Ambrose Rathborne was an Australian mining engineer who moved first to Ceylon present-day Sri Lanka as a coffee planter, and then in the 1880s to the Malay States, where he worked as a planter and entrepreneur. Camping and Tramping in Malaya Fifteen Years in the Native States of the Malay Peninsula was first published in 1898, and is a lively and entertaining account of the authors travels, with fascinating insights into the colonial personalities and working conditions of the day.