338 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



to that of South America. Palms are very numerous, but 

 they are generally small, and very spiny. There are none of 

 the large majestic species so common on the Amazon. I am 

 so busy with insects now that I have no time for anything 

 else. I send now about a thousand beetles to Mr. Stevens, 

 and I have as many other insects still on hand, which will 

 form part of my next and principal consignment. Singapore 

 is rich in beetles, and before I leave I think I shall have a 

 beautiful collection of them. I will tell you how my day is 

 now occupied. Get up at half-past five, bath, and coffee. 

 Sit down to arrange and put away my insects of the day 

 before, and set them in a safe place to dry. Charles mends 

 our insect-nets, fills our pin-cushions, and gets ready for the 

 day. Breakfast at eight ; out to the jungle at nine. We 

 have to walk about a quarter mile up a steep hill to reach 

 it, and arrive dripping with perspiration. Then we wander 

 about in the delightful shade along paths made by the 

 Chinese wood-cutters till two or three in the afternoon, 

 generally returning with fifty or sixty beetles, some very rare 

 or beautiful, and perhaps a few butterflies. Change clothes 

 and sit down to kill and pin insects, Charles doing the flies, 

 wasps, and bugs ; I do not trust him yet with beetles. 

 Dinner at four, then at work again till six: coffee. Then 

 read or talk, or, if insects very numerous, work again till eight 

 or nine. Then to bed." 



In July I wrote from "The Jungle, near Malacca:" "We 

 have been here a week, living in a Chinese house or shed, 

 which reminds me of some of my old Rio Negro habitations. 

 We came from Singapore in a small trading schooner, with 

 about fifty Chinese, Hindoos, and Portuguese passengers, and 

 were two days on the voyage with nothing but rice and 

 curry to eat, not having made any special provision, it being 

 our first experience of the country vessels. Malacca is a 

 very old Dutch city, but the Portuguese have left the clearest 

 marks of their possession of it in the common language of 

 the place being still theirs. I have now two Portuguese 

 servants, a cook and a hunter, and find myself almost back 

 in Brazil, owing to the similarity of the language, the people, 



