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. 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.