RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653
72 

A. D. BLUE 

For the first few years after the cession of Hong Kong, the British Government and Royal Navy practically ignored piracy on the South China coast; and the American, French, and Portuguese governments were equally indifferent. Any attempts at suppression by the Hong Kong Government were as feeble and ineffective as those of the Canton authorities. British traders in Hong Kong and the treaty ports, however, considered that they were entitled to much greater protection, and after repeated protests and representations to the home and Hong Kong governments, the Hong Kong Government passed its first anti-piracy ordinance in 1847, and the Royal Navy began to take more effective action. As a result, many unsavoury practices were uncovered. It was found that certain British merchants were supplying arms and ammunition to the pirates against whom they were demanding protection; and that Hong Kong officials were licensing ships to provide convoy protection for Chinese traders, which ships were using the cover of the British flag to plunder the cargoes they were paid to protect. This licensed convoy system was open to much abuse, and a source of great trouble to the Navy. The Chinese called these ships "protecting tigers." The Navy itself was not blameless in its anti-piracy operations. The over-generous bounty system, which made pirate hunting a lucrative profession for the first decades after the cession of Hong Kong, often led to innocent Chinese traders and sailors losing their lives and property. Admiralty records ignore most of the errors committed by overzealous naval officers, but the Navy's anti-piracy campaign was one of the many British activities to draw unfavourable criticism from Lord Elgin in his mission to China and Japan in 1858.

The Royal Navy and the Hong Kong Government faced a difficult and complex situation when they undertook serious anti-piracy operations in the late 1840's. The Navy could attack pirates anywhere on the high seas, and commit them for trial to any British or Chinese court; but Hong Kong could only free its own waters of pirates. Piracy on the coast and rivers came within the jurisdiction of the Chinese Government, and neither the Navy nor Hong Kong could operate there without permission from the Canton authorities. Anglo-Chinese co-operation, therefore, was essential for successful anti-piracy operations, and this was not always available. The Treaty of Tientsin was the first
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g
HONG KONG MAMMALS

13

Carnivores

visited Hong Kong but they have not been seen now for many years. The last one was shot at Stanley during the war and its skin, now somewhat decayed, is still present in the temple at Stanley. The Shing Mun tiger of May 1965 has the characteristics of a well-planned hoax. All the prints were of the same pad and in all probability they were made by a tiger's paw on the end of a stick. That people should claim to have seen the tiger is not surprising; a large ferocious dog in thick undergrowth can be just as frightening as a tiger, especially when there is a tiger scare, and these people probably genuinely believe that they saw one.

Leopards also visited the Colony until fairly recently. Both tigers and leopards are good swimmers and can travel from island to island. The last sighting of a leopard was in 1957 and shortly afterwards one was shot 8 miles inland from Sha Tau Kok. It was probably the same leopard and its skull and tail were brought back to the Colony and donated to the University of Hong Kong.

Today only the smaller carnivores are present in Hong Kong: the tiger-cat or Chinese leopard cat, civets and ferret-badger.

There are only a few tiger-cats surviving (Plate 2). There are probably none on Hong Kong Island. In the wild they live mostly on rats but also catch birds and chickens. In captivity they do not fare well due to their extreme nervousness which is often mistaken for fierceness. They become so frightened that they spit and growl until they are exhausted and may die of shock. Also they are susceptible to cat 'flu and other diseases in captivity. They are however very splendid animals, being one of the most graceful and beautifully marked of all the wild cats.

Another carnivore, and one which plays an important role in reducing the rat population, is the South China Red fox. Several pairs are still living in the New Territories. The female is a light sandy colour, whereas the male is more brightly coloured with a reddish head and tail and grizzled grey flanks and legs. At a distance they resemble small wolves. (Plate 3 shows three young foxes).

It is rumoured that European foxes were introduced just before the war for hunting, but the latter was not successful. The steep Hong Kong countryside was advantageous to the fox.
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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,
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794
122

his birth and childhood, and my favourite stamping ground in China Taiyuan, the capital of Shansi province, to his first wife, the daughter of John Mesny, a junior employee of the Chinese Imperial Customs Service, the life of whose elder brother, William Mesny, was the subject of my earlier research [vide.: my paper in the Journal of the RAS HK Branch: Volume 32, 1992]. Sowerby roamed far and wide throughout northern China before serving for a while in France as an officer with the Chinese Labour Corps [vide: my Note on Chinese Labour Corps Graves in England in the Journal of the RAS HK Branch Volume 29, 1989]. He then visited Fukien province and met Caldwell whose book on the Blue Tigers of that province had intrigued me when I was much younger. Finally, I was drawn to Sowerby's life story because he was not only a dedicated member of the North China Branch of the RAS in Shanghai for whom he wrote prolifically and eventually became its President, an honour he held for some five years, 1935-1940 but also because he produced his fascinating bimonthly journal on both everyday and exotic Chinese subjects. Since his death nearly fifty years ago he has faded into insignificance and is forgotten by all but those who happen to come across his books and journals.

Arthur Sowerby was an explorer and author who lived through very exciting times, first as the son of a Christian missionary in the Chinese interior at the time of the decline of the Manchu dynasty, through the Revolution of 1911 and the fall of the Manchu dynasty to the War Lord period during which he roamed some of the more remote areas of northern China. This was followed by the crises and struggle between the Nationalists and the Communists, the incursions and eventual full-scale invasion by the Japanese, his incarceration in an internment camp in Shanghai during the Second World War, ending with learning during his latter years in retirement, first in England and then in the United States, of the Communist victory in 1949 and, just before his death, of the Korean War when China sent its "Volunteers" to aid the North Koreans against the South Koreans and their allies which included the Americans and British. During the last thirty-five or so years of his life he suffered great pain wracked as he was by arthritis.

It was said that he could speak Chinese ‘like a Chinese.' There is no reason to doubt this as he must have learned it at his ayah's knee though he appears never to have made any effort to learn to read and write the language. During his life in China, the next forty or so years,
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278
328

There was a great deal of respect for Britain in the 1950s and when I bargained with a stall holder to buy a piece of electrical equipment he said to me: “This is not Japanese you know. It's best quality. It's British!' As late as the mid-1960s one of my Chinese staff, teaching surveying, refused to use a theodolite because it was made in Japan. War time memories died hard!

Almost wherever one went in the colony during the 1954-55 winter one could hear the song, Whatever will be, will be, blaring out over loudspeakers or being hummed or sung. I was told that I should not tip more than 20 cents for odd tasks and, at the end of the month, I should tip my hotel room boy and my waiter each $10. I could go out then and have a haircut, a shave, a shampoo and a manicure for $2.80, and, being a generous sort of chap, I gave the 20 cents change as a tip. As I have said, I did not arrive immediately after the Second World War when people were prepared to work for two bowls of rice a day.

There was no income tax in Hong Kong until 1939 when a 10 per cent "war tax" was levied. This was supposed to come off when the war ended but it never did. When I arrived in the mid-1950s the maximum salaries tax one could pay was 12 per cent. It had been increased from 10 per cent in 1950.

1

2

I started teaching at the old Technical College in Wood Road, Wan Chai. On my first visit a "big man coolie team" was grunting and manhandling heavy engineering equipment up the stairs. We did not move to Hung Hom until 1957. With the help of "academic drift” my old College became the Polytechnic University, on the Hung Hom campus, in 1994.

Shortly after I arrived in the colony there was a rumour a leopard was on the prowl in the New Territories. It was probably no more than a rumour but I do believe that there were instances of South China Tigers briefly visiting the New Territories in the 1950s. If you don't believe me you should read The Hong Kong Countryside, by zoologist GAC Herklots (1951).

I was taken the rounds of Hong Kong by a Yorkshire colleague within a few days of my arriving. First we went to the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (as it was known then) where I opened an
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