In the early 1900s a man named Edwin John Dingle embarked on a remarkable mapping expedition of China. Overcoming incredible odds and many dangerous situations that threatened his life, he succeeded in his mission, crossing areas of China where no Westerner had ever been before, and eventually reached Tibet. There, he became one of the first Westerners (if not the first) to study in a Tibetan monastery. Upon his eventual return to the West, he shared what he had learned in China and Tibet with others and came to be known to thousands as Ding Le Mei. Here, in his own words, is Edwin Dingle's...

This book, first published in 1911, is one of the most important and best written travel books from old China. Edwin Dingle recounts his adventures as he travels up the Yangtze River from Shanghai and then by foot southwest across some of China's most wild and woolly territory to Burma. Along the way, Dingle absorbed an enormous amount of about life and society in southwest China, and describes what he sees in a readable and sensitive way.