40 PROCEEDINGS Or THE 



boy's career from India to Borneo. Visiting that island at the 

 early age of nineteen, young Low must have used his opportunities 

 during the next two or three years with very remarkable pre- 

 cocity. Tor, having returned to Europe, in December 1847, that 

 is while he was still in his twenty-third year, he was able to 

 dedicate to his friend the Eajah his well-known book entitled 

 ' Sarawak: its Inhabitants and Productions ; being notes during a 

 residence in that country with H.H. the Eajah Brooke : by Hugh 

 Low, Colonial Secretary at Labuh-an.' This work is still full of 

 charm and instruction for every lover of natural history, and 

 shows bow receptive a mind and how wide a range of sympathy 

 its author must have possessed. Men aud minerals, fauna and 

 flora, alike engage his earnest attention. It was no slight triumph 

 for a young botanist, after describing several novel and fascinating 

 plants, to be able to add : " But of all those above mentioned, 

 though they excel in beauty, none so much attract our curiosity as 

 the various aud beautiful pitcher-plants, eight different species of 

 which I discovered in the western part of the island." As to the 

 quest for pearl and mother-of-pearl, he remarks that " the fishery 

 of the Soolu Islands has been long known and highly valued : in 

 proper hands it would be the finest in the world ; but pearls are 

 produced in plenty all along the northern coast." His description 

 of education as practised in those days by the people of Sarawak 

 is rather historically interesting than exemplary for modern use. 

 The boys, and the boys only, were taught. What they learned 

 was to read and write their own language and to read and recite 

 the Koran in Arabic, a tongue which neither they nor their 

 teachers could translate. " The different periods of the progress 

 of the son's advancement in educational knowledge afford the 

 parents an opportunity of giving feasts to their relations, when 

 the son is examined by the master in the presence of his family 

 and connexions, who, in consideration of the liberal and expensive 

 feast usually provided for them, congratulate the father on the 

 splendid talents of the son." jSTotwithstanding these little weak- 

 nesses on their part, Low entei'tained a very favourable opinion of 

 the people, and with generous warmth cautions the reader " that 

 the terms of treacherous, and other equally abusive epithets, are 

 no more applicable to them than we may suppose they w"ould be 

 to European nations in circumstances when, reduced by oppression, 

 they could not revenge themselves by open and honest means." 



In the ' Gardeners' Chronicle ' for April 29, 1905, his friend 

 Mr. F. W. Burbidge, F.L.S., has given an interesting summary of 

 Low's later exploits among the mountains and forests of Borneo 

 in botanical research, Mhich were crowned with many successes. 

 He M'as appointed British Resident of Perak in 1877 and retired 

 in 1887- In reward for his political services he was created 

 K.C.M.G. in 1883 and G.C.M.G. in 1889. He was elected a 

 Fellow of the Zoological Society in ] 893, and of the Linnean Society 

 in the following year. He aa as chosen to serve on the Council of 



