BLAKISTON, THOMAS WRIGHT: - Five Months on the Yang-tsze; with a Narrative of the Exploration of its Upper Waters, and Notices of the Present Rebellions in China. London, J. Murray, 1862.

. Pp. xiv, (ii), 380. With frontispiece, 15 wood engraved plates, two folding maps, seven text illustrations and one specimen page from the author's field-book. Occasionally some staining. Publisher's gilt cloth, faded and extremities lightly rubbed. Bookplate (J. Leveson Gower). First edition of a scarce work which for many years was considered the standard of the region including an accurate map of the river from Hankow to Pingshan. Thomas W. Blakiston (1832-91) was a British army officer and naturalist who was posted to Canton during the second Opium War in 1859. He organised an exploration of the middle and upper course of the Yang-tsze-Kiang in 1861. The mission was to ascend the river as far as the Min, and then cross the province of Szechuan, and reach north-western India via Tibet and Lhasa. The party reached Pingshan after having travelled eighteen hundred miles from Shanghai which was further than any other European explorer before them. This narrative contains interesting information about the country including the fauna and flora, and also comments on the politically volatile situation in China at the time. The illustrations are by Alfred Barton. Cordier BS 121. Löwendahl 1263.

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