10 CORAL AND ATOLLS 



" Having received cliarge of this vessel, I proceeded with 

 her via Macassa and Beema, to Batavia, where first I saw 

 the Brig's owner — and Alex Hare Esq. who was at that time 

 British ' commissioner ' alias Miniature Governor General over 

 the Island of Borneo and ' Resident ' alias Governor Particular 

 of Banjarmassem the chief local British Establishment in that 

 island." 



This chance meeting with Alexander Hare was a great 

 turning-point in the life of John Ross, and since their subse- 

 quent histories were so interwoven, it will be well to trace the 

 life of Hare up to the time of the meeting in Batavia. As 

 Ross Primus himself says, " as the subsequent history of this 

 person became much connected with mine, and occasion has 

 been made by himself for its previous portion to be also 

 noticed by me," it is best to give some account of Hare, 

 following the narrati^^e of Ross Primus as closely as may be. 

 Alexander Hare was the eldest of four boys, sons of a wealthy 

 London watchmaker, and although the watchmaker was a pious 

 and respected man, his eldest son showed early those signs of 

 the eccentric degeneracy that marked and marred his later 

 life. When a young man he went to Portugal, and became a 

 clerk in Lisbon, and there he continued for some time ; his 

 next move was in the direction of the East, which seemed always 

 to call him, and soon he appears in Calcutta as the agent for 

 his firm. It was here that the magic of the East first took 

 possession of Hare, and in all his subsequent doings we find 

 him becoming steadily more Oriental, steadily more eccentric. 



From Calcutta he went to Malacca as- an agent and as a 

 merchant, and in Malacca he gave vent to all his love of 

 Oriental splendour, and started his slave retinue and his harem. 

 From now onwards, whenever Hare is mentioned in the 

 narrative of Ross Primus, it is always in association with the 

 extraordinary collection of Oriental women who were his 

 chattels, and who constituted his harem. He himself called 

 them his " fiddle faddle, which whether wise or no, I am in 

 the habit of considering necessary." Whilst in Calcutta, Hare 

 met Mr. Raflies (afterwards Sir Stamford Raffles) that great 



