NAM.1987-07-32-2

Diary of Maj Gen C E Lawrie, 5th Battery, Royal Artillery, Jul 1885- Sep 1887. Covering service in Ceylon and Hong Kong, and visits to Japan and Canada. The narrative opens with Lawrie on a hunting holiday in the Habarane jungle. After an unsuccessful time, he returned to Trincomalee on 16 Jul and resumed his social life of polo, shooting trips, cricket, sailing, and other activities. On 28 Nov 1884, orders were received that the battery was to proceed to Hong Kong, and they left Trincomalee on the Orontes 16 Dec, sailing from Colombo on the P and O to Venetia via Penang and Singapore to Hong Kong. Here he engaged in a good deal of socialising, spending time with an officer named Hawkshaw. In April they visited Canton, in Aug, Macao and in Oct- Dec, Shanghai to see the regatta. In Jan 1887 he did some work on the armament of the forts of the colony and took Chinese lessons. In Jun he sustained some injuries while riding, as a result of which a medical board granted him six months' leave. On 15 Jul he sailed on the Batavia for Japan, and described his visits there in some detail. He then proceeded to Vancouver (19 Sep), crossed North America by train, and sailed from New York in the Umbria for Liverpool, which was reached on 10 Sep. From there he went home, were the narrative ends.