My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

ai82MY LIFEhe cannot bring the dead to life ; and I have nodoubt, for many years after his death, he will be heldto be a deity and expected to come back again." I have now seen a good deal of Sir James, andthe more I see of him the more I admire him. Withthe highest talents for government he combines in ahigh degree goodness of heart and gentleness ofmanner. At the same time, he has so much selfconfidenceand determination that he has put downwith the greatest ease the conspiracies of one or twoof the Malay chiefs against him. It is a unique casein the history of the world for a private Englishgentleman to rule over two conflicting races—superior and an inferior—with their own consent,without any means of coercion, but depending solelyupon them both for protection and support, while atthe same time he introduces some of the best customsof civilization, and checks all crimes and barbarouspractices that before prevailed. Under his governmentrunning-a-muck,' so frequent ' in other Malaycountries, has never taken place, and in a populationof about 30,000 Malays, almost all of whom carrytheir kris, and were accustomed to revenge an insultwith a stab, murders only occur once in severalyears.The people are never taxed except with their ownthem,consent, and in the manner most congenial towhile almost the whole of the rajah'sprivate fortunehas been spent in the improvement of the country orfor its benefit. Yet this is the man who has beenaccused in England of wholesale murder and butchery"of unoffending tribes to secure his own power !In my next letter (from Singapore in February,1856) I say— "I have now left Sarawak, where Ibegan to feel quite at home, and may perhaps neverreturn to it again, but I shall always look back with