Tales of the Malayan Coast

Rounsevelle Wildman

Copyright, 1899,
By
Lothrop Publishing Company.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

To

Our Hero

And my friend

Admiral George Dewey, U.S.N.

I Dedicate this Book

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.

Contents

1.   Page
2. Baboo’s Good Tiger 9
3. Baboo’s Pirates 28
4. How we Played Robinson Crusoe 47
5. The Sarong 66
6. The Kris 74
7. The White Rajah of Borneo 81
8. Amok! 101
9. Lepas’s Revenge 130
10. King Solomon’s Mines 147
11. Busuk 181
12. A Crocodile Hunt 200
13. A New Year’s Day in Malaya 219
14. In the Burst of the Southwest Monsoon 230
15. A Pig Hunt on Mount Ophir 254
16. In the Court of Johore 270
17. In the Golden Chersonese 293
18. A Fight with Illanum Pirates 321