China and the West

London, Jack. The turtles of Tasman. (New York, N.Y. : Macmillan, 1916).
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16257/16257.txt
"There was a divorce afterward, of course. I never knew the details. Her mother died out in China--no; in Tasmania. It was in China that Tom--" His lips shut with almost a snap. He was not going to make any more slips. Mary waited, then turned to the door, where she paused…
They were from everywhere--China, Rangoon, Australia, South Africa, the Gold Coast, Patagonia, Armenia, Alaska. Briefly and infrequently written, they epitomised the wanderer's life. Frederick ran over in his mind a few of the glimpsed highlights of Tom's career. He had fought in some sort of foreign troubles in Armenia. He had been an officer in the Chinese army, and it was a certainty that the trade he later drove in the China Seas was illicit. He had been caught running arms into Cuba…
…a shipwrecked Chinese Eurasian; of the intrigue for the pearl of Desay…