Ferdinand von Richthofen's Tagebücher aus China

Abstract

WHEN Ferdinand von Richthofen's life was ended his great work on China still remained unfinished. The third volume was not only unwritten, but had become unwritable, for, besides a description of southern China, it was intended to contain an account of the culture, civilisation, and organisation of China as a whole, and, apart from the magnitude of the subject, the complete alteration in the conditions of this “unchanging” country since the date of his travels had made much of his observation and experience inapplicable to the existing state of affairs. Besides the missing volume of his great work, von Richthofen also left unfinished the popular account of his travels, a work which he regarded as a duty owed to his fellow-men by every traveller in unexplored or little-known countries, and had, indeed, nearly half completed when the publication of his great work was assured, and monopolised the whole of the time and energy which was not devoted to his duties as professor. To fill in, so far as was possible, these gaps in his published work, and to meet a generally felt wish among Baron von Richthofen's old students and friends, Herr Tiessen, with rare skill, has compounded from von Richthofen's unpublished manuscripts, his diaries, and his letters home, one of the most interesting and enlightening books of travel which have been published.