LONDON, AND VOYAGE TO SINGAPORE 327 



country; while my continually growing- interest in botany 

 and in the cultivation of plants has invested every detail of 

 meadow and forest, rock and alp, with beauties and delights 

 which were almost absent from my early visit. The appre- 

 ciation of nature grows with years, and I feel to-day more 

 deeply than ever its mystery and its charms. 



During my constant attendance at the meetings of the 

 Zoological and Entomological Societies, and visits to the 

 insect and bird departments of the British Museum, I had 

 obtained sufficient information to satisfy me that the very 

 finest field for an exploring and collecting naturalist was to 

 be found in the great Malayan Archipelago, of which just 

 sufficient was known to prove its wonderful richness, while 

 no part of it, with the one exception of the island of Java, 

 had been well explored as regards its natural history. Sir 

 James Brooke had recently become Rajah of Sarawak, while 

 the numerous Dutch settlements in Celebes and the Moluccas 

 offered great facilities for a traveller. So far as known also, 

 the country was generally healthy, and I determined that it 

 would be much better for me to go to such a new country than 

 to return to the Amazon, where Bates had already been suc- 

 cessfully collecting for five years, and where I knew there was 

 a good bird-collector who had been long at work in the upper 

 part of the river towards the Andes. 



As the journey to the East was an expensive one, I was 

 advised to try and get a free passage in some Government 

 ship. Through my paper on the Rio Negro, I had made the 

 acquaintance of Sir Roderick Murchison, then President of 

 the Royal Geographical Society, and one of the most accessible 

 and kindly of men of science. On calling upon him and stating 

 my wishes, he at once agreed to make an application on my 

 behalf for a passage to some Malayan port, and as he was 

 personally known to many members of the Government and 

 had great influence with them, a passage was promised me on 

 the first ship going to those seas. This was, I think, near the 

 end of the year 1853, when I had published my two books, 

 and had spent much of my spare time at the British Museum, 



