CHAPTER XVI 



Those who Help 



J 



UST as I have had great good fortune in the support 

 given me by my colleagues in the Museum, so I have been 

 aided in many unexpected ways by natives of all sorts in 

 the field. When Rosamond and I landed in Singapore, we 

 had a letter of introduction from Dr. George Lincoln 

 Goodale of Harvard to Dr. Wilham H. Ridley, Director 

 of the Botanic Garden. Ridley was very kind and friendly 

 and helped us to find Ah Woo, a tall and stately Chinese 

 boy who had been a mess servant at the mihtary barracks 

 at Tanglin. Ah Woo's queue was a joy to behold. Long 

 and thick and black as a raven's wing, pieced out with a 

 sort of a whiplash of red silk, it extended to his heels. 

 When he was at work it was cunningly coiled on top of 

 his head, to be pushed off to a hanging position if one of 

 us approached him, because to speak to a superior with 

 one's queue coiled up was extremely impoHte. 



Ah Woo traveled with us and only left us to return 

 home when we left Peking for Japan. He became a superb 

 butterfly collector and was perfectly faithful and loyal, 

 although he never really liked to take orders from my 

 wife. He was so loyal that it was very dangerous to admire 

 anything in the museum at Buitenzorg, because the object 

 was likely to be missing in the museum and to turn up 

 presently in our lodgings. He was a slightly bloodthirsty 

 rascal and if there was a tree kangaroo or some other animal 



