THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO 341 



none of us got bitten or stung. We only had rice, and a little 

 fish and tea, but came home quite well. The mountain is 

 over four thousand feet high. Near the top are beautiful 

 ferns and pitcher-plants, of which I made a small collection. 

 Elephants and rhinoceroses, as well as tigers, are abundant 

 there, but we had our usual bad luck in seeing only their 

 tracks. On returning to Malacca I found the accumulation 

 of two or three posts — a dozen letters, and about fifty news- 

 papers. ... I am glad to be safe in Singapore with my 

 collections, as from here they can be insured. I have now 

 a fortnight's work to arrange, examine, and pack them, and 

 four months hence there will be work for Mr. Stevens. 1 



" Sir James Brooke is here. I have called on him. He 

 received me most cordially, and offered me every assistance 

 at Sarawak. I shall go there next, as the missionary does not 

 go to Cambodia for some months. Besides, I shall have some 

 pleasant society at Sarawak, and shall get on in Malay, which 

 is very easy; but I have had no practice yet, though I can 

 ask for most common things." 



I reached Sarawak early in November, and remained in 

 Borneo fourteen months, seeing a good deal of the country. 

 The first four months was the wet season, during which I 

 made journeys up and down the Sarawak river, but obtained 

 very scanty collections. In March I went to the Sadong 

 river, where coal mines were being opened by an English 

 mining engineer, Mr. Coulson, a Yorkshireman, and I stayed 

 there nearly nine months, it being the best locality for beetles 

 I found during my twelve years' tropical collecting, and 

 very good for other groups. It was also in this place that I 

 obtained numerous skins and skeletons of the orang-utan, as 

 fully described in my " Malay Archipelago." 



In my first letter, dated May, 1855, I gave a sketch of the 

 country and people: — 



" As far inland as I have yet seen this country may be 

 described as a dead level, and a lofty and swampy forest. It 



1 They were sent by sailing ship round the Cape of Good Hope, the 

 overland route being too costly for goods. 



