354 MY LIFE [Chap. 



very delicate juicy fruit, but hardly worthy of the high place 

 that has been given it ; the latter, however, is a wonderful 

 fruit, quite unique of its kind, and worth coming to the Malay 

 Archipelago to enjoy ; it is totally unlike every other fruit. 

 A thick glutinous, almond-flavoured custard is the only thing 

 it can be compared to, but which it far surpasses. These 

 two fruits, however, can only be had for about two months in 

 the year, and everywhere, except far into the interior, they 

 are dear. The plantains and bananas even are poor, like the 

 worst sorts in South America. 



"May 10th. — The ship for which I have been waiting 

 nearly three months is in at last, and in about a week I hope 

 to be off for Macassar. The monsoon, however, is against 

 us, and we shall probably have a long passage, perhaps forty 

 days. Celebes is quite as unknown as was the Upper 

 Amazon before your visit to it, perhaps even more so. In 

 the British Museum catalogues of Cetoniidae, Buprestidae, 

 Longicorns, and Papilionidae, not a single specimen is 

 recorded from Celebes, and very few from the Moluccas ; 

 but the fine large species described by the old naturalists, 

 some of which have recently been obtained by Madame 

 Reiffer, give promise of what systematic collection may 

 produce." 



Before giving a general sketch of my life and work in less 

 ^/icnown parts of the Archipelago, I must refer to an article I 

 wrote while in Sarawak, which formed my first contribution 

 to the great question of the origin of species. It was written 

 during the wet season, while I was staying in a little house 

 at the mouth of the Sarawak river, at the foot of the Santu- 

 bong mountain. I was quite alone, with one Malay boy as 

 cook, and during the evenings and wet days I had nothing to 

 do but to look over my books and ponder over the problem 

 which was rarely absent from my thoughts. Having always 

 been interested in the geographical distribution of animals 

 and plants, having studied Swainson and Humboldt, and 

 having now myself a vivid impression of the fundamental 

 differences between the Eastern and Western tropics ; and 



