. . . On June 4th, some Dayaks came to tell us that the day before a Mias had nearly killed one of their companions. A few miles down the river there is a Dakay house, and the inhabitants saw a large Orang feeding on the young shoots of a palm by the river side. On being alarmed he retreated toward the jungle which was close by, and a number of the men, armed with spears and choppers, ran up to intercept him. The man who was in front tried to run his spear through the animal’s body, but the Mias seized it in his hands, and in an instant got hold of the man’s arm, which he seized in his mouth, making his teeth meet in the flesh above the elbow, which he tore and lacerated in a dreadful manner. Had not the others been close behind, the man would have been more seriously injured, if not killed, as he was quite powerless , but they soon destroyed the creature with their spears and choppers. The man remained in for a long time, and never fully recovered the use of his arm. ~ Page 39
It was early in December 1855, and there was no boat leaving for Singapore before the end of January. So he accepted an invitation to spend some time with Brooke and his Secretary, Spencer St. John en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spenser_St._Johnat Brooke’s en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Brooke mountain retreat, a cottage built for him twenty miles up the Sarawak perched just below the summit of a steep thousand foot hill. . . . Brooke was a firm creationist, but he loved speculation and debate. According to St. John, Wallace was even then elaborating his mind the theory which was simultaneously worked out by Darwin 00 the theory of the origin of species; and if he could not conceive us that our ugly neighbours, the orang-outangs, were our ancestors, he pleased delighted and instructed us by his clever and inexhaustible flow of talk – really good talk.’ (Brookes own observations on the orangs had been published in the ‘Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 1841) . . . ~ Page 110
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Dinesh said:
Dinesh said: