etters which show that Wallace thought more highly of the Roman
Catholic than of the Protestant missionaries. In one place, speaking of
the former, he says: "Most are Frenchmen ... well-educated men who give
up their lives for the good of the people they live among, I think
Catholics and Protestants are equally wrong, but as missionaries I think
Catholics are the best, and I would gladly see none others rather than
have, as in New Zealand, sects of native Dissenters more rancorous
against each other than in England. The unity of the Catholics is their
strength, and an unmarried clergy can do as missionaries what married
men never can undertake."

As a sidelight on these contradictory estimates of the same work, it
should be borne in mind that Darwin had but recently given up the idea
of becoming a clergyman, and doubtless retained some of the instinctive
regard for sincere Christian Protestantism (whether represented by the
Church of England or by Nonconformists), while Wallace had long since
relinquished all doctrinal ideas on religion and all belief in the
beneficial effect produced by forms of worship on the individual.

Among the regions Wallace visited was Sarawak. Of one of his sojourns
here some interesting reminiscences have been sent to me by Mr. L.V.
Helmes. He says:

It was in 1854 that Wallace came to Sarawak. I was there then,
sent by a private firm, which later became the Borneo Company, to
open up, by mining, manufacture and trade, the resources of the
country, and amongst these enterprises was coal-mining on the
west. Wallace came in search of new specimens of animal and
especially insect life. The clearing of ancient forests at these
mines offered a naturalist great opportunities, and I gave Wallace
an introduction to our engineer in charge there. His collections
of beetles and butterflies there were phenomenal; but the district
was also the special home of the great ape, the orang-utan, or
meias, as the natives called them, of which he obtained so many
valuable specimens. Many notes must at that time have passed
between us, for I took much interest in his work. We had put up a
temporary hut for him at the mines, and on my occasional visits
there I saw him and his young assistant, Charles Allen, at work,
admired his beautiful collections, and gave my help in forwarding
them.

But it was mainly in social intercourse that we met,