From Jungle to Java

Overview

"CHAPTER I. A SELECT COMMUNITY.
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 might commend itself to Oriental ideas, if left without such outside assistance.
As the title intimates, Mr. X.'s duties compel him to make his home in the jungle. The word has many significations in the East, where it is often used to express a region remote from civilization, although perhaps consisting of barren mountains or treeless plains. Mr. X.'s jungle, however, is one realizing what it represents to the untravelled Englishman. It is a [...]".

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