Darwin’s recognition of and agreement with his ‘Sarawak Law’. But this was also an
intriguing correspondence in other ways. Darwin was laying claim to some sort of
priority over Wallace by stating that he has been working on this problem for twenty
years and expects to publish in the next two years. But there was no ‘conjectural
explanation’ of what Darwin had observed in the Galapagos and he obviously has no
intention of revealing any part of his big idea to Wallace, because, as he says, it is far
too complex to explain in a letter.
Later in 1857 Wallace left Macassar on the Dutch mail steamer bound for the Spice
Islands and after brief stops on the islands of Timor, Banda and Ambon he arrived
at the North Moluccan island of Ternate in January 1858. Life aboard the Dutch
steamer must have been pure luxury compared to his usual privations while collecting
specimens in the jungle. He took tea or coffee before his 6 am breakfast of eggs and
sardines. Madeira or gin and bitters were served on deck before lunch. Before dinner
there was gin and bitters, claret or beer, followed after dinner by cigars in the lounge
for the men. A final service of tea, coffee and cake around 8pm concluded the day.
Wallace described all these as little ‘gastronomic excitements’ meant to while away
the tedium of a long sea voyage:
I look forward with unmixed satisfaction to my visit to the rich and almost unexplored
Spice Islands – the land of the lories, the cockatoos and the birds of paradise, the country of
tortoise shell and pearls, of beautiful shells and rare insects. I look forward with expectation
and awe to visiting lands exposed to destruction from the sleeping volcano and its kindred
earthquake, and not less do I anticipate the pleasures of observing the varied races of
mankind, and becoming familiar with the manners, customs and modes of thought of people
so far removed from the European races and European civilization.From earliest times, traders sailed from the Spice Islands across vast oceans in
leaky boats to bring clove buds and nutmegs to markets in East Africa, the Middle
East, India and China. Loaded onto the backs of camels, the spices were transported
across the deserts of Egypt, Arabia and Central Asia before finally reaching the
Mediterranean Sea and markets in Europe. The length of this journey halfway around
the world and the profits and taxes extracted at each stage meant that when demand
was highest these simple buds and seeds were said to be worth their weight in gold.
After the expansion of Islam across the Middle East in the seventh century, the spice
trade was monopolized by the Muslims who were by now the sworn enemies of
Christian Europe.
The Pope and the kings of Europe supported those explorers willing to sail into
unknown seas in search of a direct route to the Spice Islands and to bring Christianity
to the lands they discovered. The voyages of the Portuguese explorers such as
160 Where Australia Collides with Asia
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