Early Years 



on my occasional visits there I saw him and his young 

 assistant, Charles Allen, at work, admired his beautiful 

 collections, and gave my help in forwarding them. 



But it was mainly in social intercourse that we met, 

 when Wallace, in intervals of his labours, came to Ku- 

 ching, and was the Kajah's guest. Then occurred those in- 

 teresting discussions at social gatherings to which he refers 

 in a letter to me in 1909, when he wrote : ^^ I was pleased 

 to receive your letter, with reminiscences of old times. I 

 often recall those pleasant evenings with Kajah Brooke 

 and our little circle, but since the old Kajah' s death I have 

 not met any of the party.'' 



Wallace was in Sarawak at the happy period in the 

 country's history. It was beginning to emerge from bar- 

 barism. The Borneo Company was just formed, and the 

 seed of the country's future prosperity was sown. Wal- 

 lace, therefore, found us all sanguine and cheerful; yet 

 we were on the brink of a disaster which brought many 

 sorrows in its train. But the misfortunes of the Chinese 

 revolt had not yet cast their shadows before them. The 

 Rajah's white guests round his hospitable table; the 

 Malay chiefs and office-holders, who made evening calls 

 from curiosity or to pay their respects; Dyaks squatting 

 in dusky groups in corners of the hall, with petitions to 

 make or advice to seek from their white ruler — such would 

 be the gathering of which Wallace would form a part. No 

 suspicion or foreboding would trouble the company; yet 

 within a few months that hall would be given to the 

 flames of an enemy's torch, and the Rajah himself and 

 many of those who formed that company would be fugi- 

 tives in the jungle. . . . 



The Malay Archipelago, in the unregenerated days when 

 W^allace roamed the forests, and sailed the Straits in native 

 boats and canoes, was full of danger to wanderers of the 

 white race. Anarchy prevailed in many parts; usurping 

 nobles enslaved the people in their houses; and piratical 

 fleets scoured the sea, capturing and enslaving yearly 

 thousands of peaceful traders, women and children. The 

 writer was himself in 1862 besieged in a Bornean river by 



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