ABSTRACT
'Sir harry is a young-looking man scarcely in middle life, slight, active, fair, blue-eyed, a thorough Saxon, with sunny hair and a sunny smile, a sunshiny geniality in his manner, and bearing no trace in his appearance of his thirty years in the East, his sufferings - in prison at Beijing, and the various attempts upon his life in Japan.' 1 So wrote the tireless traveller Isabella Bird after visiting the British Legation in May 1878. Evidendy the Parkes family and this 'invalid' traveller took much pleasure in each other's company. Indeed, Miss Bird fondly dedicated her subsequent book Unbeaten Tracks in Japan to Lady Parkes.
