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captain Contenson, visiting Hong Kong

military attaché in Beijing from 1871 to 1874, Captain Guy Contenson extensively surveyed in Asia, China, Japan, Malaysia to Indonesia. Hong Kong is a mandatory step of these journeys, in one of his stories, it focuses on the British colony.

Baron Guy de Contenson is 27 years old when he accepted the post of military attache in Beijing. It is an ambitious and curious young captain who enjoys his assignment to discover Asia. In tireless traveler, he never hesitates to give advice to people who might follow: hotels, transportation, good food and curiosities ... some pages have nothing to envy of modern travel guides.
During his travels, he must obviously go to Hong Kong is to China and must stop ships. The young master came from Saigon aboard "Mei Kong," the very day of the anniversary of Queen Victoria (then a May 24), worthily celebrated in the colony. The boat "was received by the Sabbath of English music, amid the fluttering flags."
Like all travelers of his time, he goes into raptures about the city created "absolutely naked on a rock, but along a excellent harbor. " Guy Contenson, whose account is very convenient and clean miser descriptions, notes the "very beautiful aspect of [the city] with its villas from the sides of the mountain. These houses can rival those of Frascati and Albano, leaving aside, of course, works of art, although they contain charming chinoiserie. "And to linger longer on the" villa Jardyne at two kilometers from the city. " The passenger recalled that his owner made his fortune through its fleet of "fast steamers" which outperformed the trunk to make English the new Europe.
"As for the French, they do little business on the Hong Kong we did not represented as an official manner by our consuls, our warships, etc.. The number of French is rather insignificant at the time, "with the exception of the office of courier shipping, there are no French schools." The military defeat of the recent Franco-Prussian War is no shortage of finger pointing, in comparison, the German presence. "The Germans [...] are the masters. Their prosperity is revealed to the wealth of public and private buildings they own, and, among other things, the club they were built: as beautiful outside as the English club, he is best fitted inside. " Is this true? Information
Guy Contenson sometimes based on rumors and some exaggerations of his countrymen. Thus he says that the temperature can drop "in the winter up to twelve degrees below zero." The observatory English was not created at that time, it is difficult to verify, but no story has ever noticed these temperatures. On another note, is it just landed it quacks on the governor's daughter Kennedy. "This young lady directs everything that the constitution leaves the English colonies of authority to his dad." Gossip circulating in There is no doubt that Guy and Contenson relays.
It is difficult to say exactly what year it is passed by the British colony. His story "China and the Far East" suggests that it is a single journey, and it is not. From 1871 to 1874, Guy Contenson is based in Beijing and take every opportunity to wander in the Far East. Presumably his visit Hong Kong dated spring 1873 or 1874 because the Governor Kennedy, which he refers, does that during the year 1872. But Contenson, itself, must be very sure of the timeline since the first edition of his book in 1884, ten years after his return. Meanwhile, he left the army to become a landowner in Spain ... The devil's journey resumed the baron in 1897, when an archaeological expedition up in the Taurus. In 1915 it was 71 years, and is found resuming service in the army, Russia alongside General Pau.

FD.

Sources: Guy Contenson, China and the Far East, Paris, 1884; Numa Broc, Illustrated Dictionary of French explorers of the nineteenth century, Paris, 1992.

Acknowledgements Mr. Yves Azémar and his inexhaustible library of old books on Asia, 89 Hollywood Road - Hong Kong.