of Canton 1894. 32 Salt was smuggled into China from Tai O as the government monopoly and price ring made it profitable to do so. See also Enclosure D to Sir Matthew Nathan's despatch No. 59 of 11 January 1905 in Correspondence relating to Kowloon-Canton Railway which mentions rice smuggling from Shum Chun and Deep Bay into Hong Kong. The export of rice from China was forbidden, and checked by the Imperial Maritime Customs. **F O Trade Report No. 1778 for 1895. 34 F O Trade Report No. 1983 for 1896. 33 Papers 1899, p. 540. Brenan, with his thirty-two years' service wrote feelingly "The Chinaman is happiest who never sees an official, who does not even know the name of one". J N CBRAS XXXII (1897-98) 37. 31 Foreign Office Trade Report for Canton No. 1606 for 1894. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 10 LINDSAY RIDE Let us first go to the top of Monte Fort and view this historic spot where so many foreigners lived their eastern lives and not a few found eternal rest. From the Fort we can see practically the whole of the peninsula and the city of Macao. To the east, beyond the Guia lighthouse, stretches the South China Sea, studded by the Ladrone Islands of which the two nearest - Taipa and Coloane form part of this overseas Province of Portugal. Between these islands and the peninsula lie the Macao Roads and the Outer Harbour. To the west can be seen the narrow neck of land with its barrier gate which bars access to the large delta island of Heung Shan and to the mainland of China. Separating the main portion of this island from the city of Macao, is the Inner Harbour whose two lines of junks, Communist and Macanese, are separated only by the narrow fairway used by the larger sea-going junks, launches and the Hong Kong ferries. Just below us as we view this busy scene, stands, stately and calm, the façade of all that remains of the Jesuit Church of St. Paul, commenced in the sixteenth century, completed in the seventeenth and destroyed by fire in the nineteenth century, Behind it, almost at the harbour's edge, is a low wooded hill whose trees shelter the Camoens Grotto and on whose lower slopes nestle the Camoens Gardens and the neighbouring cemetery. It is but a short walk from the Fort to the cemetery and gardens, access to both of which is gained from a small grassed and treed square the Praça Luis de Camões. On the extreme right as we enter this square, is a high stucco wall pierced by a most unimpressive gateway over which is mounted a small tablet; on which is carved: PROTESTANT CHURCH AND OLD CEMETERY (EAST INDIA COMPANY 1814) This inscription poses a number of questions, a characteristic which, as you will find out later, it shares with many of the inscriptions in the cemetery itself; in fact it is the attempt to solve these problems that supplies much of the fascination and the interest of this cemetery. What was the British East India Page 15 Page 16 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v CHEUNG CHAU 99 local parties who support the venture which is designed to assist the public by providing a safe, regular and reliable means of conveying cargo and passengers between the island and, in this case, Hong Kong. An agreed percentage of the profits is supposed to be contributed towards charitable and welfare purposes at need. Four junks appear on the list of donors to the Fong Pin hospital, and one of these, together with a fifth, appears on the list for the repair of the Tin Hau Temple a year later, in 1879. They have business names such as Tung On “universal peace”, Kung Cheong “public prosperity”, Yee Tai On “righteous peace”, Kung Yik “public welfare” and On Shun “peaceful tranquility”, all propitious names for sea and river travel. It is likely that the two which made donations to the repair of the temple were kaifong junks since their generous contributions placed their names almost at the head of the list. Scrutiny of the tablets and other sources of information mentioned in this brief account of Cheung Chau just before the British lease therefore leaves a vivid impression of a lively, bustling community, largely dependent upon its own leaders and local resources for initiating works of communal benefit, but making use of its links with the outside world, both by business and kinship, to help achieve its ends. So far as I know, there are no studies of the internal structure of a community of similar size and location in the same period available in any western language and it is therefore difficult for me to say whether Cheung Chau is similar or dissimilar to the general pattern of small coastal towns in South China. It does, however, present a basic pattern of association and an enforced reliance on self-help which is typically Chinese, in which respects the community has altered little to this day. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 107 EUROPEAN NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE A. D. BLUE * The Yangtse is the greatest river in China, and has been of much greater importance in the history of the world than the Amazon and the Mississippi, which are superior in length and volume. In this respect it ranks with the Nile and the Euphrates, but unlike them it has always had a much greater population living along its banks. The Chinese know the Yangtse as the Long, or Great, River. Marco Polo may not have been the first European to see the Yangtse, but he was certainly the first to appreciate its importance, and to bring it to the notice of the Western world. Of the Yangtse in general Marco Polo said "the multitude of vessels that invest this great river is so great that no one who should read or hear would believe it. The quantity of merchandise carried up and down is past all belief. In fact it is so big, that it seems to be a sea rather than a river". There is no doubt but at that time, the second half of the 13th century, the Yangtse carried a greater volume of traffic than any other river in the world. Marco Polo was correct in thinking that no one would believe his reports on the Yangtse, or on China, and it was left to later generations to appreciate the accuracy of his observations. It was the missions to China of Lord Macartney and Lord Amherst in 1793 and 1816 respectively, that made Europeans realise the importance of the Yangtse. Then in 1842, during the First China War, a British naval force entered the Yangtse, and was on the point of attacking Nanking (182 miles from the mouth) when the Chinese sued for peace. Sixteen years later, after the Second China War, one of the clauses of the Treaty of Tientsin * The author served as an Engineer Officer with the China Navigation Company from 1928 until 1938, and was on the Yangtse in 1930 in the Shengking and again in 1934 in the Wuhu. He was captured by pirates in the Newchang river in Manchuria in 1933 and held prisoner for five and a half months. During and after the War he was in the Colonial Service in West Africa, but in 1958 he returned to service with the China Navigation Company, and this has enabled him to revisit a number of the former Treaty Ports. 1 Chinese records mention the visit of a 'Roman merchant' to Nanking about 230 A.D. See G. F. Hudson, Europe and China (London, 1931), p. 90. Page 120 Page 121 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 110 LOWER YANGTSE HUPEH Hankow DWILONA. LAKE Anking Nanchang KIANGSI A. D. BLUE KIANGSU Chakiang Nandung, Muhu EAST CHINA SEA YANGTSE ESTUARY sung* Shanghai Hangchow HANGCHOW BAY Ningpa CHEKIANG CHUSAN ARCHIPELAGO 0 120°E 100 MILES 200 trade with foreign countries. In the following year Killick and Martin's famous tea clipper Challenger was towed up to Hankow by Lindsay's steamer Fire Cracker, and loaded the first cargo of tea at Hankow. It was cheaper to send tea to Hankow by water than by porterage over the Meiling Pass to Canton; so the opening of Hankow to foreign trade continued the decline of Canton as a tea port, which had commenced twenty years earlier with the opening of Foochow. Freights were considerably higher from Hankow, but so was insurance, and towing was also expensive. The Challenger was said to have paid £1,000 for being towed. Many famous clippers, such as the Cutty Sark, loaded tea at Hankow in the late 60's and early 70's. Hankow, with its sister cities of Hanyang and Wuchang on the south side of the river, was at the heart of the Yangtse Valley, and was the main urban concentration in the interior of China. The French priest M. Huc, who travelled extensively through China in the years 1844-6, estimated the combined population of the three T ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE 55 of these sites in this territory and three have been expertly excavated with results which are well known to many of my hearers this evening. There can be no doubt that the people who left those deposits were a fishing community and the direct ancestors of our present boat population, either the Tanka13 or the Hoklo155 or, as I believe more likely, of both. At the same time, the patterns on the pottery excavated from these sites clearly connect the culture both with other sites excavated elsewhere on the coast of China and those excavated further south, much further south; and the shape of the stone adzes connects them, I am told, with other boat-making cultures in the Pacific. These sites therefore are an important link between a people who are now culturally and sentimentally Chinese but were not so as recently as 200 years ago; and who earlier still formed part of a wide-flung and comparatively advanced culture. Boat people by various names, but answering the same description, are mentioned frequently in the literature of the Tang,139 Wu-tai105 and early Sung132 periods. They are described as numerous, which they still are, bellicose, which they certainly are not, and dangerously hostile to the Chinese settlers, which brings to my mind the couplet: Cet animal est très méchant; quand on l'attaque, il se défend. Later on, in the Tsing12 Dynasty, we find a change of tone; and official documents both from the local officials to Peking, and from the Manchu Emperor himself to the inhabitants of Kwangtung63 and Fukien,49 speak of the boat people as a hard-pressed community to whom their landward neighbours are called upon to stop being beastly. I think the latter assessment might be somewhat nearer to the truth if it could be applied not only to the Tsing period but to the whole of the last 1,000 years, and not only to the boat people but to the tribes of the hills. A practical suggestion which I should like to make regarding the excavations of the former coastal sites, having regard to their number and to the meagreness of the resources, both pecuniary and human, available for this work, is that some archaeologists who are familiar with this type of site should conduct a search north of the axis of tilt of the New Territories. All the sites so far excavated have been on the side which is going down, that of Hung Shing Yel56 having first come to light as a result of the sea cutting into a sandbank. But on the other side of the territory, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE 61 D 27 Now known as Daar-gwuur-Irerng, , an odd name for a valley. 28 dheng, $7. 29 dheonn, *. 30 Dhung-chung, kia. 31 Dhung-gwuurn, **, previously Dhung-gwhuunn, ★T. + 32 Discovery Bay is the bay NW of Peng Chau109 on which stand the villages of Tai Pak, Yi Pak, Sam Pak and Sz Pak,35 33 Draai-bou or Draai-brou, that the latter pronunciation is the original is shown by the Hakka Thay-puuh, not -bhuuh. 34 Draaibou-traw, . 35 Draai-braak, ē, Jri-braak, Sei-braak, N‘. 36 Draai-brou-xoe, ★#* - , Shaamm-braak, and Draai-durng-shaann, AB4 or Draai-dungv-shaann, tu see 37. 37 Draai-jryr-shaann, ★★λ, formerly Draai-xray-shaann, ★★; the name Lantao appears to be of Portuguese rather than Chinese origin, like Lamma, Lema etc. The two peaks are Frungwrong-shaann, ABEL and Draai-durng-shaann, AB or Draai-dungv-shaann. ★ikus, . 38 Draai-laarm, £. 39 Draai-mrou-shaann, ★Ḭu, or ★# + 40 Draal-prang, see the section on sea defence in the San On Yuen Chi,123 The fort so named was originally on the Saikung126 Peninsula, then shifted to its present location N.E. of Mirs Bay, 41 Draaiprang-whaann, ★★. The English name is a corruption of Ma Shi Wan,92 42 Draaltraw-shaann, AML, formerly Sreoi-jran **. Draai-xray. shaann, i see 37. — 43 Draan-ghaah, . There have been many attempts to prove that these people are anything but what they clearly are the original inhabitants of the South China coast. 44 Drang, B. 45 Druk-ngrow-gorng, H¶4. 46 drungv,, a word repeatedly used in the Histories to denote different Man88 tribes. 47 Dryn . F 48 Farn-Irearng, Fhann-Irearng, (formerly Fhann-Irearng, $4). see 48. 49 Fhukgin-saarng, No★★. 50 Fhukzhaw, 15M - ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 64 K. M. A. BARNETT Ng 103 Ngraahcrinn-chynn, 104 Ngrhtrung-shaann, N. L. 105 Ngrr-droi, £1 (+908—+959, with local variations). 0 106 Obliterated villages:- Nai Tong Kok,101 Pak Hok Tuns and the original Tai Pak,35 some way from the present site. P 107 Phuunniryh, #5. 108 Preangzhaw, , an island five miles west of the western tip of Hong Kong Island. 109 Preangzhaw, H, an island in the north-eastern part of Mirs Bay,41 110 Pre-Chinese languages: I should exempt from this stricture Professor Princeton S. Hsu,23 whose books, "History of the People of South China”72 and "A Study of the Thais, Chuangs and the Cantonese People"133 are of great interest and should be read by anyone anxious to learn more in this field. But I think he goes too far in suggesting a Malay origin for the Tanka-or is it a Tanka origin for the Malays? 111 Prengshaann, Ħ4. 112 Pruunn-gwuur, 1. R 113 River Capture. The break-through of the Kwun Yam Ho62 from the Lam Tsuen74 valley to Taipo:33 formerly it flowed through Fanling48 and Sheung Shui130 into Deep Bay;152 and that of the two streams which now flow into the sea at Sham Tseng,119 the headwaters of which used to flow through Tin Fu Tsai137 into Tai Lam.38 $ Sei-braak, see 35, 114 Shaahtraw-gok, YA★ · 115 Shaahtrinn, 3⁄4w. + 116 Shaahtrinn-xoe, , still better known to the local people as Lik Yuen Hoi. Shaamm-braak, E★ see 35, 117 shaann-ghoh, Hakka saan-go, L. 118 Shaannloo, #. 119 Shamm-zearng, ##. + 120 Shamm-zeon, . The second word means an artificial channel with earth banks and suggests that the present river was cut to drain the swamps to the east and south-east of the present town. 121 Shann Ngrrdroi-sir, ĦARK - Page 75 Page 76 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 74 J. W. HAYES fishermen and with all those who live close to the sea in South China. A commemorative tablet let into the wall is dated 1798.10 It may record the actual foundation of the temple, though this is not certain as the temple bell is dated six years earlier." The tablet has no introductory preamble, as is usual," and simply states that persons from the two districts of Tung Kwun ✯E and San On, described as ± subscribed money for the work. A list of 218 names follows, of which 26 appear to be those of shops or businesses, and the other 192 those of private individuals. No indication is given as to the addresses of subscribers, and it is therefore impossible to state with certainty that they were all Peng Chau people, though some of them must have been, or to say which of them were land people and which of them fishermen. It is more than likely that both groups participated in the project. This was certainly the case with the next full-scale repair in 187813 where the fact of co-operation is established beyond any doubt, because the entries on this second tablet are more precise and it is still possible to check names with old inhabitants. With the establishment of the temple, Peng Chau's place as a permanent base for fishermen was probably assured, since this would have set the seal on its popularity. Religion has always played an important part in the lives of the boat people and it was probably as much a long-term attachment to the temple as economic ties with local shopkeepers which kept the fishermen there. There was another popular Tin Hau temple at nearby Nim Shu Wan, now in ruins. Throughout the nineteenth century therefore, and into the twentieth, the island continued to be a base for many sea-going and local fishermen. As such, it was important enough to be one of the places where, by order of the San On magistrate, tablets were set up in the middle of the Tao Kwang period (1834) for the information of the fishing population.14 The Peng Chau tablet, which is situated just outside the Tin Hau temple, records a petition which went as high as the Viceroy of the two Kwang provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, and eventually resulted in a directive that no more fishing boats should be commandeered in order to capture pirates. Special craft were ordered to be built for the purpose instead. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 116 CRANMER-BYNG AND SHEPHERD which lies in the mouth of the Pearl River estuary between Macao and Castle Peak on the opposite headland. However, during the south-west monsoons the anchorages of Kapsuimun門 pq 29, and Hong Kong were used because they provided greater protection. The Kapsuimun anchorage was situated south of Ma Wan island and sheltered to the west by the headland of Lantao and to the east by Tsing I island. Because of the smuggling of opium from depot ships at these outer anchorages the capabilities of the anchorages off Lantao island and between Hong Kong island and Kowloon on the mainland became thoroughly known to British merchants and sea captains. In 1835 a former member of the British East India Company published a book in which he advocated the need for Britain to obtain some island from which trade with China could be carried on because of the uncertain conditions of trade at Canton following the ending of the Company's monopoly30. In a review of this book published in the Chinese Repository the reviewer remarks on the fact that the author pressed the idea of Britain acquiring Macao from Portugal, which he considered ill-advised. He wrote The want of a good harbour, and its dangerous position in the season of typhoons and strong north or east gales, unfit it for the possession of a commercial nation, as point d'appui. Lantao is better, and this we should prefer of the places named by our author. It is an island, capable of defence, producing abundant supplies of food, with many good harbours, is not so near the provincial city as to render it dangerous for natives to resort to it, for the purpose of commerce.31 Thus in 1835 Lantao was still considered eligible as a possible British settlement. In May 1839 the British Superintendent of Trade, Captain Charles Elliot, and all British subjects, left Canton as a result of the measures taken by the Imperial Commissioner Lin Tse-hsü, and retired to Macao. However, when in mid-August of 1839 the British were forced out of Macao by Chinese pressure it was to the anchorage of Hong Kong that the English ships went. Although Hong Kong was eventually ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Nanking 1842 this had not always been an automatic choice, the possibility of forming a settlement on Formosa, the Bonin Islands, and on Ma Wan and Lantao island had previously been given serious consideration. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 118 CRANMER-BYNG AND SHEPHERD 14 They had every reason to be alarmed on account of the continual attacks from pirates on coastal villages in Kwangtung and other places during the period from about 1787 until 1810. See A. W. Hummel: Eminent Chinese of the Ching Period, 446-8. Also C. F. Neuman, History of the Pirates who infested the China Sea from 1807 to 1810. 15 Macartney took with him on the embassy a "gardener and botanist”, David Stronach. For the botanical side of the embassy see J. L. Cranmer-Byng, op. cit., 317-19. 16 These nets are known locally as "stake nets" or tsang pang are lowered and raised by means of a tackle. They are frequently used along the coasts of Kwangtung today. The fishing season is from February to mid-September, 17 The island is now reasonably well covered with pine trees and there are a few small feng-shui woods of deciduous trees. A large number of kites have been observed using pine trees on a ridge in the centre of the island as a roost during the winter months. 18 Parish knew the island, which he had been sent to reconnoitre, under the name of Cowhee. Now he learned that the inhabitants called it Toong Shing-ow-a. However, this name does not appear to have survived and the island is now always known as Ma Wan4 and was so called as far back as 1859. See Rev. Krone, op. cit. (note 8) p. 73. The word Cowhee was probably a phonetic rendering of the name of an island between Ping Chau island and Hong Kong island known as Kau I Chau 交椅洲. 19 By the small island to the south-east Parish presumably meant Tang Lung Chau## which now has a small light-house on it. There is now a small harbour with a jetty at Ma Wan village, and this is the normal place for landing on the island today. 20 This is a doubtful statement. 21 The word as written in the manuscript report is clearly "profil". I can only suggest that Parish meant "profile", and was using it in a technical, military engineering sense, meaning "outline". A reading of Tristram Shandy and other eighteenth century books about sieges and defence works might give a clue to its technical meaning at that time, 22 From the anchorage position marked on the chart this must refer to the bay of Tsing Lung Tau. Today Ma Wan is connected to the mainland by a regular ferry service running from the bay of Sham Tseng, where the Hong Kong Brewery is situated. 23 By the word "bay" in this context Parish appears to refer to the wide bay formed by the northern coast of Lantao from its headland opposite Tsing Lung Tau to Chek Lap Kok opposite Tung Chung bay, but the wording is somewhat ambiguous at this point. 24 Probably the western arm of Luk Kang - · + + on Lantao. 25 Tung Ku #island opposite Tap Siak Kok on the Castle Peak peninsula. It forms part of the Urmston Road. 26 See Charles Tulse, Local Master's Handbook. Seamanship Illustrated (Hong Kong University Press, 1960). 27 See photograph of the "race" between Ma Wan and Lantao on page It is interesting to know that Professor Deryck Chesterman of the Department of Physics in the University of Hong Kong is carrying out research into the currents off Ma Wan and their effects on the sea bed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r NOTES AND QUERIES 151 evacuation (1662-1669). But it is certain that Tung Chung and Sha Lo Wan had a share in the incense trade which terminated with the evacuation. Wild incense trees can still be found but the art of making incense sticks has vanished. The ancestors of the people living in the valley may have migrated into the area from the north in 1669 but the area has been, until recently, notorious for occurrences of malaria which claimed heavy tolls. The entire population may have been completely wiped out several times, as the oldest of the families has a family history of no more than seven generations. Tung Chung came into the limelight again when Cheung Pao Tsai and his pirate band who had been using the bay as one of their bases to prey upon the coastal trade of the South China Sea, successfully repelled a Ching naval contingent after a ten-day battle in the Ping Chung Bay in the twelfth year of Chia Ching's reign (1807). The trouble was finally quelled in 1809 when Cheung Pao Tsai surrendered and his pirates were disbanded. 2 With the suppression of the pirates, trade flourished. The Viceroy at Canton petitioned the Ch'ing Government in 1817 saying that "Ta Yu Shan of San On District, an isolated island, is on the (trade) route of the ships of the "barbarians". Tung Chung and Tai O are the only places where these "barbarian" ships can anchor. A fort at Chi Yi Kok2 with a Captain(?) and soldiers from the Tai Pang Camp has been maintained but there is no garrison at Tung Chung. As the two places are very far apart, eight garrison houses should be built at the mouth of the Tung Chung Rivers and two batteries (the fort), seven garrison houses and one arsenal should be constructed on the foot of Shek Shee ShanJ. "6 The petition was accepted and the work was completed in the same year. Whether the work was carried out as requested by the Viceroy has still to be proved. However, the fort has been relatively well preserved and seven old 2 Fan Lau (), 24 miles from Tai O. 3 Nan Tau (南頭), Po On District, 15 miles to the north of Lantau. 4 The distance is 6 miles across the main watershed and about 9 miles along the coast. 5 The idea was to prevent the "barbarians" from drawing fresh water for their ships. 6 Kwangtung Annals (廣東通志), p. 2,530. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 S. G. DAVIS 1897). Laufer also pointed out that the only reference that he could find in Chinese literature to pottery of the Han Dynasty is by Chow Mi in the Kuei Hsin Tsa Shih, Chow Mi lived under the Southern Sung Dynasty in the thirteenth century. Such an observation by Laufer is of importance because he was an established authority on Chinese archaeology. As Curator of Anthropology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago he was in China from 1901 to 1904 collecting specimens and making investigations with the Jacob H. Schiff Chinese expedition. He returned again to China in 1910 with the Mrs. T. B. Blackstone expedition. While he collected most of his Chou and Han pottery mainly in Shensi Province he also travelled widely in China and visited Canton and Hong Kong. Thus he would certainly have reported Han pottery if it had been known in the area. This relatively recent discovery of neolithic archaeology in China is certainly paralleled here in Hong Kong. The first reference to it that I can find is by Dr. C. M. Heanley in 1928 when he described Hong Kong celts (8). Dr. Heanley, who fortunately is still active and keenly interested in Hong Kong (I received a letter from him recently), lives in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia. He was head of the Government Vaccine and Bacteriological Department and in his spare time was a devoted amateur geologist. He knew of Laufer's work and in his article on celts referred to Laufer's statement that prehistory stone implements were scarce in China. Heanley suggested that they were only scarce because prospectors did not know how to look for them. He said, "To find celts in South China select the crests and spurs of granite hills bared of vegetation by rain erosion. Do not look for celts but look for isolated fragments of pottery and water-worn stones. The eyes should be kept ranging well ahead and on either side and little attention given to the ground near the feet." Heanley estimated that on granite outcrops in Hong Kong there was an average of about 30 to 40 celts to the square mile within 600 yards of the sea and land reclaimed from the sea. Dr. Heanley's shrewd advice to prospectors has helped considerably in later searches. It is on raised beaches, terraces and hill-spurs that most of our archaeological remains have been Page 15 Page 16 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY 11 found. The explanation for this is that this part of South China has been rising relative to sea level. This positive rise is connected with isostasy and eustatic movements of the oceans that cause cycles of submergence and emergence. Assuming a rise of one foot every hundred years then, Hong Kong in the last 2,500 years has risen 25 feet, Dr. Heanley and his friend Mr. Walter Schofield, a government administrator, gathered a large and varied collection of celts from Kowloon, Cheung Chau and Lantau Island. Examination of this collection by experts soon established that they were not just freaks of nature but definite human artifacts. Since Heanley's first notification, other workers have found them in practically every part of the Colony, and contrary to his belief that they were principally found on granite hills, they have been found often in abundance on every other rock outcrop represented in the area — especially volcanic rock. It may be that because of the extreme susceptibility of granite to erosion, which causes 'badland country' with thin or no vegetation cover, the celts can be seen more easily, Including the places mentioned by Dr. Heanley, celts can still be found in the fields, on raised beaches or on low hills at Tai Wan, Hung Shing Ye, Yung Shu Wan, Aberdeen, Tai Po, Castle Peak, San Hui, So Kun Wat, Tsun Wan, Shatin, Shataukok, Man Kok Tsui, Ha Tsuen, Sheung Shui, Shek Pik, Sai Kung, Lai Chi Chung, Sok Ku Wan, Fanling and Kau Sai Chau. Much is owed to Dr. Heanley, Mr. Schofield and Professor J. L. Shellshear, who was head of the Anatomy Department in the University of Hong Kong, for their conscientious and patient work in combing the Colony for other archaeological remains and sites after the celts had been identified. I have been told by our Vice-President, Sir Lindsay Ride, who knew all three intimately and often accompanied them on their field trips, that they were superbly energetic and covered tremendous distances in a day at great speed. Only fit and enthusiastic walkers could hope to last a whole day with them. They located several prehistoric sites, the most notable being So Kun Wat, Shek Pik and those at the northwest end of Lamma Island. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 T. HARRISSON tiny flakes, remain. It is planned to concentrate on continuing down to deeper levels when we resume field work later in 1964. 2. West Mouth (b) rest of outer mouth-rich, undisturbed stone-age occupation in light area; stratified sequence from late neolithic down to full palaeolithic occupation; about 700 square feet completed. 3. West Mouth, (c) inner, half dark section not in general early use as occupation, but dense late Stone Age cemetery, and up to early Iron. Eighty burials so far exposed; most treated and left in site for fuller physical study. 4. Lobang Angin (“Wind Mouth") - a shelf of c.400 square feet high on cliff edge, fully occupied before the late Stone Age and back into the palaeolithic; excavations, half-done so far, will be completed. 5. Gan Kira (Traders Cave") — a smaller rockshelf near sea level, evidently a neolithic trading camp, which includes an apparent murder incident and scattered sub-surface skeletons (some beheaded). Fully excavated down to limestone bedrock (fossil oysters, O.gigas). 6. Lobang Tulang (“Caves of Bones")-cliff grottos full of jar and other secondary burials, mainly of the early birds' nest trade with China period (?900 - 1200 A.D.); bronze and other finds; completed. 7. Kain Hitam ("the Painted Cave")-a separate cave high in a limestone island, discovered by Barbara Harrisson in 1958; 200 feet of wall paintings above floor littered with "death ships" and an abundance of bone, beads, porcelain and stoneware sherds, etc. Evidently this was the centre of elaborate prehistoric funerary rites, related to those still extant in the Niah River (as filmed). C-14 dates on four "death ships" so far received give between 0 and 780 A.D. Excavated in 200×5 foot square blocks correlated to wall paintings. A small section was left for a check-study in 1965. 8. Samti - a small rock shelter in an isolated corner of the Great Cave formation, which also held death ship remains. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 69 PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST A. D. BLUE For most of recorded history piracy has been a menace to sea-borne trade, and there have been times when it has been difficult to distinguish between pirates and honest or should one say legitimate traders. Nationality has often been the only mark of distinction, as Spanish and English views of Drake, Hawkins, and the like illustrate. The Chinese were pioneers in piracy, as in so many other things, and a history of piracy in China would begin many thousands of years ago. The Chinese were probably skilled practitioners of the art before history began to be recorded. The earliest accounts are in the records of the Chou Dynasty in the fourth century B.C., and piracy continued in China long after it had been suppressed in other parts of the world. When the first Europeans arrived in the China Seas in the sixteenth century, many of the pirates on the coast were Japanese. For three centuries after the defeat of Kublai Khan's invasion of Japan in 1281, Japanese pirates mainly from Kyushu were active along the whole coast, from the Liaotung Peninsula in the north to Hainan Island and the Straits of Malacca in the south. The famous Arctic explorer, John Davis, met his death at their hands in 1604. Davis was serving on an East India Company ship which was anchored off the island of Bintang, east of Singapore, when it was attacked by Japanese pirates. This was at the end of the Japanese era, which came about as the result of several different factors. One was the establishment of a strong central government in Japan by Iyeyasu, the first of the Tokugawa Shoguns at the beginning of the seventeenth century; and another was the increasing superiority of Chinese over Japanese junks. The depredations of these Japanese pirates often extended far inland, and they were accompanied by atrocities reminiscent of the Japanese Rape of Nanking in 1937. Because of this the Ming Emperors banned all intercourse between the two countries, and this afforded the Portuguese the opportunity to act as ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST 71 Piracy was firmly rooted along the South China coast. Then, during the First China War, many junks were allowed to act as armed privateers, and when the war was over, became pirates rather than return to peaceful trade. Hong Kong and its neighbouring islands had always been centres of piracy, or the home of fishermen ambitious to earn a dishonest dollar or two from piracy. The new British colony must have appeared like manna from Heaven to these people, and the colony's first years were marked by an increase in piracy. There was a similar increase in piracy around Singapore at the same time. The founding of Singapore in 1819 had resulted in a great increase in native trade in the area, and this suffered severely from attacks by well-armed Chinese junks, which sometimes attacked European ships. Captain James Brooke with his sea Dyaks played a big part in suppressing piracy in these waters.1 The period between the First and Second China Wars is one of the most confusing in Chinese history. On one hand is the founding of a British colony at Hong Kong, the opening of the treaty ports, and the inception of regular shipping services along the coast; while on the other is the persistence of lawlessness and piracy. In the background is the increasing weakness of the Manchu Dynasty, and during the last years of the period, the Taiping Rebellion. When the East India Company controlled the China trade, there was little need for naval protection in Chinese waters, and the Cantonese were traditionally opposed to the Royal Navy. The large and well-armed East Indiamen and "Country" ships were perfectly capable of fighting their way past the pirates who infested the Canton River delta, as were smaller, but faster and equally well-armed opium clippers. In spite of Chinese objections, however, British warships visited Canton on several occasions. Anson called in the Centurion in 1741, on the famous voyage on which he captured the Manila galleon, and Cook in 1779 with the Resolution and Discovery after his three-year cruise in the Pacific. Cook's ships were careened, refitted, and provisioned at Canton, the East India Company advancing the money in return for bills on the Admiralty in London. 1 The first white Rajah of Sarawak. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST 83 Another case which might be said to have had political undertones was that of the China Navigation Company's Shuntien in June 1934. The Shuntien was the latest addition to the China Navigation Company's large fleet, and was making only her second voyage at the time. She was captured by some thirty pirates after leaving Tientsin for Chefoo, and was taken to the mouth of the Yellow River where she was beached on soft sand. The pirates then made off inland, taking five European and twenty Chinese passengers as hostages. Before leaving, they told the ship's compradore that the piracy was a reprisal for the Chinese Maritime Customs having stationed an extra customs cruiser in Shantung Bay, thus interfering with their smuggling operations. The Europeans returned a few days later, but nothing more was ever heard of the Chinese hostages. Bias Bay, sixty-five miles northeast of Hong Kong, was notorious as the pirates' stronghold in the interwar years. Unfortunately, it was just outside Hong Kong territorial waters, and came within the jurisdiction of the Cantonese authorities, who were either unwilling or unable to co-operate with the Royal Navy against the pirates. The nationalist and anti-foreign feelings of the Cantonese probably contributed to this, as did the fact that the warlords of Kwangtung were suspected of being in league with the pirates. Whether this was so or not, it was definitely established that pirates based on Bias Bay committed nine major piracies between 1924 and 1926. Although the Navy was unable to suppress piracy on the China coast, so much of which took place almost on its own doorstep, the mere fact that naval ships were in the vicinity must have reduced its incidence. The pirates rarely boarded ships at Hong Kong, partly because of the strict naval and police control there, and also because passengers joining ships there were unlikely to have much money or valuables. In the case of the second Sunning piracy in 1926, it was definitely established afterwards that the pirates came on board at Amoy, and that their weapons were smuggled on board by stevedores. The lack of co-operation from Canton meant that the Navy was unable to follow up action at sea by punitive expeditions against the pirates' shore bases. The Kwangtung authorities had been much more co-operative in the first few decades after the cession of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 REGIONAL APPROACH TO CHINESE HISTORY 23 This may violate some of the basic principles of the historian's craft. It means going beyond the documents, or at least reading into them interpretations which the documents per se may not warrant. It means reading between the lines. It may even mean attributing significance to the fact that a document does not exist. It means applying the principles of anthropology, sociology, agricultural economics, even psychology to events which occurred many years ago. ....a tricky procedure at best. But it may, in the end, bring us closer to what "really happened" than has heretofore been the case. NOTES 1 Ch'ü Tung-tsu, Local Government under the Ch'ing, Cambridge, 1962. 2 Hsiao Kung-chuan, Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century, Seattle, 1960. 3 These are the districts (hsien) of Nan-hai, P'an-yü #, Hsun-teh 顺德, Tung-kuan 东莞, Hsin-an 新安, and Hsiang-shan 香山, 4 Cf. M. Greenberg, British Trade and the Opening of China, London, 1951; P. C. Kuo, A Critical Study of the Opium War, New York, 1935; H. P. Chang, Commissioner Lin and the Opium War, Cambridge, 1964; etc. 5 For account of this pirate's exploits see C. F. Neumann, History of the Pirates Who Infested the South China Sea from 1807 to 1810, London, 1831. This is a translation of a Chinese work entitled Ching-hai fen-chih 靖海氛志 by Yuan Yung-lun 阮永纶 6 The Indo-Chinese Gleaner, July, 1821, 7 The Canton Register, July 26, 1828. 8 The Chinese Repository, June, 1834, p. 83. 9 The Canton Register, February 18, 1828, 10 Ibid., October 3, 1829. 11 Ibid., December 12, 1829 and September 6, 1830. 12 The Chinese Repository, June, 1832, p. 80. 13 The Canton Register, March 8, 1828. 14 The Chinese Repository, April, 1836, p. 566. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Kwang-chou fu chih (广州府志), Canton, 1879 ed., chuan 81, p. 286. 18 The Canton Register, June 18, 1829, 19 For details see pertinent issues of The Chinese Repository, The Chinese Courier; The Canton Register; Kwang-chou fu chih, p. 306. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 50 HERBERT FRANKE monks, missionaries and translators of the holy scriptures came from Iranian Central Asia at a time when there was certainly no universal peace in Asia. But was there really something like a Pax Mongolica, even during a very short time? The Mongol rulers of China who had adopted the Chinese dynastic name of Yüan in 1271, regarded themselves, from Khubilai on, more as rulers of China than of a universal empire of which China was only a part. This is reflected, as we shall see, in the Yuan dynastic history which is usually vague and uninformed as soon as a geographical area outside of China proper is mentioned. Although Khubilai was the Great Khan of all Mongols, his rule was always threatened by dissatisfied pretenders who tried to set up their own kingdoms in the Northern and Western regions, and there are recorded, in Chinese historical sources at least, as many feuds, campaigns and full-scale wars with other Mongol rulers and pretenders as good-will embassies from the other Mongol ulus (dominions); those of Chagatai in Central Asia, the Ilkhans in Persia and the Golden Horde rulers of Southwestern Siberia and South Russia. The situation, at least in the fourteenth century, among the non-Chinese ulus was not much different. The Golden Horde rulers and the Persian Ilkhans were, to say the least, not friendly to each other and war was frequent. In short, it seems as if the Pax Mongolica is no more than one of those brilliant simplifications that can serve as chapter titles for world history books. There remains some doubt whether it was easier to get from, say, Venice or the Black Sea region or Persia to China under the Mongols than some centuries earlier. However that may be, there can be no doubt that there was a certain amount of cultural contact between China and the non-Chinese West under the rule of the Mongol emperors. But the fact remains that there was no Chinese Marco Polo, no Chinese Rubruk or Giovanni da Montecorvino. China, it seems, was not very much interested in learning more about the countries of the West; we have in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries no Chinese pilgrims like I-ching and Hsüan-tsang who had travelled to India in search of the Buddhist religion. There was no appeal and no challenge to learn more about the West. This relative indifference towards the civilization outside one's own geographical habitat and cultural background is to be seen in The Secret History of the Mongols, This fascinating book, the oldest ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g The Travelling Palace of Southern Sung 35 its followers to a nearby islet, Ku-ta (†) or Ancient Pagoda, Tung-lung Island.19 In the autumn they proceeded to Ch'ien-wan (*) which is now definitely identified as Tsun-wan (now written) along the western coast of Kowloon. Two months later, the Mongol army, which had been pursuing them along the shore, began to attack. The boy Emperor sailed to Hsiu-shan (ƒ), now known as Hu-men or the Bogue. Continuously under pressure from the Mongols, Tuan Tsung passed by Hsiang-shan District (at present Chung-shan) and reached Tseng-o (#4), south of Macao, where his ship was badly damaged by a typhoon. He himself fell into the sea but was rescued. The terrible shock led him to contract a fatal disease. He was sick on board ship until the spring of 1278, when the whole fleet sailed northward back to the harbour at the mouth of the Pearl River. By that time Canton had been recaptured by some royalists and so they felt safe enough to anchor and encamp at Kang-chou which is identified as Ta-yu-shan or Lantau Island20. Two months later he died there. His younger brother Ping succeeded him on the throne and became the last emperor of Sung. He named the new reign Hsiang Hsing (#) and the 1st year began in the next month, still 1278. In the 6th month the new emperor had to sail away with the whole fleet southwestward until they arrived at Ya-Shan of the Hsin-hui District. Finally, in the 2nd month of the next year (spring 1279), they fought the last battle against the Mongol forces commanded by the arch-traitor Chang Hung-fan (K). As a result of the defeat the whole army perished. The boy Emperor with his royal seal was tied to the body of his prime minister, Lu Hsiu-fu, who plunged into the sea, to be followed by thousands of court officials in a mass suicide. When the Queen Mother Young heard of the tragic and heroic death of the Emperor she also drowned herself, thus ending the long reign of 315 years of the Northern and Southern Sung Dynasty. Before concluding this talk let me point out that besides the above story there is a deep and important meaning to be derived from our study of the Travelling Palace of Southern Sung in Kowloon. Throughout the Sung Dynasty, China was frequently invaded by neighbouring foreign tribes. Almost every year there was war, not only against the Hsi Hsia (the Tangut), but also, in turn, the Liao (Khitan), the Chin (Nuchen) and the Mongols. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 82 A. D. BLUE As I have said, stowaways and private cargo of this kind were considered legitimate 'pidgin'. Many snug villas on the south coast of England and the Clyde coast of Scotland owe their origin to legitimate 'pidgin' and 'squeeze'. Opium, drugs, and arms and ammunition came into a different category, however, and Europeans involved in this kind of 'pidgin' were usually acting under duress. Any unsolved murder, suicide, or disappearance of a European officer invariably gave rise to lurid rumours of entanglement with unscrupulous opium gangs. I once found a dozen or so small flat tins, like sardine cans, tucked away among some clothes in a rarely used drawer in my cabin. I was new on the coast at the time, and pleasantly thrilled when told that it was opium. I was advised that the best thing to do was to throw it over the side, and the outcome was that the messroom boy disappeared at the next port. My only other experience of opium was its sickly sweet smell, which I used to encounter when going along the 'tween decks at night. There were always a few groups of passengers there indulging in a mild session of opium smoking. Even today, some forty years later, any similar smell takes me back to the dimly lit 'tween decks of the Antung, Kwangtung, or Kiangsu, and revives all my old memories of the China coast. 'China coasters' were run on the compradore system in those days, a maritime analogy to the system common in much of Sino-Western commerce ashore in the ports. Under this system the deck passenger accommodation was hired from the owners by a Chinese compradore, who carried his own staff to look after the deck passengers. The compradore was also in charge of the cargo, for which in turn he was paid by the owners, and his staff which looked after the deck passengers when at sea acted as stevedores and tallymen in port. The compradore was responsible for stolen or damaged cargo, and insured himself against this, often through the owners acting in their capacity as insurance brokers. The chief steward and his staff looked after the captain, officers, and saloon passengers; while the bosun and Number One Fireman each catered for his own department. The compradore was a responsible Chinese business man, with influential connections at all the ports at which his ship called, and a great part of the ship's success depended on him. Harmonious relations between the captain and the compradore, therefore, were ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 91 LAND AND LEADERSHIP IN THE HONG KONG REGION OF KWANGTUNG IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY* JAMES HAYES This article concerns a fringe area of the Kwangtung Province of South China and deals with land and leadership on the island of Lantau. Lantau or in its Chinese form (L) is the largest offshore island of what, since 1898, has been styled the New Territories of British Hong Kong. Lantau is roughly fifteen miles long by five-and-a-half miles broad. The island takes the form of a mountain range which runs, with breaks, along its whole length on a N.E.S.W. axis. The main peaks of this range are around 3,000 feet high. Most of the cultivated land is situated around the coast and at the time of the British lease amounted to a little less than 2,660 acres; that is, only a few square miles. The main crop was and still is rice, harvested twice in July and November. In 1898 the island possessed one market town (population 2,000) situated at its north-west extremity. This place was a salt-producing centre and a considerable fishing port. There were also about fifty small villages on the island. At a carefully-conducted census taken some years after the lease, four of these villages had populations in excess of 200 persons (the largest 363), another seven had more than 100 inhabitants, whilst the remainder were under that figure. The total land population was then over 6,700 persons, mainly Cantonese. Most of the villages were inhabited entirely by Cantonese or Hakka clans, though some of them were of mixed settlement. There was also a boat population of around 5,500 persons whose craft were based on the market town and other anchorages along the coastline. Before 1898 Lantau was part of the San On (**) district of the Kwangtung province. Though it was not far by sea from the This paper is a slightly amended version of that presented at the XVIIth International Congress of Chinese Studies held at the University of Leeds in 1965. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 104 A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT 新安城: By the REV. Mr. Krone (Editor's Note. Beginning with Vol. 5 (1965) the Society made a start with reprinting selected articles from the Transactions of the old China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society which existed in Hong Kong between 1846-59. The only known complete extant sets of the Transactions in the Colony are the microfilmed sets recently acquired by the Library of the University of Hong Kong and by the Society. The article reprinted below is taken from pp. 71-105 of the sixth and last volume of Transactions, published in Hong Kong in 1859. It is a valuable contemporary account of the north-western part of the San On (Hsin An) district (新安縣) and will be of special interest to readers of this Journal in that it describes something of the history and conditions of life in the area just beyond the present Sino-British frontier in the New Territories. Its re-appearance in print will also provide scholars with the text in a more accessible form than the microfilmed sets which are available here and elsewhere. The author was a missionary of the Rhenish Missionary Society which, according to the account of its history given in The China Mission Hand Book (Shanghai, American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1896) pp. 272-275 came to South China in 1847. From this account, Mr. Krone appears to have come to China about 1850 and worked there for upwards of ten years. He seems to have gone on leave thereafter and died in the Red Sea on his way back to China from Germany. The article is reprinted here exactly as it appears in the original, despite a few obvious errors and inconsistencies). A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT 新安城: Read before the Society, February 24th, 1858 THE District of Sanon, to which the mainland opposite to the Island of Hongkong belongs, is one of the fourteen districts of the department of Canton. During the Han dynasty, and at the time of the Three States, the present Sanon District, together with those of Túng-kun and Pok-lo, formed only one large district, bearing the name of Pok-lo *. and Túng-kun Under the following dynasties, Sanon ✯✯ constituted one district, which was denominated Túng-kun 東莞 ★, afterwards Po-on, and since the 2d year of the Emperor Chi-tok of the Tong dynasty, Túng-kun ✯ £. 東莞. Hung-mo, the founder of the Ming dynasty (1368-1399 A.D.), found it necessary in the 27th year of his reign to appoint an officer with the title "Shou-yu-sho"-Protector of the region, in order to protect the population, which was rapidly increasing, against the bands of robbers and vagabonds which infested the district. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 106 REV. MR. KRONE To the North of Deep Bay is Chik-wan Bay, on the shore of which is situated the renowned temple of Tien-hau. To the South is the Bay of Toon-mun-wan, near Castle-peak. The open sea forms the Southern and Eastern boundary of the district. Mirs Bay, the most remarkable of those which indent the Eastern shore of Sanon, is called by the Chinese "Ti-po Hoi" 大步海. It is worthy of notice, that when the question of ceding Hong-kong to the British crown was brought before the Emperor Tau-kwang, it was asserted that the island had never really belonged to China; and it appears remarkable that, in an official geographical and statistical account of Sanon, in 8 volumes, published about 40 years ago, no mention of Hongkong is made, although islands much more insignificant are accurately included. However, in the list of villages of the Sanon District, the names of Shek-pai-wan (Aberdeen) and Check-chu (Stanley), are found. Among the numerous Straits between the different islands the most worthy of notice are:-- 1. The Cap-sui-mûn between Lantao and the two small Islands of Tsing-yeu and Ma-wan; Kai-check-mûn, between the two last mentioned islands and the mainland itself, and Ly-yue-mûn and East-tong-mûn, which constitute the Eastern passage from Hongkong harbour. According to Chinese authorities, the greater diameter of the district, from North to South, measures 380 le, and the lesser, from East to West, 270 le. But it must be remembered that the measurement from North to South extends to the southermost of the small islands which are reckoned as belonging to the district. The district is generally mountainous, and the mountain ridges extend nearly to the shore, leaving only small plains at their feet, which are occupied by villages and hamlets. These mountains have usually a dreary and barren aspect, and resemble those of Hong-kong and the opposite mainland. The granite rocks are scantily covered with soil, and are overgrown with grass. A luxuriant underwood is found in the ravines, but trees are seldom met with, though groves of them, evidently planted, are generally found in the neighbourhood of villages, Buddhist monasteries, and temples. The Chinese are accustomed to burn down the grass on the tops. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 138 SALT MANUFACTURE IN HONG KONG S. Y. LIN Editor's Note. This article, which is of considerable ethnographic and nearly thirty years after-historical interest, first appeared in the pre-war publication The Hong Kong Naturalist (1930-41), Volume X, No. 1, January 1940. The editor of this interesting series, Dr. G. A. C. Herklots, Reader in Biology at the University of Hong Kong 1928-45 and Principal and Director of Research at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, Trinidad 1953-60, has kindly given permission to reproduce it here. It is hoped that the article will be of interest to present-day residents of Hong Kong as well as providing for scholars a record of salt-production on the South China coast by both the leaching (percolation) and solar (evaporation) processes, now practically defunct in Tai O where the salt pans have been almost deserted for several years past. The author, Dr. Shu-yen Lin, who is now with the Fisheries Division, Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction Taipei, Taiwan (Formosa) has also expressed his agreement to the article being reproduced. I have added a few notes which, it is hoped, will be of some interest and may encourage others to take up this interesting subject in more detail. In three places only is salt prepared from sea-water in the Colony namely at Tai O, a fishing village on Lantau island, Sha-taukok on the frontier in Starling Inlet and San Hui in Castle Peak Bay. Of these the first is the most important. The salt marsh at Tai O, which occupies an area of about 70 acres and is enclosed by high dykes to prevent flooding at high tide or by storms, is owned by three companies, two of which are slightly bigger than the third. The annual production in 1938 amounted to about 25,000 piculs (1,488 tons) valued at about $27,500. A small portion is consumed locally, chiefly by the fishermen in the salting of fish, and all the rest is exported. The companies lease the salines from Government and sub-let to individual salt-makers or hire them on a piece-wage basis in the form of shares in the profits. In the former case each salt-farmer leases a small saline of about 1/10 acre from the company, paying a rental of $2.00 per month, and endeavours to produce as much salt as possible from this limited area of land. The salt produced, however, must be sold to the company from which the saline has been leased. The company should be able to pay the farmer at a fixed price (50 cents per picul for 1938-1939), immediately on receiving the salt. On the average, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g NOTES AND QUERIES 153 Long before the arrival of the Europeans in south China (1514) the Chinese were manufacturing cannon. Examples of them, some bearing fourteenth century dates, may be seen in museums in north China. The earliest one known, bearing a date equivalent to 1332, is housed in the Historical Museum in Peking. For an illustration see my short article in ISIS55(no.180), June 1964, pp. 193-4. At the beginning of the sixteenth century a new type appears, apparently introduced from Java or Cochin-China. It is known in Chinese literature as fo-lang-chi (or Farangi-Franks), the name applied slightly later to the Portuguese. This type is remarked as early as 1510. (Cf. Pelliot in T'oung Pao, 1948, pp. 199-207.) In the struggles against the Japanese and other pirates who infested the coast during the Chia-ching reign (1522-66) these cannon were frequently put to use not only on land but also at sea. (See Chao Shih-chen, Shen-ch'i p'u i, published 1598. Chao knew what he was writing about, as he was a drafter in the Grand Secretariat at the court in Peking, concerned with military defense, and is said to have manufactured some firearms himself.) Ming dynasty illustrations of war vessels sometimes show cannon mounted on deck. (See Mao Yüan-i, Wu-pei chih, published 1621, chüan 117. Mao was an expert on military affairs, and saw service both in Liao-ning and Fukien.) In the effort to repel the Manchu invaders in the north the Ming court sought the aid of both the Spanish and the Portuguese. Huang K'o-tsuan, for example, reports that when he was serving in the ministry of war (up to 1619) he recruited people from Luzon who could manufacture cannon; they made twenty-eight pieces, which he sent up to the northeast frontier in Manchuria. These must have been formidable (or Huang was trying to impress his superiors) for one cannon is said to have weighed over three thousand catties, and a shot could dispose of some seven hundred barbarians! (Ming shih-lu, Hsi-tsung, 4/29b. I owe this reference to Dr. Ray Huang, visiting professor at Columbia University.)5 * The importation of cannon and cannoneers from Macao about this same time is well known. In 1621 the well-known Christian convert and high official Hsü Kuang-ch'i ordered a shipment sent up to Peking, and a year later he recommended that the Jesuit fathers, Nicolo Longobardi and Manuel Diaz, proceed to Macao to purchase ten cannon and a few soldiers to operate them. In ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 80 W. SCHOFIELD Antiquities in 1939, bulletin no. 11. On the Danh Do La site, a sand-bank, he describes a section 4.5 m. above sea level, where at 45 to 89 cm. below the ground surface is a culture stratum with potsherds, stones and pumice. His derivation of the pumice from the East Indies, while possible, is perhaps less likely than my suggestion of a more northern origin, as the prevailing winds in the South China seas are undoubtedly north-east to south-east, and typhoons generally make their approach felt by violent easterly gales. All but three of the pumice-bearing sandbanks in Hong Kong face east, and one of the three, Tai Wan in Lamma, faces south. LIFE AND INDUSTRY OF THE INHABITANTS The only industry of which we can be certain is that still carried on by boat-people living near Tung Kwu, namely, fishing: yet there is little direct evidence of it in the finds. A rough stone ring collected by Professor Shellshear, and a stone axe blunted almost beyond recognition, with a notch on each side for attaching a rope or rattan, most likely used as a net sinker, and found loose on the surface of the isthmus during a visit by Professor Andersson, are the only direct traces. Yet if people ever lived on the island, this was almost the only resource open to them apart from the primitive 'slash and burn' cultivation indicated by the digging-stones. The food vessels left for the dead, the store jars, and the cooking stands they placed their hot round-bottomed caldrons on, indicate not only a settlement, probably shifting, but a cemetery. Tiled houses were no doubt a later development, going back no further than the Tang dynasty. The main interest of the relics found lies in the light they throw on the culture and life of the men who lived there before the coming of the colonists from the feudal principality of Yuet, and so before Chinese influence was strongly felt.* * James Watt writes: L Since Mr. Schofield worked on this site, later excavations in China have confirmed that the whole class of stamped designs found on the soft pottery of Tung Kwu (Plates 7 & 8) is unmistakably derived from the decorative art of the Shang culture in the north. Similar, and some identical, designs are found on Shang pottery of all periods (including those from the recently discovered early Shang site at Erh-li-t'ou in north-western Honan). The pattern of raised studs set in the meshes of a rhombic lattice or a "compound lozenge" is also one of the chief decorations appearing on bronzes of the Anyang phase of Shang culture. Further evidence of Shang ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 193 LOFTS, Prof. B. - LOSEBY, Miss P. LOTHROP, F. B.* + LUCAS, Col. E. S. S. - LUM Miss Ada - LUPTON, G. C. M. LUTZ, Hans F. - MA, Prof. Meng - MACK, A. M. MACKEITH, J. S. MACKENZIE, J. MACLEAN, Mrs. M. - MAGEE, M. W. P. MAHLKE, W. J. - . · Dept. of Zoology, University of Hong Kong, H.K. c/o Russ & Co., Rooms 523/5 Gloucester Building, H.K. 176 Milk Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, U.S.A. 94, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. 142, Boundary Street, Kowloon, c/o Colonial Secretariat, H.K. Tak Wai Mansion, Flat B, 3rd Floor, Man Fuk Road, Kowloon. Institute of Oriental Studies, University of Hong Kong, H.K. No. 34 Wilton Crescent, London, S.W.1., England. 80 Robinson Road, H.K. Davie, Boag & Co., Ltd., Jardine House, H.K. 5, Peak Pavilions, The Peak, H.K. Operations, Cathay Pacific Airways, Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon. 19, South Bay Close, Repulse Bay, H.K. MANSFIELD, Miss M. B. c/o Diocesan Girls' School, Jordan Road, Kowloon. MAO, Dr. Wen-Chee, Philip 326-8 Tung Ying Building, 100 Nathan Road, Kowloon. MARSHALL, Dr. P. M. MARTINHO-MARQUES, E. J. MAYNARD, Prof. D. M. McBAIN, E. B. McBAIN, G. MCCABE, Mrs. S. J. McCOY, Dr. John McDOUALL, J. C.* c/o Dept. of Zoology, University of Hong Kong, H.K. + + P. O. Box 104, Macau, + Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, California, U.S.A. c/o Geo. McBain & Co., S.C.M.P. Building, H.K. c/o Imperial Chemical Industries (China) Ltd., 16th Floor, Union House, H.K. Flat 1, Abermor Court, May Road, H.K. Division of Modern Languages, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, U.S.A. 13, The Green, St. Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, England. Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 83 landed in Cuba alive. Losses of up to 40% were not uncommon on such voyages, and it is not surprising that the emigrant trade was sometimes called the "Pig Trade".* Most of this emigration continued to be in sailing ships as the early steamships were not particularly popular in the emigrant trade; it was thought the passengers were not landed in such good condition as from sailing ships. The number of days at sea was not so important as the number and condition of the passengers landed. It is probable, however, that like the contemporary objections against carrying tea in steamships, the objections against steamships in the emigrant trade were mainly based on prejudice. Between the 1840's and the 1870's, when emigration to South America and the West Indies was practically uncontrolled, conditions on the long passage from the China coast were as bad as those on the notorious 'Middle Passage' of the African Slave Trade. Sometimes they were so intolerable that the Chinese rose in revolt, and attempted to kill the captain and crew. Sometimes they would set the ship on fire, hoping either to capture the ship or escape in the confusion. Emigrant ships were usually provided with barricades on deck in those days, like those on convict ships, to prevent the coolies from attacking the officers' and crews' quarters, a device later adopted as an anti-piracy precaution on late 19th and early 20th century emigrant ships in the South-east Asian trades. During this same period Indians were emigrating to the West Indies, Mauritius, Fiji, and other places, and the Indian section of the emigrant trade has been studied more intensively than the Chinese. The Indian trade was not subject to such great abuses as the Chinese, as it was under more effective control at each end. Indians were also more amenable to discipline, so there was less danger of revolt on Indian emigrant ships. Their passivity and personal habits, however, made them more liable to illness, and the greatest dangers in the Indian emigrant trade * S. Wells Williams, Chinese Commercial Guide (Hong Kong, 1863) pp. 223-224, shows that coolies for the American countries were known as "chü-tsai ## or pigs" among contemporary Cantonese "by an allusion to their [i.e. the Cantonese] mode of catching and carrying off swine in round baskets". It is not known whether this phrase, which is still remembered today as 7, is of earlier origin. Ed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 90 A. D. BLUE with this menace. North-bound ships also carried several dead Chinese in their coffins, and spare coffins to accommodate any who might die on their way home. These latter were not buried at sea, but were invariably carried on to China for interment in their ancestral village, Not every Chinese who emigrated to the 'Nanyang' became a wealthy 'towkay', but most overseas Chinese communities were by Chinese standards prosperous, and all retained their liking for traditional Chinese foods and delicacies. This resulted in a substantial south-bound trade in such things as Swatow cabbages and oranges, live and preserved fish, lychees, Chinese wine, and preserved eggs; all of which paid high freight either to the shipping company or to some member of the crew. Amoy and Swatow had always been the major ports for emigration to South-east Asia, and they retained this importance until emigration came to an end shortly after the outbreak of the Pacific War; while Hong Kong was always the base for most of the ships engaged in the emigrant trade. The China Navigation Company was the coast company most concerned with the emigrant trades to the south during this century, although the three principal coast companies — China Navigation, Indo-China Steam Navigation, and China Merchants Steam Navigation Companies — were all equally concerned with the deck passenger trades on the coast and on the Yangtse. L For most of the inter-war years the China Navigation Company operated weekly services from Amoy and Swatow to Bangkok and Singapore respectively, with four ships on each service. They had also one ship on a fortnightly service between Amoy and Manila, and four ships on a weekly service between Shanghai and Haiphong, with calls at the intermediate ports of Amoy, Swatow, Hong Kong, and Canton. In this latter trade cargo and deck passengers were equally important. The Bangkok trade had previously been operated by a German company, Nordeutscher Lloyd, which had bought out an earlier British concern, the Scottish Oriental Company, in 1899. Butterfield and Swire had been agents for both companies in south China, and when the German company in turn sold out during the early years of this century, Butterfield and Swire inherited this increasingly valuable ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 93 islands of Nauru and Ocean Island; and the other is the Pilgrim Trade from Malaya to the Red Sea Port of Jeddah. The passengers in this latter trade are mainly Malays, who travel in near-luxury conditions comparable with European tourist class. Food and accommodation are suited to Moslem tastes and prejudices, an Iman travels on the ship, and there is a mosque provided in the accommodation. Later Chinese emigration to South-east Asia was largely the result of the economies imposed on the region by the European colonial powers, and the agricultural and industrial development which these powers initiated. On achieving independence at various times after 1945 each country has attempted with varying degrees of success - to weaken the economic and political position of their Chinese populations, and in the early 1960s Indonesia even attempted their repatriation on a substantial scale. It is in this country that the Chinese have been subjected to the harshest and most cruel treatment, with thousands being killed in pogroms reminiscent of the worst years in Indonesia and the Philippines in the earlier period. It may be that the contribution of the overseas Chinese to the economic development of South-east Asia, has in these latter years at least been counter-balanced by the political instability caused by their presence, but for this they are not wholly to blame. NOTE An account of the Ch'ing government's attitude towards the emigration of its subjects is given at pp. 26-29 of Victor Purcell's The Chinese in Southeast Asia (London, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 1965). In his well-known work, The Middle Kingdom (London, W. H. Allen & Co., revised edition, 1883) vol. 1, pp. 278-9 S. Wells Williams states that "The obstacles put in the way of emigrating beyond sea, both in law and prejudice, operate to deter respectable persons from leaving their native land. Necessity has made the law a dead letter, and thousands annually leave their homes." He then quotes the following striking passage from W. H. Medhurst's China: Its State and Prospects (1838). "Emigration is going on in spite of restrictions and disabilities, from a country where learning and civilization reign, and where all the dearest interests and prejudices of the emigrants are found, to lands like Burmah, Siam, Cambodia, Tibet, Manchuria, and the Indian Archipelago, where comparative ignorance and barbarity prevail, and where the extremes of a tropical or frozen region are to be exchanged for a mild and temperate climate." ================================================================================ 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 MARITIME CHART OF 1780 SHOWING HONG KONG HENRY D. Talbot* A recent acquisition by the Map Library of the Department of Geography and Geology of the University of Hong Kong is of some interest as it appears to be the earliest known British map or chart depicting the island of Hong Kong. The title is "A Chart of the China Sea from the Island of Sancian to Pedra Branca with the course of the River Tigris from Canton to Macao from a Portuguese draught communicated by Captain Hayter and compared with the Chinese Chart of the Macao Pilots". The places mentioned need little explanation as they are names still used today. Sancian is also called St. John's Island and is to the west of Macao, while Pedra Branca is today called Pedro Blanco and is an isolated rock, used as a navigational landmark, to the east of Hong Kong. The River Tigris is the name given to the river up to Canton, derived from the name of the narrows called "Bocca Tigris" (Tiger's Mouth) in Portuguese, a translation of the Chinese name. The Captain Hayter is evidently Captain George Hayter of the East India Company Ship York. This ship was in Chinese waters frequently from 1741 up to 1786 and Hayter was compiler of another chart dated 1787. The chart was "... Printed for R. Sayer and J. Bennett Map and Chart-sellers No. 53 Fleet Street, as the Act directs, 29 Nov. 1780" Robert Sayer (1725-1794) and John Bennett were well known as map-sellers at the end of the eighteenth century. It is recorded that Robert Sayer retired in 1794 after almost half a century in the map chart trade. The size of the chart is 950 × 640 mm., while the size of the map itself is 781 × 596 mm. The latter is the length along the neatlines, the inner border of the map. * Mr. Talbot is Lecturer in the Department of Geography and Geology in the University of Hong Kong. He was Hon. Editor of this Journal in 1964. ================================================================================ 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-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 140 S. F. BALFOUR On the one hand are the Tanka and Hoklo who do not know the use of stone in building, who live by fishing and who represent in fact a water culture. On the other hand is the culture of the wall-building and rice-growing Hakka and Punti, who migrated overland from parts of China unconnected with these shores. It is not correct to say that these two cultures merge, for clearly the land culture is a much stronger force than the water culture and has already almost entirely smothered it. Such has been the fate of many ancient peoples who were pushed to the seaboard by invaders, and have finally disappeared. II. ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE Our analysis of the existing population has revealed that the order of migration into the region corresponds roughly with the height above sea level of each part of the community. The Tanka and Hoklo, who were the earliest people, live on the seacoast, the Punti who came next occupy the fertile plains and valleys, and the latest comers, the Hakka, are to be found mostly in the uplands. We must now consider traces of a still earlier culture found as it were below sea level, buried in the ground. The principal archaeological sites are on the South coast of Lamma and Lantao islands. Evidence of primitive communities has been found buried below three to four feet of sand in dunes only a few yards from the high water mark. There are no traces of houses or of any construction. Agriculture would have been possible at some distance from the settlements but not particularly near them. The sites are not easy of access from any other place except by sea, nor are they conveniently situated as regards access to the Canton river estuary. This must be qualified by the fact that finds have been made in other places including hillsides and islands in the Canton river estuary, but in much lesser quantities. Outside the region important excavations have been made near Swabue in the Hoifung district and this link points, in the absence of other evidence, to a distribution eastward along the coast. Unfortunately it has not been possible to find out the age of the settlements by comparing the strata of the soil, as is generally done in archaeology. Indications as to the rate of accumulation ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH 151 Tonkin delta set up an independent kingdom comprising both the Tonkin and Canton estuaries. His capital was Pun Yü, the modern Canton, and was the first walled city to be built in Nan Hai. The connection between North China was kept up and tribute was sent regularly to the Northern capital. By this means the routes between Kwangtung and the Yangtze were developed. An important step was the opening of a canal which made a complete water route between the Yangtze via the Tung Ting Lake to the west river at the modern Wu Chow and thence to Canton. The canal exists to this day. When the kingdom of Nan Hai was finally subdued by the Hans in 111 B.C. a Chinese river fleet descended by this route onto Pun Yü and sacked it. After this victory the Han emperors extended their direct rule over the whole of the coast line from Canton to the Tonkin delta and farther south to places in modern Annam. Min Yüeh, that is the eastern part of Kwangtung, the whole of Fukien and a part of Chekiang, continued to be governed more or less independently. There was no extensive colonization by the Hans probably because their effort was directed towards the west and their ambition to link up through India their vast empire in the North West with the conquests they had made in the South. Not being a maritime people and possessing only a river fleet they were not interested in maritime routes, and the only effort they made on the sea was the conquest of Hainan Island. For this reason the earliest settlement of the Chinese spread west, not east, from Pun Yü, across Kwangtung and Kwangsi provinces. We can trace it in the walled cities built at that time. There were a group of them round the present site of Canton which have now been abandoned. Wu Chow or Ts'ang Wu was the point of contact on the west river, between it and Chiao Chih or Hanoi was the modern Nanning or Wu Lin. There were other towns built on the littoral such as Lim Chow and Ko Chow. The Chinese inhabiting these cities were soldiers, political exiles and traders. There cannot have been much agricultural settlement. In the fortified centres the Han conquerors taught the natives some of their arts, the use of metals, as we have seen, was among them, and in exchange took all the produce and sent it to North China. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH 155 not a general practice, it was probably due to the easiness of running before the wind that the ships could become such large hulks. Unfortunately, we do not know who built them. By the eighth century, the boats had become huge. "Ladders several tens of feet high had to be used to get on board." The trade was organised. Foreign captains had to be registered with the Office of Trading Ships, which inspected manifests and collected export and import duties. These captains had legal powers to deal with offending passengers when at sea. In 758, the Mohammedans had so much the upper hand in Canton that they yielded to the temptation of sacking and burning the city and making to sea with the loot. However, trade continued to flourish, the principal imports being, according to Soleyman, ivory, frankincense, ingots of copper, turtle shells, and rhinoceros horns (with which the Chinese used to make girdles), and the principal exports: silk and porcelain. The foreign ships also carried as passengers Chinese Buddhists visiting the holy places in Java and India. In the biographies of sixty pilgrims composed by I Ching,12 37 of them took the sea route to India. Some of these went from the Tonkin delta region, but the majority started from Canton or returned thither. The compass was still unknown in those days, and the first mention of its use for navigation in Chinese literature occurs at the beginning of the 12th century. V. T'UN MUN In the preceding sections, a picture has been given of the elements which made up the population of South China up to the end of the T'ang dynasty. We now come to our region — the peninsula South East of the Canton delta, and we must do our best to piece together such fragments of historical knowledge that we can find into a sequence which will indicate how its population developed and thrived. The first historical reference to any place in the region occurs in a list of itineraries from China to the Persian Gulf collected 11 Tang Kuo Shih Pu, by Li Chan. 12 義淨,大唐西行求法高僧傳 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 156 S. F. BALFOUR between A.D. 785 and 805 by a Chinese called Chia Tan and which are published in the T'ang official history. The text concerning our region reads: "From Canton travelling towards the South East for 200 li you reach Mount T'un Mun. The name T'un Mun or garrisoned entrance is still given to the Castle Peak region. The landmark is in fact Castle peak itself. It must have been known centuries before the publication of the text we have cited and the foreign ships coming to and from Canton must have anchored in its neighbourhood in such numbers that a Chinese garrison was sent to control and protect them. This garrison was appointed during the Tang dynasty. There is some difficulty in placing the locality of the anchorage. It may have been Castle Peak Bay itself, or any of the harbours between it and Fat T'ong Mun. The Arab Chain of Chronicles gives the following description of the route to Canton: "Seven days are needed to pass through the Straits between the mountains. Then you reach fresh water and proceed to Khanfu. ** There may, of course, have been confusion in these accounts, and the area of approach to Canton also called by the Arabs "the Gates of China" may have been elsewhere than our region. On the other hand this description fits in with the nature of the passage from Fat T'ong Mun to T'un Mun in all respects except that it takes less than seven days to pass through. Perhaps, however, these seven days were meant to include the administrative delays which ships entering Canton were bound to encounter. There is no local tradition or archaeological evidence of the passage of foreign traders past T'un Mun, or of the site of the garrison. One theory is that it was near Castle Peak Bay and at that period there was a channel connecting with Deep Bay which made the Castle Peak range itself an island. Amongst other things the garrison was in charge of the salt fields in the district, and it seems quite likely that at that time the salt fields covered this channel. The mountain itself is supposed to have been visited by a Buddhist saint in 428 A.D., who journeyed across the sea in a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH 157 begging bowl. However, since the first reference to Buddhist worship on the mountain occurs in 954, when an officer of the garrison called Ch'an carved a figure of Buddha which he put in a cave, we can assume that its Buddhist connotations were created by the Chinese soldiers. Before being a Buddhist hill it was made famous as a sacred spot by the visit of Han Yü, the famous Confucian scholar and one of the greatest names in Chinese literature. Han Yü was brought up in North China in the same region as Confucius, for whom he had the greatest veneration. He was a particularly intransigent type of philosopher who disliked all signs of mysticism. In 820 he attacked the Emperor for installing a relic of Buddha in the palace. "I am not so naif as to think Your Majesty is deceived by Buddhism," he wrote. "This ceremony is no more than a pageant got up to please the people, and how could your august wisdom deem it anything else?" For these scathing remarks he was sent into exile to Chao Chou, which was then one of the most remote outposts of the T'ang Empire. On his way, whether coming or going, he passed by this region, and according to the Topography, "ascended the mountain of T'un Mun and looked over the vast unfathomable ocean and the forests and waters and felt that it was indeed a sacred spot.” This local tradition is confirmed by a passage from one of his poems which describes a storm at sea with the lines: "Tun Mun is a high mountain they say, But even the waves swallow it up." Han Yü held an official post at Chao Chou. Although the place is outside our region it is worth while illustrating the conditions then prevailing in South China by quoting from his famous ‘Address to the Crocodiles." Han Yü was asked by the aborigines to drive away crocodiles by throwing charms into a river. His address to the crocodiles was thrown into the river by the chief of the garrison. Part of it reads as follows: "If the crocodiles have any intelligence they should listen to the words of the prefect of Chao Chou. The great ocean spreads in the South. There live huge whales and monster birds, tiny shrimps and little crabs: all creatures find space and nourishment therein. If the crocodiles start in the morning they will reach the sea by nightfall. I conjure them, if they ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 158 S. F. BALFOUR want to avoid the mandatory officer of the Emperor, to betake their horrid presence to the South within three days. If they do not do so in three days, I shall wait five days. If they do not do so in five days I shall wait a week. If they do not do so in a week it will mean that they definitely refuse to go, and therefore that they do not recognise the prefect nor obey his words. In other words, they are so stupid and bestial that although their prefect speaks to them they neither listen nor understand. Now those who disregard the words of the mandatory officer of the Son of Heaven and who refuse to go away, and those who are too stupid to listen and harm the people deserve to be put to death. Therefore I, the prefect, shall select good archers among the soldiers and people who will use their bows and poisoned arrows to shoot the crocodiles until they are all dead. And let them not complain then, for it will be too late.” A year after, Han Yü was pardoned and allowed to return to North China. His passage in these parts was remembered by the first educated Chinese immigrants and Mount T'un Mun was provided with an inscription (§4§—)13 signed with his name which still stands on a rock at the summit in commemoration of his visit. During the period between the T'ang and Sung dynasties our region was governed from Canton by local kings who styled themselves emperors of the Southern Han dynasty. During this period one or two facts about this region are recorded. One is that in 969 Mount T'un Mun was named as a sacred mountain. The ceremony may have been conducted by the Emperor himself performing the sacrifice. From then onwards Mount T'un Mun was called Shing Shan or "sacred hill." Its modern name of Ts'ing Shan or Green Hill dates from much later. Its Buddhist name is Pu Tu Shan. From another source we learn for the first time that pearl fishing was carried on in this region during the Southern Han dynasty. The text is a petition from a local Chinese of the Yüan dynasty to the Government saying that pearl fishing and the enslavement of the fishers was reviving in the Taipo Sea where it had not been practised since the Southern Han dynasty, and that a repetition of 13 It was written by the ancestor of the Tang clan. See the next section. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 S. F. BALFOUR to be found. In the pearl sea the local Tan and Man14 live near the oyster beds but they are more wretched and starved than the poorest people and are not allowed to get pearls for themselves. It is not possible to locate the parts of the Taipo Sea where this fishing was done. No doubt the appellation Taipo Sea was used, just as T'un Mun, to denote a large indefinite area possibly including most of Mirs Bay. There are, nowadays, oysters on the Canton estuary side only, and these do not give pearls. This text, which can be found in the Topography, gives a picture of the conditions existing when the population of our region was composed mainly of soldiers and aborigines. No doubt cultivation was practised in the neighbourhood of these garrisons by the soldiers themselves or by a few families of Chinese peasants, but rice cultivation on a large scale, such as exists now on all the plains, cannot have existed a thousand years ago. Much of the country must have been jungle. The presence of elephants is shewn by an inscription dated A.D. 962 at a Buddhist temple not far from the present frontier. The inscription describes the erection of a pagoda on a site where elephant bones were collected and buried in order to pacify herds of elephants which were doing great damage in the neighbourhood. A description15 of the event runs as follows: In Ts'ư Fu Shih, a Buddhist temple in Tung Kun district, a stone pagoda was built in the 5th year of the reign of Ta Pao of the Southern Han dynasty with the intention of pacifying the elephants which at that time were doing much damage to the crops. Elephant bones were collected in a heap, and the pagoda raised over them so as to keep the elephants in control. We have already seen that crocodiles were common in South China during the T'ang dynasty, but the presence of elephants as late as the tenth century is a remarkable testimony of the change that the region underwent during less than a thousand years. It seems likely that the nature of the region changed after a process of deforestation. 14 i.e. Tanka and Hoklo. 15 BRÂES, Volume I, page 12. Page 165 Page 166 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 170 S. F. BALFOUR or jumping with great agility from one mast to another cutting down rigging and sails, managed to defeat the rebels.25 This must have happened just after the turmoil of civil war under the last Sung Emperor. During the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644) the problem of local disturbance was still present. The Tanka were always predatory and for the first time an attempt was made to control their anchorages. Tai O and the islands stretching southwest into the sea continued to be a centre of piracy. The famous pirate Man, who gave his name to Lo Man Shan island group known to the Portuguese as the Ladrones, arose in Tai O during the Ming dynasty. This local problem was resolved by placing garrisons along the coast. In the very first year of the Ming dynasty, as soon as Kwangtung was pacified, they began to be organised. In our region forts were built at Tai O and Fat T'ong Mun, and the foundation of Kowloon City as a small administrative centre also dates from the beginning of the Ming dynasty. It was then called Kun Fu Cheung and had little population and no fortifications; its main use was as one of the stations used to enforce the salt monopoly. More important was the military garrison at Po On which had been for generations the site of the Tung Kun commandery, under which the garrison at T'un Mun had controlled the entrance and exit of ships to the Canton estuary.* In 1386 instructions were given to the garrisons of Kwangtung as follows: "Walls and forts are to be built, waste land must be reclaimed, and cultivated land must be protected from the inroads of the Dwarf Robbers (Wo K'ou)."26 This was the name given to the Japanese and Formosan pirates who were active along the entire South China coasts, making forays inland for plunder, during the entire Ming dynasty, and who made an additional problem of coast defence. Foreign traders continued to live in Canton, the city still had its Mohammedan quarter and T'un Mun in our region remained an important anchorage and a place from which foreigners conducted their trading negotiations. These foreigners had been Indians, Persians, and Arabs until the beginning of the 16th century when 25 讀史方語 26 倭寇 * See plate 20 for the local forts. Ed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 34 ! LEIGH R. WRIGHT The issue of Brooke's status revolved around, firstly, the question of whether or not a subject of the Queen could hold the position as a sovereign prince of a foreign state; and, secondly, whether Brooke was in fact an independent ruler or a vassal of the Sultan of Brunei. The issue, however, was not a burning one in the ministries of Whitehall. Despite the fact that Borneo was of concern to Britain as the guardian of the eastern flank of the South China Sea route to the China coast, and was to assume, gradually, more strategic value as first France and later Germany began colonial operations in the area, at mid-century Britain possessed a colony and naval station at Labuan and a (“good strong”) consular treaty with Brunei which gave her a certain measure of control, if she chose to indulge it, in Brunei's relations with foreign states. Most of the Colonial and Foreign Secretaries in London, until the 1870s were not very interested in defining precisely Raja Brooke's status, For the most part, Whitehall grudgingly approved of Brooke's “civilizing influence" in Borneo. Lord Palmerston, Foreign Secretary in 1846, offered naval support for the suppression of piracy, and during a later term of office gave standing orders to the Eastern squadron to visit Sarawak at regular intervals. But the Foreign Office generally held to the view that "it is not the policy of Her Majesty's Government that British subjects should possess territory on the mainland of Borneo". Lord Clarendon, when Foreign Secretary in the mid-1850s, came close to disavowing Brooke's position in Sarawak. In 1853 the Raja took issue with a Foreign Office statement that seemed to assume that Brooke was a vassal of Brunei. Clarendon minuted, It seems to me that the various documents tend to prove how cautiously the government abstained from recognizing his (Brooke's) independence although in various ways the anomalous character of his position has been admitted. But Clarendon did not leave it at that. When in 1855 Spencer St. John succeeded Brooke as Consul in Brunei he suggested to the Foreign Office that he also be accredited to Sarawak as an independent state. The Raja agreed and insisted that the new consul must receive his exequatur from him. This act would render the desired 6 FO to Admiralty, 24 July 1846, FO 12/4. 7 Clarendon minute upon Brooke to FO, 27 September 1853, FO 12/13. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 40 LEIGH R. WRIGHT governs it so well and cheaply for them, they will do nothing for him or Sarawak. When first France and then the United States and Germany showed signs of intruding into Borneo, or when they came close to a potentially threatening position over the important British lines of empire north and south through the South China Sea, or when the Foreign and Colonial Offices in London felt the hot breath of imperial competition, it was then that the offshore colony of Labuan and a by now weak little consular treaty with Brunei were found to be inadequate to justify, in the international arena, Britain's position in Borneo. Sarawak along with North Borneo and Brunei were incorporated into the British empire as protected states. Still for many years Britain assumed no responsibility for the internal administration of Sarawak, and adamantly refused any expenditure of imperial grants for the privilege of colouring these areas pink on the imperial maps of the world. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r EARLY STEAMSHIPS IN CHINA 47 only did she carry troops, but often had a gun brig and several small boats in tow. Diana seemed to produce an effect on the Burmese analogous to that produced on the Mexicans by Cortes' horses. She continued in government service until she was broken up at Calcutta in 1835, and her engines installed in a new ship of the same name. The second Diana was also built at Calcutta, and was employed by the government as a cruiser against pirates in the Straits of Malacca, Although her origin was so closely connected with China, the first Diana never operated in Chinese waters. The first steamship to be seen in China was the Forbes, also built at Calcutta and launched in 1829. The Forbes was much larger than the Diana and cost 300,000 rupees. After she had been running on the Hoogly for several months, the Forbes was chartered by Jardine, Matheson and Company to tow their Jamesina, a barque of 362 tons which had formerly been H. M. S. Curlew, to China. At this time great importance was attached to getting the opium from India to China as quickly as possible in order to command the highest price, and no satisfactory passages had been made from Singapore to China against the north-east monsoon. The opium ships normally waited at Singapore until the monsoon was over before tackling the passage up the South China Sea, so that only one India-China voyage was possible in a season. The Forbes-Jamesina convoy left Calcutta on 14th March 1830; the Forbes having 134 tons of coal on board, two-thirds English and the remainder Indian, while the Jamesina had another 52 tons of Indian coal for the Forbes, besides her main cargo of 840 chests of opium. Good weather was experienced on the passage to Singapore, where they arrived on the 27th, steaming for most of the time at 5-4 knots, and at the most favourable times reaching 7 knots. Four days were spent at Singapore, during which time the boiler was cleaned and bunkering carried out. The monsoon was still strong when they left on 31st, and speed fell first to 3-4 and later to 2-1 knots. By 12th April Forbes had only 12 days' coal left with over 500 miles to go and no sign of the monsoon easing. The Jamesina, therefore, was cast off and Forbes proceeded alone, reaching Lintin on 19th April, the first steamship to be seen in China. The Jamesina arrived two days later. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r 48 A. D. BLUE The Forbes completed the last few days of her passage under sail, in order to reserve a few tons of coal for the river passage. When the Chinese pilot came on board to take her up to Lintin she was under steam with wind and tide against her. He showed no astonishment, however, and quietly gave the helmsman his orders as if everything was normal. At last the captain could stand his bland indifference no longer, and asked him if he had ever seen a steamship before. The pilot calmly replied that this mode of propulsion had once been common in many parts of China, but had fallen into disuse. He knew that everything was alright so long as black smoke came from the funnel, but as soon as white steam appeared he was uneasy. Chinese acquainted with 'pidgin English' came to call a paddle steamer like the Forbes "outside walkee", and a screw steamer "inside walkee". Although this attempt to beat the monsoon failed in terms of the charter, it was still considered a success. During the passage between Singapore and Lintin coal had been transhipped from the Jamesina to the Forbes three times, each transhipment taking 3 to 4 hours. It was thought that 2 or 3 days could have been saved by speedier bunkering at Singapore and speedier transhipment at sea. That the experiment was not repeated was due to several factors. One was the lack of suitable fuel at Canton; the Forbes burned wood on her return passage. Another was the prospect of objections from the Chinese authorities. The most important factor, however, was the greatly improved sailing ships which were being built at that particular time. In 1829, just a year before the Forbes-Jamesina experiment, the first and most famous of the opium clippers, the Red Rover, appeared on the scene. In her maiden voyage the Red Rover made the round trip between Calcutta and Macao in 55 days, carrying 800 chests of opium. She had equally successful passages in the next two years, by which time she had at least three rivals on the run. From then no one thought of employing steamships against the north east monsoon in the South China Sea, and the success of the opium clippers kept steamships out of the opium trade for another twenty years. The Red Rover, like many of her successors and rivals was built in India, at the Howra Dock Company's yard. She was launched in September 1829, and for her first few years was owned by her captain, the famous Captain Clifton, in partnership with ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 CRAFT OF GOD CARVING IN SINGAPORE 69 in Taiwan. Elsewhere, in most Asian cities with a large Overseas Chinese community there are retailers who sell gods but who neither carve nor repair them. (Plate 2) By way of background let me explain the various types of image produced by Chinese. The majority of north and central China's images used to be made of mud and straw and painted with a dull gold paint. (Plate 3.) They have been destroyed by the myriad in the course of the numerous iconoclastic anti-superstition campaigns conducted on the mainland in the past fifty years or so and are rarely to be seen. The next group are the bronze, iron and other metal images of which only the smaller are still in existence, mostly in America and Europe; the larger having been too large to move have long since been melted down for scrap. The third group consists of the carved and painted or lacquered wood images mainly from the forested south of China. The best materials for these images, so Chinese have assured me, were camphor and sandalwood and the finest carvings were from Amoy where a group of seven families produced their famous images over eight generations ceasing production only in 1950. Amoy figures were precise in detail, well-proportioned and expensive but rather baroque in their appearance. In very general terms, Cantonese images tend to be rather ill-proportioned and stylised; commonly they are gilt-painted figures with heavy features (Plate 4). Hainanese images are generally recognisable by their short limbs; Taiwanese carvings are usually identifiable by their heavy use of blues and sea-greens, and nowadays for their gaudy, cheap and shoddy plastic images. Some Taiwanese images have been made from varnishing wadded rice husks into shape (Plate 5). For several generations the Yangtze valley produced large numbers of well carved, handsome and beautifully finished gold lacquer images, predominantly for Buddhist temples, although many were also Taoist folk religion deities. Since 1949 a factory has grown up near Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong in which Shanghai refugees still produce these for Hong Kong and for export. A fifteen foot bodhisattva was being finished whilst I was there, rolled on its back prior to being shipped to Singapore, swathed in plastic sheeting. There are very many other local styles such as the knotted-root carvings of Shantung, the boxwood carving of the upper Yangtze Page 75 Page 76 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 132 JAMES HAYES BIBLIOGRAPHY In English Alabaster, Chaloner Grenville, The Laws of Hong Kong, 3 vols., Hong Kong, Noronha and Co., Government Printers, 1913. Arlington, L. C., Through the Dragon's Eyes, Fifty Years' Experiences of a Foreigner in the Chinese Government Service, London, Constable, 1931. Baker, H. D. R., 'The Five Great Clans of the New Territories', in JHKBRAS, 5, 1965: 25-47. A Chinese Lineage Village, Sheung Shui, London, Frank Cass, 1968. Balfour, S. F., 'Hong Kong before the British being a local history before the British occupation', Shanghai, T'ien Hsia Monthly, Vols. 11-12, 1940-41; 330-352, 440-464. Reprinted in JHKBRAS, 10, 1970: 134-179. Barnett, K. M. A., 'The Peoples of the New Territories' in J. M. Braga (compiler), Hong Kong Business Symposium, Hong Kong, South China Morning Post, Ltd., 1957, pp. 261-265. 'Hong Kong before the Chinese', 'Technical Revolution in 900 AD' and 'The Riddle of the Hakka', Hong Kong, South China Morning Post, 24-26th April, 1967. Collingwood, Cuthbert, Rambles of a Naturalist on the Shores and Waters of the China Sea, London, John Murray, 1868. Cooper, J. T., 'The Mapping of Hong Kong' in JHKBRAS 9, 1969: 131-140. Des Voeux, Sir G. William, My Colonial Service in British Guiana, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Fiji, Australia, Newfoundland and Hong Kong, London, John Murray, 1903, 2 vols. Eitel, E. J., (revised and enlarged by Immanuel Gottlieb Genähr), A Dictionary of the Chinese Language, 2 vols., Hong Kong, Kelly and Walsh, 1910-1911. Fox, Grace, British Admirals and Chinese Pirates 1832-1869, London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1940. Franke, Wolfgang, An Introduction to the Sources of Ming History, Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaysia Press, Singapore 1968. Fu, Lo-shu (Compiler), A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western Relations (1644-1820), 2 vols., Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 1966. Giles, H. A., A Chinese English Dictionary, Second Edition, revised and Enlarged. Shanghai, Hong Kong, etc., Kelly and Walsh, 1912. Groves, R. G., 'Militia, Market and Lineage: Chinese Resistance to the Occupation of Hong Kong's New Territories in 1899', JHKBRAS, 9, 1969: 31-64. Hay, Sir John C. Dalrymple, The Suppression of Piracy in the China Sea, 1849, London, Edward Stanford, 1889. Hayes, J. W., 'Cheung Chau 1850-1898: Information from Commemorative Tablets', JHKBRAS 3, 1963: 88-99. 'The San On Map of Mgr. Volontieri' in JHKBRAS 10, 1970: 193-196. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 46 CHIAO-MIN HSIEH 1,400 miles long, runs between Lanchow and Urumchi via Hami in Sinkiang. The Communist government obviously feels that the political importance of these railroads is greater than their economic value. Since the great bulk of China's population, markets, and production lies east of Lanchow and south of the Great Wall, many railroads are urgently needed in that part of China. One must wonder whether the two railroads built in the desert for the main purpose of connecting China with the Soviet Union were so necessary and their construction so urgent. Moreover, there is at the moment a sand-dune problem confronting the operation of the railroad in these desert areas. This seems to be insoluble by use of present techniques and makes the value of the whole project even more questionable. 3. In southwest China a railroad was built between Nanning and Pinghsiang in 1955, which is connected with Haiphong and Hanoi. The significance of this new rail link between the Red River delta and the South China province of Kwangsi is that it opens a new major sea outlet for south China. Since China is an amphibious nation, facing the interior continent in the northwest and the Pacific Ocean in the southeast, one of the most significant geopolitical factors in China's history is her changing relations with the continent and the sea. In ancient times China faced the northwest, where the "Silk Road" passed through: the Pacific coast was the back door. The Kansu corridor in the northwest was the main entrance, playing an important role in communications between China and central Asia. In the nineteenth century, Western sea powers acted to open China's coastal ports, China began to turn her face toward the Pacific, which then became the front door, through which came new ideas and knowledge, but also new problems and troubles. Shanghai, Canton, and Tientsin replaced the cities in the northwest as the key cities. This reversal in geographic accessibility has transformed China's isolated condition to one of contact with the world. The eastern coastal areas soon became the main part of China, where were located most of the large cities, heavy industries, railroads, and inland water routes, and about 70 per cent of the population. Because of its location, the area is vulnerable to attack by foreign sea powers. During World War II the area was easily ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d THE PACIFIC OYSTER INDUSTRY IN HONG KONG (的蠔業) BRIAN MORTON* AND P. S. WONG† Oyster farming is an ancient industry. The Japanese and Romans are the earliest known oyster farmers, and with time the practice has spread to other parts of the globe. Thus different species of oysters are cultivated in Europe (Ostrea edulis and Crassostrea angulata), North America (Ostrea lurida and Crassostrea virginica), Australia (Crassostrea commercialis), and in Japan and China (Crassostrea gigas—the Pacific oyster). The diverse sites of culture have led to different methods of farming and the utilisation of a range of implements. With research and development, however, the Japanese method of hanging strings of oysters from rafts in the surface waters of the sea is slowly becoming universally accepted as one of the more successful techniques—but traditions die hard. Oysters (*) have been cultivated in Hong Kong for some considerable time; Bromhall (1958) estimates 700 years though Mok (1973), more conservatively, estimates 170 years. The method of culture is unusual, involving implements of unique design, not hitherto described. The identity of the local oyster remains a mystery though Bromhall introduced the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas (Thunberg 1793) (✯✯) into Hong Kong in 1950. It would seem probable, however, that this is also the endemic species, since Hong Kong is within the natural geographic range of C. gigas (Tschang et al, 1962) and specimens have been recovered from archaeological digs on Lamma Island and, more recently, from the mud excavated from the High Island reservoir site. Oysters only grow in estuaries and the Hong Kong oyster industry is centred around Deep Bay (*) which is situated on the northwestern corner of Hong Kong, forming the boundary between China and Hong Kong (Fig. 1). The bay covers an area of approximately 112 km2 bordered to the landward by a characteristic fringe of dwarf mangroves. Deep Bay opens to the southwest directly into the mouth of the Pearl River (#) which is the major river draining the hinterland of southern China. Numerous rivers and streams * Department of Zoology, The University of Hong Kong. † Department of Zoology, The University of Auckland, New Zealand. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 154 DONALD C. BOWIE conflict. I came to regret my thoroughness, for there was never time to use the equipment thus accumulated and this must have been splendid booty for the Japanese. There was also a full social life; many British women had enrolled for nursing and other essential duties and had not been evacuated. The Hong Kong Hotel was a gay place indeed, particularly on a Saturday night. In October 1938, 35,000 Japanese troops had landed in Bias Bay on the China coast 35 miles from Hong Kong, and had then occupied Canton and had cut all communications between Hong Kong and mainland China. Patrolling Japanese ships thereafter made sailing from the Colony outside a circumscribed area very hazardous. In February 1939 the Japanese occupied the island of Hainan, 300 miles to the south of Hong Kong thus controlling the sea communications with Singapore. Curiously, after my arrival I do not remember taking part in any serious discussions with my friends about the prospects of a successful defence of Hong Kong. There were however plenty of rumours to fill the air. It was generally known that the strategic plan required Hong Kong to resist an attack for 90 days before a relief could arrive, a decision taken by the British Chiefs of Staff in 1937. In February 1940 the home authorities decided that food reserves should be accumulated for 130 days, while in August 1940 the Chiefs of Staff reached a further decision that in case of war with Japan, Hong Kong should be regarded as an outpost to be held as long as possible. After the war I learned from Liddell Hart's History of the Second World War, that in February 1940 the Chiefs of Staff concluded that the troops should be withdrawn from Hong Kong. Nothing was done to give effect to this decision. I have no doubt that the decision taken in February 1940 was the correct one which could with advantage have been taken much earlier. Ever since my arrival in Hong Kong in 1939 I believed that the Colony could not be defended successfully. The frontier, beyond which lay a strong Japanese army, was some 20 miles from Hong Kong harbour, the line to be defended, the so-called Gin Drinkers line was less than 5 miles from the harbour, the Japanese navy controlled the coast, our airport was tiny and the Air Force planes were few in number and no match in performance for their potential opponents. One and a half million Chinese civilians were crowded into Kowloon and Victoria. Roads suitable for wheeled traffic were few and open to close observation at many points. The whole picture left no doubt ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 244 DONALD C. BOWIE sive demonstration of American air power. I do not know if any Japanese planes took part in the defence. After the raid we picked up a great many jagged fragments of bombs and shells in our grounds though the hospital itself suffered no obvious damage. The history of the war shows that this raid came from Admiral Halsey's Sixth Fleet which had passed to the north of the Philippine Islands and approached the China coast searching for some remaining ships of the Japanese fleet. On this occasion the attackers failed to find the ships which at the time were lying up much further to the south but we got enormous encouragement from the successes we saw. The bombing was very accurate but during one raid on another occasion a fleet of large American bombers came in from the sea aiming from high altitude no doubt at dockyards and Japanese headquarters. Unfortunately their bombs fell short and damaged a large part of Wan Chai. As maybe imagined we had no newspapers for some days after these occasions. On 21 January bombs from another raid fell very close to the hospital and we lost a good deal of glass and plaster and picked up many fragments of shells and bombs in the grounds. Our guards never overcame their excitement during air raids and added their own defence contribution by rapid fire from their rifles at the attacking aeroplanes. It would be interesting to learn how much ammunition the Japanese had left at the date of their surrender. From the end of January 140 men from Sham Shui Po camp were accommodated on the top floor of the hospital which was wired off from the rest of the building. They were marched off daily to prepare ground in Happy Valley to grow vegetables there and were accompanied each day by one of our nursing orderlies. The original orders to me were to house the working party in the now vacant barrack block from which the hospital was by now wired off, but when these orders were changed Seino quite courteously apologised for the alteration. We cooked for the newcomers and helped their own 10 maintenance men to draw and hoist water daily to their quarters. The work in Happy Valley was arduous at first and the weather was cold and wet. Later the conditions were easier and the hours of work were less. The ration scale allowed by the Japanese for the working party was on a substantially higher level than that in the hospital in rice, fish, vegetables, beans, oil and sugar. I pressed this precedent and I got our official rice ration raised by 30 grammes to 510 grammes; the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 22 LEIGH WRIGHT tongue of land that looked down the estuary, and which could rake a fleet advancing towards the town, whilst the batteries on the two banks poured in a flank fire. When the tide goes out the mud is most offensive to European nostrils, as all the filth and offal is cast into it from the platforms, and left there to decompose. The town was in a condition of squalid wretchedness—the buildings, all of wood and leaf matting, were in a tumbledown state; and the population was mainly composed of slaves and the hangers on of the Sultan, the nobles, and other members of the upper classes. Brunei was by the 19th century then one of those decaying Malay-Muslim sultanates of Southeast Asia about which the historian Lennox Mills noted,12 The rule of the Malays was as weak as it was cruel and oppressive; individually brave they were unable to prevent their state from crumbling to pieces before their eyes ... The Malay nobles appear to have divided their time between intrigue and dissipation at Brunei Town, and the oppression of their Dayak subjects... III The political map of Southeast Asia was determined largely by imperialist interests and considerations of the last century. In most instances boundaries and demarkations were the results of international rivalries involving two or more European powers, with only now and then a consideration of the interests of indigenous states. In Borneo this principle does not apply entirely. The boundaries of the states of Eastern Malaysia, formerly British Borneo (Sabah, Brunei and Sarawak), are the result not so much of international rivalry as of the rivalry between Englishmen. This rivalry was centered in commercial circles in Borneo and England and involved the Foreign and Colonial ministries in Whitehall. By the 19th century Britain's chief interest in the area was strategic: to protect her commercial routes to China.13 She was concerned firstly, with the location of a suitable naval station along the eastern flank of the South China Sea, and secondly, with the assumption of political control over the northwestern coast of Borneo so as to prevent those areas falling to a European rival. Britain was not worried about the relatively weak Dutch and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n BRUNEI: A HISTORICAL RELIC 23 Spaniards. She worried about the presence of France in Indochina on the opposite side of the South China Sea at mid-century; and later on she suspected imperial Germany of coveting northern Borneo and the Philippines. The British sphere was initiated by the private efforts of an English adventurer, James Brooke, a former officer in the Bengal Army. In 1840, he helped bring an end to an insurrection in the Sarawak River, in the southern-most area under the nominal rule of the Sultan of Brunei, and was rewarded by being granted the province. In 1845 Brooke was appointed diplomatic agent to Brunei and supervised the transfer of the island of Labuan to Britain as a colony and a naval station. He also, in 1847, negotiated a consular treaty with the Sultan which effectively gave to Britain control over Brunei's foreign relations. The colony of Labuan languished but the quasi-protectorate over Brunei served as the de facto and legal base for Britain's sphere of influence in Borneo. Such a sphere was proclaimed in 1868 as a warning to all European nations to keep out. The real carving-up of the carcass of Brunei began in earnest in 1878 with the founding of another private venture, that of a syndicate of City of London businessmen which later became the British North Borneo (Chartered) Company. The syndicate was under the control of Dent Brothers Company. Alfred and Edward Dent were sons of the owner of the former Hong Kong firm of Dent and Company. Raja Brooke had annexed, by treaty with the Sultan, additional chunks of territory before 1878. In 1853 he purchased northward to and including the large district of the Rajang River. And in 1861 he purchased the five so-called “sago rivers” as far north as Kidurong Point. When that point was reached, the Governor of Labuan objected to any further northward encroachment of Sarawak and Labuan's wishes were supported by Britain. When, however, the British North Borneo Company purchased the large area of Sabah, the whole of the island of Borneo to the northward of Brunei Town, with strong support from the Foreign Office, both Raja Brooke and the Colonial Office protested. It is interesting to note that the permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office who midwifed the company charter through officialdom in Whitehall was Julian Pauncefote, who was a former attorney-general. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n BRUNEI: A HISTORICAL RELIC 27 Malaya a "new nationalism” has not yet emerged. It is in a sense "bought off" by the prosperity and good times made possible by the oil revenues. A recent account of Brunei in a well-known western journal began this way: 21 There are moments when visitors feel this sleepy state on Borneo island's northern shore is something dreamed-up in a Hollywood script conference. Our film opens in some place wild like the South China Sea coast. It's a place run by a sultan — you know, a chap with a turban and a name like Sir Omar Ali Saifuddin. He lives in this big box of a palace with a flock of cars and a bunch of hungry relatives. And get this, the country sits atop a huge pool of oil so nobody wants to work. In fact, most everyone just kinda mooch-es off the government, which sits back and collects millions from the oil company. Then we need something spectacular like a huge mosque with a gold-plated dome that's lit with coloured floodlights at night. Except for the presence of the opulent gold-domed Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin mosque which now towers on the skyline Pigafetta of Magellan's crew would still recognize Brunei if he were able to sail up the river to the town today,22 The "Water Village” (Kampong Ayer) has changed little in character. More than half the people in the capital live in houses built on piles above the water of the river, and it is said that some old women in the kampong have never set foot on land, having spent their whole lives in the river village. Today, however, Kampong Ayer is dominated by the mosque, constructed at the water's edge and opened in 1958. This dignified building, the pride of the present and the fulfilment of the hopes of the past, approached from water on one side and land on the other, seems to stand symbolically where tradition and progress meet. For although the water village changes little, on the landward side Brunei Town grows, encouraged by the easy wealth obtained from oil revenues and by the fervent desire, both patriotic and religious, to outdo its neighbours, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n CHEUNG CHOW – LONG ISLAND W. J. HINTON, M.A.* The island we are to describe is not the Long Island of New York society but another Long Island altogether, in the latitude of Havannah, and in the South China Sea called Dumb-bell Island in Hongkong, it is Cheung Chow to some eight thousand souls, three thousand ashore and five thousand afloat, who live there, or thereabouts on the fishing grounds. The little community is small enough to be understood by sympathetic observer, and interesting enough to merit description in some detail. So in the hope that some better qualified observer will be provoked to come forward and take up the tale, we will attempt a description. As to geography: the place lies in that archipelago which stretches across the mouth of the Canton River between Hongkong and the four hundred year old settlement of Macao. The River boats which ply between those towns pass by it disdainfully, or perhaps the police fear that if they touched there the problem of smuggling, already formidable would become altogether unmanageable. For they seem to be inveterate smugglers, these Cheung Chow fishermen like fishermen elsewhere. Cheung Chow is quite close to Hongkong, about one hour's steaming by launch, and on clear days the sails of its anchored junks are visible over the low spit of sand which forms the handle of the "dumb-bell" from Cheung Chow and Hongkong is a glorious sight, by day a long line of high ridges above which the clouds tower and at night a dim mass on which the mountain roads prick out white festoons and necklaces of light, still and shining above the winking beacon of Green Island. Across that dozen miles of sea a small ferryboat like a slow shuttle carries a slender thread of communication six times in the day. The Police can talk by wireless with their waiting launches in Hongkong, and for the unhurried there are the junks and sampans. This article is reprinted from the Hongkong University Journal of Law and Commerce, Vol. II, April 1929, No. 1. It was brought to the Editor's attention by Dr. Peter Wesley-Smith. * The author served the University of Hong Kong first as Registrar 1912-13, then as Professor of Economics and thrice as Dean of the Faculty of Arts, until his resignation to take up a post in England in 1929 ---- Ed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n CHEUNG CHOW LONG ISLAND 133 Typhoons bring with them torrents of rain. More falls in the two or three days that follow than in a whole year in drier climates. It is these rains which make possible the dense population of the deltas of South China as well as the disastrous floods. From October to March there is little rain, but the sun is always bright and hot. The wind blows for the most part from the North and East, and the cool air, hot sun, and brilliant sea make an exhilarating setting for the activities of the little state. Even in summer the climate is far superior to Hongkong's, the air fresher and the oppressive canopy of clouds less unbroken. Hence there are summer visitors, missionaries and their families from the interior, and business and professional men from Hongkong, who live apart from the village but in perfect friendliness and to mutual advantage. The town itself stretches for a mile along the shore, being only a few streets deep at the ends, but widening out in the middle to a little market square, some three streets wide. The main landing stage opens on to this market place, and here the police and the male and female searchers take their stand to prevent the smuggling of arms or opium which would otherwise most certainly take place. There is another and older pier a hundred yards or so away, at which the salt junks load. In the main street almost every building is a shop, workshop, or both, until we reach the end nearest the Pak Tai Temple, which is in the "West End" of the town. There we find private houses of the usual narrow type. The backs of half these shops and houses run out on to the beach on a picturesque disarray of piles and retaining walls, interspersed with garbage heaps. There is none of the beautiful and simple cleanliness of the Japanese village. On this beach side or on the beach itself are two slipways for beaching and repairing the junks, a tannery, several boat-building yards, a distillery, coffin maker, and several blacksmiths, tinsmiths, and coppersmiths' shops. The beach is a scene of constant activity. At the Eastern end is a floating village of sampans, occupied by families of the Tan Ka tribe, and when one of these sampans becomes too old to float any more, it is hauled above high water mark, and some family or other lives there until it literally drops to pieces. They look rather like huge sea slugs taking to life on shore when the struggle for survival on the water has become too severe for them. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 26 RICHARD J. SMITH weaknesses. Inspired by a vibrant form of nationalism, the Japanese were assured of widespread popular support at home, and heroic dedication on the part of both officers and men in battle. It was a truly national war. Overseas Japanese also rallied to the cause, establishing patriotic associations to discuss the issues, collect contributions, and even to train brigades of student soldiers.68 China's immediate response to the conflict, which has not been as fully studied,69 appears to have been less uniform and extensive, both in China and abroad. To be sure, patriotic voices could be heard even prior to news of China's humiliating capitulation, and Chinese forces occasionally performed heroic deeds on the battlefield. But in the main, China lacked the national cohesiveness of Japan, and her officers were not inspired by the same sense of national duty and self-sacrifice.70 Owing partially to abysmal lack of preparation and poor internal communications, but also to the natural hesitation of "province-minded" Chinese officials, the mobilization of China's military forces during the war was agonizingly slow. Many Chinese troops summoned from the south arrived in the north only tardily or not at all. Li Hung-chang complained bitterly that "one province, Chihli, is dealing with the whole nation of Japan." Ch'en Pi-kuang's effort to secure the release of the captured warship Kuang-ping after the battle at Wei-hai-wei, on grounds that the ship belonged to the Canton squadron which had not taken part in the war, is perhaps the most dramatic illustration of Chinese provincialism; but it is not the only one.72 The preponderance of Ch'ing forces sent against the Japanese in Korea, Manchuria and China Proper were individual yung-ying, each with its own particularistic loyalties and provincial identifications. These diverse military forces, differently armed, trained and led, often had difficulty cooperating with one another.73 In the navy, provincial rivalries and lack of cooperation between Admiral Ting and his subordinates obviously hindered operations at sea, in addition to adversely affecting morale.74 Uniform military and naval education undoubtedly would have diminished these problems. Japan's rapid and demoralizing offensive drive into Manchuria and China Proper was aided immeasurably by an extremely efficient General Staff, excellent transport facilities, and a well-organized commissariat service.75 China, however, lacked all three. The ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 28 RICHARD J. SMITH against a more aggressive enemy.82 Furthermore, in the absence of strict discipline and competent middle-grade officers, the elaborate military evolutions of the parade ground could not be preserved on the battlefield, Chinese tactics were often absurdly simple, or outlandishly naive. One general reportedly planned to arm his men with bags of pepper to be thrown in the faces of the advancing Japanese, whereupon they would be attacked by spearmen.84 Chinese commanders were continually baffled by Japanese tactics, indicating a general lack of acquaintance with even the rudiments of modern warfare. A pincer attack by the Japanese, which threatened the rear of Chinese troops, was almost invariably successful. Even when solidly entrenched and well-armed, Ch'ing forces seldom held their ground for as long as they should have.85 Demoralization and lack of leadership were the root causes. Another serious problem was the almost incredibly poor marksmanship of the Chinese in rifle and artillery fire.86 This problem was unquestionably related to inadequate training and discipline, and false economy in drill. During the war there were numerous reports of naval officers being thrown off the bridge by the concussion from their own guns, indicating either the lack of regular practice, the failure of superior officers to supervise gun drill, or both.87 The military commander-in-chief at Shan-hai-kuan undoubtedly spoke for many commanders in informing the British military attaché that he did not believe in musketry instruction for all his troops, since "it was quite sufficient to have ten good shots in each ying [battalion] to pick off the Japanese officers."88 In the early defense of Wei-hai-wei, Liu Ch'ao-p'ei of the Anhwei Army resorted to newly-mounted quick-firing cannon only after two of his older, less effective pieces had jammed.89 In the absence of adequate leadership and training, the Chinese found, contrary to normal experience in war, that although they were on the defensive most of the time, and usually had numerical superiority, they almost invariably suffered much heavier casualties than the Japanese. According to one estimate, China lost over 56,000 men in the fighting to Japan's paltry 4,117.90 At sea the situation was little better. Although Admiral Ting, a former Anhwei Army cavalry officer, won the praise of virtually all foreign observers, the Peiyang navy proved totally incapable of contending with the Japanese fleet. At the battle off the mouth of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 42 KEITH STEVENS In addition there were scraps of cotton, threads, one or two grains of rice, a tiny sac of cotton cloth stuffed with more cotton and several beads and slivers of mica. There were also two dried sea-horses* in the image dedicated in 1871 though there were no signs of any other remains. The strips of paper are not all that usual and are rarely found in Southern Chinese images. Precis translations of the six strips of paper are included later in this note. The papers show that five of the seven images were dedicated and placed on altars in the County of Wu Kang (A) in South East Hunan, one hundred miles due north of Kweilin and three hundred and seventy-five miles NNW of Hong Kong, near the Hunanese boundaries with its neighbouring provinces of Kwangsi and Kweichow. The west and south-west of Hunan were not easily accessible until the 1930's due to the dangerous rapids in the upper reaches of the plentiful rivers. Then a system of highways opened up the area. Prior to that, apart from the occasional traveller, traders and, of course, the petty officials sent to such "punishment" posts, all that was known of the area came from tales passed on from mouth to mouth. Wu Kang is in rising country, on the edge of an area marked on old maps as the lands of the Thai minority peoples, the Ko Lao (z) and another larger minority people, the Miao (δ). The other two images come from Chi An prefecture () in Kiangsi province, some two hundred and eighty miles due east of Wu Kang. Chi An, an old walled city and a major centre on the north-flowing Kan Chiang, had closer cultural links with central rather than south China. The first image (Plate 2), from Wu Kang and dedicated in 1756, is a household deity to protect the home and family and to bring blessings. The slip of paper relates that Worshipper Fu Shih-hsiang, together with his three sons and others from his family, all of Hsin Wu Chang Village, Yen Shan, Lung Chu district of Wu Kang county in Pao Ching prefecture (now Shao Yang), Hunan, on the 4th day of the 7th moon of the 20th year of Ch'ien Lung (1756), offered sacrifices to the gods at the City God temple in Shih Pei.† He also reported to them in writing that he and his whole family * Seahorses, found as far inland, would have a rarity value, though they are commonly used by Chinese herbalists & pharmacists. † Chinese characters are to be found on the illustrations of the slips of paper. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 115 21-Report has it that some 52 internees may be allowed to go to Shanghai on Wednesday. No electricity due to overloading of circuits. As a result, we have to get our "chow" cooked in the British kitchen for a couple of meals. The Shanghai baggage goes to town in the food truck. 22--The Shanghai trip delayed and the baggage returns from the city. 23-We understood a few days ago that the Japanese had rounded up several hundred very destitute Chinese in the city with the intention of deporting them somewhere along the South China coast. They were first brought out to Stanley and placed in the Prison for a day or so. Next they were herded onto several large junks in Stanley Bay. The junks were towed out to sea but meeting heavy weather, the tugs had to put back into quieter waters and anchored again in Stanley Bay just off the western side of our Camp. As we walked along the top of St. Stephen's Hill, we could see the unfortunates very plainly crowded on the junks, and standing up, with no covering over their heads. Thus they remained for at least two days and nights, exposed to the sun and rain. No doubt their food was but a trifle, for while anchored off the Camp, a number of bodies were seen by the internees to be thrown overboard, and later these bodies were washed up on the beach, where they remained unburied. I believe the Camp officials requested permission to bury them but the beach being outside our barbed wire enclosure, the permission was refused. The junks finally sailed away with their human freight. Earlier in the Camp, a similar permission was asked to bury a few bodies of soldiers which had been washed up on the beaches, but again the permission was not granted. July so far has given us 22 days of rain which, like California, is most unusual for this month, and as a result the reservoirs are filled up and overflowing. 25-The Shanghai repatriates are told to be ready to leave at any time, but there is still a further delay. No doubt it is a question of shipping. Among them are two Dutch Salesian Fathers. The British put on a good show at 7 p.m., "The Optimists,” on the bowling green outside our former American Club A-4 Block. Swimming restrictions lightened; we may now go and return at any time within the prescribed hours. Mixed marriage in our private Maryknoll Chapel at 9 a.m. Father Hessler officiated. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 122 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS Hotel. Well, we did justice to that meal! Sister Paul also lost no time in informing us that we had every hope of getting out of the Colony within a few weeks, and that even then she was working on our necessary passes and permits to go to Kwongchauwan. Right then and there we signed our forms, affixed our photographs (she, in her admirable foresight, had even these all prepared) and after the second group had arrived and carried out their part of the program, it was time to sit down to another real honest-to-goodness meal. Of course, these were still wartime meals, but we enjoyed them hugely. Then we trekked down to the bund, caught the eight o'clock bus to Aberdeen, and soon were knocking at the door of Bethany, where we were heartily welcomed by the Superior, Father Bos and Father Chaye, the Belgian priest, who, it will be recalled, was once our fellow-internee at Stanley. They were the only two priests in the House, and the rest of it was at our disposal. Our rooms were all prepared and we lost no time in getting under real covers and settling down to rest, after such an exciting and memorable day. The next morning found us saying Mass at real altars in a real Chapel, and sitting down to breakfast table at which we enjoyed some of the food which again Sister Paul had previously provided. She had also very thoughtfully engaged a cook and a house-boy for us, and everything was shipshape. Bethany is a sort of Rest House for sick and aged Paris Foreign missioners, and the scriptural inscription over its main portal is pregnant with meaning: "Magister, quem amas, infirmatur” "Master, he whom thou lovest, is sick." Just across from Nazareth is the Retreat House and Printing Press of the same society; it is situated on a knoll overlooking the beautiful South China Sea, and on the slopes of its hill are the graves of a hundred of its valiant missioners who have labored in almost all parts of the Far East. Its little Gothic chapel has a charm all its own, and must be redolent of memories for those who have spent some time within the walls of Bethany. Needless to say, we Maryknollers were delighted to have this haven of refuge and we are all more than grateful to the French Fathers who have been so uniformly kind. On the Monday following our arrival, we went to the city in company with Father Troesch in order to secure our ration cards and to register our names and addresses with the proper precinct. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 124 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS all-pervading air of suspense, and while we were quite free and unmolested on our trips to the City, we felt the heavy atmosphere that seemed to envelope the city. The crowds as usual milled about in the downtown section, but there was not the gaiety of former times, nor the life in the people. The city was still suffering and so were its people—from oppression and from starvation. Strangely enough at Bethany we were not bothered by inquisitive visitors; only occasionally would a Japanese soldier wander through the House and stare at us, and once a Chinese "puppet" detective paid us a ceremonial visit and asked us when we were going to Kwong-chauwan. During this time, many of the Fathers took advantage of the occasion to consult dentists and oculists, and Dr. Chawn, our Maryknoll dentist, was splendid. Realizing our financial straits, he very magnanimously waived payment of our debts to him until after the war. Others of our professional friends were equally kind and sympathetic. OCTOBER One of the things we prized most at Bethany was the luxury of a private room. Having been packed in small rooms with from four to seven others for almost eight months was not a little trying on tempers, and to be able to go to one's own private room was indeed a luxury. For quite some time we had no electric lights in our rooms, as in order to save expense all extra light circuits had been cut out, but we did not mind burning our candles and vigil lights until time to retire. Later on, however, we had lights re-installed in our rooms. We also could sit on our spacious verandahs and watch the glorious sunsets on the South China Sea. As mentioned previously, immediately on our release from the Camp, we had made out applications for permission to leave the Colony and had submitted these in proper form to the Foreign Office, of which a Mr. Oda was the head. According to usual procedure in the case of third nationals desiring to leave the Colony, it took about two weeks for the governmental machinery to work, and so when this time had about elapsed, Father Toomey asked Mr. Oda about our permissions. The answer came back: "Decidedly no!" We were enemy, and not neutral or third nationals, and under no consideration could we leave the Colony! ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 198 NOTES AND QUERIES * The evacuation of the South-east coast of China was carried out from the 1st year to the 7th year of the K'ang Hsi reign (1662-1668). It was because of the disturbances of pirates and the followers of Koxinga (Cheng Shing-kung) along the coasts of Kwangtung and Fukien. The disturbances were so large that the Ch'ing Army could not stop them. The government evacuated fifty li from the coast. The lands were abandoned in order that the pirates and the followers of Koxinga could not obtain supplies from them. (see my article: "The Chow Wang Yi Kung Chi of Kam Tin", published in the Wah Kiu Man Fa of Wah Kiu Yat Po for 13th September 1976 綿田之周王二公祠,原载1976年9月13日華僑日報文化版) + * In the O Mun Kei Leuk ME 1800 edition, it was recorded, "During the 7th year of Yung Cheng reign, there were forts erected on the two hills. This strengthened the guards of the Tai Yue Shan Shuen”. The Tai Yue Shan Shuen was probably at the place of Tai O today. The forts on the "two hills" are most likely to be the Kai Yik Fort on its south-west and Tung Chung Fort on its east. This shows that the Fan Lau Fort was probably rebuilt and refortified in the 7th year of the Yung Ching reign. 19 See my article: "A Short History of the Pirates of Hong Kong before 1842", published in Volume 8, No. 4 of the Kwong Tung Man Hin 廣東文献(1979). 11 see Chapter 13 of San On Yuen Chi Chapter 81 of Kwong Chow Fu Chi A **** 1819 edition and 1879 edition. 12 Chapter 12 of San On Yuen Chi (1819) stated, "During the K'ang Hsi reign, it was because of robbery and piracy along the south-east coast that the Ch'ing government evacuated the coastal regions. Later, with the surrender of the pirates, the Ch'ing government extended the coastal boundary. More forts and guard-stations were set up. Those of outstanding importance were the Kai Yik Fort on Lantau Island, the Nam Tau Fort, and the Chik Wan Fort." The book was written in 1819, and the famous pirate Cheung Po-tsai had surrendered in 1810. This shows that the fort was again under the control of the Ch'ing government after 1810. 14 1a Chapter 130 of the Kwong Tung Tung Chi 4 1822 edition recorded, "Tai U Shan, an island which lay in the midst of the sea, was a place where foreign ships anchored. There were only two inlets for the anchoring of these ships: they were at Tai O and Tung Chung. At that time, Tai O was guarded by a garrison of thirteen men. There was already the Kai Yik Fort under a Tsin Tsung (lieutenant) of the Tai Pang Battalion." The book was published in 1822. This proves that before 1822, there was the Kai Yik Fort guarding the south-west tip of Lantau Island. 14 see Armando M. De Silva's article, op. cit. 15 also called Tung Chung Hau in the past. 10 To the south-east of the valley is the Sunset Peak (Tai Tung Shan 大東山); the Lantau Peak (Fung Wang Shan 凤凰山) lies to the south-west. 17 Sheung Ling Pei Village is one of the largest villages in the Tung Chung Valley. It is situated to the east of the Tung Chung Walled City. 18 Ha Ling Pei Village, an adjacent village to Sheung Ling Pei Village, is situated to the west of the Tung Chung Walled City. 19 See my article: "Distribution of Forts and Guard-stations on Lantau Island during the Late Ch'ing period", JHKBRAS vol. 18: 1978. Page 225 Page 226 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 212 "Five Belongings" NOTES AND QUERIES (a) Belonging to the Religion (皈依) (b) Belonging to the Mean (飯中) (c) Belonging to the Truth (皈正) (d) Belonging to the Unity (歸一) (e) Belonging to the Void (皈空) "Four Tests" (a) Test of True Self (考自) (b) Test of Sincerity (考真) (c) Test of Dedication (考願) (d) Test of Sacrifice (考捨) Also the Religion practised a rather sophisticated form of "sitting cross-legged" as a means to cure opium addicts. (d) Yan Cheung Villa (仁昌別墅) According to surviving elderly inmates, the Yan Cheung Villa was built by a group of persons from South China who belong to a society established about 1920—known as the Tung Sin She (同善社). It belongs to that body of the laity worshipping the 'Three Religions' of China i.e. Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism*. It had followers in various parts of Kwangtung but no major centre. In the early 1930s the Society's leaders were looking for a site to build such a place, but Kwangtung was often in a disturbed state and they were of the opinion that a remote site in the New Territories of Hong Kong would be preferable, as the Colony had an enviable reputation for law and order, peace and quiet. Accordingly, a search was made for a suitable site. Tsuen Wan was then a small market town with a very quiet and beautiful hinterland and yet possessed excellent communications by sea and land with Hong Kong and Kowloon. A site with good fung shui in a locality with a propitious name was selected and agents bought land from local villagers. * Mayers Chinese Reader's Manual p.298 describes them as the Three Systems of Doctrine (or Religion)' and states that they 'constitute the recognized systems of religion, philosophy and ethics among the Chinese'. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 SILK AND SILVER: MACAU, MANILA AND TRADE IN THE CHINA SEAS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY (A lecture delivered to the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society at the Hong Kong Club. 10 June 1980.) JOHN VILLIERS* In the second half of the 16th century there developed a pattern of trade in the China Seas and the Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos of which the two chief entrepôts were Portuguese Macau and Spanish Manila. Other centres were also involved, notably Japan in the north, Malacca, Timor and the Moluccas in the south and Mexico on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. All these places played a role in the development of a vast and complex trading network that depended primarily on supplying Macau and Manila with two commodities — silk and silver — which neither produced. There was of course a highly developed trading system in the China Seas long before the Europeans arrived, but it so happened that they came on the scene just at a time when Chinese naval and commercial power was waning and Japan was in the midst of a period of feudal anarchy. It was therefore relatively easy for them to penetrate this system, and even at some points and for a limited period to dominate it. By the mid-15th century Chinese seapower had greatly declined and the famous mission of the eunuch-admiral Cheng Ho had no successors. The reasons for this decline are complex and need not detain us here. Suffice it to say that in 1420 the Ming navy consisted of some 3800 vessels. By the end of the century it had almost disappeared. By 1500, death was, at least in theory, the penalty for building a three-masted sea-going junk and in 1551 it was decreed that all communications with foreigners overseas would be treated as espionage. Private trading by the eunuchs and others continued during this period, but in the face of increasing official hostility, and Chinese merchants trading in South East Asian ports had to conduct their * Mr Villiers is Director of the British Institute in South-east Asia (Singapore), ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m FOLK MEDICINE IN BORNEO: DIAGNOSIS AND CURE STEPHEN MORRIS* Introduction Despite the rather grandiloquent title of this paper, its aim is less pretentious than it sounds; it is concerned with the ideas held by the Melanau people of Sarawak on illness and what to do about it. How far anything in the Melanau vocabulary corresponds with European notions of medicine, diagnosis or cure is in a sense incidental. The main purpose of the paper is to make clear the Melanau notions. The Melanau The Melanau are a people who live on the northwest coast of Borneo. They speak a language that is distantly related to Malay, and today there are about 50,000 of them. They live in a rather specialised environment on the banks of slow, meandering rivers that wind through dense and swampy tropical jungles and flow into the South China Sea. The swamp land is often a little below sea level, and when the raised banks are breached by floods (as happens quite often), the terrain becomes very difficult to cope with. It is also unhealthy — fevers, mosquitoes, snakes, crocodiles, bears, and all kinds of creatures are common and are not really on the side of human beings. The environment also imposes a number of limits on the economic and social life of the people who inhabit it; this is not the place or the time to discuss those limits, but a little does need to be said about the social system because it is so closely bound up in Melanau thought with their view of the environment and the beings who inhabit it. Correct relations with the environment and all other creatures in it are essential, the Melanau say, if men are to prosper and be healthy.2 A hundred years ago a Melanau village (usually separated from its neighbours by two or three miles along the river) consisted of one or * Dr. Morris spent many years studying the Melanau people of Sarawak, and has just retired from a Readership in Anthropology at the London School of Economics. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m BOOK REVIEWS Hong Kong, Then and Now (South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 1981) Several years ago the SCMP published on Sundays the 'Then & Now' series. Each article shows an old view of Hong Kong and a recent shot taken from the same viewpoint, if ascertainable. This juxtaposition dramatically shows the gross physical changes which had taken place at certain well-known localities. However, even with supplementary historical notes, which were not noted for their accuracy, this method was rather crude. In my opinion, it did not adequately reveal the detailed changes – vertical and horizontal – which constitute the change in the impact of the street scene upon the passer-by, as for example, along Queen's Road Central. Of course, change in urban Hong Kong is so rapid and the transitory results so compressed in scale that it is extremely difficult by the photographic medium to illustrate these changes in the street scene. There is another dimension, too, to this historical conundrum: the modern face of Hong Kong is perpetually being projected upwards from the sea; in other words, by reclamation. In fact, this is a process of change which began in the 1840's with the building and draining of Causeway Bay, right up to the present time when the New Territories, New Towns are coming into being. (Even with the aid of aerial photographs, it is extremely difficult to locate former well-known spots which have either been submerged by the flow of concrete or have disappeared completely. Try, for instance, finding the old floating fish stalls at Sam Shing, Tuen Mun.) And, of course, it would be extremely instructive if the historical geographer could trace the physical development of different districts of Hong Kong by means of photographs of different periods. But Then & Now is not this, although, quite possibly the original compiler of this book, Dee Gibney (not acknowledged as the author of the historical introduction to these pictures) might have hoped it would turn out so. Unfortunately, this project was incomplete when she left and, with consequent delay, and with continuing change, even the original 'Now' photographs were outdated. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p BOOK REVIEWS 343 Even so, it is out of place in this volume, unless the title is intended to imply “a Chinese style of archaeology" rather than "the archaeology of China." The first chapter is the only one of real substance in the book, at least for those seeking a reasonable summary and interpretation of Chinese archaeology, but it is marred by the unlabelled mixing of fact and opinion. Entitled "The Beginning of Chinese Civilization," this recently revised essay presents an overview of the prehistoric and Shang periods. Cheng rightly points out the emergence of the various Early Neolithic cultures from their regional antecedents in the Paleolithic, though he is speculating wildly in assigning a date of 25,000 years before the present for this transition. Unfortunately, Cheng still clings to the outmoded “nuclear area hypothesis" applied to the Late Neolithic. In spite of much evidence to the contrary (some of which is even mentioned in this essay), Cheng still maintains, as he has for many years, that "the expansion of the Late Neolithic culture beyond the Central Plain was responsible for the diffusion of the new pattern of food production [cereal agriculture] in various parts of China." And, ignoring all the botanical, archaeological, and ethnographic evidence to the contrary, Cheng then claims that "rice found a most agreeable home in the wet South" after being introduced by farmers from the North. A few pages earlier, Cheng had described the important Ho-mu-tu site in Chekiang, i.e., in the South, as one of the most agriculturally advanced and the earliest dated Late Neolithic site excavated in China so far. Cheng also makes the highly disputable claims that painted pottery spread throughout China from a Yangshao origin, and that "the expansion of the Mongoloid people into the South Seas [? the South China Sea] was an event closely related to the spread of agriculture in China.” Most archaeologists would not claim a single origin for all the painted pottery of China, and very little, perhaps nothing, is really known about the spread of "Mongoloid people" or agriculture in the Neolithic of East Asia. In dealing with the earliest historical period, Cheng again on occasion mixes fact and good and bad hypothesis with pure conjecture and cultural bias. Cheng implies that Chinese writing ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 6 yelled at her 'are you in charge here?' 'O no,' said she, ‘not me'. The officer demanded that she bring out the in-charge. Sister went in and the mother superior came out. When she came up to the officer, he yelled at her: 'aren't you afraid of me?' 'Of course not' she replied 'I know you have come to protect me.' It seems that protecting Sisters was not in the Japanese handbook for battle, and when the Japanese don't know what to do, they stand there and suck in their breath loudly. Well the officer stood there sucking in his breath for a long time, and finally turned to the soldier with him and said. 'In that case, you write out a notice and put it on the front door of the convent that nobody can come in here without my written permission!' Carmel Convent was untouched for the rest of the war! All the other places for miles around were looted from top to bottom. After the war, the house resumed its original purposes, headquarters, language school, and rest house. When the Communists took over China, our priests as well as practically all the other foreign priests stayed here. At the same time, the house became the headquarters for a massive relief effort providing all the primary necessities to the huge deluge of refugees that poured into Hong Kong from China. The house has now been made into two sections, one section for public use for retreats, meetings, seminars etc. The other section's for our own headquarters and rest house. The back part of the property towards the mountain has been sold off for a housing project known as Stanley Knoll. But we still have the glorious and spectacular view of the sea to the South. I thank you for taking the time to come to see the house, and I thank you especially for your kind attention. As the Chinese are wont to say: the first time you come, you are a stranger. The second time you come, you are a friend. I hope we will be friends. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 92 3. 4. These speak a different language from the other three races. They have a history of having migrated ages ago from the Yangtse valley, and economically are pioneers, opening up inferior lands, and doing all quarry work. They occupy the eastern and northern islands, and are often called "Chinese Scotchmen”. For this reason Scottish regiments here are called “Hakka ping" (Hakka soldiers). Nearly all regimental servants here, I believe, are Hakkas: formerly the Hakkas were anti-Manchu and often joined Triad Societies. As such, they gave vigorous assistance to the British in 1857-61, and the connection with the Army has been kept up. Hoklos, a Cantonese nickname for the coast peoples of Northeast Kwangtung; it means "men of Hok1", meaning Fukien. Most come from the area around Swatow and Swabue. Their language is very widely different from both Cantonese and Hakka: as different as German from English. They are fishermen, grasscutters, limekiln and saltpan workers. Their major settlements are at Tai O, Pingchau, Cheung Chau, Taipo (by the District Officer's island), and probably others. They are migrating here steadily, and many appear in court for offences of all sorts. A major reason behind the migration is probably that the coastal areas from which they come are suffering erosion and losing soil: the collapse of the Hoi Luk Fung Soviet Republic is another factor: finally, piracy is no longer as profitable as it was. Political divisions The Ladrones or "Pirate Islands" of which Hong Kong and its outlying islands are part were so named by the Portuguese pioneers of sea trade to the East. They are shared unequally between China, Britain and Portugal. In China they are administered by the nearest district magistrates, of Hoifung, Po On, Chungshan, Sanwui, and Toishan districts. Macao has only two or three nearby isles. The British Islands are divided between the District Officer, North, and the District Officer, South, so that the latter is sometimes called "Lord of the Isles". I had that job for nearly 3 1/2 years. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 107 famous for the 8½ tons of Persian opium found there about 1921, guarded by an armed sampan and hidden in a cave. Kau Yi Chau (“Armchair Island") is larger and higher. The sea all round is polluted with Hong Kong refuse tipped from sanitary barges. Further on to the east is Lamma: also rendered "Nam A” ("Southern Forked Island”). This is an island of remarkable shape. Its best harbour is in the north-west, Yung Shu Wan ("Banyan Tree Bay"): all the others have defects: Luk Chau Wan ("Deer Island Bay"), Sokkwu Wan ("Dragnet Bay") or Picnic Bay, and Tung O (“East Haven”) are all too exposed in winter, Tai Wan ("Big Bay") and the other landing places on the west coast are surf-beaten in summer, and Tung O is more liberally supplied with reefs than any other bay in the islands except Ma Wan. Sham Wan ("Deep Bay"), a beautiful, deep, drowned valley, gets the swell nearly all the year round; besides, there is hardly any cultivated land by it. Hence Yung Shu Wan, with well-watered plains, villages, and low hills behind it, is the island's only commercial harbour: it has a sampan ferry to Aberdeen, the island's real commercial centre. Lamma specialises in orchards, chiefly of papaya; water buffaloes, tigers and other evil beasts are unknown there, and the island seems prosperous, though animal diseases and shortage of water often cause losses. An interesting point is that some of the land here was used as endowments for what we would call "fellowships" for scholars in Namtau under the old order of things. Since 1932 Lamma has attained much fame as the leading site of the prehistoric culture of the South China coast, as the result of my finding large quantities of ancient pottery in good condition, and the later researches of Father Finn, who published his results in detail in the "Hong Kong Naturalist".25 The earliest glazed pottery in China comes from here. Another site nearby has rougher, more primitive objects than the bronzes and ornaments of Tai Wan; and a hill near Yung Shu Wan forms a third site closely related to the other two. At least four other sites have been found on the island, besides stone axes on the hills. The modern population probably does not exceed 1,000, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 135 14.8.1897, all three Ap Lei Chau residents belonging to the old Luk Hing, Sau Hing, and Fuk Hing Tongs respectively. Their evidence enlarges and confirms the information obtained from the record of the Squatter Board's proceedings. "Hayes 1977, pp. 99-101. The Tai O information is more explicit on this point, but the Cheung Chau practice was the same. ** See E.G. Pryor, Housing in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 1983) pp. 15-17. These new urban districts were very susceptible to contagious disease. It is well to recall Governor Des Voeux's report of 1889 in which, describing the City of Victoria, he wrote: "Going ashore our visitor would see in the Chinese quarters houses, constructed after a pattern peculiar to China, of almost equally solid materials, but packed so closely together and thronged so densely as to be in this respect probably without parallel in the world.. It is believed that over 100,000 people live within a certain district of the City of Victoria not exceeding 1⁄2 square mile in area. It is known that 1,600 people live in the space of a single acre." (Sessional Papers 1889, pp. 303-304). 15 ** Victoria had seven officially-approved sub-districts in 1857, as listed and described in the Hong Kong Government Gazette for 9 May 1857, GN No. 69. They included "No. 1, or SEI-YING-POON — From the small village westward, called Cowee-wan, to the end of Circular Buildings, including all the houses on Bonham Strand, west of No. 1 Police Boat Station. The historical development of this area is given by Revd. Carl T. Smith's note at pp. 211-218 of JHKBRAS 14(1974) in "Programme Notes for Visits to Older Parts of Hong Kong Island (Urban Areas....) See also Chapter 3, Sheung Wan, of Frank Leeming's Street Studies in Hong Kong (Hong Kong Oxford University Press, 1977) pp. 45-66. 24 Sheung Fung Lane itself is situated between Second and Third Streets in that section bounded by Centre Street to the East and Western Street to the West. ** An account of pao wui at the Tam Kung festival in Shau Kei Wan from a Secretariat for Chinese Affairs' file of 1958 is typical: "There were about 15 Kaifong elders in the Tam Kung temple who were enrolling pao wui (K), there were about 18 pao wu's from the sea and about 10 from the land. The wul's who brought their own roast-pigs with them had to pay "oil money" and "worshipping fees" from $10 to $30 to the elders before entering the temple. It is learned that the worshippers have no objection to pay these fees. In addition the temple keeper also charged $5 or $10 for each roast-pig brought into the temple plus $5 to $10 "oil money". 20 A recent account of the proceedings at Sheung Fung Lane is given in the article "Everyone's festival" in The Asia Magazine issued weekly by Asia Magazines Ltd., Hong Kong, Vol. 21, Number V7, 4th January 1981, pp. 3-6. 3-6. For a very well illustrated account of a similar old neighbourhood in Singapore, and its community festivals, see "Singapore's Vanishing Chinatown" by Joan Ogden in The Asia Magazine 25th July 1976. * "No. 3, or TAI-PING-SHAN From the end of Hollywood Road near Circular Buildings, to Gough Street steps, including all the houses on the south side of the Queen's Road between these two points." See the plan opposite p. 124 of Marjorie Topley (ed) Some Traditional Chinese Ideas and Conceptions in Hong Kong Social Life Today (Hong Kong, Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch 1967). This was drawn in 1882 (ibid, pp. 123-124). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 113 produce from the sea near the present Aberdeen Country Club. Some villagers operated stake nets lowered by windlass into the sea from a rocky headland, and others used lines catching fish like nai mang (鯺鏝) to make a sweet congee. The old lady's mother, born about 1860, planted hemp and made it into string used for tying and mending clothes until she was sixty years of age. The village people also grew a kind of rush (cheung po) (菖蒲) when she was young, using it as a charm to hang over their doorways, especially in the fifth moon, in the manner reported in old works on China.2 25 - The stake nets were an especially favoured form of fishing in local waters. One can see a few surviving sites round the southern coast of Hong Kong island to this day. In the Tangs' time as sub-soil owners see below they may have leased sites to local persons, as they were doing in the New Territories in 1899. It is also of interest that no less than 13 sites on the south side of Hong Kong island were leased out by another absentee landlord family of scholar gentry, the Wongs (王) of Nam Tau (南頭) and Cheung Chau, as shown in maps in their printed genealogy issued in the 1860s. People walked far to secure a livelihood in those days. One of the persons interviewed in the investigations into the murder of two British officers near Stanley in 1849, was a villager of Little Hong Kong who had a hut and operated a stakenet on the point where Stanley Fort now stands. 26 27 However, farming was the principal occupation. The Little Hong Kong fields can be seen on the Hong Kong Government's first survey sheet for the area, whilst the extent of the Wong Nai Chung fields can be gauged by the race course at Happy Valley which was built over them.28 Rice was favoured because there was a plentiful supply of stream water available that only required damming, leading and terracing, albeit by dint of hard labour, to provide fertile land that would support two crops of rice yearly. An account of harvest time in one of the Hong Kong villages appeared in one of the numbers of the Illustrated London News for 1858. "On the 1st of November (1857) I took a walk with a friend into the interior of Hong Kong and saw the process of rice-harvesting, beneath a bright, hot sun, the entire village popu- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 132 temples. JAMES HAYES The village temples of Hong Kong Island were the centre of community activities at more than a single village level, as elsewhere in South China. A letter from Collinson of 29th April 1845 refers to: "a great feast... celebrated in Chuck Chu [Stanley] for the last 3 days, which was nothing more or less than a fair in front of the principal Joss house."82 This "fair" was clearly celebrating the birthday of Tin Hau, which falls on the 23rd day of the 3rd moon, which in 1845 was 30th April. A temple fair to celebrate Tin Hau's birthday, still held on the land in front of the main Stanley temple, is still celebrated at that season each year. There can be no doubt, too, that the double festivities at Aberdeen, on the birthday of Tin Hau, and on that of Hung Shing (23rd of 3rd moon), on each of which celebrations the statue of the deity whose festival is not being celebrated is solemnly carried in procession to the other's temple “as a guest”, as a concrete demonstration of the local people's feeling that their prosperity and safety at sea depends on both deities, also date to before 1841. Temples required management committees, and it was usual for temple management committees to take on, as the Kaifong, the general oversight of the market towns or the community of villages in or near which they stood. The towns on Hong Kong island certainly had kaifongs. A couplet of 1820 in the Tin Hau temple at Stanley was given by the Chik-sze (managers)83 which certainly implies the existence of a management committee at that date. If the tradition that the Pak Tai temple was founded in 1803 by the Hoklo community of Stanley is correct, it is possible that the Kaifong was built around ethnic groups, as was almost certainly the case at that date in Cheung Chau, and which was common later. **Certainly the 1820 Chik-sze are typical of later kaifongs in that, of the eleven Chik-sze named, five certainly, and at least a further two in all probability, were names of commercial enterprises, showing dominance of the kaifong Temple Committee by the market shopkeepers. Equally typical was the likelihood that ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 163 area of about 115 km2 and contains 330 Mm3 of water at mean sea level (about 1.3 m above Hong Kong principal datum (PD)). Sand is brought into Deep Bay close to Black Point on the flood current and moved along the Hong Kong coast by wave action during storms. Silts and clays appear to be largely derived from the catchment draining to the inner part of Deep Bay. The tides are complex, with a strong diurnal component superimposed on a semi-diurnal pattern. The usual sequence is thus two high waters and two low waters in just over 24 hours, with one high and one low significantly higher or lower respectively than the other. On certain occasions (14 in 1984) the diurnal component completely dominates and only one high and one low occur in a day. The maximum tidal range is about 2.8 m. Historical background Oyster cultivation is traditional and has been practised in the Pearl River estuary for several hundred years. The coastal town of Shajing (JP) has long been associated with oyster fattening. Oyster cultivation has been practised in Deep Bay since at least 1800 (Bromhall, 1958; Mok, 1973). Disputes over the ownership of Deep Bay oyster beds led to short term leases being granted in 1909 to those organisations, both those based in Hong Kong and those based in China, who could prove good claim to ownership prior to 1898 when the Crown Lease of the New Territories commenced. One oyster bed was reclaimed from the sea around 1915/16 and now forms part of the Tin Shui Wai area. Additional oyster beds were leased, mainly in the mouth of the Shenzhen River, during the period 1909 to 1933. The original 1909 leases were extended from 1931 to 1952. During the early part of World War II many oyster farmers with much traditional expertise moved from Shajing to settle in the Lau Fau Shan area, but the majority of the beds were either ruined or fell into disuse by 1945. Reorganisation of the industry in the immediately post-war era was influenced by events within China culminating with the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Further leases were granted to some oyster farmers ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 164 R.A. BOWLER, D.S.C. YANG AND A.J.E. SMITH to cover the period 1952 to 1977, but from about 1957 those beds closest to the Chinese coast were not re-leased. Since 1977 no leases have been granted and the present claim to "ownership" between China-based farmers and Hong Kong-based farmers divides the bay almost centrally. However, this simplistic division belies the close ties that still exist between oyster farmers. Figure 1 Location Plan Nor Ni 2 Am Scal Pearl Estury Shappe Fuyurg Tungtian Xiaochan PEARL ESTUARY Deep Bay. Nei Ling Ting! People's Republic China (Guangdong Province) South China Sea + Kildmavat A Duchan SHENZHEN CITY Baoan County Xixiang Manion Houhai Shakou DEEP BAY DRUN UDISWM? Black Polo Special Economic Zone Shehe Cucall I'm Shul Wai Law Fau Shan New Territories Lantau Island Legend PRC Oyster beds HONG KONG Oyster beds ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 172 R.A. BOWLER, D.S.C. YANG AND A.J.E. SMITH oyster. This type is referred to in Chinese textbooks as C. gigas Thunberg. The second type is called Chi Hao (4) or red oyster, whose Chinese scientific name is Jin Jiang Mu Li, which translates as the riverine oyster. This type is identified as C. rivularis Gould in Chinese textbooks. The oystermen's description of the two types is given below, supplemented with notes taken from a Chinese textbook (Nanhai Ocean Research Centre, 1978). This information is included here verbatim, to make it more generally available to English language users. "White oysters have an elongated oval shape with length about 3 times the width. Colour is usually white or sometimes yellowish brown. There is a fairly large, brownish yellow horseshoe shaped adductor muscle scar. The white oyster is said to have a higher market value because its taste is superior to that of the red oyster; it also is reputed to take longer to reach market size. "Red oysters have a more variable length to width ratio than the white type and the shell can be round, triangular, oval or elongated. There should be reddish brown or even grey, green or purple streaks on the shell. The scales or laminae which make up the shell are thin and brittle. The adductor muscle scar is of the same size as the white oyster but has an oval or kidney shape. Chinese oysterman reported that the market price was lower than the white oyster but that it reached market size one year earlier.” Recent work (Morris, 1985) suggests that there is no justification to consider that the "C. rivularis type" animals form a separate species. Gould originally described an oyster from the South China Sea as C. rivularis; the type specimen has not been examined since Gould's initial publication in 1861 and it appears that the specimen could have been C. pestigris. Despite these taxonomical points Morris accepts that further studies, to include soft tissue anatomy and perhaps electrophoresis of blood, may provide evidence that there is more than one oyster species involved in the commercial oyster industry. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 179 Mightycity Company Ltd and Messrs. Binnie & Partners (Hong Kong) for permission to publish this paper, and make free use of the information obtained in the EIA. Any views expressed are those of the authors. REFERENCES Binnie & Partners (Hong Kong) and Shankland Cox (1984) Environmental Impact Assessment of Land Preparation Aspects, Tin Shui Wai Development. Draft Evaluation Report. Bromhill J.D. (1958) On the biology and culture of the native oyster of Deep Bay, Hong Kong, Crassostrea sp, HK University Fisheries Journal No. 2 pp 93-107. Mok T.K. (1973) Studies on spawning setting of the oyster in relation to seasonal environmental changes in Deep Bay, HK. HK Fisheries Bulletin No. 3. Agriculture & Fisheries Dept pp 89-101. Mok T.K. (1974a) Observations of the growth of the oyster (Crassostrea gigas Thunberg) in Deep Bay, Hong Kong. HK Fisheries Bulletin No. 4. Agriculture & Fisheries Dept pp 45-53. Mok T.K. (1974b) Studies on the feasibility of culturing the Deep Bay oyster, Crassostrea gigas Thunberg in Tung Chung Bay, HK. HK Fisheries Bulletin No. 4. Agriculture & Fisheries Dept pp 55-67. Morris S. (1985) Preliminary Guide to the Oysters of Hong Kong Asian Marine Biology Vol. 2. Morton B. and Wong P.S. (1975) The Pacific Oyster Industry in Hong Kong. Journal of HK Branch of Royal Asiatic Society Vol. 15 pp 139-149. Nanhai Ocean Research Centre (1978) South China Sea marine Organisms for medicinal use. Academia Sinica pp 62-64. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x KAU SAI, AN UNFINISHED MANUSCRIPT BARBARA E. WARD* 27 1. INTRODUCTION Every traveller to Hong Kong remembers the junks. They swarm in the harbour: fishermen, cargo boats, pilot craft, countless small passenger sampans, wooden lighters clustering around the ocean-going ships like suckling pigs around their dams, Chinese boats of every shape and size. The men and women aboard them are the Boat People. Traditionally they were born, married, died on their boats. They went ashore permanently only after death, for it is unchancy to be buried at sea. In the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong today they number about 250,000. Their counterparts (perhaps two or three million) are spread all along the Pearl River and its branches, throughout the intricate network of navigable inland waterways in Kwangtung and Kwangsi, and all along the Chinese coast southeast from Fukien. 2 3 Water dwelling is not unusual in China (or Japan, or, indeed, most of South East Asia) but the Boat People of Kwangtung and Kwangsi seem to have acquired a special notoriety from at least the Sung dynasty onwards. Known as Tanka, a name rightly resented by them as a term of derision and disrepute, they have been despised, placed at the bottom of local systems of social stratification, and often referred to as exemplars of loose sexual morality and other un-Chinese characteristics. They are still frequently explained away as being not really Chinese, or even not really human. I have heard well-educated landsmen expatiating upon their non-Han descent, their non-Chinese language, their utterly alien customs (which are often alleged to include matriliny), and the special biological distinction which gives them all six toes on each foot. * Barbara E. Ward passed away in 1982 before completing this manuscript, obviously an early draft for a full-length book. It is published here by kind permission of her husband, Dr. Stephen Morris, who has also supplied the plates. Miss Ward was, for many years, a member of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 109 One of these couples had their baby daughter aged 2 and the man's widowed mother with them as well. They and one other of the 3 married couples employed in this way (also on the same boat) were affinally related to the boat's master. The third pair of married employees, on another boat, was not so related. Although it was unusual to find boat dwellers, even fokis, who had originated on the land like Leung Shui Hei, his history was by no means unique. My notes contain a number of other similar cases from other centres of the Boat People, and a large number of cases also of adoption from land with water families. This whole topic, crucial, obviously, to an understanding of the actual relationship between the Boat People and the Chinese population on land, is discussed at greater length below, and elsewhere (Ward 1965, and forthcoming). The more usual backgrounds from which the Kau Sai fokis came were two. First, there were the younger sons of fishermen whose business was not of a kind or scale to require the employment of a complete extended family crew. All the Kau Sai small long-liners were cases in point, as were most of the other small liners, hand-liners, trappers, gill-netters and so on of the inshore waters all around Hong Kong. Such families were not necessarily impoverished, though many were not far from the subsistence level and some were very poor indeed. A small long-liner could, however, run a prosperous business without needing to expand his crew. In such cases, the fact that a younger son or brother was doing a spell of work as a foki did not necessarily imply that he or his family were poverty stricken: he could be simply an absentee member of a successful working unit whose organisers found it more profitable to have him earning a wage outside than being underemployed at home. Secondly, of course, fokis did also come from the ranks of the unsuccessful of all kinds, and not only from boats with small crews, but also from purse-seiners and sometimes trawlers and others whose business in prosperity not only required more workers than even the largest extended families could provide but could also support them all. Fishing being a chancy business and the South China Sea treacherous, sudden reverses of fortune were always possible, and there were not a few stories of the one time junks' masters who had had to pay off their fokis, sell their junks, dismiss their sons with their ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 51 A couple were presented by colleagues with a silver rose bowl and a coffee set. Intending to recuperate in England, Jackman and his wife left Hong Kong on July 21, 1928, aboard the s.s. Rawalpindi. However, he contracted pneumonia soon after the ship sailed from Bombay and died at sea on August 4. His wife probably did not return to Hong Kong (although her name and address appear in directories for the Peak up until 1929). SOURCES Hong Kong Blue Book, 1903-1928 China Mail, August 10, 1928 South China Morning Post, August 11, 1928 Hong Kong Daily Press, 1 January 1928 Hong Kong Telegraph, 28 October 1910 Rev. Carl Smith's card index Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong, Shanghai, etc. (Lloyd's Publishing House, 1908) Directory & Chronicle of China, Japan, etc., 1914-1930 Who's Who in the Far East (pub. China Mail), 1906-07 Henry Thomas Jackman, born 4 June 1874, Civil Service Record: Date | Events | Absences | Salary 20.10.1902 | Appointed to Colonial Service (CSO4408 of 1903) | | 1903 | Executive Engineer, PWD | | HK$3,000 p.a. 1904 | | | 1905 | | | | Appointed 5 June 1903 Took up duty 15 July 1903. Acting Sanitary Surveyor | 3 Apr.-23 Nov. | £480.0.0 | | | £480.0.0 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 HAINAN ISLAND: A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH D.L. MICHALK* 115 Introduction Hainan Island forms the extreme southern limit of the People's Republic of China, save for the Paracel Reefs. Sometimes referred to as the Tail of the Dragon, Hainan lies between longitudes 108°30′ and 111° east and latitudes 18° and 20°31' north. It is separated from the mainland by the 25 km Qiongzhou Straits, and is part of Guangdong, accounting for 15 percent of the Province's area. Located in the South China Sea, Hainan is about 300 km east of Vietnam across the Gulf of Tonkin, some 500 km southwest of Hong Kong, and a similar distance from the provincial capital, Guangzhou. Hainan is oval-shaped with the longest NE to SW axis measuring 309 km and the shorter NW to SE axis, 221 km. With an area of 34,077 km2 (Anon., 1982b), Hainan is about half the size of Tasmania and ranks as the world's twenty-sixth largest island. Although it accounts for less than 1 per cent of China's land area, its tropical climate, rich mineral and petroleum resources and strategic location make it an important, yet undeveloped region of China. Hainan has always been regarded as a backwater by successive Chinese dynasties and a mystery to foreigners. Indeed, had it not been for a handful of inquisitive academics and devoted missionaries who "found Hainan" around the turn of the century, our knowledge of the island would have amounted to little more than folklore. Using these western sources, the aim of this paper is to provide a brief insight into the history of Hainan, particularly the role played by foreigners in its development. * Senior research agronomist, Agricultural Research and Veterinary Centre, New South Wales Department of Agriculture. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 119 To suppress these frequent insurrections, enormous expenditure was required to maintain the garrisons of the walled cities and to import, when necessary, troop reinforcements. The three major uprisings in 1501, 1541 and 1550, for example, required more than ten thousand troops apiece and hundreds of thousands of taels to restore order (Henry, 1886). This significant drain on treasury coffers caused Hai Jui,1 the great native statesman of Hainan, to present his “Crossroads proposal" to the Ming Government. He suggested that by building two roads (one extending north-south, the other east-west) to intersect in the centre of the Li strongholds, the whole island could be brought under immediate control and at the same time trade with the interior could be enhanced. Unfortunately, in spite of Hai Jui's reputation as a source of sound advice, the plan was not taken seriously, with the result that the interior of Hainan remained a terra incognita until the early part of this century. As late as 1882, when B.C. Henry, the missionary-botanist, penetrated the interior of Hainan, the only road of note was that between Nan Fung and Ka Lit, a distance of about 100 km. Goods such as hides, rattan and fragrant wood, bartered from the Li in the mountains were transported by ox-cart over this rough track to Ka Lit and thence to Hai Kou by boat along the Nan Du River. Travel along this road without a strong escort was foolhardy as bandits constantly patrolled the road preying on unprotected travellers. It was not until after Liberation in 1952 that a road was built through the mountainous centre of the island (Fairfax-Cholmeley, 1963). While local rebellion undoubtedly disrupted trade, it was the burden of taxes and piracy which choked commerce in Hainan. The effect of taxes imposed by the powerful Chinese administrators is well illustrated in the salt-industry. Like most coastal towns elsewhere in China, salt extraction from the sea became a thriving industry in Hainan's coastal cities. However, it was not long before salt-makers were compelled to turn over most of their produce in taxes to corrupt local officials who hoarded it and then forbade producers, under threat of heavy penalty, to sell it elsewhere. This monopolistic practice resulted in the collapse of the industry, though doubtless it enriched the few officials who traded their spoils with the Li for the prized incense timbers of the interior (Schafer, 1969). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 120 D.L. MICHALK Taxes levied on imports were just as crippling since the rates were fixed according to the size of the vessel that ferried the goods to Hainan, regardless of the value of the wares it carried. This meant that because the greatest profits were obtained from luxury goods such as expensive furniture, fine silks, silver vases and gold-en hairpins for the privileged rich, these imports took precedence over cargoes of livestock, cooking pots and bags of rice which returned negligible profits (Schafer, 1969). The lack of necessities of life led the poet Su Shih to lament in verse that a "grain of rice was like a pearl”. Enticed by an abundance of rich cargoes, bands of pirates formed and pillaged, almost unchecked, shipping along the entire southern seaboard of China. The problem reached such epidemic proportions in the seventeenth century as to preclude safe navigation on the open sea between the east coast of Hainan and the mouth of the Pearl River (Mayers, 1872). The only secure trade route between the mainland and Hainan was to cross the narrow straits which separate the island from the Leichow Peninsula with strong military escort and thence, trek overland to the provincial capital, at quickest a journey taking one month. As a consequence, commerce virtually ceased and Hainan was immersed again in the poverty and deprivation for which it was noted in medieval times (Schafer, 1969). Denied their source of revenue, pirates turned their ravages landward, and repeatedly sacked towns and villages in the north and east of the island, in spite of the presence of Imperial garrisons (Mayers, 1872). Although the destruction in 1684 of the pirate kingdom in Taiwan restored safe navigation to the Guangdong coast, Hainan still remained a haven for buccaneers, and pillage continued almost unabated until the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was the combination of a growth in foreign shipping interests in China, the use of steam power in ships and the opening of a treaty port in Hainan, which led to the demise of piracy as a lucrative pastime in the South China Sea. Although the Chinese had previously established rudimentary navies such as the "Sea-Patrolling Water Army" (Hsun-hai shui-chun) to control piracy (K’iungchow fu chih, 1920 ed.), it was the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 130 D.L. MICHALK ernment looked to Hainan to rapidly expand production of rubber, coffee and tropical fruit as these were in short supply and could only be grown in small quantities in parts of Yunnan Province. However, in spite of this encouragement and efforts by the Hainanese, only 20 per cent of the Island's arable land was under production in 1965 (Kirk, 1965). Although significant achievement was made in the agricultural sector, this was overshadowed by advances made in industry. Only a few, poorly equipped machine repair shops were operative at the time of Liberation, but by 1965 more than 20 farming and other machinery plants were producing 73 kinds of new products, 38 of which were in serial production (Kirk, 1965). Among the latter were peanut planters, water turbine pumps, threshers, husking mills, coconut processing machines and fluorescent lamps for deep-sea fishing. Processing factories including food canneries, sugar refineries, textile mills and rubber footwear plants not only increased in variety, but also in product quality and economic efficiency (Kirk, 1965). During this period, Hainan assumed greater military importance: first in response to the conflict involving French and American forces in Vietnam, and more recently to the Soviet-backed military and political takeover of Laos and Cambodia by Vietnam. This importance was further enhanced by the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war and the discovery of oil and natural gas by American and French joint-ventures in the Gulf of Tonkin and the South China Sea. As a first line of defence, China maintains constant surveillance from the air supported by a formidable naval force of 300,000 stationed in Hainan and the Leizhou Peninsula plus strategically placed missile bases (Hollingworth, 1982). Initially, military personnel were engaged in road construction, installation of communication networks and improvement of defence positions, but in these more settled times, they have played a key role in the agricultural and industrial development of Hainan (China Daily, August 11, 1983). In spite of these efforts, however, development of Hainan's resources proceeded too slowly to raise the living standard to keep pace with the national average (Wu and Zhi, 1981). While the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 OBITUARY: K. M. A. BARNETT, O.B.E. Three contributions to the memory of a remarkable man, Fellow of the RAS of Great Britain and Ireland (1949) and a founding member of the Hong Kong Branch: from James Hayes, Derek Davies, Solomon Bard. Three weeks ago one of the most distinguished retired members of the Civil Service passed away in England. Mr. K. M. A. Barnett's death was noted in the South China Morning Post on 30 October 1987. A factual account of his services was provided, beginning with his posting here as a young Cadet Officer in 1932 and ending 37 years later with his retirement from Hong Kong, but with a further 10 years' service for the United Nations Organisation in Malawi and Bangladesh on duties connected with the census. It is difficult to do justice to this exceptional man. Few friends of his own or a later generation could claim to have covered quite the same ground, or in the same way. For this reason, letters of appreciation have to come from several persons, and not from one pen alone. Dr. Bard's letter printed on 20 November is a case in point, (see pp. 8-10 below). As a Hong Kong civil servant his greatest achievement was probably the 1961 Census, the first for nearly thirty years. He established the office (the present Census and Statistics Department) and was its guiding genius. The work suited him to a “T”, for he was able to bring to its organisation and subsequent reporting, all the knowledge, experience and intellectual qualities that make it a lasting and major landmark in the history of Hong Kong's post-war development. Each segment of the land and sea population, by origin and occupation, each type of dwelling place (and they were legion in those hard times), education, marriage and much else was covered in the 3 volume report, and he personally wrote the manuals for the field staff and supervisors. He conducted further investigatory work, including the 1966 By-census, before retirement in 1969. My own association with Ken Barnett stemmed from our being colleagues in the Administrative Grade of the Civil Service, and from shared interests. He was District Commissioner, New Territories when I was posted to the District Office (South) in 1957, and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q PIRATES IN THE PEARL RIVER DELTA DIAN H. MURRAY* This study of “Pirates in the Pearl River" was a multiarchival research project whose goal was to piece together information on a group of Chinese non-elites who had hitherto escaped the attention of historians and to turn our attention seaward from the Chinese mainland in order to place our understanding of land-sea relations within a broader ecological context. The research drew upon documents written in Chinese, Vietnamese, French, Portuguese, Japanese and English and involved visits to archives in Washington, D.C.; Taipei, Taiwan; Beijing, China: Macao, Hong Kong; and London. Almost at its outset my investigation revealed a significant growth of piracy within the Pearl River Delta and along the entire South China coast from Chekiang to Vietnam between 1796 and 1810. Within Kwangtung province alone a confederation of several thousand pirates and a fleet of 1,200 junks dominated delta and coast alike forcing all who set sail, regardless of whether they were merchantmen, fishermen, salt distributors or opium smugglers, to purchase passports for immunisation against attack. The military prowess of the pirates was such that they successfully fought the Ch'ing government fleet, in the form of the Kwangtung provincial water force, to a standstill and involved themselves in both battles and negotiations with the Western foreigners then on the scene. Yet, during 1810, at what seemed to be the height of their power, the pirates disappeared almost overnight from the sea. It then became my mission to understand both their rise and fall. Initially, I had intended to investigate the entire phenomenon and to account for all of the pirate activity along the southeast littoral. In the end, however, I discovered that just as there were economic macroregions within which life was lived on the continent, so, too, were there similar regions or 'water * Professor Murray, of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, is author of Pirates of the South China Coast, 1790-1870 (Stanford University Press, 1987). This talk was delivered to the Society on August 1st, 1983. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q If the pirate's ultimate growth was not a result of external patronage or protection, might it have been owing to some internal element such as religion, ideology, or leadership that served in a special way to unify and integrate their force? For the time being I will dismiss religion and ideology as relevant factors with the promise to return to them in the conclusion and argue instead that indeed it was to the extraordinary leadership that emerged from within their ranks that the pirates owed not only their survival during the crisis of 1802, but also their subsequent success. The one individual, more than any other, upon whose shoulders such accolades must fall, was Cheng I, a pirate whose pedigree can be traced to the sixteenth century. From the imbroglio that emerged after the death of the Tayson, Cheng I was responsible for transforming a motley crew of quarrelsome refugees interested primarily in internecine warfare and mutual slaughter into a well-ordered confederation divided into the Six Fleets of the Red, Black, White, Yellow, Blue and Green Flags. To bring order to the confederation, each vessel was to be registered with one fleet whose banner it would subsequently fly. Because the stability of the confederation would be threatened by individual junks switching affiliation or by fleet leaders encouraging them to do so, anyone caught tampering with the identification process was subject to punishment. Provisions prohibiting pirates from fighting one another for prizes already taken or from undertaking unauthorized activities on their own sought to prevent internal conflict. Clear regulations also defined the procedure for sharing prizes while a kind of implicit territorial division characterised the cruising grounds of the various fleets. Despite his many accomplishments, however, Cheng I's days as a pirate were short-lived, but when he died unexpectedly in 1807, his tradition of exemplary leadership was continued by his wife Cheng I Sao, who assumed his position as leader of the confederation. Just as Cheng I had been the confederation's unifier, so did Cheng I Sao become its consolidator. Realizing that an association of several thousand individuals could not live from the chance capture of a few vessels at sea, she took measures to regularize its finances through the selling of protection to seafarers, no matter who they were employed by, along the entire coast. Such was the authority of this "dragon lady" of the South China Sea that when she spoke the men rushed to obey. Under ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 234 BOOK REVIEWS Dian H. Murray, Pirates of the South China Coast 1790-1810 (Stanford University Press, 1987), pp. viii, 243. In 1813, there appeared in English a translation by the European scholar Neumann of a Chinese work on pirates: more specifically, on that particularly large group which infested the China Sea from 1807-1810. Dian Murray takes a look at them over a longer period of twenty years, to give us the first modern work on the subject. She uses a wide range of sources in Chinese and Western languages, the subject of a useful bibliographic essay towards the end of the book. At their peak, the pirate bands numbered between 50,000 and 70,000 men and women, organized into a confederation of six fleets and 20,000 junks: surely a horrifying prospect for officials and villagers and townpeople alike, not to mention other seafarers. And so it proved. The author gives many examples of defeats inflicted on Ch'ing officers, and the killings, abductions and sackings to which the inhabitants of many places were subjected over the period of greatest piratical activity. Chapters 6 and 7 (pp. 99-136) contain many examples of the kind, in colourful detail often culled from county gazetteers. In the end, the pirate menace was removed by a combination of greater force and foreign aid, together with application of the well-known expedient of buying over the leaders with money and titles, which resulted in the surrender of the last fleet, leaving the way open for the Ch'ing navy to overcome the remaining smaller groups piecemeal (Chapter 8). Other chapters deal with the milieu in which the pirate menace originated: the (Cantonese) "Water World" as Professor Murray entitles it (Chapter 1), the Sino-Vietnamese piracy of the late 18th century whose leaders were enlisted by the rival claimants to the Vietnamese throne (Chapters 2 and 3), the "Professionalization of Piracy", which gives an account of organization, leadership, recruitment and life at sea (Chapter 4), whilst another chapter is devoted to the manner in which piratical operations were conducted, including information on ships and weapons (Chapter 5). A "Conclusion" surveys the era and the pirate phenomenon under ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 424 the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and written text by Craig Clunas, this work is an attractive volume for general readers interested in Chinese furniture. Robert Ford, Captured in Tibet, Hong Kong, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, reprint of 1957 edition. 266 pp. Index, Photographs. This is a reprint of a highly readable account of the Chinese take-over of Tibet in 1950, with an additional introduction by the Dalai Lama. The author, seconded by the British Army as a radio communications officer to the Tibetan Army, spent a year as a prisoner of the Red Army. Christmas Humphreys, A Popular Dictionary of Buddhism, London: Curzon Press, 1984. Paperback reprint, 1987. 224 pp. Little more than a dictionary, this book will be of help to English-readers who need a quick reference to Buddhist terms in Sanscrit, Chinese, or Japanese. Robin Hutcheon, First Sea Lord — The Life and Work of Sir Y.K. Pao, Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1990. 170 pp. Index, Photographs. A short commissioned biography written by the former editor of the South China Morning Post, this book is attractively presented with a number of photographs. A definitive study of the shipping and property giant, Sir Y.K. Pao and his phenomenal accomplishments, both in Hong Kong and worldwide, is still required. Nigel Cameron, The Chinese File, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1990. paperback, 246 pp. Illustrations. First published in 1958 by Hutchison and Co. in London for an English readership, this book has been reprinted by Oxford University Press in Hong Kong. By now, the author is a well-known prolific writer in the territory. Cameron's observations as a serious traveller in China before he became a specialist, on such various topics as the Great Wall, the Minorities, the Deep South, and Sian, are interesting and enlightening. Valery M. Garrett, Mandarin Squares, Oxford Images of Asia Series, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1990. 66 pp. Bibliography, Glossary, Index, Illustrations. In addition to delightful descriptions of the embroidered squares from court robes of the Qing officials, popularly known by Western collectors as Mandarin Squares, Garrett has presented in this most attractive volume in very simple terms how the Manchus came to the Chinese throne and how young men were trained to become officials. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 47 the Ch'ung-fu-ssu or Office for Christian Clergy, was set up in 1289 to supervise their activities, and this body is last heard of in 1351. The Ming revolution against the Mongols in the 1360s, which swept through China from south to north, was strongly nationalistic in character, and references to foreigners in Chinese cities cease after these cities passed under Ming control. The Mongol capital Khanbalik (modern Peking) fell in 1368, and China thereafter retreated into a long period of isolation from the outside world. Nestorian Christianity was now spent, and the next wave of Christians to arrive in China, nearly two hundred years later, were Roman Catholics from Europe. They came by sea, as it was now no longer possible to travel overland through Central Asia, and they found that the work of evangelism had to begin all over again, as scarcely the faintest memory of Christianity had survived in China. The number of Nestorian priests in China was never large. In the T'ang period they probably numbered a few thousand at most. As we have seen, Wu-tsung's decree of 845 gives a figure of about 3,000 foreign monks, and a slightly earlier Buddhist work asserts that the grand total of Manichean, Nestorian, and Zoroastrian monasteries in China was smaller than the number of Buddhist monasteries in a single small city. In the Yüan period, according to a census taken in the 1290s, Mongols and other foreigners in China accounted for as many as one person in thirty-five of a total population of seventy-two million. Even so, the number of Nestorian Christians in China was estimated by John of Cora in 1330 to be no higher than 30,000. This estimate may be slightly low, but it is clear that it is on the right lines. The Nestorian missions to China have generated an extensive and often romantic literature, and much, probably too much, has been claimed for the effectiveness of their missionary activity. In T'ang China the Nestorians had the Christian missionary field to themselves; in Yüan China they were joined by missionaries of the European Latin church. On both occasions the influence of Nestorian Christianity on China appears to have been insignificant. The major, if impermanent, missionary achievement of the Nestorian church beyond its heartland in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys and the hills of Kurdistan, was not in China, but in Arabia, India, and Turkestan. The mission to Turkestan was particularly important: the ethnic character of the Nestorian church, at first predominantly Syrian and Persian, was substantially modified between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 86 A local Ch'ao-chou cult image seen on a secondary altar in a tiny makeshift rural temple in Ulu Sembawang in Singapore is said to represent the spirit of a nine-year-old boy who died in the late 1960s. He is the medium spirit who speaks through his aunt, providing advice for local devotees. His aunt raised the image after she found that the spirit of the boy returned to her in a dream offering to help people. The boy is known by the title of 'the Prince of the East of the Sea', Hai-tung Tai-tzu. A Cantonese Kuomintang soldier, Huang Chin-ch'uang, crossed to Taiwan in 1949 with the retreating KMT forces. He was posted to Pingtung near Kaohsiung and served with a unit near the main village on the island of Little Liuchiu where some time later he became ill and died. The people of the village, remembering his kindness and goodwill and knowing that he had no family of his own, buried him in an auspicious spot on the hillside. He became the spirit guarding the hills above the village and also gained renown for his ability to protect fishermen in danger. A shrine, a privately run temple, was built in his honour and an image of him placed on the altar where he is now known as Marshal Huang despite having been a mere private soldier. Wang was a sailor left behind in Java by the great Ming explorer Cheng Ho at the beginning of the sixteenth century. His image is to be seen on a side altar in the Earth God temple at Ancol, not all that far from Jakarta, whilst tablets dedicated to him are to be seen in Chinese temples in Semarang and near Sourabaya, all on the island of Java. Local Chinese belief is divided as to whether he was pure Chinese or Javanese, and whether he was a shipwright, navigator, or senior member of Cheng Ho's crew, or merely a Javanese interpreter. They are at one, however, that Wang was a Moslem and that he married a Javanese wife and lived out his days, dying peacefully in Semarang. Of these ten male and two female spirits, all but two are represented by stylised images on altars, and they are taken from each of the main ethnic groups along the south China coast, the Cantonese, Fukienese, Hakka, Ch'ao-chou, and Hainanese. Five originated during the past fifty years, three some time during the past century, whilst four definitely developed during the Ch'ing dynasty. Only six of the spirits still have their full names remembered, and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 110 J onto up from Shanghai to relieve them. In this way he wished to show the Japanese that the British flag could not be driven off the Yangtze. But other ideas prevailed in Shanghai; the ships were ordered out. I was instructed to transfer my Chinese refugees, the employees from our office and their families, numbering some 200 souls, to the "Ewo" hulk, which was to be left anchored at Nanking under the protection of a British gunboat. Curiously enough, the refugees showed extreme reluctance to be abandoned thus to an unknown fate, and in the upshot, most of them went on to Shanghai with the ship. Our flotilla was augmented by the arrival of the light cruiser **Caradoc** from Hankow, where she had been wintering. Her 'tween decks were packed with several hundred British women and children, who were being evacuated from the upriver ports. A small ship flying the Italian flag added to our number; she was believed to be carrying the personnel of the Italian Aviation Mission, who had been training Chinese pilots at Nanchang. Led by a Japanese escorting destroyer, followed by H.M.S. "Caradoc", we formed line and sailed down the river, the journey enlivened by the anger of the Japanese Commander at the inability of the master of the Italian ship to understand the signals which, from time to time, he made in the International code. With our convoy went the last merchant ships to show the British flag on the Yangtze. The "Red Duster" was displaced; henceforth the Japanese view prevailed. Hong Kong and South China 1938 The West river and its network of tributaries provide the highways over which the commerce of South China moves. Some distance outside Bocca Tigris, where the river debouches into the China Sea, an eleven-mile ridge of hills rises sharply out of the blue semi-tropical waters. We call it Hongkong, but to the Chinese it is "The Fragrant Lagoon". Why "fragrant" I cannot say, because the surrounding waters are salt, as any sea water, and full of large diaphanous jelly-fish that lie in wait to sting unwary swimmers, or of little black insects which get inside your bathing costume and bite you in places inconvenient to reach. There is no record to show how these marine depredators spent their time before 1840. In those days, before the arrival of the British, the island was uninhabited and, though visited by fisher folk and pirates, I doubt whether they went swimming. The pirates have now ================================================================================ 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-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 the second half of the journey, through Mirs Bay, where The station is to be found on the western coast. With a favourable wind and a good boat the trip can be completed in a day. Should the conditions be unfavourable, however, it is very difficult to estimate the time. In addition, you have to consider that Chinese waters are very often unsafe because of pirates, and travelling this route you are continuously exposed to danger. Use of small boats is perhaps safer. If using the other route, you first of all cross to Kaulung, which lies immediately opposite the island of Hong Kong. From there you cross the mountains until you cross the first range running west from Mirs Bay. At the village of Saten [Sha Tin] you can get a passenger ferry, or hire a boat, in order to reach Wo-Ang-Tschung (Wo Ang Chung, Wan, today called Chung Mei) to the north. Now you have a strenuous hike over the mountains before you reach that arm of Mirs Bay (Sha Tau Kok Hoi) which stretches to the west. Having reached the village of Kiuk-pu [Kuk Po] you have to take another boat. In about 20 or 25 minutes the sea has been crossed and you have arrived at Tunglo. This journey can be completed, if all goes well, in a day. It is a difficult journey, but avoids the perils of the sea. But where in China is there a route free of difficulties and dangers? If you look down on Tungfo from a high place, you can see, in the first place, the sea to the south and east, whereas to the north and west you see a narrow strip of cultivable land, while, further away, the horizon is limited in all directions by mountains. The range to the north stretches from the east to the west and bends round in a bow shape to the south. This mountain range forms the border of the strip of cultivable land to the north and west, with the other sides being open to the sea. This range has no collective name, whereas the individual mountains that appear within it carry names, which it can be of very little interest to mention here. The highest of them, which is also the highest point in the Sinon District, is called Ng Thung San [Ng Tung Shan, #1]. Its height is, according to the measurements of English technicians, 3095 feet. It is Page 283 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 304 She first arrived in Hong Kong in May 1857 under the agency of Dent & Co, one of the major trading companies in the rapidly expanding colony. For the next three years the Norna carried general cargo along the China coast between Hong Kong and the Treaty Ports. In 1860 Dent & Co. decided to move her to the more profitable tea trade route to Australia. The Norna, under the command of Captain Wilson, received orders to make sail for Foo Chow, load her cargo of tea and proceed to Sydney. For crew, Wilson had eight Europeans and twenty lascars. As was not uncommon at the time, he also took along his wife and young son. On the 27th September 1860 the Norna, loaded with tea chests, made her way down the Min River and headed south for Australia where she arrived two days before Christmas. Within two weeks the Norna had completed unloading and sailed in ballast the short distance up the coast to Newcastle. Here she took on coal for delivery to Hong Kong. On the 3rd March the Norna had taken on over 400 tons of her cargo and put to sea for the return passage to Hong Kong. Lying in her path in the Western Pacific, just north of the equator, were the Caroline Islands. This group of islands stretch for about 2,000 miles east/west between Palau and Ponape (Pohnpei) and consist of about 560 coral islands, islets and atolls, the majority uninhabited. As the evening closed in on the 31st March 1861, the wind had increased to a strong breeze and the Norna was sailing at a steady 10 knots on a west nor'west course. Unknown to Wilson, he had his bows pointed directly at the coral-rimmed Oroluk Lagoon. Somehow his precise navigation had failed him. At 2200 hours that night, the Norna struck hard and remained held fast in the coral, her timbers splintered and beyond repair. The following morning Wilson established that the atoll was about 15 miles in diameter with the small half-square-mile island of St Augustine 12 miles to their north-west. The crew worked feverishly around the wreck for a week to salvage what they could, and in the three ship's boats rowed across the lagoon to the uninhabited St Augustine island. After ten days ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 340 The jacket proclaims this to be a "meticulously researched study"; therefore, I was all the more surprised to find elementary errors. For example, Hong Kong Island was ceded to the British Government in 1842 in the Treaty of Nanking, not in 1843 (p 2). Also, South Sea Textile Manufacturing Company, Limited has never, to my knowledge, been known as "South Sea Cotton Mill" (p 55). Such unfortunate lapses, while they may be minor, tend to cast doubt about how much meticulous research went into this manuscript. There is a tendency to report, not analyze. One might be led to believe that mill owners felt insecure as immigrants to Hong Kong (p 51). Yet, on the very next page, the Shanghainese entrepreneurs are credited with having a "long term time horizon" and that “in spinning, one has to wait before the capital will yield profit" (p 52). This contradiction is neither pointed out nor elaborated upon. Incomplete research in other places leads to trivial or misleading conclusions. I found myself frustrated that, with all the data the author had in hand, other questions were not addressed. A Shanghainese industrialist in 1948, armed perhaps with an MBA, would, if he had done a thorough analysis, probably not have set up a spinning and weaving operation in Hong Kong. In those days, all raw materials, machinery and spare parts, down to nuts and bolts, had to be imported. There was no domestic market. And yet, not only did the Shanghainese establish themselves in Hong Kong, they, by and large, prospered. Why? And did they do as well in other Asian countries? We will have to wait for another book to find out the answers to these questions. MARTIN TANG Michael Y. L. Luk. The Origins of Chinese Bolshevism, and Ideology in the Making. Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1990 (East Asian Historical Monographs) viii + 366pp. Bibliography. Index. Analysis of the incubation and early development stages of the Chinese Communist movement, lasting through the 1920s, presents historians with a difficult and complex task. For decades many of the intellectual elite of China had been convinced that only sweeping political and cultural changes could save the country from unlimited ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 148 normal form of exercise was the evening stroll. There is, perhaps, nothing which so readily distinguishes the Chinese from their lugubrious neighbours to the west, the Indians, as their cheerful spirit. That evening the scene was more animated than usual. I could read in the happy faces of the crowd the joy they felt at finding themselves at last no longer alone in the struggle. Arrangements had been made to send the officers of our little group to various parts of the Chinese front to study war conditions. The others had already left, and I was due to leave by air for Kweilin next day. I went down to the island air-strip early in the morning to find several planes just in from Hongkong, with the families of the C.N.A.C. staff who had been living there. The American crews had flown to Kaitak from a field in China, loaded up, and flown out again all at night. Over a cup of bad Chungking coffee they described the events in Hongkong, the bombing of the airfield and the destruction of the majority of the C.N.A.C. planes, caught on the ground by the sudden Japanese attack. By and by the covers were taken off the three engines of the old Junkers 52 plane, in which I was to fly, and mechanics started them up. The plane was the last of those belonging to the Eurasia Aviation Corporation, a Sino-German company, the only competitor of the C.N.A.C. The German pilots had been replaced by Chinese. There were a dozen passengers; we clutched our seats a little nervously as the heavy-looking machine accelerated down the runway towards the river only to rise from the ground just before we hit the water. We spiralled up above the Chungking escarpment and flew away over the Szechuan mountains at a steady hundred miles per hour, until we dropped back through a gap in the clouds to see below us the sabre-toothed hills of Kweilin. I was taken in hand by an efficient "Fu kuan" (Adjutant) of General Li Tsung Jen's staff and motored into the city, where I found Michael waiting. My destination was the 3rd War Zone, the most important of the nine war zones in China. It covered the greater part of the richest provinces, Kiangsu, Chekiang, Anhwei, Kiangsi and Fukien: bounded by the Yangtze to the north, the sea coast in the east, Fukien to the south, the area of the 3rd War Zone reached west as far as the Kan river. General Ku Chu Tung, famous for his defence of Shanghai in 1937, was the Commander. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 150 and the 3rd War Zone branch of the Central Military Academy, where the junior officers of the Chinese army are trained. The outbreak of war between Britain and Japan had altered the nature of my visit. It was agreed that a British party would be sent to the 3rd War Zone to assist in guerilla warfare, and shortly afterwards I left for a reconnaissance of the forward areas where the school, which was to be the central feature of our assistance, would be established. The lower Yangtze delta is the most densely populated and the wealthiest region in China. Within the triangle contained by Shanghai, Nanking, and Hangchow, there are many large cities, such as Soochow, Changhsing, Huchow, Chinkiang and Kashing. In this area there is more railway traffic, more road traffic, more river and canal traffic, more sea-going shipping, and more active industry, than in all the rest of China. For the past four years, since the fall of Nanking, the Japanese had occupied the main lines of communication in the region; the Yangtze, the railways, the large cities; and they had patrolled and used the roads and creeks: in short, on the security of this base rested the whole Japanese position in China. Any threat here, any blow at Japanese dispositions, would be correspondingly the more telling. Well, as it happened, a broad tongue of mountains reached from the southwest into the area, and in these mountains the guerillas had established their quarters. Our car followed the road along the Tsien Tang river gorges: we slept in little road-side inns and ate in busy fly-blown taverns. When I had last visited these parts there had been no motor roads; I had come by junk, hauled up the rapids by trackers who bent to the ground as they strained to advance foot by foot. A new railway, leading south from Wuhu on the Yangtze, had been completed only a few years previously. In face of the Japanese advance, Chinese engineers had dismantled the line to deny its use to the enemy: but the Japanese advance had stopped at the edge of the plain; the mountain area which reached back to the mass of unoccupied China was still untouched, except for desultory bombing. The steel railway bridges had been cut, their girders sloped at all angles; and the sleepers had been taken for firewood by the farmers, leaving the rails lying along the track. All this derelict steel, the stone piers of the bridges, the embankments and cuttings, and the rails themselves, were ideal for use in training. We had here better facilities than we had ever had in Maymyo, though ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 115 control. Lung Yun still maintained his own troops, well equipped and better paid and fed than those of Chungking, out of the revenues he had collected from the supplies which had flowed over the Indo-China railway and the Burma road. The control of the only communications into China had made the Governor of Yunnan a very rich man. My experiences during the subsequent year were to be discouraging. In the past my championship of the Chinese cause had been unpopular with my own people; it had involved me not only in disapproval but also in financial loss. As the situation in Western China unfolded itself to me I began to wonder whether, after all, there was not a lot to be said for the view of the die-hards. Since my return to England I have made a point of studying the aspects to which I have drawn attention in these writings. I examined the history of Sun Yat Sen's Three Principles and the record of Kuo Min Tang teaching. I have set out the facts as they came to my notice, and will leave it to the reader to judge for himself how far the extraordinary incidents in which I was now to find myself involved sprang from independent impulses present in a backward province, or more directly from the nationalist teaching of Sun Yat Sen. As the 'plane flies in from India, over the mountains of Yunnan, and begins to circle to come down to Kun-ming, the ribbon of the Burma road shows up below where it passes a cluster of villas nestling, some fifteen miles short of the town, at the foot of the hills on the edge of the lake. The 'plane crosses the tip of the forty-mile long lake to land on the large airfield at the far side of the city, 6,150 feet above sea level. Accommodation in the city was hard to find; for some weeks I stayed out at the lakeside. Owing to its height, Kun-ming enjoys an excellent climate all the years round, cool in summer, mild in winter. The great mountain ranges to the west absorb the moisture of the monsoon, leaving an adequate but moderate rainfall: apart from a period in the autumn the sun shines daily. The two Chinese characters Yun and Nan mean 'South of the Clouds,' an appropriate reference to the climate of Szechuan to the North East, where for six months in the year, at Chungking, they never see the sun. The foreign community, in addition to the small number of French who were concerned with the operation of the railway line to the Indo-China border, included the Consuls of the leading countries, and an increasing number of American military personnel, attached to the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 211 the loading and unloading of cargo, listening to the varied languages of the coast in Foochow, Amoy and Swatow. It was always a thrill to catch the odd Cantonese phrase as we neared home. At one port we took on board a large number of pigs which were housed in pens on the deck forward of the accommodation. The loading of these pigs involved tremendous squealing generated by the beating of the pigs to make them move. We thought this was cruel so, in the evening, when the loading was finished, several of us sought out the bamboo poles that had been used for beating the pigs and threw them overboard. At sea off the ports we would come across massive fishing fleets. On one occasion our ship was in collision with one of these fishing junks and took the crew on board. We heard that one man had been lost but the rest rescued, including the family of the owner. They looked a miserable wet group on board and I imagine there was a good deal of argument about whose fault the collision was and bargaining about compensation. In any event the ship was stopped for several hours before the fishermen were taken off by one of the other boats. Storms and Pirates These journeys were made in the winter so there was no danger from typhoons but the North East Monsoon produces almost continuous gales in the Taiwan Strait and China Sea. This monsoon sped us on our way south and held us up on the way back. The little ships bucketed about all over the place but any seasickness was soon over. It was great fun hanging over the very bows in a big sea watching the ship's stem come right out of the water and plunge back. The year when the sea froze over we found the first ice in the form of tiny plates like fish scales. These got larger and larger until we found drifts of serious ice. The ship had to take one or two runs at some of these drifts and we had a great struggle to get alongside when we reached the port in Chefoo. Pirates were common on the China coast but only once was a school party involved in a piracy. This was the Shanghai party travelling back to school on the Tungchow in, I think, January 1936. The pirates, believing that this ship had a load of silver, got on board in Shanghai as deck passengers. The deck passengers were segregated from the cabin area and bridge by bars and locked gates while armed White Russian guards patrolled the decks near the bars day and night. Once at sea the pirates killed the White Russian guard and took over the ship. The ship disappeared for days. Nobody had any idea where on the thousands of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 155 to the front of the school building, to double the defences of the bridge, probably some time in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. 27 The building of the gun-towers, the school, the Man Mo Temple and Meeting Hall, and the communal grave, is evidence for the prosperity and vitality of the town, and the village society in which it was set, in the later nineteenth century. By 1904, the market had about doubled in size, and in the number of shops operating, from its situation fifty years earlier. From its foundation in 1830-1835, in fact, the prosperity of the town seems to have increased steadily until 1898, with the only check being the very temporary set-back of the Taiping attack. The Market and the New Frontier The leasing of the New Territories to Great Britain in 1898 was traumatic for the villagers of the Sha Tau Kok area. The line originally proposed for the new frontier would have run along the Sha Tau Kok River from source to sea. This would have put two of the eleven village alliance areas of the Shap Yeuk into China, the market and the other village alliance areas into the New Territories. This was unacceptable to the Chinese authorities, who were unwilling to allow so significant a place as Sha Tau Kok to become part of the area administered by Britain. Eventually it was agreed that the frontier should run along the Sha Tau Kok River from the source down to the Sha Tau Kok bridge, and then be diverted from the bridge down the centre of the bridge access road to the sluice at Yim Liu Ha, then in a straight line to the sea, and thence east along the high-water mark to the mouth of Mirs Bay.* This line was drawn very close to the northern and western edges of the market. As such it isolated the market from the rest of Chinese territory; its only access was either over the bridge, which was half in Hong Kong, or through Hong Kong territory, or by sea through Hong Kong waters. In the late nineteenth century, China controlled imports and exports through customs regulations, enforced by the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service. By the drawing of the frontier where it eventually was, the normal, day-to-day trade of Sha Tau Kok market suddenly found itself * See Map 4. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 193 H Details of the early Hakka examination successes are known from a recently recovered genealogy, of the Chan (陳) lineage of Nam Chung. It is understood that a copy of this genealogy will be deposited with the Hong Kong Museum of History. I am indebted to Mr Chan Wing-hot for drawing my attention to the information in this genealogy. Q Seen 8 At the time of the Block Crown Lease (1905), 12.68 acres of saltpans were recorded. However, the serious inadequacies of the first survey here led to another being conducted in 1912, when 17.11 acres were recorded. However, in 1912 two areas were left unclaimed, probably because storms had breached their bunds and ruined them. These two areas totalled about 3.3 acres. In addition, there were about 0.6 acres of houses, huts, and waste within the saltpan reclamation, which, therefore, totalled about 21.2 acres. The saltpans were very valuable property in the nineteenth century - the Basel missionaries (see below, n. 17) record the sale of a share by a Tam Shui Hang villager in 1882 for "several hundreds of dollars" (Basel Mission archive, doc. AT-16, Nr. 45). In the 1920s, however, and still more in the 1930s, cheap imported salt caused ever-growing problems, which led to the closure of the saltworks before the War. A bridge was built to the saltpans in 1934 (Administrative Reports for the Year 1934, App. J, "Report on the New Territories for 1934", p. J17). After the War, the abandoned saltworks became the site of a major squatter settlement, recently cleared. Today, the saltpan area has disappeared under new reclamation, and all that remains is a new Tin Hau Temple, replacing the old one previously on the saltpans, built on a new site on the new waterfront. For details of the history of the temples in the area, on the settlement of the Hakka in the area, the reclamation projects they undertook, the founding and management of the market at Sha Tau Kok, and the functioning of the Shap Yeuk as the district management body, see P.H. Hase, "The Alliance of Ten Settlements and Polities in the Sha Tau Kok Area", in D. Faure and H.S. Siu, eds., Down to Earth: The Territorial Bond in South China, Stanford University Press, 1995. 12. No details on the earlier history of the temple survived the very full restoration of 1894, but Shan Tsun elders believe it to be very old. 13. In the 1688 Gazetteer (Ch. 3) a ferry “along the coast” is mentioned called the "Ma Tseuk Ling Ferry". There can be no doubt that this is the ferry to Sha Yue Chung (Shayuchong, etc.), 12 miles down the coast. Ma Tseuk Ling, at the head of Starling Inlet, is the nearest old village to the Wu Shek Kok Temple (Wu Shek Kok village - probably a foundation of the early nineteenth century). The coasts of Starling Inlet within two or three miles of Ma Tseuk Ling were blocked with mudflats and mangrove everywhere except at Wu Shek Kok, where alone a hill falls steeply into the sea. Wu Shek Kok is, therefore, the only possible site for a "Ma Tseuk Ling Ferry" landing place. The Ma Tseuk Ling villagers owned the Wu Shek Kok Temple, and the Ma Tseuk Ling military post (1688 Gazetteer, ch. 7), was at Shek Chung Au, just a few hundred yards from Wu Shek Kok. These Ma Tseuk Ling connections with the Wu Shek Kok area strongly suggest that the Wu Shek Kok hill was regarded as forming part of the Ma Tseuk Ling area. Later, Wu Shek Kok formed part of the Ma Tseuk Ling Yeuk of the Shap Yeuk. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 88 It is not unlike the West where it is not uncommon practice to construct beams with a slight camber and columns with an entasis. This overcomes the illusion of sagging or concavity respectively. Incidentally, the length of a briefcase manufactured in many Chinese communities is, very approximately, 43 centimetres (around 17 inches). This, it has been suggested (Walters, 1988: 83), is designed to conform to the auspicious 'fung shui foot'. The actual size of a briefcase could, of course, be coincidence. Or perhaps it depends on the size of files and sheets of paper which the bag has to hold? But whatever the reason for the dimension, a liberal helping of luck is always welcomed by businessmen of whatever nationality. Returning to the case study: the front view looking out from a building is important for enhancing wealth. If one gazes north out of the window of the master bedroom, one can view the harbour which forms the dragon's lair with all its benevolent power. Beyond are the Kowloon Foothills (including Lion Rock and Beacon Hill), Tai Mo Shan, Ma On Shan, and the Pat Shin Range. Well out of sight is the Kun Lun Shan mountain range of South China. The Hong Kong harbour can be compared to the much smaller fung shui ming tong (ponds) that one sees in front of Chinese villages. The water in the front balances the fung shui that flows down the hill at the rear. Of course, it also serves a practical purpose. Not only does the village pond contain fish, but also the water is used for washing, irrigation, and, in emergency, for fire fighting. As previously mentioned, water, in Cantonese, symbolises money. It is good fung shui to have water in front of a building or a grave. But looking across at the ocean, you need to be able to see an island or a strip of land. If there is no 'destination', there is no 'purpose'. A sailor needs to know where he is heading. He must not be 'rudderless'. Looking out to sea or gazing at a water feature, however, gives not only Chinese, but also Westerners, a relaxed feeling. Certainly, the ambience of a home or office means something to everyone, Westerner or Chinese. And, sometimes, on entering a building, a Westerner's subconscious senses may lead him or her to exclaim, 'I like this place: I can relax here!' It is, however, not always easy to provide an explanation why one's sixth sense indicates a feeling of peace or, contrarily, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 120 The First China War was the culmination of many years of irksome restraint. The British, as did other nations, objected strongly to being treated and listed with Burma, Vietnam and Korea as tribute bearers. The immediate cause was the destruction of all the opium in Canton brought in by foreigners and in 1840 the Chinese fleet attacked a British warship, followed by, amongst other incidents, Canton being bombarded by the British, and the war was on. Palmerston was Prime Minister in Britain during this, the First China War, now possibly better known as the first of the two Opium Wars. It began with a desultory naval engagement and little further happened until Major General Sir Hugh Gough arrived from Madras in March of 1841. The British plan was, first, to capture Chusan island off the coast of Chekiang to use as a pawn in the demand for Chinese agreements to British demands. This proved to be a futile gesture and during 1841 and 1842 British forces, with the continued aim of pressuring the Chinese into legitimising foreign trade within China, proceeded to attack several ports one after the other up the China coast, creeping ever further north towards the capital of Peking, causing the Chinese greater apprehension about the future. The campaign eventually ended with the imminent attack on Nanking, the former capital situated on the Yangtze in central China, avoided last minute by the agreement by the Chinese finally to the terms of a treaty signed in August 1842. One of the attacks on the China coast was on the then city of Chapu, which was to be followed up with an attack on Hangchou. Chapu had a tolerable harbour, with a great rise and fall of tide, so much so that the smaller junks were left high and dry at low water. Together with its suburbs the town, perhaps five miles in circuit built in a square and intersected by numerous canals, lay about half a mile from the coast. The Reverend Gutzlaff in his third voyage up the China coast in January 1833 arrived in Chapu and described the surrounding countryside as the Chinese Arcadia with nothing able to exceed its beautiful and picturesque appearance. He further described the canals, neat roads, plantations and conspicuous buildings, adding that the whole country (of China) from the Yellow River south was flat until one came to the high lands which formed the harbour of Chapu city. The sea, he added, was receding from the land and flats had formed along the shore, visible at low water and constituting a barrier to the whole coast. Gutzlaff found nowhere so much openness and kindness, the (residents') intelligent questions respecting Britain were endless with them never seeming to be satiated with (British) company. I ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 171 NOTES AND QUERIES NOTES ON CHEUNG PAO TSAI ANTHONY SIU KWOK-KIN Cheung Pao Tsai, also known as Cheung Pao Tsai, was the son of a fisherman living along the coast of San Hui county in the Kwantung province. He was kidnapped by Chang Yat, leader of the pirates of the Red Flag Squadron, at the age of fifteen. Because he was young and clever, he was forced to be a pirate. He managed all business very well, and was soon promoted to be headman. In 1807, Chang Yat died at sea in a great storm. His wife, Shek Yeung (also known as Chang Yat Sao by the pirates), and his nephew Chang On Bong led the Red Flag pirates. Chang On Bong was very timid. Thus, Cheung Pao became a good assistant to Chang Yat Sao. She appointed Cheung Pao to be the chief headman, and placed the whole crew under his sway, while she commanded all the squadron. Cheung Pao was a good assistant of Chang Yat Sao. He was very faithful and obedient to her. He did everything only with her permission. She trusted him well, and his suggestions were generally approved. He could command the Red Flag Squadron with her consent. Thus, people at that time only knew the name Cheung Pao, and all the piratical disasters in the South China Sea were said to be done by him. Cheung and his gang plundered along the coast of the Canton Delta from 1808 to 1810, concentrating on the Heung Shan, San Hui, San Ning, Pan Yu, and Tung Kwun counties. Of these, Heung Shan faced the greatest disaster. At first, they only robbed the merchant ships at sea. Later, being encountered by the Ching navy, they turned inland and robbed the villages they could reach by boats. Then, because of the strong resistance made by the villagers, and being defeated by the Imperial force for many times, Cheung was forced to surrender in 1810. He was given the title of a Shoubei or captain in the navy, and he helped to pacify the rest of the pirates in the South China Sea. He married Chang Yat Sao. Because of his bravery in the navy, he was promoted to be a Fujiang or major-general. He died in 1822. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 172 His Hideout Legend said that he had a hideout on Tai U Shan, Hong Kong Island, Cheung Chau Island, and on Lung Yuet Island at the mouth of the Chu Kiang Delta. There, he kept his looted treasures. However, there are no written records to prove this. 7 As recorded in the 'History of the Pirates who infested the South China Sea from 1807 to 1810', the hideout of all the pirates of the South China Sea was at Wei Chau and Ngow Chau. These two islands lie at the boundary of Kwang-tung and Kwangsi provinces. They are very far out at sea. The naval patrolling force could hardly sail out to attack them. His Position in the Red Flag Squadron 9 The pirates of the Chu Kiang Delta were all under the Red Flag Squadron. By that time, some headmen split and formed new squadrons. Notable ones were Kwok Po Ta's Black Flag Squadron and Leung Pao's White Flag Squadron. However, they still allied with Chang Yat Sao. At that time, Cheung Pao was the Chief Headman of the Red Flag Squadron, and Chang Yat Sao was still the Chief Commander. 10 The Worship of Tin Hau Legend said that Cheung Pao was faithful to Tin Hau. He and his followers built Tin Hau Temples on many off-shore islands of Hong Kong. It was said that the Tin Hau Temples on Cheung Chau Island, Ma Wan Island, and at Stanley on Hong Kong Island were built by him and/or his followers. As recorded in the 'History of the Pirates who infested the South China Sea from 1807 to 1810', Cheung Pao worshipped the Goddess of Saam Por 三婆, a native goddess worshipped by the people living along the coast of Wai Chau and Lui Chau Peninsula. However, in the Hong Kong region, we have no temple nor shrine dedicated to this goddess. In Macau, there is one found on the Island of Taipa. 17.2 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 173 Thus, the worship of Tin Hau had no connection to the legend of Cheung Pao. She might be worshipped by other pirates at that time. NOTES 1] pp. 12-13, History of the Pirates who infested the South China Sea from 1807 to 1810 (by Murray), 1831 edition. 2] p. 2, A Brief Record of the Pacification of the South China Sea (TCA), 1842 edition. 3] pp. 13-15, History of the Pirates who infested the South China Sea from 1807 to 1810, 1831 edition. 4 For the detail of the sands made by the pirates of the Red Flag Squadron and its allies, see Ch 81, Kwangchow Fo Gazetteer, 1879 edition, Ch 22, Pan Yu Gazetteer, 1871 edition, Ch 22, Heong Shan Gazetteer, 1879 edition, Ch 31, Shun Tak Gazetteer, 1856 edition. Ch 33, Tung Kwan Gazetteer, 1911 edition and Ch 14, San Hui Gazetteer, 1841 edition. 5] Ch 81, Kwangchow Fu Gazetteer, 1879 edition. 6] * Ch 10, Chia Ching Tung Wah Gazetteer, 1884 edition. 7 Legends said that there are caves of Cheung Pao Tsai on Cheung Chau Island, Tap Mun Island and at Chung Hom Kok and Stanley on Hong Kong Island. * 8] pp. 11-12, History of the pirates who infested the South China Sea from 1807 to 1810, 1831 edition. 9] pp. 2-3, A Brief Record of the Pacification of the South China Sea, 1842 edition. 10 p. 7, History of the Pirates who infested the South China Sea from 1807 to 1810, 1831 edition. [Ibid., pp. 15-16. 12. The Temple of Samui Po is at Lung Tau Wan (Long Chau Wan) on the Island of Taipa in Macau – it is in ruins. However, the stone tablets of the 1859 and 1864 repairs can still be seen. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 197 Clarke, Samuel R. Among the Fathers in South West China, London China Inland Mission, 1911 (Tarpett Reprint Cifeng-wen Publishing) Coates, Austin, China Races, Hong Kong. Oxford University Press, 1983 Cochran, Sherman, Big Business in China. Sino-foreign Rivalry in the Cigarette Industry, 1890-1940, Cambridge (Mass). Harvard University Press, 1980 Cochran, Sherman, and Winston Hsieh, eds. One Day in China, May 21, 1936, New Haven Yale University Press, 1983 Cohen, Paul, Christian Missions and Their Impact to 1900, in Cambridge History of China 10, Part I, 543-90 — China and Christianity, the Missionary Movement and the Growth of Chinese Antiforeignism, 1860-1870, Cambridge (Mass). Harvard University Press, 1963 Cohen, Warren I, The Chinese Connection. Roger S Greene, Thomas W Lamont, George E Sokolsky and American-East Asian Relations, New York Columbia University Press, 1978 Collins P M. Siberian Journey Down the Amur to the Pacific, 1856-1857, edited by Charles Vevier, Madison University of Wisconsin Press, 1962 Collis, Maurice, Foreign Mud, London Faber and Faber, 1946 Cooper, Thomas Thornville, Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce in Pigtail and Petticoats, or An Overland Journey from China Towards India, London John Murray, 1871 Corbett, Charles Hodge, Shantung Christian University (Cheeloo), New York United Board for Christian Colleges in China, 1955 Cox, E H M, Plant-Hunting in China. A History of Botanical Exploration in China and the Tibetan Marches, London Collins, 1945 (Hong Kong Reprint Oxford University Press) Cravath, Paul Dreman, Letters Home from the South Sea Islands, China and Japan, 1934, Garden City printed at the Country Life Press, 1934 The Cree Journals, The Voyages of Edward H Cree. Surgeon RN as related in his private journals 1837-1856, Exeter English Webb and Bower, 1981 (published in the United States as Naval Surgeon) Cressy, C B, China's Geographic Foundations, New York McGraw Hill, 1934 Cressy-Marcks, Violet Olivia, Journey Into China. New York Dutton. 1942 (Feb/938C) Cronin, Vincent, The Wise Man from the West, London Hart Davis, 1955 Crow, Carl, Handbook for China, Shanghai Kelly and Walsh. 1933 (Hong Kong Reprint: Oxford University Press) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g the public examinations which they never obtained."7% The Tanka have always been despised by the land-dwellers and intermarriage between land and sea-dwellers is probably non-existent.” Nevertheless the Tanka "are the principal sea-faring people of South China, owning large sea-going junks and engaging in deep-sea fishing. The Hoklo* speak “a Min dialect similar to those spoken in the Province of Fukien and in the Chruchow, Hoilukfung and Kiungchow areas of Kwangtung Province "They have frequented the territories since some unknown era." The Hoklo are few in numbers and are mostly to be found in the eastern waters of the area. Balfour has an interesting observation to make on all four communities:- “Our analysis of the existing population has revealed that the order of migration into the region corresponds roughly with the height above sea level of each part of the community. The Tanka and Hoklo, who were the earliest people, live on the seacoast, the Punti, who came next, occupy the fertile plains and valleys, and the latest comers the Hakka, are to be found mostly in the uplands A Restatement of the Customary Law, 1983 Two general types of omission have been made on principle in this restatement: firstly, all doubtful points of customary law, for the courts may in due course be called upon to decide them; secondly, mere social customs without legal force, for they are the concern rather of the sociologist.* The Customary Law of the Land-dwellers, the Cantonese and Hakka Land The most important part of the customary law obtaining in the New Territories undoubtedly concerns its land if for no other reason than that all questions affecting such land, in view of the preservation of Chinese custom by statute, should prima facie be governed by such custom.** Such is not the position in regard to proceedings which do not involve land, then by virtue of section 5 of the Supreme Court Ordinance, English law as existing in 1843 as modified by subsequent ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 39 Civil Code (see also Committee Report 2953. pp. 193 and 251) In the matter of the state of YOUNG SING, YOUNG LING SHI & 2 OTHERS vs YOUNG HONG NING (unreported) the original record was destroyed during the Japanese occupation but a contemporary newspaper report is to be found in the South China Morning Post of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th July 1940. 12. I am indebted to the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs for giving me permission to peruse their files on the subject (particularly SCA3/251/51 and SCA2/351/54). PR File SCA2/351/54 Wilson's Notes Wilson's Notes, 61; Van der Valk, op. cit. p. 76 where this custom is described under the title of "T'ung-yang-hsi". Morris, Hong Kong and Malaya, E.T.M.S.O. 1937, p. 14, for the custom generally see Burkhardt, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 173. Hvide Committee Report Appendix IV, p. 120 and Chap. I, para. 13 but in Ping Shan Land Case No. 24 of 1954, JANG LAP TEUNG vs TO SHU KAN (unreported) the Assistant Land Officer (Mr. B.D. Wilson), in the absence of proof that perpetual leases could be made under Chinese custom relied upon the English Rule against Perpetuities. (This case was the subject of Civil Appeal No. 24 of 1954 TO SHU KAN vs. JANG LI YAU TSO (unreported) but Reynolds, J. held that he had no jurisdiction to hear and determine the appeal). 19 (1949) HKLR 58. 1 Wilson's Notes; Gompertz, op. cit. para. 16 and compare Jamieson, Chinese Family and Commercial Law, Shanghai 1921, pp. 30-31. TM Committee Report, 1953, Chap. V, para. 400 at p. 54. * Now Cap. 30, and see Committee Report, 1953, Chap. II, para. 17 at p. 9. De Wilson's Notes. Committee Report, 1953, Appendix IV, p. 120 and Chap. II, para. 13, after Williams, Ag. C.J. in Civil Appeal No. 16 of 1947, CHEUNG SAU TIM vs CHEUNG YUI LAM, (1948) 32 HKLR 1, at p. 6. This statement is from Wilson's Notes. T'ung-yang-hsi = a wife married when both parties were previously unmarried. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 62 picture of the situation was given by L. Yu. He stated: “At the time they built their fortress with the backs against the hills and the fronts facing the sea. The two fortifications acted as two watchtowers. It made the Ching army difficult to attack or even try to get near to the island. On the slopes above Sai Ying Pun, at the midlevels, there was a fort and it helped to reinforce the defence." (Lai, 1948, P.13) Secondly, it is because Sai Ying Pun was situated at the foothill of the highest peak of the island. The peak (i.e. Victoria Peak 1917 ft. which was called O Tau Shan or Ngan Tau Shan at that period) formed the look-out of the pirates in those days. They wanted to keep an eye on the harbour which was a very important water route in that part of the South China coast. Whenever a vessel appeared, the watchmen would signal the pirates who were stationed at the foothills at Sai Ying Pun. The pirate fleet would then sail off to plunder and loot the vessels. Thirdly, the pirates chose the place because Sai Ying Pun possesses some peculiar physical characteristics. Before the waterfront was reclaimed in the late nineteenth century, Sai Ying Pun was the only area in the northwestern sector of the Island, which controlled the western inlet to the harbour, with a fairly long coastal slope. The slopes were made up of colluvial fan. In other words, the soil in the area was derived from the decomposition of granite or other primitive rock. It was not, however, formed of detritus of rock washed down from above, but solid rock altered in situ. In the area west of Sai Ying Pun, Shek Tong Tsui, the granites outcropped nearly to the sea front. It was possibly the reason why as early as 1771 the Hakka people came to the area and quarried the granite and carried them to Shek Pai Wan. Therefore we can see that Sai Ying Pun was the only area in the northwestern sector that was suitable to set up a fortification. I think this is also the reason why the British commanders chose the same area to set up a barrack in 1841. So Sai Ying Pun during the early years of Chiaching period was probably occupied by scores of pirates. They guarded themselves against the attack of the Ching armies and waited patiently for the signals that came from the peak and were always ready to sail off to plunder any trading vessels that happened to sail past the Hong Kong ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 39 with, and had a fuller mental concept of, the world beyond the South Sea than he had of China outside central Kwangtung. Marriage and Childbirth The 1911 census gives some information on marriage in the New Territories. "It notes the married state of 51,101 persons in Northern District, and 17,739 persons of the land population in Southern District. This probably represents all those aged over 12, plus those married as infants under 12." 881 males and 902 females in Northern District had been married as infants of less than 12 (2.6% and 2.6% respectively). In 1921, the details of married state are much fuller than in 1911, and include details of the numbers of married and single males and females at all ages. However, in 1921 no details are given of infant marriages. The recorded details from the two censuses are shown in Table 14. The average age of marriage can be given accurately for 1921, but only approximately for 1911. Table 14 Married State. New Territories, 1911, 1921 Censuses Males Females Total Population %age of manage Total Population Average Age of manage Northern District married, 1911 14428 42% 17433 50% 719 24 Northern District married, 1921 14891 43% 16124 46% 17 23 Northern District widow(er)s × 1911 2201 6% 5150 15% Northern District widow(er)s 1921 1767 5% 5500 16% N District married as infants, 1911 881 3% 902 3% S. District: boat Population married 1921 1757 43% 26 1411 50% 21 S. District: boat Population widow(er)s 212 5% 343 12% ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 87 of the Island This was completed in 1904, partly with filling material obtained from Chinese territory. The limits in Victoria of these two earlier major reclamations are marked by Des Voeux Road and Connaught Road respectively. During the next 30 years reclamation continued on the Island, the largest schemes being those at Tai Koo for the dockyard (21ha which included 13ha of land site formation, completed 1908), Wan Chai (36ha, completed 1929) and around North Point (nearly complete before the Pacific war), together with a smaller reclamation at Shau Kei Wan. Soon after the cession of Kowloon under the Convention of Peking in 1860 there was some reclamation adjoining deep water in Tsim Sha Tsui, primarily for wharfs, and at Hung Hom for the dockyard, to be followed by extensive reclamation in Tai Kok Tsui and Yau Ma Tei and, to a lesser extent, at To Kwa Wan, Sham Shui Po and Lai Chi Kok, the latter two both lying just to the north of Boundary Street. Subsequently an important reclamation was formed by the Kowloon-Canton Railway in Tsim Sha Tsui and Hung Hom bays (16ha, completed 1910) primarily for its own use which included three deep sea berths on the extreme south-east tip of the Kowloon peninsula. In the period after 1922 there was considerable reclamation in and near Kowloon just as there was in Wan Chai on the Island. Large areas were reclaimed at Sham Shui Po (26ha, completed 1928), Kai Tak (83ha, completed 1931) and Lai Chi Kok (c35ha), all these areas lying in the New Territories close to the old Kowloon/China boundary with much of the filling being obtained from Kowloon Tong, then being developed as a garden city. Just before the Pacific war, reclamations were also started in three other areas of Kowloon Bay, at Ma Tau Kok, Ngau Tau Kok and Kwun Tong. Roadworks Construction of Queen's Road in Victoria was started in May 1841, only four months after the British landed on the Island, by the Royal Engineers following the alignment of a narrow bridle/tow path high above the beach which extended some 7 kilometres from the water's edge at Kennedy Town on the west to within a short distance of Happy Valley on the east. Another road, from Wong Nei Chong to Shau Kei Wan was built at the same time, a causeway with two bridges being constructed to carry it across what is now known as Causeway Bay. Page 120 Page 121 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 141 attempt by the Portuguese naval engineers to deal with the silt from the Pearl River that fouls the harbour. Light industry is located in the areas to the northern end such as Areia Preta by the gate to China. Space is created which later finds use as the greyhound racetrack. By 1979, we find the planned expansion changed in nature from that intended in 1927. At the southeastern harbour front, the designer (Jon Prescott) has implemented the plan in a less heavy handed fashion. Wide roads bound an area of tight streets with a few small urban spaces, again reminiscent of the scale of the old city, although with a more rigid geometry. The bounding roads are wide and traffic fast (it is on these streets that the Macau Grand Prix is held annually), effectively making this an island within the city, cut off from the rest of the city and the sea front. At the northern end of the peninsula we find a large area of reclamation, large city blocks, wide streets and avenues with centre reserves but no plazas. The dog race track has been moved to Taipa, an island immediately to the south to which a bridge has been built, freeing up the land for lower income housing (Brito 1962). Light industry is also located in this new expansion but the relaxation of border controls to China have made a dramatic impact with much of the industry moving north of the border. This frees up land for more housing for lower income groups. The land to the eastern end has been bounded but used as a fresh water reservoir rather than for building as planned in 1927. This provides some open space located in a somewhat inaccessible corner. In 1982 the proposal was made to expand Macau again. Traffic congestion and a polluted and silted waterfront (among other features) were giving the city a bad reputation. Seeing the successes of cities in the region, the Macau government and leading business figures decided that a modern city could be created by reclaiming yet more land and building modern structures (Prescott 1993). A series of public competitions were announced for urban development studies to guide the expansion of land area. Figure 5: 1979 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 visits or persons who helped in any other way. We are pleased a number of you who have helped have been able to accept our invitation to dinner here tonight. I would add however that, in spite of their many hours of work, no Council member receives a free dinner this evening! The position of Activities Chairperson is demanding and, this year, it has been ably filled by Valery Garrett. Her Committee has consisted of the Reverend Carl Smith, Doctors Elizabeth Sinn, Michael Lau, Patrick Hase and Joseph Ting, as well as Sarah Parnell, Peter Stuckey, Jason Wordie and Geoffrey Roper. The considerable amount of work put in by Geoffrey, planning and organising the two trips to the China Mainland, underwrote their success. We are extremely grateful to all the above members, together with anyone else who made the past year of activities so eventful. Projects Projects carried out during 1998/1999, in addition to the photographic exhibition on the Landmark Bridge mentioned earlier, included two projects in conjunction with the British Association of Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA) (see Appendix C). One project was to try to trace seven graves of Europeans buried in Hong Kong or elsewhere in China. The second project, also in conjunction with the BACSA, was to help two of our overseas members, Rosemary Lee and Captain A C Bromfield, research the life of Master Mariner Samuel Cornell Plant, who died at sea in 1921. Research on the latter project is continuing. In another case our member, Dr K Gaseltine, assisted the National Library of China for one week in Beijing (see Appendix C). It is laudable that your Branch has been able to link up with other associations or institutions to undertake these projects and we are extremely grateful to all our members who gave of their time and efforts (and in the case of the library project supported herself financially). The RAS Volunteers In 1991 a number of RASHKB members, together with members from the Hong Kong Society of Architects, formed a working group to assist the Government Antiquities and Monuments Office with the inspection of buildings. In 1997 this group was reactivated and it now consists entirely of RASHKB members. Believing that one volunteer xvi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 IMAGES OF SINICISED VEDIC DEITIES ON CHINESE ALTARS KEITH STEVENS 51 Introduction The rear halls of two temples in the Western Hills of Peking each contains some twenty-eight images which, though predominantly Chinese in appearance and style, are Vedic deities referred to in English in Chinese temple brochures as the Deva. The main question arising from this unique pantheon asks what led to its arrangement and character? Buddhism in China numbers among its many deities several score borrowed from Brahmanism and other Indian religions, other words Hindu deities with Chinese appearance and bearing. These tend to be well-known forms, accepted by Chinese devotees as Chinese and with little suggestion that they had an alien Indian origin. The concepts and forms of Buddhist deities on altars in China were almost exclusively brought there from India either by the northern route over the mountains and deserts of North-western China or the Southern route by sea to Kuangtung or Fukien provinces. The transit of South Asian Buddhism and its statuary to China began during the first century AD with the statuary being uniquely Buddhist, taken from Hinduism via Buddhism. The Revd. J MacGowan1, during the early days of this century wrote that "the practical, every-day, common religion of the Chinese is idolatry, pure and simple. Ancestor worship is too profound and too ideal and not quick enough to meet the problems that constantly face the Chinese in their struggle for existence. To provide for this difficulty, idols innumerable have been enshrined in homes and in temples all over the land....and many of these idols are of Indian origin, as can be seen by their faces, as well as by the liturgies that are used, which are certainly adaptations from the ancient Sanskrit." We are particularly interested here in the specifically Hindu deities referred to in English in Chinese brochures as the Devas, but in Chinese guise, on altars in two temples in the Western Hills, the Ta Pei... ================================================================================ 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 246 palace in the hope that a hospitable host would emerge and offer us sanctuary in the marble halls and refreshment with a glass of lemonade. But the doors were locked, no one appeared. Our doctor tirelessly pursued insects, especially big black velvety butterflies. Returning to the wharf, we saw in the crowd of Chinese, a woman, who holding a naked baby in her arms, was moistening her fingers in her mouth and then mercilessly pinching him on the back along the spine. The child struggled and screamed desperately. Was this punishment or medical treatment? However it is impossible to write: the tossing is terrible; the order is to 'reef the fourth.' There hasn't been a storm like this since the Cape of Good Hope. I'll go and have a look at what's happening... I.A.Goncharov, China Sea. 8th June 1853. *arshin - a measure of length of about 28 inches **Fadeev - a sailor assigned as Goncharov's orderly ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 ARNOLD GRAHAM 1905 - 1996 DAN WATERS 'No Names, No Packdrill, No Hard Words, No Soft Drinks' 305 Before Arnold Graham left Hong Kong for New Zealand in 1994, he donated 515 books to our Branch library. Members of our Society remain grateful to Mr Graham for his generosity. In late August 1996 his daughter, Mrs Rothay Woodcock, wrote to the Royal Asiatic Society to say her Father was ... just too tired to carry on any longer he literally just went to sleep.' His acute wit * remained with him to the end. He was born in Carlisle in 1905 and sailed for Shanghai in 1928. Like many Shanghailanders, in order to complete his full and interesting life, he was forced, when the People's Republic Government came to power in China, to move to Hong Kong in the early 1950s. There, he wrote letters to the Editor of the South China Morning Post under the pseudonym of 'Ancient Gwailo' (his own initials were also ‘A. G.'). In Hong Kong, as in Shanghai, he worked for the Gas Company and, later, as office manager for Binnie and Partners, civil engineers, on schemes like the Sek Pik Reservoir. Although he had spent the greater part of his life in cities, he always maintained the best place to find God is in a garden. As his daughter wrote, 'It is a pity he won't see the new spring leaves coming out on the trees backgrounding his garden or go down to sit by the sea again' + Later Mrs Woodcock wrote to ask if our Branch would like to have some of her father's photographs, maps and papers. It is the end of an era. Today, few Shanghailanders (expatriates who lived for many years in Shanghai) are still with us. Sorting out the contents of the cardboard box that his daughter sent to our Branch I am hesitant. It is like intruding into someone's private life. There is a news- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 343 Further west still, on the edge of Four Funnel Bay, is a fort containing a large gun emplacement (complete with large gun) and extensive underground magazines and chambers. South from here takes one along the former "Queen's Road" past a number of buildings including the former Royal Marines barracks and the officers mess. Back to the harbour front and the mass of naval storage and commercial buildings that we saw from the ferry. The map shows these as being the victualling store, the blacksmith's shop, the fire engine house and other evocative descriptions. Standing four-square with no obvious means of entry, and clearly visible from the sea as the tallest of the buildings, is the distillery - as vital to a naval station as any of the other facilities there. Running through the buildings and along the little streets are tram tracks. An extensive system used to enable goods to be unloaded at the end of the pier from incoming ships and moved for storage. A fascinating and well-preserved place to just “poke about,” Liu Kung Tau was a gem and a highlight of the trip. Dalian - Far Away, by Whatever Name We had been advised by the travel agent to cross to Dalian from Yantai rather than take the service from Weihai. The boats, we were told, are better and faster. Not many weeks after our trip we were to hear of the tragedy whereby almost 300 people lost their lives when one of the Yantai boats went down in heavy seas. Our three-hour crossing was relatively calm, although many of the local passengers spent most of the time being rather noisily “uncomfortable" into plastic bags and other containers. The first sight that greeted us at the dockside was a large banner in stirring Chinese characters, the sort that you always see in China extolling the virtues of this or that, or exhorting the people to even greater achievements. This one had an English translation that said something like: "Make Dalian the successful tourist port with successful business and multifunction." I like to think that we lived up to this entreaty during our stay. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 293 BOOK REVIEW Gillian Bickley (2201), Hong Kong Invaded! A '97 Nightmare, with a foreword by Arthur Gomes, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 303 pages. A97NIGHTMARE In 1897, a series of anonymous articles appeared in the China Mail. Together they constituted a story entitled The Back Door. This was a fictional account of a successful invasion of Hong Kong by the combined forces of fin-de-siècle aggressors, France and Russia. The inference is that the author was perturbed that Hong Kong's defences at the time were inadequate and so, in an attempt to galvanise the authorities, wrote this "wake up call." Copies of the story ultimately found their way to Whitehall in London. Gillian Bickley As the title of the story infers, the superior invading forces entered Hong Kong by way of the south side of Hong Kong Island. There was the bloody Battle of Deepwater Bay, fought in "the jungle" around the Golf Club and on the beach. There was shelling of the Peak from the sea and the sea battle of Sulphur Channel. Matters neared their end when the enemy captured the Kowloon Forts and the dynamite and gunpowder stored on Stonecutters' Island were fired. At the last stand, on Stonecutters', the defenders were ultimately annihilated. The Back Door evidently arose from the same anxiety that drove Britain's negotiations with China; concluded in 1898 when China granted the ninety-nine year lease of the New Territories, which Britain had requested as a protective buffer against attack. Gillian Bickley discovered a copy of this story some years ago and it evidently fired her imagination, probably because as we all know, Hong Kong was invaded on 8th December, 1941, by the Japanese - also by superior forces - and ultimately capitulated on Christmas day. The Japanese, however, entered Hong Kong from the north, through the New Territories. Had the Japanese, she wonders, read The Back Door? ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 40 Amongst the equipment issued to each coolie in France were boots, ankle and puttees, two pairs of socks, one towel and one piece of soap, one groundsheet and one blanket in the summer and three in the winter, and an enamelled mug instead of a tin mug. Transportation to France 31 The Chinese Labour Corps was officially formed on 21 February 1917 with Lt. Col. B.C. Fairfax appointed as the officer-in-charge as early as 15th November 1916. In the meantime, the first labourers left China in January 1917 and the first to leave France to return to China left in November 1918. Some of those sent from China died en route to France on the sea voyages. These ships travelled either via South Africa or Suez to England via the Panama Canal or sailed to Canada, the labourers being transported across Canada by train and then sailing on to England. These routes were chosen so as to confuse German intelligence and to avoid the submarine menace. None was lost in this way despite a German presence still in northern China at that time. Thence both groups were shipped to France. Those travelling via Canada landed at William Head, Vancouver Island, the old quarantine station and, following authorisation, travelled by train to Halifax, Nova Scotia. They were guarded, to prevent escape, and consequently the usual poll tax of Can$500, levied by the Canadian Immigration Department, was waived. Over a thirteen-month period, over 84,000 were so transported. From Canada, they would be shipped to the UK to Liverpool or Plymouth, then from Folkestone to Noyelles-sur-Mer in France. G.E. Cormack, who acted as an escorting officer to five hundred labourers, was stationed at the collecting depot, a German silk factory near Qingdao. This town had earlier in the War been captured from the Germans by the Japanese, assisted by a small British force. On a monolith at one of the forts was a Prussian eagle with an inscription in German stating that this town had been captured by the Germans from the Chinese. Over this, there was a Japanese inscription stating that Qingdao had been captured from the Germans by the Japanese! China had declared war on Germany on 14th March 1917. Again, to quote from G.E. Cormack's memoirs, he sailed, with ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g could be nullified only by the use of the crown prerogative of disallowance. The Colonial Office was most reluctant to exercise this power except in extreme circumstances since it might cause the governor public embarrassment. There are only three cases to be found in the files before 1933 where the Colonial Office was consulted about a project and imposed its veto. The progress of industrialisation in Hong Kong was completely different from all other British colonies where factories could be established only with the aid of protective tariffs and other government assistance and manufactured goods were sold only in the local market. Hong Kong island was originally occupied because it had the best deep-sea harbour between Shanghai and Indo-China. It served as a base for the British navy and a place where merchants could store their goods and transfer them from ocean-going vessels to smaller ships to trade at ports along the China coast and inland waterways. About 80 per cent of the goods passing through the harbour consisted of re-exports destined for South China from overseas or from North China, or exports from China being transhipped in Hong Kong. Since the principal reason for Hong Kong's existence was to be an entrepôt for trade with China, it has always been a free port with no customs duties on imports or exports. Industries were established early in the colony's history to provide for the needs of the port and to process primary products for local consumption and export to China. Shipbuilding and ship-repairing yards were established soon after Hong Kong island was occupied in 1841, followed by a rope-making factory in 1851, a flour mill in 1859, a sugar refinery in 1870, a distillery in 1871, tobacco and cigarettes in 1880, a cement factory in 1897, and a cotton spinning and weaving company in 1899. In 1911 the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce carried out a survey of all European, American, and British Indian firms in the colony engaged in import, export, and manufacturing. The survey listed 38 trading companies which had also set up factories. The 1931 census found that about a quarter of the working population (112,133 out of 470,794) were employed in manufacturing industries. The 1930 Blue Book listed 3,164 factories and workshops under 102 categories ranging from 124 boat builders to 116 tin beaters and 14 weaving factories. Most of these establishments were very small, situated in the back streets and tenements of the urban area. In 1932 only 586 were registered under the new Factories and Workshops Ordinance, which regulated firms that employed at least 20 persons. It is difficult to quantify the size of the manufacturing sector in the absence of detailed statistics of local consumption, but it appears that domestic exports of manufactured goods in 1932 totalled at least HK$36 million (about £2,500,000).1 The main items exported were cement, refined sugar, preserved ginger, lard, knitted singlets and hosiery, and electric torches. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 45 China, Hainan would appear to have been neglected. Before 1949 Hainan was an area which few foreigners appear to have visited, though for much of the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th foreign consuls, customs officers and traders endured their existence, particularly in the northern port of Haikou (Hoihow), the American Presbyterian Mission, the first body of missionaries, only began its work 'saving' Hainan in 1881. Despite the latter, there would seem to be no missionary writings describing the temples and "idols" as did Father Doré in Zhejiang and Jiangsu, Shryock in Anqing and others across northern and central China. The old church in Qingzhou Fu, some three miles inland and to the west of Haikou, by 1890 had been converted into a Temple of Longevity, and another church elsewhere in Hainan, had also become a Chinese temple known as the Temple of the Cross. In 1882 Mr Jeremiasen, an independent Danish missionary, made an unmolested circuit of Hainan on foot 'proving the friendliness of the people.' He then crossed the island north to south and east to west. Westerners who travel through "darkest" China today and write or talk about being the first foreigners within some remote spot, forget or overlook such Christian missionaries who roamed across all areas of China more than a century and a half ago. Even today there are foreign tourists who regard themselves as among the first to set foot in the more remote areas of Hainan. However, what Jeremiasen and others have overlooked are the individual Portuguese and German missionaries whose graves, dated in the 1680s, have been identified on Hainan. Most foreign visitors today also forget or, more likely, have probably never even heard of the eminent Chinese banished to the island during the early days of the periods of forced settlement of the 13th and 14th centuries. An aspect of journeys to Hainan a century or so ago, now also long forgotten, was the basic problem of getting ashore from the steamer from Hong Kong. This was often the worst part of the journey. The steamer from Hong Kong touched bottom some three miles or so out to sea leaving the trip ashore to the main port of Haikou by shallow draft sampan across mud flats under less than a foot of water. This required bargaining with the laoda [captain] of one of the many sampans which offered their services to tranship passengers ashore. The native boatmen in a very round-about trip through the intricate channels, sliding over ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 283 an important strategic port for merchants. In the process of competing with Macao as the doorway to China trade, Hong Kong had its moments of hesitation. It had its own internal problems to solve during the three decades after 1841, such as building roads, houses, godowns, and having to provide an attractive and safe environment for trade. Only in 1875, after Hong Kong had developed into a port which was busy receiving Chinese junks from the north as well as Japanese vessels from the East and European steamers from the West was the first lighthouse at Cape D'Aguilar constructed to facilitate the navigation route leading to its harbour. Ships from the West To build lighthouses was a need formed by several elements. First, the marine navigation route from Europe to Asia used to go round the Cape of Good Hope off South Africa. In 1869, the Suez Canal was opened for navigation, shortening the distance between Europe and East Asia by 20 to 30 per cent as well as cutting the cost, facilitating more frequent sea traffic.4 Secondly, the Industrial Revolution in Europe increased drastically the supply of consumer goods which, in turn, demanded more and more large steamships with greater speed to carry them. Thirdly, shipping costs depend not only on the size and speed of the vessel or the time needed for the transportation. Part of the cost goes to the insurance against the danger of shipwrecks. The safe route with good navigation aids affected the cost of the goods directly. Because of the above elements, the demand for building lighthouses on the sea route to Hong Kong became more pressing with the increase of trade. Old lighthouses Before the setting up of lighthouses in Hong Kong there were already lighthouses in nearby waters. On the Eastern approaches to the Singapore Straits Horsburgh Lighthouse was established in 1851.5 Off the west coast of Taiwan located on Xi Yu Island of the Pescadores/Penghu Islands, the Fisherman Island Lighthouse (Yureng Tao Lighthouse) was set up as early as 1778.6 In Macao, the Guia lighthouse (Farol da Guia), built in 1865, claims to be the oldest on the China coast. These lighthouses, however, did not provide enough help for 7 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 288 Cape Collinson Lighthouse The light at Cape Collinson was established on 1st March 1876, the year following the other two lighthouses. The reason for being later was that its apparatus was mistakenly sent to the Cape of Good Hope. The illuminating apparatus was fixed Dioptric of the Sixth Order. The focal plane of the light was 200 feet above mean sea level, and in clear weather it could be seen for a distance of eight miles. This lighthouse showed a white light on the bearings from N. 22 W. by East to S. 22 E. Ships heading for Victoria Harbour from the North and the Eastward were thus able to avoid Bokhara and Tathong Rocks, also the rocks outlying Sy Wan Bay by keeping the white light in sight. It also showed a red light from S. 22 E. by West to N. 22 W.20 When all three lighthouses were first in operation, vessels entering Hong Kong harbour were adequately provided with navigational aids. Gradually, as time passed, lighthouses were required to display their own distinguishing characteristics and to repeat these at shorter intervals for more frequent observation as the speeds of steamships increased. In the beginning of the 20th century an 18-knot ship could travel over a quarter of a mile every minute. The older optics that revolved at the speed of four minutes per revolution were replaced by new ones revolving at 15 or 20 seconds. This was made possible by floating the lantern in a mercury bath causing it to revolve with minimum friction. This new technique was installed in lighthouses built in the 1890s. New lighthouses In 1892 and 1893, after much discussion and negotiation between Hong Kong and China, lighthouses were built on the two best sites initially chosen to light the approaches to Hong Kong: namely on Gap Rock and Waglan. As early as 1867, before the building of the first lighthouse in Hong Kong, Commander Reed, a naval surveyor, was instructed to investigate suitable locations for lighthouses to cover the port approaches. He proposed Waglan Island and Gap Rock, small islands to the south of Hong Kong Island en route to Singapore. However, as neither of the proposed locations was within Hong Kong waters, these recommendations were not pursued.21 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 292 I am sorry I cannot tell you much about the life of the keepers. If you have not been able to question Charlie Thirlwell (and people like him) then it is likely their story has gone forever. Sad, but so many stories are already lost. The good news however is that, over a period spanning approaching half a century, the author has been able to question, off and on, some of Hong Kong's lighthouse keepers, together with seafarers and Government Marine Department staff. Accounts given by them and the life keepers led are detailed in this paper. Much of the material is based on oral history gleaned in discussions with Government Marine Department staff, both serving and retired, as well as other persons. Both authors have made several visits to Hong Kong's lighthouses and have appeared on television programmes about them (Video; 2001). Emphasis in this paper has been placed on Waglan Lighthouse because, situated approaching five kilometres from and to the south of Cape D'Aguilar, and nearly 13 kilometres from Lei Yue Mun, Waglan is the most isolated lighthouse in the Territory (Banister; 1932, 50) (Lee, HC). Other lighthouses include those at Cape D'Aguilar and Cape Collinson, both on Hong Kong Island. Others at Green Island and Kap Sing lighthouse are both within harbour limits. Climatic conditions The author recalls visiting Waglan Lighthouse with the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong Branch) by boat on a lovely afternoon on Saturday 9th June 1990. Indeed on some days out there in the South China Sea it can be idyllic - a not-to-be-forgotten experience. Terrence Courtney, an Australian who served as Superintendent of Lights in the late 1950s and '60s, used to stay overnight on the island because he found it ‘enchanting.' He slept in an isolated, small, brick building which is still standing. But the helipad, constructed in mid-1982, destroyed much of the romance although helicopters do of course provide a vital service - if a keeper fell seriously ill for example. Also, they were useful for getting keepers on and off Waglan in bad weather. Previously, it had sometimes meant their being hauled up or lowered in a basket which served the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 293 same purpose as a breeches buoy. With extremely bad weather it could mean, with supplies running low, men having to stay on the island for an extra couple of days or so before they could be relieved.30 But lighthouses are constructed in exposed positions because of their role and for much of the time out there in the South China Sea life can be anything but enviable. One can even be swept away by hurricane force winds and huge waves in mountainous seas (Jones; 1985, 387). One only has to live in Hong Kong for a relatively short period to realize what the weather can be like (Dyson; 1983). For example, the typhoon which struck the colony on 2nd September 1937 was said to have been the worst natural disaster in Hong Kong's recorded history. Estimates of the final toll range up to 11,000 dead. By comparison the Battle of Hong Kong, which lasted from 8th to 25th December 1941, saw some 2,250 Allied servicemen killed, an estimated 4,500 Japanese deaths, plus unknown but significant civilian casualties (Dyson; 1983, 62). Since World War Two, death tolls from typhoons have been lower because of today's more efficient weather forecasting and warning systems. The maximum recorded gust in Hong Kong was 259 kilometres an hour at the Royal Observatory during the passage of Typhoon Wanda, on 1st September 1962 (Hong Kong Observatory; 1999). On that occasion Waglan recorded a gust of 216 kilometres an hour. The maximum gust ever recorded at Waglan was 230 kilometres per hour. This was during the passage of Typhoon Ruby on 5th September 1964. Try to imagine being cooped up in the cylindrical prism of Waglan Lighthouse, with windows that do not open and no air-conditioning, after the Number Ten Typhoon Signal had been hoisted.31 This signal indicates a probable direct hit. It was not until the 1970s that the lighthouse watch tower was air-conditioned. It is recorded that, in 1893, a severe typhoon passed over Gap Rock (which can be seen by telescope from Waglan).32 This caused extensive damage to the lighthouse which extinguished the light for several days (Hong Kong; 1962, 14). In spite of the base of the tower being well above sea level and the lantern windows being situated approximately 15 metres or so above the base of the tower, the windows ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 306 When it was manned there was that special feeling of the island being "inhabited." Hands were always available to tend flowerbeds or to do odd jobs in off-duty hours. That was when a small group of buildings and its contents were "loved" and better looked after - with brass gleaming like treasured altar plate - than the most fastidious housewife cares for her home. Without a human presence, a lighthouse is dead. The smell of cooking, the clink of cups, and the buzz of conversation were replaced by the silent, cadaverous chill of the tomb. Yet at times this is broken by weird insect-like noises emitted by banks of grey cabinets of electrical equipment which demand neither leave nor pensions. In 1989, with automation, at Waglan an era had ended. Conclusions Some people, both visitors and lighthouse keepers, saw Waglan in the days when it was manned as a place lacking creature comforts and mod cons. Life was simple and austere. Conversely, others viewed it as a jewel in the South China Sea and close to nature. Near the shores of Hong Kong Island or Kowloon, especially in the vicinity of the harbour and to the west of the Territory, pollution is commonplace. There are the murky, estuarine waters of the Pearl River. But out at Waglan, one can experience the true tang of the ocean. One feels at peace. This is how lighthouse keeper Sydney Frank Bamsey, whose ashes were at one time buried there, saw it. Conversely, it is also possible to feel like another keeper, Lai Kwok-keung. He told the press when automation was introduced in 1989, ‘I am not sad to leave.’ Have you been to Waglan? What were your feelings about the island? One thing, however, is certain. Lighthouse keepers around the world are a fast-dying breed. Acknowledgements The two authors are deeply indebted to the staffs of the Antiquities ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 3 became British territory. Malacca was administered by the Dutch until the signing of the Anglo-Dutch treaty in 1824, whereby it was ceded to the British among other terms. Two years later, Singapore and Malacca came under the Penang Presidency. According to Turnbull, the Straits Settlements were the East India Company's most incongruous offspring….The Straits Settlements formed a scattered unit, which was difficult to administer efficiently.” In legal terms, it included Western laws at constitutional level, and local legal systems under the control of sultans. Physical/geographical problems Penang Island lay opposite Province Wellesley (a strip of land about 30 miles long and three miles wide) which the EIC acquired from the Sultan of Kedah in 1800. Malacca was about 260 miles to the south of Penang. Singapore Island was a further 120 miles south, at the tip of the Malay Peninsula. There were problems of communication between these settlements, being only by means of sea. Until 1861, the Straits government possessed only two antiquated sailing gunboats and one steamer, used mainly to ferry the governor, recorders and senior officials between the three stations. Communications with the EIC's headquarters in Calcutta were also poor, and until 1864, a monthly steamer service between Calcutta and the Straits Settlements remained the only link with the seat of government." Administration problems According to Turnbull, '[d]ivision of interest between the East India Company and its eastern dependencies was even more formidable than the geographical and physical problems of administration. The sole value of the Straits Settlements to the East India Company was to protect and stimulate the China trade. When [the EIC] lost its monopoly of this trade in 1833 Calcutta was left with an unrewarding and expensive burden. She could not abandon the Straits Settlements but constantly begrudged the drain they made upon India's financial resources and upon the time and attention of senior officials over the next thirty years.' ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 54 remained an integral part of Allied strategy to defeat Japan. Even if her expected contribution to Allied victory over Japan had been downgraded and a squadron of B-29s based on the mainland was not as promising as a combat-ready Chinese Army, the politics of basing such a new and promising weapon on Chinese soil were thought to be enough to boost Chinese morale.53 The issue is in doubt By the end of 1943, Allied planners had not settled on a decision to drop Hong Kong from the list of future objectives, nor did they elevate its status to that of a territory whose possession was beyond debate. In short, if a campaign in China was likely, a port on the China Coast would need to be opened up, and Hong Kong was a leading candidate for such a port. The development of the war in 1944-1945 would determine Hong Kong's importance. As the USN's Central Pacific offensive gathered momentum in early 1944, the adjacent Southwest Pacific offensive under General Douglas MacArthur also stepped up its pace so as not to be left behind. The competing dual advances sped up the Allied timetable, and brought the Allies to within striking distance of Japan by summer 1944. In China, it was a different story. Chinese forces here had not faced a major Japanese attack since 1938. When the Japanese attempted to link their possessions in the south (including Hong Kong) with the large portion of China they held north of the Yangtze River with a major offensive in the summer, the Chinese forces standing in the way largely disintegrated without offering much resistance. By early 1945, the Hong Kong beachhead had linked up with the rest of Japanese-held China. By now, the prospect of recapturing Hong Kong from the sea, while still not entirely infeasible, was made harder due to the potential ease with which the Japanese could reinforce Hong Kong from the interior of China. Intelligence reports indicated that the Japanese probably intended to wage a last-ditch defence of Hong Kong like they were already doing in the Pacific.54 J The Japanese eventually overextended themselves in China, while China belatedly began to receive supplies in some quantity once the road link from Burma was reopened and the air link over the Hump ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 264 About two miles west of Zhenjiang railway station, on rising land, there was a temple called Xiu Wang Miao, the Temple of the Xiu Kings, dedicated to the memory of the Xiu dynasty of Nantang. Lu Xiufu [AD 1238 - 1279] was a native of Zhenjiang, and a statesman and military commander during the latter years of the Southern Song. He had been appointed to the Court of Imperial Family Affairs, a form of Minister of Protocol, during the reign of Song Gong Zong [ca 1276]. He is remembered as a man of integrity and a devoted Minister who, when the Mongols were on the point of capturing Hangzhou, was sent in an attempt to reach an accommodation with them. This ended in failure. The Court was persuaded by Wen Tianxiang [one of the Three Loyal Generals of the Song] that the imperial heirs should be sent to the coast of south China, to Fuzhou and later to Quanzhou to ensure their safety. The emperor and his mother were captured by the Mongols and taken to Beijing, whilst Lu followed the Court in its retreat to the south. Lu met up with Zhang Shijie [the third of the Three Loyal Generals of the Song] in Wenzhou to rally support for the imperial cause, but had to flee on south to Fuzhou where they joined the forces of Wen Tianxiang. The senior heir was enthroned in Fuzhou as the Song Jing Yan emperor. At this point, following a reorganisation, Zhang and Lu became deputies to Chen Yizhong, the Commissioner of Military Affairs and Grand Counsellor. The new emperor was forced to flee further and further south pursued by the Mongol forces until he reached the area of present day Kowloon where Lu Xiufu rejoined the force from Chaozhou. The Mongol fleet having captured Guangzhou destroyed the forces of Zhang Shijie thus driving the Song Court out to sea. A typhoon struck the fleeing Song fleet and even though the ship carrying the young emperor was sunk he was rescued but died from shock and exposure near the Leizhou peninsula in mid-1278. Lu and Zhang stood firmly against any talk of surrender and ensured that the younger heir, a boy of six, was made emperor. Zhang became the Junior Guardian whilst Lu was Grand Counsellor. The next year the Mongol forces having been reinforced compelled the last of the Song forces to attempt to escape. Lu is said to have committed suicide but the official records do not reveal how the last of the Song, the boy of seven, died. The popular version claims that Lu, the hero from Zhenjiang, leapt into the sea with the boy in his arms. An imperial hostelry, the Danyang Guan, was founded in Zhenjiang Page 330 Page 331 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 331 Tram with an open-neck shirt and an off-white, wet-wash Saigon-linen suit. He had a necktie in his pocket to put on for meetings. He carried a Hong Kong (rattan) basket: no briefcase for him. One thing you did not do, in those days, was to mention the expiry of the lease and the hand back of the Territory to China in 1997, I did once, at a reception, and regretted it. You could hear a pin drop. It really was a 'borrowed place on borrowed time.' When I arrived conscription was still in force and every able-bodied British subject had to serve. If you were young, in your twenties, you usually joined the Regiment (the Volunteers). People like me, in my thirties, served in the Special Constabulary (in 1959 it became the Auxiliary Police). Those over 40 were drafted into Essential Services, such as air-raid warden duties. New recruits such as me, in the police European contingent, did three months basic training and 10 days at camp every year. At the latter the European contingent was grouped with the Portuguese and Eurasian contingent. There was a separate camp for Chinese. This was said to be largely for language reasons. Of course we all turned out during the five days of the 1956 riots. These were sparked when a junior civil servant pulled down a Nationalist flag, on the "Double Tenth" (10 October), from a Shek Kip Mei resettlement block in north Kowloon. The riots were very much Communists against Nationalists. Later, triads stepped in and took advantage of the situation. Routinely, we Special Constables went on street patrol a couple of nights a month and raided opium dens and brothels. One of the interesting places we enjoyed going to was Circular Path, to the south of Queen's Road Central. With urban renewal this path has now disappeared. It contained, among other accommodation, a number of back-street workshops where reputedly stolen jade items and the like were "re-worked." ** I remember being on police patrol in Central, in April 1956, when we received news that the twice knighted, grand old man, Sir Robert Ho Tung, had passed away. He was 93, although for much of his life he did not enjoy good health. A Eurasian, he had "gone the Chinese way." With his fabulous wealth he lived the life of a Chinese gentleman. It is sometimes said, 'All rivers which run into the China Sea turn salty.' In other words, all ethnic groups living in China get assimilated sooner or later. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 Gillian Bickley, Ph.D., is an English writer, teacher, and speaker, who has lived in Hong Kong for over thirty years, teaching at the University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Baptist University. She taught previously at Universities in Nigeria and New Zealand, and has lectured throughout Britain, the USA and Asia (gbickley@hkbu.edu.hk). Sidney C. H. Cheung, is Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include visual anthropology, heritage and tourism, indigenous people, food and identity. His published books include On the South China Track: Perspectives on Anthropological Research and Teaching (Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, 1998), Tourism, Anthropology, and China (White Lotus, 2001), and The Globalization of Chinese Food (Curzon Press and University of Hawaii Press, 2002) (sidneycheung@cuhk.edu.hk). Eric N. Danielson, studied modern Chinese history under the guidance of Professor Kent Guy at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he earned his History B.A. in 1988. Later, in 1994 he earned his History M.A. from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He has previously published works on Kurdistan, Yugoslavia, and China. He was the co-author of The Yangzi River and the Three Gorges, sixth edition published by Odyssey Guidebooks of Hong Kong in August 2001. For the past six years he has lived in Shanghai, where he has worked as an education consultant and academic manager in China's rapidly growing private education industry (ShangConsultant@netscape.net). Michael Gillam, joined Dartmouth Naval College in 1945 at the age of 13 and continued his service in the Royal Navy specialising in Minewarfare and Diving. The first of his many visits to Hong Kong was in 1952 as a midshipman en route for the Korean War. Among his subsequent appointments was a year in Iran setting up a diving school in the Caspian Sea for the Imperial Iranian Navy and two and a half years in Singapore with responsibility for diving throughout the Far East Fleet. He returned to Singapore at the end of the 60's as Staff Operations Officer to the Inshore Flotilla that included responsibility for providing Coastal Minesweepers to act as the Hong Kong guard ship. xvi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 34 the City, it had long been associated with the Old China Trade. It was one of the places approved for recreational visits by the foreign merchants in the Factories, under long-standing regulations imposed by the Chinese authorities which had otherwise confined them to their own residences save on certain days of the month and to certain places 20 R These locations included the famous Honam Temple, the Sea Banner Monastery, which dated from around 1600 and was one of the most celebrated temples of Canton. There was also a suburb named Fa Tei (Flower Ground), where several of the Co-hong merchants had homes and extensive gardens.21 The people in contact with foreigners These comprised a wide range, from Manchu and Chinese high officials and their entourages, to the Canton-domiciled merchants of the Co-hong through whom the foreign merchants had to transact their business, and the many minor functionaries and underlings of civil office who were mostly locals, as well as the boat people, a race apart, who supplied essential transportation services and pilots. Most of the naval and military forces also comprised natives of the province. I shall first say something in general about the Cantonese, and then the boat people, who, between them, constituted the great majority of the persons with whom the foreigners came into contact, in the course of time spent in Canton and the Delta. The Cantonese The Cantonese were the principal inhabitants of Canton and indeed the province. They are to be distinguished from the Hakka and other long-established residents. They style themselves "men of Tang," as opposed to "men of Han" on account of their having come into the South during that dynasty.22 This self-identification brings out the differences between the local inhabitants of north and south China, reminding us, also, of the well-known antipathies between the two groups and of the disparaging ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 105 H.M.S. HERMES1: CHINA STATION, 1930/33 JONATHAN PARKINSON In volume 41 of the Society's Journal, pages 326/328, to illustrate his article Keith Stevens kindly reproduced photographs of the aircraft carrier HERMES at Hankow during the great floods of 1931. This was not her only rather unusual experience of this commission. On passage from Sheerness, where on 3rd October 1930 she had re-commissioned under the command of Captain E.J.G. Mackinnon, DSO, HERMES spent Christmas at Singapore. Approaching Hong Kong on Friday, 2nd January 1931 she passed Gap Rock2 at 0357 hours and four hours later flew off her aircraft of Flights 403 and 440 to Kai Tak. At 1039 she secured to No. 1 buoy in Victoria Harbour. The Governor of Hong Kong at the time was Sir William Peel. He spent most of Tuesday, 20 January at sea in the ship witnessing flying exercises. The destroyer THRACIAN, Commander N.L. Veresmith, conveyed His Excellency from and back to the colony. After lunch on 5th June HERMES slipped for Wei-Hai-Wei. There the climate in summer enabled exercises to be carried out with greater zest than in the steamy waters off South China. Once clear of Lyemun Pass her aircraft flew on. She had an easy passage up the coast and through the Formosa Strait. During the morning of 9th June when crossing the Yellow Sea full power trials were carried out during which she achieved 25 knots. Just before noon, HERMES once more proceeding at her economical speed of 12 knots, the easternmost promontory of the Shantung peninsula was sighted. Two hours later the atmosphere onboard changed abruptly. A signal was received from MARAZION,3 Commander E.A. Aylmer, reporting that the submarine POSEIDON had been sunk in a collision. Captain Mackinnon altered course and increased speed to 19 knots. Another boiler was flashed up and shortly thereafter our ship was... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 117 retired as a Rear Admiral. At the outbreak of World War II he was to rejoin but sadly, as a Convoy Commodore, was to die at sea on 17th September 1940 when his ship, S.S. CITY OF BENARES steaming 470 miles to the south of Iceland on passage to Montreal, was torpedoed and sunk by 'U-48' (Heinrich Bleichrodt). Captain Mackenzie was to have a more normal, less exciting period of command for the remainder of the commission. True, while at Wei-Hai-Wei during the summer of 1932 he experienced the passage of three typhoons in close succession and fairly close by. During one, on 12th June, S.S. SHENKING was driven ashore on Chimeng Island just up the coast. As Senior Naval Officer Captain Mackenzie was closely involved, not only in arranging for a guard to be maintained over the ship as protection against pirates, but also in the subsequent successful efforts to refloat her. First her passengers were rescued, fortunately without injury or loss. To facilitate her salvage next she had to be lightened. Over the next few days her cargo was discharged into lighters, also into another company ship, S.S. FENGTIEN. Subsequently Captain Mackenzie was able to report that: 'No difficulty was experienced in selling her cargo of flour well in Wei-Hai-Wei.' 925 The Chinese Naval Commodore on the spot greatly assisted by providing a gunboat guardship at the scene of the grounding. S.S. SHENKING was refloated on 17th June. She was brought to Wei-Hai-Wei where further temporary repairs were carried out by the use of cofferdams and the pouring of cement between various of her frames. Finally on Wednesday, 22nd June she departed under her own steam for Shanghai and full repair. Subsequently she re-entered service, in fact following World War II service with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, was to remain with China Navigation until 1955. The remainder of the commission was to pass without great incident. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 147 On 8th January Mistchenko assembled his force near Sinminting and then pushed south through neutral territory, to Sanchaho, where he crossed the Liao, as he was behind the Japanese outpost line. On his way he came into collision with a force of 500 Hunhuses and inflicted heavy losses on them. On 10th January he crossed the Liao on the ice and rode towards Newchwang. Whereupon the small Japanese garrison fell back. General Mistchenko vacillated and allowed the Japanese to return in strength, leaving Mistchenko the choice of surrendering or once more violating China's neutrality. He chose the latter but was attacked before he could retreat and was badly mauled before managing to get what was left of his force back to Mukden. There was no mention of any Chinese protest. The Russian warships, Askold and Grosovoi There were several instances of Russian warships taking refuge in Chinese waters, each settled after investigation, acrimony and promises by the belligerents. In early August after a major engagement at sea the Russian cruiser, Askold xiv and the destroyer, Grosovoi having been badly damaged, sought refuge at Wusong, a port on the Yangzi at the mouth of the river leading to Shanghai, leading to an international dispute on the subject of the rights of belligerent vessels in neutral ports. It was evident that some considerable time would be required before the ships would be fit for sea again. The Chinese, urged on one hand to force the ships to leave port, and yet still too much frightened that any such action would be regarded by Russia as a hostile act, continued for some time to order the ships to withdraw on one day and to cancel the order on the next. The Japanese, compelled to watch the port and to detach cruisers for the purpose, increased their remonstrances, and at one stage it was by no means certain that they would have confined themselves to mere remonstrances. Had that been the case, the jealously preserved neutrality of the foreign powers would, indeed, have been in danger. Finally, on 1st September, the Russians put an end to the situation by ordering the disarmament of the vessels, to the great relief of the Chinese. In late 1904 two Russian sailors from the Askold murdered a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 150 battalions of Hunanese soldiers in the New Town. The Chinese Minister in St. Petersburg was instructed to demand an explanation. They were quietly withdrawn at the end of the war. In April 1905 Russian troops marched through Chinese neutral territory, paying no heed to Chinese protests, although as it was reported in the western press at the time it appeared that the Chinese Government was at last making some effort to resist Russian intrigues, possibly realising that the Japanese were more than likely to be the final victors in the war. At about the same time Secretary Hay in Washington proposed to the Powers to renew their pledges as to the 'open door' and integrity of China. When Britain, Germany, Italy and the others had all replied moral pressure was imposed in the interest of Chinese neutrality. The Russians responded with an announcement that they had positive proof of Chinese violations of their neutrality and that unless China refrained from further such acts Russia would have to act in her own interests. During May reports were received of Russian plans to march their troops across Mongolia to checkmate a Japanese flanking movement, thus violating China's neutrality. Fears among western diplomats that this was the first step towards annexation of Chinese territory opened up once more the question of the partition of China. Also in May 1905 it would appear from various semi-official reports that Chinese mandarins along the coast of south China and in the vicinity of the mouth of the Yangzi were warned to ensure that their military forces were alert during the passage of the Russian Baltic fleet towards the China Sea. The orders required the Chinese military to prevent, wherever possible, Russian infringement of Chinese neutrality. Chinese fears that vanquished Russians might invade Chinese territory to avoid being taken prisoner by the Japanese, led to the rumour that the Viceroy of the metropolitan province of Chih-li, Yuan Shikai, had been proposed as Generalissimo of all Chinese Land and Sea Forces. Chinese temples and monasteries as military accommodation Both Russian and Japanese forces used Chinese public buildings ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 220 Buddha. After all, the Greeks had settled here even earlier, in the third century BCE. Other examples, before being blown up in 2001, were the huge images of Buddha carved out of the cliff in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, with their moulded mud and stucco draperies. Alexander's forays and settlements to lands well to the east of his Macedonian homeland remind us that several of the cities that Tucker describes were far more ancient than the Silk Road. Babylon, which fell to Alexander in 331 BCE, had already by then been the Middle East's most magnificent city for over fifteen hundred years. The earliest city to occupy the site of Chang'an was in existence before 1000 BCE. Tucker manages to convey a huge sweep of history and geography. You will need time to read this book as, if you merely dip into it, you will lose the interconnecting threads, which are the crux of his thesis, i.e. that, throughout fifteen hundred years, numerous cultures met along the Silk Road and nourished each other's creative spirits. You will need to read it at a table because it is too heavy to read on your knees. And you will need an atlas alongside it that has maps showing some realms not often shown on a single spread. Your maps will need to show the geographical proximity of the towering mountain ranges of the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush with the drainage basins of the Aral Sea to their west and north and with the upper tributaries of the Indus to their east and south. The passes connecting these regions beckoned both Alexander and, nearly two thousand years later, Tamerlane, both intent on conquering and settling the north of the Indian subcontinent. You will need a single map to show the vast latitudinal spread of the great grasslands, deserts and semi-deserts from Turkey to northern China over which the nomads galloped. It was along these northernmost routes of the Silk Road that the Mongols charged on their terrifying way to Vienna, besieging it in 1241 and only withdrawing because they had to travel back, unexpectedly but unavoidably, all the way to Karakorum to appoint a new Grand Khan. The Silk Road saw many such events that were turning points in history, such as when in 1218 the governor of a city in what is now Kazakhstan killed an envoy of Ghengis Khan, suspecting that he was a spy, an action that precipitated the wrath of the Khan, and "was to propel the world into an abyss, setting in motion a chain of events that would lead to the deaths of millions of people from the Danube to the Sea of Japan' (p.221) - because Ghengis Khan's horsemen set out to avenge this insult, inflicting terrible retribution on all in their path. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 224 jade, spices, ceramics, horses and so on of the old days. This book is enormously revealing in the understanding that it provides about the cultural melting pots that extend today from western China to the Mediterranean Sea. We are in as much need today of the understanding that travellers along the Silk Road gained about the cultures they encountered as were those travellers of the past. ELIZABETH KENWORTHY TEATHER This point is the focus of Chung, Tan (ed.) (1994). Dunhuang Art: Through the Eyes of Duan Wenjie. New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts/ Abhinav Publications. Ting, J.S.P. (ed.) (1996). The Maritime Silk Road. 2000 years of Trade on the South China Sea, Hong Kong: Urban Council. Ebery, P.B. (1996). The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. See P. 120. I found the WorldWideWeb an invaluable source of maps to clarify the historical geography of the Silk Road. Readers may like to try searching Google for 'Bactria,' for example. ================================================================================