Raffles's domestic life and his zeal for natural history are inextricably mixed. His residence and the yard attached thereto were a museum and laboratory. "I have thrown politics far away," he writes, "and, since I must have nothing more to do with men, have taken to the wilder but less sophisticated animals of our woods. Our house is on one side a perfect menagerie; on another, a perfect flora; here, a pile of stones; there, a collection of seaweeds, shells, etc."
When he was in Bencoolen he rose early, and delighted in driving into villages, inspecting the plantations and encouraging the industry of the people. At nine the family assembled at breakfast; afterward he wrote, read; studied natural history, chemistry, and geology; superintended the draughtsmen (of whom he had constantly five or six employed), and always had his children with him as he went from one pursuit to another. At four he dined, and seldom alone. After the party had dispersed, he was fond of walking out with the editor (Lady Raises always alluded to herself as the editor), and enjoying "the delicious coolness of the night land-wind." "I believe people generally think I shall remain longer," says he in a letter to a friend, "as they hardly suppose in such times, and with an increasing family, a man will be inclined to forego the advantages of the field before me; but they know me not. I have seen enough of power and wealth to know that, however agreeable to the propensities of our nature, there is more real happiness in domestic quiet and repose, when blessed with a competence, than all fancied enjoyments of the great and the rich" (page 497). His oldest son Leopold "has the spirit of a lion, and is absolutely beautiful." His daughter Charlotte "is of all creatures the most angelic I have ever beheld." There are two other younger children, Harry and Ella. But Sumatra, as indeed all tropical Asia, excepting favored localities in Java, is fatal to children of European parents. Raffles entertained a scheme of removing his family to a colder climate, but he lingered too long, and all his children, save the youngest, Ella, died within one year. From these blows he never recovered. His health rapidly failed. He asked to be relieved from duty, and after a foreign service of twenty years he prepared to return for good to England.
His collections included objects of natural history in every department, a living tapir and many birds, and upward of two thousand drawings, notes, observations, together with memoirs, vocabularies, dictionaries and grammars of native languages. Just as he is about to sail, all his collections being carefully stored in the hold, the vessel, through the carelessness of the steward, takes fire and everything is lost. How unutterable the dismal sense of failure that thus often awaits the explorer! Rafinesque, Wallace,
