View of the suburbs of a Chinese city
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2025 9:21 am
Though the language is archaic, the sentiments—bragging about visiting a famous city, complaining about accommodation and transportation, frowning at the local customs—would not be out of place in a tourist’s Facebook post today.
In the early 1790s, King George III sent an envoy to the Emperor of China. Though the diplomatic mission was unsuccessful in its main purpose—to obtain trade concessions for Britain similar to those granted to the Portuguese and Dutch—it yielded a three-volume official report, by George Staunton, that contains a fascinating account of the long whatsapp lead voyage halfway around the world (volume 1) and of the Chinese empire as seen through British eyes (volume 2). The report also includes many carefully engraved illustrations of sights in China—the Instagram posts of the era (volume 3).
“Descending the rapids of the Madeira”
Other travelers’ accounts I’ve dipped into include Travels from St. Petersburg, in Russia, to Diverse Parts of Asia by John Bell (1763) (volume 1, volume 2), Travels in America by George Howard (1851) (here), and a large compendium titled Cyclopædia of Modern Travel by Bayard Taylor (1856) (here).
Lately, I’ve also been exploring the Internet Archive’s rich collection of books written by British and American visitors to Japan in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Until the 1850s, Japan had been shut off nearly completely from the rest of the world for more than two hundred years, and people elsewhere were eager to learn about the mysterious country. Many sailors, traders, diplomats, missionaries, journalists, and individual travelers who were able to visit Japan wrote later about their experiences, and I’ve compiled a list of more than 240 of their books.
In the early 1790s, King George III sent an envoy to the Emperor of China. Though the diplomatic mission was unsuccessful in its main purpose—to obtain trade concessions for Britain similar to those granted to the Portuguese and Dutch—it yielded a three-volume official report, by George Staunton, that contains a fascinating account of the long whatsapp lead voyage halfway around the world (volume 1) and of the Chinese empire as seen through British eyes (volume 2). The report also includes many carefully engraved illustrations of sights in China—the Instagram posts of the era (volume 3).
“Descending the rapids of the Madeira”
Other travelers’ accounts I’ve dipped into include Travels from St. Petersburg, in Russia, to Diverse Parts of Asia by John Bell (1763) (volume 1, volume 2), Travels in America by George Howard (1851) (here), and a large compendium titled Cyclopædia of Modern Travel by Bayard Taylor (1856) (here).
Lately, I’ve also been exploring the Internet Archive’s rich collection of books written by British and American visitors to Japan in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Until the 1850s, Japan had been shut off nearly completely from the rest of the world for more than two hundred years, and people elsewhere were eager to learn about the mysterious country. Many sailors, traders, diplomats, missionaries, journalists, and individual travelers who were able to visit Japan wrote later about their experiences, and I’ve compiled a list of more than 240 of their books.