ost looking for knife, scissors, pliers, hammer, pins, or
something he has mislaid. Yet out of doors he does very well--he
collects insects well, and if I could get a neat, orderly person in the
house I would keep him almost entirely at out-of-door work and at
skinning, which he does also well, but cannot put into shape....--Your
affectionate brother,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO HIS MOTHER

_Sarawak. Christmas Day, 1855._

My dear Mother,--You will see I am spending a second Christmas Day with
the Rajah.... I have lived a month with the Dyaks and have been a
journey about sixty miles into the interior. I have been very much
pleased with the Dyaks. They are a very kind, simple and hospitable
people, and I do not wonder at the great interest Sir J. Brooke takes in
them. They are more communicative and lively than the American Indians,
and it is therefore more agreeable to live with them. In moral character
they are far superior to either Malays or Chinese, for though
head-taking has been a custom among them it is only as a trophy of war.
In their own villages crimes are very rare. Ever since Sir J. has been
here, more than twelve years, in a large population there has been but
one case of murder in a Dyak tribe, and that one was committed by a
stranger who had been adopted into the tribe. One wet day I got a piece
of string to show them how to play "scratch cradle," and was quite
astonished to find that they knew it better than I did and could make
all sorts of new figures I had never seen. They were also very clever
with tricks with string on their fingers, which seemed to be a favourite
amusement. Many of the distant tribes think the Rajah cannot be a man.
They ask all sorts of curious questions about him, whether he is not as
old as the mountains, whether he cannot bring the dead to life, and I
have no doubt for many years after his death he will be looked upon as a
deity and expected to come back again. I have now seen a good deal of
Sir James, and the more I see of him the more I admire him. With the
highest talents for government he combines the greatest goodness of
heart and gentleness of manner. At the same time he has such confidence
and determination, that he has put down with the greatest ease some
conspiracies of one or two Malay chiefs against him. It is a unique case
in the history of the world, for a European gentleman to rule over two
conflicting races of semi-