¿94 North Borneo.
VII.
A POSTSCRIPT IN LONDON.
[BY JOSEPH HATTON, HERBERT WARD, AND ARTHUR
HARINGTON.]
A visitor—The European who last saw Frank alive—Mr. Herbert
Ward who is mentioned in the last diary—In Frank’s room at
Kudat—About seven hundred miles up the Kinabatangan—
Frank’s call at Pinungah—Talks of home—Sport—Native
superstitions—Among the Tungara men—Strange pipes —
Poisoned arrows— “ Good-bye ”—Sadness and foreboding—“ His
men loved him ”—The boy Oodeen—“ Roughing it ”—Adventure
and adventurers—Memorials in Borneo and at home—Experiences
at Kudat—Incidents related by Col. Harington—Count
Mongelas lost in the jungle—Sports and pastimes—Curious
fishing excursion—Memorials in Borneo and London.
I.
W h e n I (Joseph Hatton) was in America, during
the autumn of 1882 and the spring of 1883, I
received several letters from Mr. Herbert Ward,
who had been a cadet in the service of the British
North Borneo Company. He informed me that he
was the white man who last saw Frank alive on
his last expedition, that he possessed probably the
latest words he ever wrote, and that he would
postpone his departure from England until my return,
in order that be might tell me all he knew of my son’s
last days, and perhaps render me some service in connection
with the removal of the body from Borneo to
Trr
A Postscript in London. 295
England-. On my return, Mr. Ward called upon me,
A short but compactly-built young fellow, of two or
three and twenty, he was in appearance what one
might fancifully describe as “ a pocket Hercules.” He
gave me a grip of iron with a strong, large hand. His
face was bronzed, and he had something of the frank
yet nervous manner of a. young sailor just home from
long voyaging in distant seas. In the course of conversation
I found that he had spent most of his early
life as a sailor before the mast. He had run away
from school and taken to the sea, had worked his
way to the position of an A.B. seaman, had seen life
in the Australian bush and in the California mines,
had lived with the Maories, had roughed it in many
lands; finally presenting himself to the Bornean authorities,
had worked under them for some months; and
on his first expedition—a mission to Pinungah—had
met my so n ; had got back to -headquarters suffering
from a severe attack of fever, and thence had come
to London to recuperate before. “ trying his fortune ”
at home or again “ seeking it ” beyond the seas. In
spite of roughing it, and often under the most demoralizing
circumstances, Mr. Ward was a gentleman
in appearance and manners.. His early training at .
home and at Mill Hill College in association with
cultivated people had lost none of its influence upon
what I should judge to be a naturally refined nature.
I soon found myself taking a deep interest in the
young fellow and his prospects, an interest which grew
with increasing knowledge of h im ; and among my
miscellaneous letters from many parts of the world
I always now look forward with pleasure to his despatches
from the Congo, where he is fighting his way,-
I hope, to an influential position under the auspices of
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