STORY OF COELOGYNE SPECIOSA 



Orchid stories lack one essential quality of romance. They 

 have little of the 'female interest,' and nothing of love. 

 The defect is beyond remedy, I fear — collectors are men of 

 business. It is rumoured, indeed, that personages of vast 

 weight in the City could tell romantic adventures of their 

 own, if they would. So, perhaps, could my heroes. But 

 neither do tell willingly. I have asked in vain. However, 

 among my miscellaneous notes on Orchidology, it is recorded 

 that ' W. C. Williams found Coelogyne speciosa up the 

 Baram River. Books confine its habitat to Java and 

 Sumatra.' The Baram is in Borneo. When travelling in 

 that island thirty years ago I heard a story of Williams' 

 doings, and I think I can recall the outHne. But imagina- 

 tion furnishes the details, of course, aided by local know- 

 ledge. 



It may be worth while to tell briefly how this gentleman 

 came to be wandering in Borneo — in the Sultan's territory 

 also — at a date when Rajah Brooke had but just begun to 

 establish order in his own little province. Williams' 

 position or business I never heard. Some Dutch firm sold 

 or entrusted to him a stock of earthenware jars made in 

 Holland, facsimiles of those precious objects cherished by 

 the Dyaks. The speculation was much favoured in that 

 day — it seemed such an easy cut to fortune. But they say 



