A Dane's story of his years in the East Indies, round and about Medan, as he sought a job there during the early days of the depression. What a strange country is like to one who is penniless; what it means to get a chance; what life on an oil palm plantation is like from day to day. Working for a Belgian company, Peterson took the ribbing that a greenhorn is given, and learned his job through heat, drought, fire, . He found the excitements of hunting, of dealing with coolie labor, he saw how the went on holidays, managed their social as well as their sex life, and how the Dutch system worked. A personal response to a country that gives an intimate picture of the world of plantation life.