TWO SCIENTIFIC WORTHIES. 87 



Raffles's domestic life and his zeal for natural history are inex- 

 tricably mixed. His residence and the yard attached thereto were 

 a museum and laboratory. " I have thrown politics far away," 

 he writes, " and, since I must have nothing more to do with men, 

 have taken to the wilder but less sophisticated animals of our 

 woods. Our house is on one side a perfect menagerie ; on another, 

 a perfect flora ; here, a pile of stones ; there, a collection of sea- 

 weeds, shells, etc." 



When he was in Bencoolen he rose early, and delighted in 

 driving into villages, inspecting the plantations and encouraging 

 the industry of the people. At nine the family assembled at 

 breakfast; afterward he wrote, read; studied natural history, 

 chemistry, and geology ; superintended the draughtsmen (of 

 whom he had constantly five or six employed), and always had 

 his children with him as he went from one pursuit to another. At 

 four he dined, and seldom alone. After the party had dispersed, 

 he was fond of walking out with the editor (Lady Raises always 

 alluded to herself as the editor), and enjoying "the delicious cool- 

 ness of the night land-wind." " I believe people generally think 

 I shall remain longer," says he in a letter to a friend, " as they 

 hardly suppose in such times, and with an increasing family, a 

 man will be inclined to forego the advantages of the field before 

 me ; but they know me not. I have seen enough of power and 

 wealth to know that, however agreeable to the propensities of our 

 nature, there is more real happiness in domestic quiet and repose, 

 when blessed with a competence, than all fancied enjoyments of 

 the great and the rich" (page 497). His oldest son Leopold " has 

 the spirit of a lion, and is absolutely beautiful." His daughter 

 Charlotte "is of all creatures the most angelic I have ever beheld." 

 There are two other younger children, Harry and Ella. But Su- 

 matra, as indeed all tropical Asia, excepting favored localities 

 in Java, is fatal to children of European parents. Raffles enter- 

 tained a scheme of removing his family to a colder climate, but 

 he lingered too long, and all his children, save the youngest, Ella, 

 died within one year. From these blows he never recovered. 

 His health rapidly failed. He asked to be relieved from duty, 

 and after a foreign service of twenty years he prepared to return 

 for good to England. 



His collections included objects of natural history in every de- 

 partment, a living tapir and many birds, and upward of two thou- 

 sand drawings, notes, observations, together with memoirs, vo- 

 cabularies, dictionaries and grammars of native languages. Just 

 as he is about to sail, all his collections being carefully stored in 

 the hold, the vessel, through the carelessness of the steward, takes 

 fire and everything is lost. How unutterable the dismal sense of 

 failure that thus often awaits the explorer ! Rafinesque, Wallace, 



