Preface
These stories are the result of nine years’ residence and experience on the
Malayan coast—that land of romance and adventure which the ancients knew as
the Golden Chersonesus, and which, in modern times, has been brought again
into the atmosphere of valor and performance by Rajah Brooke of Sarawak, the
hero of English expansion, and Admiral George Dewey of the Asiatic squadron,
the hero of American achievement. The author, in his official duties as Special
Commissioner of the United States for the Straits Settlement and Siam, and,
later, as Consul General of the United States at Hong Kong, has mingled with
and studied the diverse people of the Malayan coast, from the Sultan of Johore
and Aguinaldo the Filipino to the lowest Eurasian and “China boy” of that
wonderful Oriental land. These stories are based on his experiences afloat and
ashore, and are offered to the American public at this time when all glimpses of
the land that Columbus sailed to find are of especial interest to the modern
possessors of the land he really did discover.