olland; and to Mr. William Wilson Saunders,
whose kind and liberal encouragement in the early portion of my journey
was of great service to me. I am also greatly indebted to Mr. Samuel
Stevens (who acted as my agent), both for the care he took of my
collections, and for the untiring assiduity with which he kept me
supplied, both with useful information and with whatever necessaries I
required.

I trust that these, and all other friends who have been in any way
interested in my travels and collections, may derive from the perusal of
my book, some faint reflexion of the pleasures I myself enjoyed amid the
scenes and objects it describes.

THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.

CHAPTER I. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.

From a look at a globe or a map of the Eastern hemisphere, we shall
perceive between Asia and Australia a number of large and small islands
forming a connected group distinct from those great masses of land, and
having little connection with either of them. Situated upon the Equator,
and bathed by the tepid water of the great tropical oceans, this region
enjoys a climate more uniformly hot and moist than almost any other part
of the globe, and teems with natural productions which are elsewhere
unknown. The richest of fruits and the most precious of spices are
Indigenous here. It produces the giant flowers of the Rafflesia, the
great green-winged Ornithoptera (princes among the butterfly tribes),
the man-like Orangutan, and the gorgeous Birds of Paradise. It is
inhabited by a peculiar and interesting race of mankind--the Malay,
found nowhere beyond the limits of this insular tract, which has hence
been named the Malay Archipelago.

To the ordinary Englishman this is perhaps the least known part of the
globe. Our possessions in it are few and scanty; scarcely any of our
travellers go to explore it; and in many collections of maps it is
almost ignored, being divided between Asia and the Pacific Islands. It
thus happens that few persons realize that, as a whole, it is comparable
with the primary divisions of the globe, and that some of its separate
islands are larger than France or the Austrian Empire. The traveller,
however, soon acquires different ideas. He sails for days or even weeks
along the shores of one of these great islands, often so great that its
inhabitants believe it to be a vast continent. He finds that voyages
among these islands are commonly reckoned by weeks and months, and that
their several inhabita