This journal, kept by a soldier in the Light Dragoons of the voyage to 'China and Tartary' in the years 1792 1793, was published in 1798. Holmes kept his diary during the attempt by Lord Macartney to establish an embassy in China. Macartney returned to Britain unsuccessful, heightening western curiosity about this secluded and mysterious nation, and so this account by a soldier assigned to Lord Macartney's guard remains an important historical source on Europeans in China during this period. While, as the editor's preface admits, the text is not of great literary significance ('written by a...