Arthur Louis Keyser (1856-1924) was the author of: Our Cruise in New Guinea (1884), An Exile"s Romance; or, Realities of Australian Life (1887), Cut by the Mess (1889), From Jungle to Java (1897) and People and Places: A Life in Five Continents (1922). "Mr. X., whose impressions and mild adventures I have undertaken the task of editing, has asked me to narrow his personal introduction to such limits as is consistent with the courtesy due to my readers, if haply I find any. He prefers, as his pseudonym implies, to remain an unknown quantity. I need only explain that he is an officer employed in one of the small States of the Malay Peninsula, which are (very much) under the protection of the Colonial Government of the Straits Settlements. The latter, with careful forethought for their ease-loving rulers, appoints officers to relieve them of all the cares and duties of administration, and absolves them from the responsibility of a Government somewhat more progressive in its policy than...