The literary activities of the Colony were manifested by the publication, in Hongkong, of Sir T. Wade's Hsin-ching-lu, a work on the Mandarin Dialect (June, 1859), by the issue of a Chinese edition of the Daily Press (1860), and especially by the appearance, through the liberal patronage of the firm of Jardine, Matheson & Co., of the first volume of Dr. Legge's translation and commentary of the Chinese Classics (May, 1861). The botany of Hongkong was scientifically explored by Mr. G. Bentham, who published the results (in 1861) in a volume entitled Flora Hongkongensis and dedicated to Sir H. Robinson. A few years later (in 1865), Mr. T. W. Kingsmill published, in the Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, a detailed notice of the geological features of the Island.
The administration of Sir H. Robinson encountered a moderate number of public disasters. A typhoon which passed (August 15, 1859) to the S.E. of Hongkong, causing but slight damage in the Colony, was succeeded two months later (October 13, 1859) by another typhoon which destroyed most of the wharves and piers, caused some collisions in the harbour, and damaged the roofs of many houses, but it was not accompanied by loss of life. The disappearance, about this time, of the schooner Mazeppa, which was lost with every soul on board (October, 1859), led to a judicial inquiry, on the basis of an action for libel preferred by the owners, into the allegation that the vessel had left Hongkong in an unseaworthy condition. The allegation was proved to be false, though, owing to the contradictory nature of the evidence, not without causing social altercations which at the time convulsed a section of the community. A terrible rain storm broke over the Colony in the following year (August 18, 1860) and not only burst most of the drains, but caused the collapse of some houses in the Canton Bazaar (in Hawan) which involved the death of five persons. A typhoon, suddenly passing the Colony on 27th July, 1862, caused a considerable loss of life, and by an extraordinarily heavy rainfall, occurring on June 6, 1864, many lives were lost through
