A solo-trip in 1889 took Karl May via the Near Orient and Ceylon all the way to Sumatra, Indonesia. Upon his return journey, he met his first wife and friends, another couple, in Egypt to travel there. Only towards the end of his life did he manage to visit the eastern part of the United States. But in his imagination, in his mind`s eye, this prolific writer roamed the globe!
Except for Greenland, Australia and Antarctica, his many novels and short stories took place on every continent. He researched the locations very well, where his heroes and characters, his alter egos, Old Shatterhand and Kara Ben Nemsi, and his friends, Winnetou and Hajji Halef Omar, as well as many others, some named, some unnamed, performed their various deeds. For this he relied on travelogues and research of people who had visited the respective areas.
Some of Karl May`s characters, Old Shatterhand, Winnetou and Sam Hawkens, and locales, like the Wild West, Southeast Asia, Arabia, North Africa, Egypt, the Caribbean, the Bering Sea, South Africa and the Indian Ocean, are featured in this collection of fifteen short stories.