[O'CONNELL] (D. B.)
"Excelsior" being an inadequate description of the Upper Yangtze
“The following notes on the Upper Yangtze have been put together with a view to giving the Ship’s Companies of Gunboats some idea of the many points of interest which are met with on the trip from I-Chang to Chungking. During two ‘commissions’ on the Yangtze Kiang which have included a certain amount of experience on the Upper Section, the compiler of these pages has made a habit of producing, night by night, a page or so of ‘foolscap’ giving a short description of the run for the following day. ‘Daily Dope’, as it was called, proved immensely popular…” (Foreword). ‘Charon’ was the pseudonym of D. B. O’Connell, Commander of the river gunboat HMS Gannet. The account was first published in the North China Daily News and Herald in 1934 (it retains that date on the title-page), but this is the first edition in book format. Rare.
