I often recall those pleasant evenings with Rajah
Brooke and our little circle, but since the old Rajah's death I
have not met any of the party."
Wallace was in Sarawak at the happy period in the country's
history. It was beginning to emerge from barbarism. The Borneo
Company was just formed, and the seed of the country's future
prosperity was sown. Wallace, therefore, found us all sanguine and
cheerful; yet we were on the brink of a disaster which brought
many sorrows in its train. But the misfortunes of the Chinese
revolt had not yet cast their shadows before them. The Rajah's
white guests round his hospitable table; the Malay chiefs and
office-holders, who made evening calls from curiosity or to pay
their respects; Dyaks squatting in dusky groups in corners of the
hall, with petitions to make or advice to seek from their white
ruler--such would be the gathering of which Wallace would form a
part. No suspicion or foreboding would trouble the company; yet
within a few months that hall would be given to the flames of an
enemy's torch, and the Rajah himself and many of those who formed
that company would be fugitives in the jungle.
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