5 2 MY LIFE 



h parties and hoard both sides, I thought the captain had 

 been rather hardly treated, and one day, when the subject was 



mentioned at Stratton Street, I ventured to say so. This 

 evidently displeased Lady Burdett-Coutts, and I was never 

 invited again — a matter which did not at all disturb me, as the 

 people I met there were not very interesting to me. When 

 Sir James Brooke heard of my indiscretion, he wrote to me 

 very kindly, saying that he knew that I was the captain's 

 friend and had a perfect right to take his part, and that my 

 doing so did not in the least offend him and would make 

 no difference in our relations, and I continued to receive 

 friendly letters from him till he went to Borneo for the last 

 time, in 1866. Soon after his return he died at his Devon- 

 shire home, in June, 1868. I have given my estimate of his 

 character and of his beneficent work at Sarawak in my " Malay 

 Archipelago." 



One of my early friends, though I did not see a great deal 

 of him, was Professor George Rolleston, whose death in the 

 prime of life (in 1885) was a great loss to the biological 

 sciences. I possess, however, only one letter from him, ac- 

 companying some remarks by a friend of his, Dr. Kay, prin- 

 cipal of a theological college in Calcutta, on my article in 

 The Reader on " How to Civilize Savages/' in which I had 

 criticised missionary work, and, by implication, popular ideas 

 of the value of Christianity. The MS. sent has been lost, 

 but I happen to have a rough copy of my reply, and as it 

 argues the missionary question more fully than was thought 

 necessary in the article (included with additions in my 

 " Studies "), I think it may be well to print it here. 



"9, St. Mark's Crescent, Regent's Park, 

 " September 23, 1865. 



" Dear Rolleston, 



" Your friend has very fairly stated my argument, yet 

 does not seem to me to touch the point of it in his answer. For 

 instance, he says, ' the principal doctrines of Christianity were 

 held at the beginning as now.' True, but what was that begin- 



