es are synonymous with romance; the sound of them makes restless the
feet of all who love adventure. Sultans and rajahs ... pirates and
head-hunters ... sun-bronzed pioneers and white-helmeted _legionnaires_
... blow-guns with poisoned darts and curly-bladed krises ... elephants
with gilded howdahs ... tigers, crocodiles, orang-utans ... pagodas and
palaces ... shaven-headed priests in yellow robes ... flaming
fire-trees ... the fragrance of frangipani ... green jungle and
steaming tropic rivers ... white moonlight on the long white beaches
... the throb of war-drums and the tinkle of wind-blown
temple-bells....

But it is not for all of us to go down the strange trails which lead
to these magic places. The world's work must be done. So, for those who
are condemned by circumstance to the prosaic existence of the office,
the factory, and the home, I have written this book. I would have them
feel the hot breath of the South. I would convey to them something of
the spell of the tropics, the mystery of the jungle, the lure of the
little, palm-fringed islands which rise from peacock-colored seas. I
would introduce to them those picturesque and hardy figures planters,
constabulary officers, consuls, missionaries, colonial administrators
who are carrying civilization into these dark and distant corners of
the earth. I would have them know the fascination of leaning through
those "magic casements, opening on the foam of perilous seas, in faery
lands forlorn."

I had planned, therefore, that this should be a light-hearted,
care-free, casual narrative. And so, in parts, it is. But more serious
things have crept, almost imperceptibly, into its pages. The
achievements of the Dutch empire-builders in the Insulinde, the
conditions which prevail under the rule of the chartered company in
Borneo, the opening-up of Indo-China and the Malay Peninsula, the
regeneration of Siam, the epic struggle between civilization and
savagery which is in progress in all these lands--these are phases of
Malaysian life which, if this book is to have any serious value, I
cannot ignore. That is why it is a melange of the frivolous and the
serious, the picturesque and the prosaic, the superficial and the
significant. If, when you lay it down, you have gained a better
understanding of the dangers and difficulties which beset the
colonizing white man in the lands of the Malay, if you realize that
life in the eastern tropics consists of something more than s