ns, and getting ready for the day. Breakfast at eight. Out to
the jungle at nine. We have to walk up a steep hill to get to it, and
always arrive dripping with perspiration. Then we wander about till two
or three, generally returning with about 50 or 60 beetles, some very
rare and beautiful. Bathe, change clothes, and sit down to kill and pin
insects. Charles ditto with flies, bugs and wasps; I do not trust him
yet with beetles. Dinner at four. Then to work again till six. Coffee.
Read. If very numerous, work at insects till eight or nine. Then to bed.

Adieu, with love to all.--Your affectionate son,

ALFRED E. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO HIS MOTHER

_In the Jungle near Malacca. July, 1854._

My dear Mother,--As this letter may be delayed getting to Singapore I
write at once, having an opportunity of sending to Malacca to-morrow. We
have been here a week, living in a Chinese house or shed, which reminds
me remarkably of my old Rio Negro habitation. I have now for the first
time brought my "rede" into use, and find it very comfortable.

We came from Singapore in a small 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 provision,
it being our first experience of these country vessels. Malacca is an
old Dutch city, but the Portuguese have left the strongest mark of their
possession in the common language of the place being still theirs. I
have now two Portuguese servants, a cook and a hunter, and find myself
thus almost brought back again to Brazil by the similarity of language,
the people, and the jungle life. In Malacca we stayed only two days,
being anxious to get into the country as soon as possible. I stayed with
a Roman Catholic missionary; there are several here, each devoted to a
particular part of the population, Portuguese, Chinese and wild Malays
of the jungle. The gentleman we were with is building a large church, of
which he is architect himself, and superintends the laying of every
brick and the cutting of every piece of timber. Money enough could not
be raised here, so he took a voyage _round the world!_ and in the United
States, California, and India got subscriptions sufficient to complete
it.

It is a curious and not very creditable thing that in the English
colonies of Singapore and Malacca there is not a single Protestant
missionary; while the conversio