had escaped then tried to find their way to Kimanis.
They wandered about in the jungle for several days
and nights, living chiefly on leaves, and finally found
their way to the ' residency, where their evidence was
taken. Thè account is very circumstantial, and though
natives do not always tell the truth, the Governor has
had no reason to modify these details. Before Witti
left Kimanis he made a will and arranged for the
proper settlement of all his worldly affairs, evidently
impressed with the serious character of the work he
was voluntarily undertaking.
IX.
On December 3rd Frank writes from Singapore, “ I
am down here until the 30th, when I return to Borneo.
I have had a touch of fever, which luckily I have now
quite got rid of : I think I stayed too long in Kino-
ram. See my last report ; I think it is the best I have
done ; it will tell you everything about my work. At
the Governor’s request I am sending home a box of
specimens. On my return to Borneo I start on my
last exploration—up the Ségama and all round Silam
and Sibokon—a country that is quite unexplored. And
the next time I am down here, I shall be en route for
England. * Hurrah for merry England ! ’ But a
thousand times hurrah for merry home. I don’t
think, after all, I shall be very rich when I arrive. My
salary was not much. . . I speak Dusun now as well
as Malay, and am going to write down all the dialect
words in the language of N. Borneo, as many of each
as I can remember and collect for some printed forms
of the Asiatic Society which I am to have from the
Bishop of Singapore. . . I shall leave Borneo on
the l^t of August, take the first French mail, and
arrive at Marseilles by the 15th of September; on
the 18th, in the evening at 8 p.m., I shall be with you,
my dear—so expect me and order anything for dinner
except fowl! ” On the 9th he writes to me his last
letter but one. He says,'—
Singapore, December 9th, 1882.
My d e a r F a t h e r ,—I leave here on the 19th for Silam. Is it not
a nuisance ? I cannot get your letters out of the Labuan hag ; about
six mails now will be waiting me in Borneo. I have just returned
from Johore, and I think of going to Malacca next week. I am quite
well and happy again. I am afraid I wrote a miserable letter some
time ago, but please remember I had the fever badly and the “ blues ”
worse.5 I would so like to feel sure, or not sure, that the directors
6 This refers to the only sad letter he wrote to us. I t was dated
Kudat, November 10. I had, in response to a letter in which he said
he was very happy, expressed a hope that he would not forget that we
at home could never be very happy without him. This reached him
when he was ill, and drew from him a bitter cry. He was down with
fever, and was badly hipped. “ I am not very old,” he wrote, “ but
during the last fifteen days I have been experiencing the feelings of an
octogenarian on the brink of the grave.” He thought we had misunderstood
one of his most genial letters, and he for once did not spare
me nor himself. “ I have had twenty days of wretchedness and agony
—so homesick that I have thought of throwing the whole business
up and coming home.” If he only had ! If I had only received his
letter in time to act upon it. Accompanying it, and in the same
envelope, was another letter of the same date, on the eve of his starting
to Singapore on a few weeks5' leave for the benefit of his health. The
other letter he wrote is “ only to show you what I can do when I am
.down with fever—take no notice of it, and don’t show it to mamma.
Kudat is a wretched hole, and I was very ill and miserable. The
copper in Kinoram exists—I hunted it down, but only found it in
pockets, and in no workable quantity. I shall come home by French
mail on the 12th or 13th of August next. I often think of getting
into the train at Dover, then away to London, then clatter and rattle
in a cab to Titchfield Terrace. . . . Now, good-bye, dear papa, my only
friend—and don't think anything of that fever letter—and don't show