UK explorer lauds 19th-century Wallace

UK explorer lauds 19th-century Wallace

By Jim Della-Giacoma

MANADO, Indonesia (Reuter): British explorer Tim Severin has just completed a three-month voyage on a traditional fishing boat through Indonesia's remote Spice Islands.

But it was not the rigors of traveling on his wooden Kai Islands boat or the allure of deserted beaches and uninhabited lush tropical islands that held his attention during the odyssey.

Severin said his retracing of the Spice Island voyages of 19th-century British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace had opened for him the windows of a tropical world where rare and exotic species still abound. He said his travels were a journey in the footsteps of an intellectual giant.

Tanned and taut after traveling 1,900 km (1,200 miles), Severin and his crew arrived in Manado town on Indonesia's Sulawesi island in early June after setting out from the Kai Islands three months earlier.

"We've all come back with respect for Wallace. He was prescient in so many ways," Severin told Reuters aboard his two- masted replica of a traditional Kai Islands wooden boat, specially built for the expedition.

"He was not your Victorian explorer with a Bible and a shotgun," he said.

Severin's team of artists, photographers and biologists was due to head home yesterday after wrapping up their expedition with visits to land-based national parks near Manado.

Wallace paid for his six years of expeditions (1854-1862) by collecting rare animals and sending back them back to England.

But Severin, a Briton settled in Ireland, said Wallace cared for the environment and had deep respect for traditional cultures, which was rare in his time.

Wallace concluded his classic 1869 travelogue and summary of his scientific work, The Malay Archipelago, by observing that the morally dubious society of Victorian England had much to learn from the Orient's "uncivilized savages" of the Orient.

Upon publication, the lengthy book became a best-seller and made Wallace a celebrity. It remains in print.

"Wallace was extraordinarily decent. It shines through all the time that this is a hell of a nice guy," he said.

Amid the discomfort and difficulties of traveling in regions then barely touched by the modern world, Wallace maintained his sense of humor as he slugged through the mud or battled with fever.

"He pictured himself wearing glasses, stumbling through the jungle, running into spiders' webs and tripping over roots with the local guides laughing at him," Severin said.

By collecting insects, animals and plants as he traversed what is now Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, Wallace formed ground- breaking theories on natural selection.

Wallace line

He was also the first to identify the zones in the archipelago where animals of Asian origin ended and those of Australasian origin began. This line, running north-south and found east of the islands of Kalimantan and Bali, is known as the "Wallace line".

Modern scientists have largely moved away from Wallace's sharp divisions because they say animals and plants in the archipelago are divided into zones of transition.

But Wallace unknowingly created a new division of science, bio-geography, and the zones of transition of plants and animals are now known as Wallacea in his honor.

Severin said Wallace's book stands the test of time after his team revisited many of the places described in it.

"What is clear is that an awful lot of what Wallace described is still here. It really hasn't changed very much and indeed in a couple of places it's actually better than what he saw," he said.

"He comes across as a very accurate and good descriptive writer, but also he did have a sense of theater and he describes things in a very flamboyant way," Severin added.

The voyage, dubbed In Search of Wallace, will be the basis of a book and television documentary on the British naturalist.

"It's a biography-travel book as I would like to bring Wallace to the attention of readers," Severin said.

Severin, an Oxford history graduate who has made a career of retracing famous journeys, believes Wallace's genius has been hidden by the naturalist's humility.

"He was so perceptive about the theory of evolution, without consulting other people," Severin said.

"He worked in isolation, compared to Charles Darwin who arrived at the theory through constant correspondence with other scientists, including Wallace," he said.

"Wallace came to his theories independently in the back of beyond and that is a very bright guy."

But even before publishing a book, Severin has allowed hundreds of Irish schoolchildren and thousands of Internet users to find Wallace on his homepage.

As he sailed through the Maluku Islands, Severin used a satellite link and notebook computer to link up with educators from the University of Limerick who ran the Spice Islands Homepage (http://www.iol.ie/spice/homepage.htm).

The home page, with voyage maps, pictures and messages, made Wallace and his work widely accessible around the globe.

"I would have found Wallace if I succeed in making other people find him," Severin said.