WCP6660

[1] [p. 38]

It was in 1854 that Wallace came to Sarawak. I was there then, sent by a private firm, which later became the Borneo Company¹, to open up, by mining, manufacture and trade, the resources of the country, and amongst these enterprises was coal-mining on the west. Wallace came in search of new specimens of animal and especially insect life. The clearing of ancient forests at these mines offered a naturalist great opportunities, and I gave Wallace an introduction to our engineer² in charge there. His collections of beetles and butterflies there were phenomenal; but the district was also the special home of the great ape, the orang-utan, or meias, as the natives called them, of which he obtained so many valuable specimens. Many notes must at that time have passed between us, for I took much interest in his work. We had put up a temporary hut for him at the mines, and [2] [p. 39] on my occasional visits there I saw him and his young assistant, Charles Allen³, at work, admired his beautiful collections, and gave my help in forwarding them.

But it was mainly in social intercourse that we met, when Wallace, in intervals of his labours, came to Kuching, and was the Rajah's⁴ guest. Then occurred those interesting discussions at social gatherings to which he refers in a letter to me in 1909, when he wrote: "I was pleased to receive your letter, with reminiscences of old times. I often recall those pleasant evenings with Rajah Brooke and our little circle, but since the old Rajah's death I have not met any of the party."

Wallace was in Sarawak at the happy period in the country's history. It was beginning to emerge from barbarism. The Borneo Company was just formed, and the seed of the country's future prosperity was sown. Wallace, therefore, found us all sanguine and cheerful; yet we were on the brink of a disaster which brought many sorrows in its train. But the misfortunes of the Chinese revolt had not yet cast their shadows before them. The Rajah's white guests round his hospitable table; the Malay chiefs and office-holders, who made evening calls from curiosity or to pay their respects; Dyaks squatting in dusky groups in corners of the hall, with petitions to make or advice to seek from their white ruler — such would be the gathering of which Wallace would form a part. No suspicion or foreboding would trouble the company; yet within a few months that hall would be given to the flames of an enemy's torch, and the Rajah himself and many of those who formed that company would be fugitives in the jungle....

The Malay Archipelago, in the unregenerated days when Wallace roamed the forests, and sailed the Straits in native boats and canoes, was full of danger to wanderers of the white race. Anarchy prevailed in many parts; usurping nobles enslaved the people in their houses; and piratical fleets scoured the sea, capturing and enslaving yearly thousands of peaceful traders, women and children. The writer was himself in 1862 besieged in a Bornean river by [3] [p. 40] a pirate fleet, which was eventually destroyed by a Sarawak Government steamer with the following result of the fight: 190 pirates and 140 captives were killed or drowned, and 250 of the latter were liberated and sent to their homes; showing how formidable these pirates were⁵. But Wallace, absorbed in his scientific pursuits, minded not these dangers, nor the hardships of any kind which a roving life in untrodden jungles and feverish swamps brings.

When Wallace left Sarawak after his fifteen months' residence in the country, he left his young assistant, Charles Allen, there. He entered my service, and remained some time after the formation of the Borneo Company. Later, he again joined Wallace, and then went to New Guinea, doing valuable collecting and exploring work. He finally settled in Singapore, where I met him in 1899. He had married and was doing well; but died not long after my interview with him. He had come to the East with Wallace as a lad of 16, and had been his faithful companion and assistant during years of arduous work.

— L. V. H.