The journey of a lifetime from deckhand to revered china hand

The extraordinary exploits of adventurer William Mesny are recounted in a new biography that fizzes with lively characters and provides a valuable insight into life during the last decades of the Qing Dynasty. Paul Tomic speaks with the author

One morning in 1998, David Leffman awoke to find himself with a desert-dry throat, a thumping hangover and a notebook littered with jottings about an uprising in the 1860s that resulted in the deaths of 3 million people.

Although the hangover eventually subsided, the scribbled notes Leffman had taken during a three-day "Sisters Meal", courtesy of the Miao ethnic group in the southwestern province of Guizhou, were so intriguing he couldn't get them out of his mind. Despite being well-grounded in Chinese history, the British author was astonished that he had never heard of the uprising, so he decided to learn more about it.