From Peking to Mandalay

The journey of which an account is given in the following pages was not undertaken in the special interests of geographical or other science nor in the service of any Government. The author's chief object was to gratify a long-felt desire to visit those portions of the Chinese Empire which are least known to Europeans, and to acquire some knowledge of the various tribes subject to China that inhabit the wild regions of Chinese Tibet and north-western Yunnan. Though nearly every part of the Eighteen Provinces has in recent years been visited and described by European travelers, the author's route between Tachienlu and Li-chiang was one which—so far as he is aware—no British subject had ever traversed before him, and of which no description in book-form has hitherto appeared in any European language.