..--Your ever affectionate son,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO HIS SISTER, MRS. SIMS
_Singapore.. February 20, 1856._
My dear Fanny,-- ... I have now left Sarawak, where I began to feel
quite at home, and may perhaps never return to it again; but I shall
always look back with pleasure to my residence there and to my
acquaintance with Sir James Brooke, who is a gentleman and a nobleman in
the noblest sense of both words....
Charles has left me. He has stayed with the Bishop of Sarawak, who wants
teachers and is going to try to educate him for one. I offered to take
him on with me, paying him a fair price for all the insects, etc., he
collected, but he preferred to stay. I hardly know whether to be glad
or sorry he has left. It saves me a great deal of trouble and annoyance,
and I feel it quite a relief to be without him. On the other hand, it is
a considerable loss for me, as he had just begun to be valuable in
collecting. I must now try and teach a China boy to collect and pin
insects. My collections in Borneo have been very good, but some of them
will, I fear, be injured by the long voyages of the ships.
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