ALFRED R. WALLACE IN MELAKA
The famed naturalist, started his eight years exploration in the region with Singapore and Melaka, where he ascended Gunung Ledang. He published his magnum opus, The Malay Archipelago, in 1869.
As they were no hotel in town, he stayed with a French gentleman, his name was Pierre E. Favre, the priest of a new parish under construction, St Francis Xavier.
His mention of the work done by the French missionaries, namely, the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris, the Sisters of the Infant Jesus and the Institute of the Brothers of the Christians Schools is quite remarkable for an Englishman and a social reformer.
‘I stayed with a Roman Catholic missionary; there are several here, each devoted to a particular part of the population, Portuguese, Chinese and wild Malays of the jungle. The gentleman we were with is building a large church, of which he is architect himself, and superintends the laying of every bricks and the cutting of every piece of timber. Money enough could not be raised here, so he took a voyage round the world! and in the United States, California, and India got subscriptions sufficient to complete it.
It is curious and not very creditable thing that in the English colonies of Singapore and Malacca, there is not a single Protestant missionary; while the conversion, education and physical and moral improvement of the inhabitants (non-Europeans) is entirely left to these French missionaries, who without the slightest assistance from our Government devote their life to the Christianising and civilizing of the varied populations which we rule over.’
A letter from Alfred R. Wallace to his mother, dated 2 July 1854, and written in the jungle nearby Melaka.
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