well equipped for his duties, and with a clearer knowledge
of what they were than I ever had of mine.
I t is strange that I am left and he is gone. I t is I
who have to tell his story, not he mine. The world
needed him far more than it needs me. He was a
chemist learned in research, a metallurgist versed in
geological mysteries; he had the gift of tongues,
he was endowed with a faculty of government peculiarly
valuable in the control of uncivilized peoples,
he had the temperament and constitution, the intellectual
grasp that are characteristic of great men. He
was old enough to suggest all this in his habits and
work, and young enough to give promise of a gracious
manhood and a useful career. Yet he has gone, and I
remain with my uneventful life, my commonplace story
of journalistic and literary drudgery; and I have not
even the poor consolation of printing for him a complete
record of his work. He had no yearning for a
fame that was not based upon a broad and deep
foundation. His modesty was equal to his merit.
But he intended to write a book on Borneo, a book of
travel that should be many-sided, and for this purpose
he kept careful diaries of his expeditions, and notes
of his impressions. Only a portion of the first, and
pencil memoranda of his last diary have been found.
But extracts from the others which he furnished
to the Governor and the Company, give warrant,
on public grounds, for this labour of love upon which
I am engaged. They are interesting contributions
to the history of a comparatively unknown country.
Their acknowledged value as mere extracts serves to
emphasize the loss of the more elaborate manuscripts;
ii. .
I am writing these chapters in the full belief that,
sympathizing with my position, the reader will overlook
the shortcomings of my work. I t was my intention
to set forth in minute detail all my joyous remembrances
of him. The soul of modesty, he would have
shrunk from such a record in print. I am trying to
think what he might not have objected to have me
say of him now. Desirous to honour his memory in
this volume, I am trying to put myself outside the
subject, and even to consider it editorially; I am
trying not to be myself, but ending, I fear, in being
very much myself; and so if any of my readers
have lost a dear son or a much-loved friend, they
will forgive me if I fall short of that high standard
of biographic skill which a perfect critical taste in
these matters has set up. I have before me the
numerous certificates of learned examiners who endorsed
the success of his studies in various branches
of scientific knowledge. He was proud to bring them
to me, because he knew they gave me pleasure, but
he took no particular pains to preserve them on
his own account. He valued the honour conferred
upon him by the Institute of Chemistry, and was
delighted to be a Fellow of the Chemical Society; but
he did not use the letters that belong to these distinctions
upon his address card, nor did he write them
after his signature. “ Some day,” he said to me,
“ perhaps I may become a Fellow of the Royal Society,
and that will include the rest.” I think he could have
become whatever he wished. He was a worker.
Genius in his estimation meant labour. Whatever he