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 British expansion. 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 studied the diverse people of the Malayan coast, including the Sultan of Johore and Aguinaldo the Filipino. Rounsevelle Wildman was lost in the wreck of the SS City of Rio de Janeiro whilst travelling from Hong Kong to Washington DC to participate in the inauguration of William McKinley.On 22 February 1901, while trying to pass through the Golden Gate in heavy fog, en route to her home port of San Francisco, the City of Rio De Janeiro struck rocks, reportedly on the southern part of the straits at or near Fort Point, and sank.