54
continuation of Chapter VII of his long-running serial on The Life and Adventures of a British Pioneer in China describing his journey from Hankow to Kueichou in 1868. The Notice explained that 'the original notes taken by me [Mesny] on the journey were sent by special request to Mr. William Tarrant, Editor and Proprietor of The Friend of China, a newspaper published at Shanghai in those days. Before having published my notes, however, Tarrant died and his printing establishment was taken over by Messrs. Little Brothers, I believe, and my notes thus fell into their hands, and no doubt sharpened the appetite of Mr and Mrs Archibald Little for travelling in Szechuan. At any rate I never saw or heard anything more of those notes although I occasionally saw in the columns of the North China Daily News, notes of a Journey to Szechuan which were so very much like mine that I wrote to Mr F. H. Balfour about them, believing they formed part of the notes I had sent to Tarrant. In the winter of 1880-1881 I happened to be again at Chungking and there told the late Consul-General E. Colbourne Baber about the lost notes. Baber thereupon persuaded me to rewrite them from memory without further delay and I did so, hence the present chapters with their many imperfections.' The accusation that the Littles had been involved in 'pirating' his travels would have been serious and may have prompted a response. However, none appears to have been made. The explanation that he had had to rewrite the travels from memory explains why there were so many gaps and duplications. It was however strange that he delayed so long the publication of such a serious allegation against the Littles.
It is clearer in Volume IV, even more than in previous ones, that Mesny likes to portray himself as more Chinese than Western. He has long commented on individual friendships with numerous Chinese whilst rarely mentioning Europeans and Americans. When he does, they are usually sinologists of one form or another, mainly missionaries like Moule, Griffith, etc. The first article, if it may be called such, was a two-page biography of Tso Tsung-t’ang, a former Governor General or Viceroy of the Min-Che provinces. When Tso was posted to the Shen-Kan provinces in 1865 Mesny called on him in Hankow to pay his respects, and after the Viceroy had learnt that Mesny had been a prisoner of the Taipings, he immediately appointed Mesny as his French and English secretary. In the early 1880s, he invited Mesny to visit him in Foochow where he was again the Viceroy of the Min-che provinces, with a view to Mesny undertaking some progressive works including telegraphs, railways, and mining. The Viceroy died before Mesny was able to call