Perhaps a few words of explanation as regards this volume may be permitted. The following extract from a letter, from a relative who addresses me as "Uncle Harry," will suffice at first. His letter is dated "Shanghai, November 1897":—
"Here are all the papers, with manuscript. Some of the latter is translated by a friend, and some is newspaper work. But I daresay you will be able to work up the matter. Do it as you like best; but don't give me away, please. You will find some additional information in Vladmir's work, and in the Mail, etc. etc. But I am only sending you my experiences and adventures. Call them what you like.
"JULIUS."
Here then is the narrative, in which the writer does not spare himself. He certainly has had adventures by land and sea, between China and Japan—"'twixt Jack and Jap"—during the late war. I have used his papers and extracts in the compilation of the story; with gleanings from Heroic Japan and newspapers, which I have examined, with history, for my own benefit, and to verify my "nephew's" account of his adventures during that stirring time in the Far East.
HENRY FRITH.
