Where Australia Collides with AsiaThey collected as many as 700 species of beetles, but since many collectors had
been here before him, few were rarities. It is hard for anyone visiting modern-day
Singapore to comprehend that just 150 years ago man-eating tigers roamed the jungles
of this City State. Wallace mentions that tigers killed an average of one person every
day, principally those working in the plantations, and from their residence at the Jesuit
mission they would hear tigers roar once or twice in the evenings. Collecting natural
history specimens was not without risk from tigers or the tiger traps, as described by
Wallace:
Here and there, too, were tiger pits carefully covered over with sticks and leaves and so
well concealed, that in several cases I had a narrow escape from falling into them. They
are shaped like an iron furnace, wider at the bottom than the top and are perhaps fifteen or
twenty feet deep, so that it would be almost impossible for a person unassisted to get out of
one. Formerly a sharp stake was stuck erect in the bottom; but after an unfortunate traveller
had been killed by falling on one, its use was forbidden.For exotic specimens he would need to look further afield and they found a vessel
sailing to Malacca, one of the Straits Settlements on the Malay Peninsula. Malacca
had been occupied since 1511 first by the Portuguese, then by the Dutch, and finally by
the British. The inhabitants comprised the Malays, the Chinese, and the descendants
of the various occupying nationalities, especially the Portuguese. As Wallace
describes it, the old fort, the large Government House and the ruins of the cathedral
are reminders of the former wealth and importance of this place which was once as
much the centre of Eastern trade as Singapore is now. From Malacca they worked their
way inland to Mount Ophir where Wallace collected many beautiful butterflies and, if
you can believe it, centipedes and scorpions a foot long. Sir James Brooke was now in
Singapore to testify before a special commission set up to investigate his controversial
anti-piracy activities. The rajah had invited Alfred Russel Wallace to visit Sarawak
when they had met in London and now was the time to take up his invitation.
Wallace came to know Sir James well and was impressed with the relationship he
had formed with the primitive Dayak people of Sarawak who had been oppressed and
enslaved under the previous Malay rulers:
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 ... It is a unique case in the history of the world for a European
gentleman to rule over two conflicting races of semi-savages with their own consent, without
any means of coercion, and depending solely on them for protection and support.130
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