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-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 64 GÖRAN AIJMER A chronicler of Yuanjiang2 states that people used cut paper 'to hang money on the mountain'. This was called 'to drink wine on the grave and hang up.' The chronicler goes on to say: If it is graves of newly buried, then there is affection. On Earth God Day and earlier, one suspends and sweeps. The proverb says: For the new graves one does not pass she. For old graves one suspends when thirty nights have passed.14 A record of local customs in Yiyang tells us that at Qingming to sweep the graves were repaired. This was called sao mu 'the graves'. Paper money was suspended on the graves. This was called gua shan 'to hang up on the mountain'.15 From Baling we learn that, in the Qingming solar period, women hung up cut paper strips on the graves. It was called gua fen 'to hang on the grave'. Paper money was burnt and wine poured out. It is said that this practice gave rise to much mournful thought 哀思.16 In Anxiang it was the practice that 'scholars' and 'commoners' swept their grave mounds: Officials arrange money, prepare cattle, and arrange in order wine. Thereby are made ji sacrifices.17 In Hanzhou the graves were swept and there was much offering.18 In Jingshan the graves were visited, there were ji offerings, sweeping, and suspension of paper money on them.19 Similarly, in Wuchang, the old graves were swept and paper money hung up on them. Here people encircled the grave wailing loudly.20 In Chongyang everyone made ji offerings at the graves. People used 'top branches' with paper money on top of the graves.21 In Yingshan it was the practice to construct offering tables in front of the graves. This was called 'to welcome (the ancestors?) to return'. This celebration was continued up to the end of the moon.22 I said above that Qingming is a period of about fifteen days. When our sources mention visits to the graves we may assume that these were spread out over this duration. It may well be that the visits were initiated on the Qingming day, the first day of the solar period: I will soon provide some evidence for the importance of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA 65 the first day or days. But before we continue to discuss such social messages as may have been conveyed by way of the grave ritual, I wish to draw some further attention to the distribution in time of grave worship. Consider the following cases: + In Baling, it is recorded, all families cut paper, 'climb the mounds' £*, and repair the graves on the third day of the third moon.23 Grave offerings were considered at Gold Food or Hanshi in Wuling.24 From Zhongxiang #the chronicler reports that on the same date sons and daughters pay respect with cattle meat as ji offerings on the graves of the deceased. Paper streamers were hung up and the graves were worshiped #. Loud lamenting was to be heard.25 In Jiangxia the graves were swept at Cold Food.26 Cold Food is an occasion of one to three days, celebrated 105 days after the winter solstice. This means that it coincides with the opening days of the Qingming solar period. There is good reason to return to this calendar event in the following discussion. In Baling the grave worship had crossed from the solar calendar to the lunar almanac; the third day of the third moon will be a varying solar date in the spring. Some other data are more interesting--and puzzling. We find, widely dispersed in time, grave worship of a form which strongly resembles the accounts presented above. Consider the following notes: The chronicler of Baling tells us: the people during the leisure of the first moon pay respect # to and sweep the graves. It is named 'to pay respect to the year on the grave' Moreover, matters of death resemble the way of life 車死如生之道也.27 The last phrase may be taken to mean that the paying of respect at or on the graves in the festive season of the first moon followed an order which resembled the conventions of paying respect between living relatives at the lunar New Year. We have noted already that grave worship occurred in Yuanjiang on Earth God Day in the second moon,28 before the spring equinox. A further record from Wuchang states that in that ‘county", in the second moon, on Earth God Day people si je offered fresh things on the graves.29 On the same day the graves in Chongyang were decorated with 'top branches' and were given ji offerings. In the same locality it was customary to make ji offerings on the graves on the sixth day of the sixth moon to the shen † spirit(s?) of the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 74 GÖRAN AIJMER connection between the rice growth cycle, the agricultural activities and the grave ancestors, a connection suggested already by the information from Wuchang and Chongyang, quoted above, that grave worship was conducted on She ri. 9. Willow Twigs. In Wuling people inserted willow twigs over their doors and also carried willow twigs in their hair. There was a term for this custom: neng pixie 'ability to punish evil'. The same convention was observed in other places in the Dongting area, like Taoyuan,80 Hanzhou,81 Jingshan,82 Chongyang, where it was called 'nun lo'83 'tender willow', and Yingshan.84 It seems as if the twigs were protective and their function was to guard the house, or doorways, and the individuals living behind them. It is hard to say against what willow provided protection. It is interesting, though, to note that willow twigs were used in Jiangling on the full moon day of the first moon when, again, they were inserted above the doors.85 10. Strolling in the Wilderness and Treading on the Green. Several chroniclers report that Qingming was an occasion for strolls and wanderings away from built-up areas. These excursions may well be seen in connection with the visits to the graves, the latter being situated outside the villages. Such ramblings in the countryside are recorded from the prefecture Changde (around Wuling),86 Hanzhou,87 Chongyang,88 and Wuchang.89 From the latter two places it is also reported that men and women 'tread on the green', ta qing, in connection with their strolls in the 'wilderness'. The latter term seems to be a name for strolling and eating al fresco. Earlier I have interpreted this practice as a feature which stresses periphery as contrasted with centre, the latter being emphasized, for instance, at Duanwu. It is interesting to note that the chronicler of Changde says that there were no such customs in that area as ta qing or qui qian 'swinging'. Swinging is reported as part of the Lantern Festival in Zhongxiang,91 Swings are referred to in a Liang dynasty calendar, Jingchu suishi ji,92 in connection with the Cold Food festival. Ta qing was part of the Flower Dawn celebrations in Zhongxiang,93 in this area generally observed on the second full moon of the lunar year. It is probable that a number of notions were expressed in such 90 Page 90 Page 91 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA 81 39 See Maurice Freedman: Geomancy. Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland for 1968. London 1.15. 40 Aijmer, A Structural Approach...p. 95, 41 GJTSJC VI:1223 *** 126. 42 Maurice Freedman, Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung. London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology No. 33. London: Athlone Press, 1966. 1* For instance, Lewis Hodous provides an account in his Folkways in China, London: Arthur Probstain, 1929, p. 92. Hodous draws mainly on his long Fujian experience. 44 Aijmer, A Structural Approach p.96. 45 Aijmer, The Dragon Boat Festival, p. 77f. 46 GJTSJC VI:1193, &$ 26. 47 GJTSJC II:51, 6a. A Similar arrangement occurred in Youxian, GJTSJC II:51, 19b. 48 Aijmer, The Dragon Boat Festival, pp. 78f. 49 There were probably several kinds of paper money in use. The yellow kind referred to above was in all likelihood the 'gold variety. As our sources do not carry information in detail on this subject we must leave such further implications aside. 50 I have notes from Gongan (GJTSJC VI:1193, * 36), Hanzhou (VI:1130, 風俗长 Ib), Zhongxiang (VI:1142: #6# 1b, 2b), Jingshan (VI:1142, & 3a) Chongyang (VI:1120 † 4a, 5a), and Tongshan (VI:1120, Afb† 6a). 51 I have found notes from Baling (GJTSJC VI: 1223, K## 2b, ennt juan 11:6a), Wuchang (GJTSJC VI:1120, ✩ 26), Chongyang (VI:1120, £#* 46), Tongshan (VI:1120, ### 6b) and Yingshan (VI:1166, BB‡ 4b). 52 Freedman, Chinese Lineage and Society. pp. 140f. 53 Other names for this festival used in the region are Yulan dahui, 王蘭大會 Yulan penhui 盂蘭盆會,and Duwang dahui 度亡大會 All are Buddhist terms. 54 I have, at present, no information from the Dongting area on the handling of paper money at funerals, for instance. 55 GJTSJC VI:1223, # 2b. 56 GJTSJC VI:1193, £&$ 26. 57 GJTSJC VI:1142, R&* 3a. 58 GJTSJC VI:1193, # 2a. 59 GJTSJC VI:1259, 6 2a. 60 GJTSJC VI:1130, &‡ 2a. 61 GJTSJC VI:1120, K✩‡ 4b. 62 GJTSJC VI:1166, ### 46. 63 GJTSJC VI:1142, ‡ 4a. 64 GJTSJC VI:1142, &* 2ab. 65 mm, juan 2:96. 66 GJTSJC VI:1193, R 2a. 67 GJTSJC VI:1259, ✩ lb; 1142, * 2a. ================================================================================ 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 cannibalisation. Until the Japanese advance, in the autumn of 1944, flowed over Hengyang you could see a harlequinade of locomotives there in various states of disintegration. Without these reserves, saved through the foresight of the railway personnel, the Chinese would have found it impossible to maintain the service between Kukong, Hengyang, Kweilin and the west as long as they did. There was much activity in the airfields, the civil field over at Wuchang, and the military field near the Race Club behind Hankow. From the latter the Russians were operating light bombers, which would pass over in twos and threes on missions beyond Kiu Kiang; and Russian fighters laid in wait for Japanese raids. As I was riding down the Bund one day in a rickshaw - petrol was scarce and under control - a single Russian bomber flying overhead, for no apparent reason, blew up. The foreign married women and children had long since left Hankow. The two faded cabaret dancing-halls prospered even more than usual. Artistes, who spoke Russian with a Harbin accent, so I am told, made lots of hay; but, as will happen when news and women both are short, it was chiefly at the clubs that the men foregathered. It was the fashion to go out to the Race Club of an evening. There on the lawn after sunset you would see the British, the Americans, and the French. Hitler had recently recalled the officers of von Falkenhausen's mission, so that the usual sprinkling of German officers was missing, but occasionally Russian air-force officers came to sit huddled in a group by themselves. I was able to book a berth on a ship of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company leaving for Kiu Kiang. It is an overnight journey. I do not propose to enlarge on the minor discomforts of travel in China. In the railway carriages, in the ships, and even in the cinemas, the bedbugs and fleas take a long rest during the winter from November to February. It was only June and so I was up on deck soon after dawn to watch the familiar banks go by. As we moved alongside the same old hulk I observed the Kiu Kiang Bund. It had grown shabbier. The process of degeneration, which appears to follow on the withdrawal of the foreigner, was evident. Flaking paint, dirty window panes, broken plaster, left their mark. The Chinese are not good at maintenance, whether it be of houses or machines. Apart from Shanghai, Hankow, and Tientsin, where there were large III ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j Appendix 1 59 Chronology of Ruan Yuan's Government Appointments 1789-1838 Appointment Location Rank Dates Hanlin Bachelor Beijing 1789/5 Proof Reader (Wu Ying Dian) Beijing 1789/5 Compiler Second Class Beijing 7A 1790/3 Imperial Diarist Beijing 1790/2 Supervisor of Instruction Beijing 4A 1791/3 Chief Supervisor of Instruction Beijing 3A 1791/11 Director of Studies (Shandong) Jinan 2B 1793/6 Director of Studies (Zhejiang) Hangzhou 2B 1795-1798 Vice President (Board of Rites) Beijing 2A 1798-1799 Acting Vice President (Board of War) Beijing 2A 1799/2 Vice President (Board of Revenue) Beijing 2A 1799/4 Assistant Examiner of Metropolitan Examination Beijing 1799 Acting Vice President (Board of Rites) Beijing 2A 1799/7 Governor of Zhejiang Hangzhou 2B 1799-1805 Vice President (Board of Revenue) Beijing 2A 1807 Vice President (Board of War) Beijing 2A 1807 Governor of Zhejiang Hangzhou 2B 1807-1809 Compiler Second Class (Hanlin Academy) Beijing 7A 1809/10 Sub-expositor (Hanlin Academy) Beijing 4B 1810/5 Imperial Diarist Beijing 1810/10 Revisor (State Historiographer's Office) Beijing 1810/11 Supervisor of Instruction Beijing 4A 1811/9 Sub-Chancellor of Grand Secretariat Beijing 2B 1812/1 Vice President (Board of Rites) Beijing 2A 1812/1 Vice President (Board of Works) Beijing 2A 1812/5 Director-General of Grain Transport Huaian 1812-1814 Governor of Jiangxi Nanchang 2B 1814-1816 Governor of Henan Kaifeng 2B 1816/8 Governor-General of Hu Guang Wuchang 2A 1817/10 Governor-General of Guangdong & Guangxi Canton 2A 1817-1826 38 3 3 3833 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 89 Chang was the first scholar in the land. Sir Everard Fraser, the Consul-General in Hankow for ten years [1901-1911], was an excellent scholar. He once told Green that he had taken a despatch in Chinese to Viceroy Chang, of Wuchang, who had become a friend of his when he was in Hankow, for his opinion on it. The Viceroy read a few lines, and then taking up his brush-pen began to edit. ‘And then,' said Sir Everard, ‘I had the finest lesson in Chinese that I ever got.' Chang was that rara avis, the official who scorned to enrich himself. Chiang Chao-ling #*# @ Chiang Pa-hsia (1846-1891) A native of Szechuan, Chiang met Mesny when he, Chiang, was travelling to Yunnan to take up an appointment as County Magistrate of Hsi-o Hsien. He and Mesny were thrown out of the province at the behest of the French in Tongkin. They met again in Canton and Shanghai where Chiang's pursuit of reform was not appreciated by other officials. He died in Peking. Mesny and Chiang were to have started a monthly magazine in Shanghai in 1887 to be called the Yueh Pao ♬ which was to have been the organ of the reform party. Chiang was to have been the chief editor and Mesny the registered owner and business manager. Mesny intended to use his nom-de-plume of Meng-hua # but in the event the magazine appears not to have been published. Cooper T.T. Visited Hankow and asked Mesny to accompany him on a trek to India. Mesny refused as the fees offered were too low. He later expressed regret at having refused as he 'had missed an opportunity to travel.' Damström Captain Damström was referred to by Mesny three times during his times in Hankow in the mid 1860s. Once as a gunnery officer on one of the first steam boats ever owned by the Chinese, at Ningpo, and later as Captain of the S.S. Pao-hua [nfd]. Mesny took him along together with a Captain Dix to offer their services to General Tso of the Imperial Force in the Northwest of China. Tso offered all three of them positions as instructors but we never hear the outcome as far as Damström and Dix were concerned. The second occasion was when Damström went off with the other ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 27 'Establishment of Spring' starting on the fifth of February, Gregorian reckoning. A wu day would have been a day which showed a stem-branch combination that contained the character wu. The day of interest here would occur some forty to fifty days after the first day of the Li Chun. So this day would have fallen sometime by mid-March, generally in the second moon, but at varying dates there. This day was called She Ri 'She Day'. It seems likely that it was celebrated according to the date provided by the official calendar-chronicles from Yingshan Magistracy (in De'an Prefecture), Suiyang Magistracy 陽縣 (in Wuchang Prefecture 武昌府) and Wuchang Magistracy 武昌 (also in Wuchang Prefecture) place the festival in the second moon.3 It is not so easy to say what the She was in late imperial times in this lake land in Central China. In terms of State rituals there was still an imperial sacrifice in the spring on an altar southwest of the palace in the capital, devoted to She Ji *. Sometimes this two-character name is understood as referring to one deity, sometimes as to a combination of two-She being the god ruling the land and Ji the divine controller of grain crops. There was a hierarchy of provincial, prefectural and magistratial She Ji, who were all part of the imperial official state cult. The imperial offering was the exclusive privilege of the Emperor. Before his sacrifice the altar was covered with earth of five colours - a colorific togetherness which expressed the total universe, and thereby the generative and destructive power of the five activities, wu xing 4. A special stone tablet was erected in the middle. After the ceremony this was taken down and buried in the ground until the next occasion for worship.4 In some areas in the south, present-day villagers tend to see the She as a chthonic registrar of deaths and births, an earth god who is thus associated with both death and human fecundity. More generally it appears as if the She in many areas of China signified a notion of locality. Both the Imperial cult and the present day Cantonese example may serve us as pointers, but what the demotic ideas about the She, and the She Day, actually were in the area surrounding Lake Dongting a few hundred years ago, is something we must try to glean from the 3 古今圖書集成.1888. VI,1166: 風俗考毯4a; 1120:風俗考2b4b. 4 Bredon & Mitrophanow 1972: 63-64. 5 Aijmer & Ho 2000: 37-41 and Yang 1961: 98-99. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 28 sparse evidence we have from local chronicles. In Gong'an Magistracy (in Jingzhou Prefecture) people hoped for rain on the She day as this was a good omen. In the same vein we find a note from Tongshan Magistracy (in Wuchang Prefecture) to the effect that if it rained on the She Day, it was said: 'She Weng yu rain of the Worthy She'. A rustic proverb had it that 'She Gong Mr. She'--and 'She Mu Lady She'--'do not drink old water'. The metaphor here was that the fresh water of the spring rains was drunk by the earth. It is interesting to note that the proverb insists on a female counterpart to the She. In Yingshan Magistracy there were si offerings to the She; these were spoken of as qi gu 'prayer for grain'. Similar offerings, but this time described as jiao libations, occurred here in Yingshan on the third day of the third moon, later on in the spring. On the She Day we encounter offerings taking place in Zhongxiang Magistracy, the capital in Anlu Prefecture, and here we get some more detail concerning the rustic population. The chronicler describes how the celebration engaged wu and xi male and female sorcerers-who appeared with drums and singing, thus welcoming the shen spirits. With 'arms joined' they were stamping on the ground, all this being a ge jie ji 'an offering of rhythmic singing'. Everyone drank She wine and shared She meat. The wine was supposed to cure deafness. Sacrificial meats (sheng) and sweet wine (li) are also mentioned from Wuling Magistracy, the capital of Changde Prefecture. From Jiangling Magistracy, the capital of Jingzhou Prefecture, we get a description of She fan 'She food' -which was a mixture of pork and mutton put inside a pumpkin. The magistracy of Suiyang is said to have been a place where four neighbourhoods combined to ji offer to ben jing She shen 'the local She spirit'. People shared out delicacies 6 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1193: 風俗考 3b. 7 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1120: 風俗考 6ab. 8 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1166: 風俗考 4a. 9 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1166: 風俗考 4ab. 10 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1142: 風俗考 2a. 11 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1259: 風俗考 1b. 12 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1193: 風俗考 2a. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 31 She further on in the year, by the summer solstice, when people in Changsha Prefecture sacrificed to the She and provided the earth god with wine.” In some places the She Day was also associated with visits to the graves of the dead. This was so already in the early Liang dynasty in the sixth century when the chronicler notes that there were sheng-meat-offerings to the dead on the She Day.23 A much later account describing Yuanjiang Magistracy in Changde Prefecture tells us that on the She Day and earlier, people suspended paper—possibly ritual paper stripes or paper money—on the graves and swept them. There was a maxim saying: 'For new graves, one should not pass the She; for old graves one suspends [paper] when thirty nights have passed'.24 In Wuchang Magistracy people sacrificed fresh things on the graves on the She Day of the second moon.25 In Suiyang the graves were decorated with twigs and banners on the She Day and there were ji offerings.26 In an earlier essay27 I have discussed the visit to graves at springtime in the lake area of southern Hubei and northern Hunan. Grave rituals were most prominent in the solar period of Qing Ming and seem to have been one of the cardinal activities in a grand exchange of visits and counter-visits between the dead and their living descendants. This ritual scheme of reciprocity over time was parallel with the agricultural year and integrated into the major structure of the annual progression of festivals. The graves were swept and cleaned, which paralleled the weeding and preparation of the soil in the rice nurseries. There were offerings to the dead of food, generally in some sort of commensality. There was a gift-giving combined with the insertion of bamboo branches with hanging paper money on top of the graves. These bamboos can be seen in the area even today. Gifts corresponded to sowing—the dead and the soil were closely related in iconic symbolism. These visits to the graves and the dead were later rewarded by counter-visits of the ancestors to their living progeny, which occurred on the 22 古今圖書集成. 1888. II, 1142: 山川考 8b. 23 沅江縣志: 1807-19, 卷18, 風俗 2b. 24 古今圖書集成. 1888. VI, 1120: 風俗考 2b. 25 古今圖書集成. 1888. VI, 1120: 風俗考 4b. 26 Aijmer 1979. 27 Aijmer 1964. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 321 NOTES AND QUERIES A TALE OF SOUR GRAPES: MESSRS. LITTLE AND MESNY AND THE FIRST STEAMSHIP THROUGH THE YANGZI GORGES KEITH STEVENS In 1898 Archibald Little was the first man to take a steam-vessel up through the dangerous Yangzi Gorges amidst great acclaim. This was a red-rag to William Mesny who, in 1905 in his Shanghai periodical Mesny's Chinese Miscellany, furiously wrote that had he been listened to in 1875, a steamboat could have completed the journey up the Gorges within a year or so of that date. The 3,200-mile long river, referred to by westerners as the Yangzi is known to the Chinese as Changjiang, Long River, or Da Jiang, the Great River. The foreigner name, Yangzi, is a misnomer from the Chinese reference to the first stretch from the Yellow Sea, approximately a day or so sail up from Shanghai to Yangzhou, hence Yang. The River can be divided into four sections. The first stretch from the sea to Wuhan [Hankou and Wuchang], some 600 miles upstream, is navigable for blue water vessels during the summer and small draught steamers at all times of the year. It may come as a surprise to read of the emergency run in September of 1931 of the British aircraft carrier, H.M.S. Hermes to Hankou during major floods. The Chairman of the Nationalist Flood Relief Commission, T.V. Soong, requested the British C-in-C for assistance using RAF reconnaissance aircraft from H.M.S. Hermes to assist the Chinese in flood survey patrol work. The second stretch upstream from Wuhan to Yichang is always navigable to small draught vessels and is a very boring run passing, as it does, through a flat plain with many dykes. The third stretch from Yichang to Chongqing is fast flowing downstream through the narrow and dangerous succession of Gorges, so popular with foreign tourists. The great variations in water level ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 110 of China behind him, Chiang Kai-shek had made an important error. It was against this background that HERMES was ordered south to the Yangtze River. On 27th July, 1931 great floods had occurred when the River burst its banks at Hankow. Much land in the vicinity, especially to the north and west, lay well below river level with the result that when the enormous dyke was breached many hundreds of square miles of countryside was flooded and many thousands of people drowned. Those who were able fled across the river to Wuchang but to add to their distress then plague broke out. Transport in Hankow quickly became difficult as the water became too deep for rickshaws and wheeled vehicles. Then sampans became in short supply. Lighters and small junks were brought into use and poled down the streets. However frequently these were caught by cross currents and wind and swept away out of control. Subsequently power and telephone lines were brought down, and damage was caused to buildings. Ewo1 claim that their compradore erected a sign at their premises: "Junks must not moor to Jardines' chimneys." Eventually the authorities were forced to seize many of these craft in order to limit the destructive effect of their contact with various structures, and to try to exert some degree of control. In an endeavour to assist an International Flood Relief Commission had been established. Clearly it was politically desirable that Great Britain be seen to be involved. Also there were other problems on the River. On the morning of Monday, 31st August HERMES anchored off Woosung. Ten hours later she continued upstream, initially steaming at 18 knots but when the river narrowed reducing to 14. While so navigating at times the behaviour of junks could be disconcerting: 'When a junk saw a steamer approaching it would steer to pass ================================================================================