y the ship took fire, and the collection was either burned
or ruined by soaking salt water.

That the crew and their sole passenger escaped alive was a wonder.
Wallace on reaching England was in a sorry plight, being destitute of
clothes and funds.

And there were unkind ones who did not hesitate to hint that he had only
been over to Ireland working in a peat-bog, and that his knowledge of
Brazil was gotten out of Humboldt's books.

In one way, Wallace surely paralleled Humboldt: both lost a most
valuable collection of natural-history specimens by shipwreck.

Several of the good men who had advanced money now asked that it be
paid. Wallace set to work writing out his recollections, the only asset
that he possessed.

His book, "Travel on the Amazon and Rio Negro," had enough romance in it
so that it floated. Royalties paid over in crisp Bank of England notes
made things look brighter. Another book was issued, called, "Palm-Trees
and Their Uses," and proved that the author was able to view a subject
from every side, and say all that was to be said about it. "Wallace on
the Palm" is still a textbook.

The debts were paid, and Alfred Russel Wallace at thirty was square with
the world, the possessor of much valuable experience. He also had five
hundred pounds in cash, with a reputation as a writer and traveler that
no longer caused bookworms to sneeze.

Having paid off his obligations, he felt free again to leave England, a
thing he had vowed he would not do, so long as his reputation was under
a cloud. This time he selected for a natural-history survey a section of
the world really less known than South America.

* * * * *

Early in the year Eighteen Hundred Fifty-four, Alfred Russel Wallace
reached Asia. He had decided that he would make the first and the best
collection of the flora and fauna of the Malay Archipelago that it was
possible to make.

White men had skirted the coast of many of the islands, but information
as to what there was inland was mostly conjecture and guesswork.

Just how long it would take Wallace to make his Malaysian
natural-history survey he did not know, but in a letter to Darwin he
stated that he expected to be absent from England at least two years. He
was gone eight years, and during this time, walked, paddled or rode
horseback fifteen thousand miles, and visited many islands never before
trod by the foot of a white man.

The city of Singapore serve