Italian of the E a s t/’ lie was also conversant with
Dusun, one of the local tongues of Borneo,
and was as modest as he was accomplished. An
authority on water filtration and other matters of
scientific research, he died in his twenty-second
year, a scientific explorer in the service of the Government
of Sabah, leaving behind him a record that
would have been honourable to a long and industrious
life. His was the first white foot in many of the
hitherto unknown villages of Borneo. In him many
of the wild tribes saw the first white man. He
was the pioneer of scientific investigation among the
mountain ranges of Sabah, on its turbulent rivers, and
in its almost impenetrable jungle. Speaking the
languages of the natives, and possessing that special
faculty of kindly firmness so necessary to the efficient
control of uncivilized peoples, he journeyed through
the strange land not only unmolested, but frequently
carrying away tokens of native affection. Several
powerful chiefs made him their “ blood brother,” and
here and there the tribes prayed to him as if he were
a god. When he fell in the unexplored regions of the
Segama, his escort rowed his body by river and sea
for fifty-three hours, without sleep, that it might be
buried by white men in the new settlement of Elopura,
an act of devotion which travellers in the equatorial
seas will understand and appreciate.
I who write these lines am his father, but he was
not only my son, he was my friend and companion.
He lost his life while on his way home. The news
of his safety and his good health preceded by a few
days the telegraphic report of his death. When most
happy, we have surely most cause for fear. His mother,
who had never ceased to have forebodings of evil in
regard to his safety, was at last, it seemed, about to
enter upon a period of pleasant anticipations. We
were entertaining several American guests a t dinner,
and talking of our plans in connection with his return,
when the telegraphic lightning struck us down. For
a time I believed that my career had ended with his.
Such ambition as had hitherto guided me is certainly
closed; from the first awakening of his genius, it
had centred in him. I t would have afforded me
pleasure to have effaced myself in the contemplation
of his rise and progress. I could have been
content to lay aside my work and have for my
epitaph, “ He was the father and friend of Frank
Hatton.”
I had from his childhood estimated in his interest
all the pitfalls that beset the path of youth and manhood.
They were familiar to me. I had passed through
the dangers and scrambled out of the pits. I warned
him against them. He listened to my precepts and
in most things accepted my guidance. My boyhood
was stormy, his was peaceful. I went to school when I
pleased, had tutors or no tutors, played truant, studied
this or that, without system and without method. His
career was the opposite of all this. He looked at the
world of duty from a different standpoint. Guarding
his young life from every adverse wind, I had my
reward in a brave, upright, modest, scholarly son, to
whom I hoped to have bequeathed my name, and
the care of his mother and sisters. We had all
come to regard him as the prop of our small house,
and I knew that he was of “ the stuff that great men
are made.” To-day, with the bright page of his