CELEBES, THE MOLUCCAS, ETC. 373 



" On board steamer from Ternate to Timor, January 2, 1861. 



" I have come home safe to Ternate and left it again. For 

 two months I was stupefied with my year's letters, accounts, 

 papers, magazines, and books, in addition to the manipula- 

 tion, cleaning, arranging, comparing, and packing for safe 

 transmission to the other side of the world about 16,000 

 specimens of insects, birds, and shells. This has been inter- 

 mingled with the troubles of preparing for new voyages, 

 laying in stores, hiring men, paying or refusing to pay their 

 debts, running after them when they try to run away, going 

 to the town with lists of articles absolutely necessary for the 

 voyage, and finding that none of them could be had for love 

 or money, conceiving impossible substitutes and not being 

 able to get them either, — and all this coming upon me when 

 I am craving repose from the fatigues and privations of an 

 unusually dangerous and miserable voyage, and you may 

 imagine that I have not been in any great humour for letter- 

 writing. 



" I think I may promise you that in eighteen months, more 

 or less, we may meet again, if nothing unforeseen occurs. 



" Yours, 



" A. W. R." 



Just before leaving Ternate I also wrote to Bates, chiefly 

 about the " Origin of Species " and some of my results on 

 geographical distribution. 



" Ternate, December 24, i860. 



" Dear Bates, 



" Many thanks for your long and interesting letter. 

 I have myself suffered much in the same way as you describe, 

 and I think more severely. The kind of tadium vifce you 

 mention I also occasionally experience here. I impute it to 

 a too monotonous existence. 



" I know not how, or to whom, to express fully my ad- 

 miration of Darwin's book. To him it would seem flattery, 

 to others self-praise; but I do honestly believe that with 



