Iskandar Shah, the Sultan of Malacca, is today commemorated in a reconstructed royal palace with cast figures and courtiers attending him in royal splendor. He sits on a raised wooden platform surrounded by guards. The carved window frames and screens look out down a hillside where the hazy sea spreads away. That sea is narrow, a strait between the peninsula of modern-day Malaysia and the island of Sumatra. The Sultan's authority rests upon his control of a vital trading port, midway between the Indian Ocean with its domination by Indian and Arab traders, and the South China Sea and Pacific. The seas around Malacca are filled with merchants and tribute vessels, and by the Orang Laut sea people who serve as a patrol force, steering flotillas to shore for obligatory trade.

In its local history, Malacca (Melaka) is a powerful and wealthy city, spread across a river channel joined by a bridge. A palace rises on one side against the hills, while the opposite river bank is loud with activity from entrepôts, stockhouses, and trading companies. All year round, voices can be heard speaking in Malay, Chinese, Arabic, and Hindi. In its busiest years, more than eighty different languages and dialects from the Arab world to India and from Asia and Oceania will be heard in the streets and trading pavilions.