340 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



abundant than in Brazil. Among the fruits I miss the 

 delicious oranges of Para and the Amazon. Here they are 

 scarce and not good, and there is nothing that can replace 

 them." 



I may as well state here that the Charles " referred to in 

 the preceding letter was a London boy, the son of a carpenter 

 who had done a little work for my sister, and whose parents 

 were willing for him to go with me to learn to be a collector. 

 He was sixteen years old, but quite undersized for his age, 

 so that no one would have taken him for more than thirteen 

 or fourteen. He remained with me about a year and a half, 

 and learned to shoot and to catch insects pretty well, but not 

 to prepare them properly. He was rather of a religious turn, 

 and when I left Borneo he decided to stay with the bishop 

 and become a teacher. After a year or two, however, he 

 returned to Singapore, and got employment on some 

 plantations. About five years later he joined me in the 

 Moluccas as a collector. He had grown to be a fine young 

 man, over six feet. When I returned home he remained in 

 Singapore, married, and had a family. He died some fifteen 

 years since. 



At the end of September I returned to Singapore, whence 

 I wrote home as follows : — 



" I have now just returned to Singapore after two months' 

 hard work. At Malacca I had a strong touch of fever, with 

 the old * Rio Negro ' symptoms, but the Government doctor 

 made me take large doses of quinine every day for a week, 

 and so killed it, and in less than a fortnight I was quite well, 

 and off to the jungle again. I never took half enough quinine 

 in America to cure me. 



Malacca is a pretty place. Insects are not very abundant 

 there, still, by perseverance, I got a good number, and many 

 rare ones. Of birds, too, I made a good collection. I went 

 to the celebrated Mount Ophir, and ascended to the top, 

 sleeping under a rock. The walk there was hard work, 

 thirty miles through jungle in a succession of mud-holes, and 

 swarming with leeches, which crawled all over us, and sucked 



