This collection represented over three years' continuous toil. All the curious things were packed with great care and placed on board ship.
And so the young naturalist sailed away for England, proud and happy, with his great collection of entomological, botanical and ornithological specimens.
But on the way the ship took fire, and the collection was either burned or ruined by soaking salt water.
That the crew and their sole passenger escaped alive was a wonder. Wallace on reaching England was in a sorry plight, being destitute of clothes and funds.
And there were unkind ones who did not hesitate to hint that he had only been over to Ireland working in a peat-bog, and that his knowledge of Brazil was gotten out of Humboldt's books.
In one way, Wallace surely paralleled Humboldt: both lost a most valuable collection of natural-history specimens by shipwreck.
Several of the good men who had advanced money now asked that it be paid. Wallace set to work writing out his recollections, the only asset that he possessed.
His book, "Travel on the Amazon and Rio Negro," had enough romance in it so that it floated. Royalties paid over in crisp Bank of England notes made things look brighter. Another book was issued, called, "Palm-Trees and Their Uses," and proved that the author was able to view a subject from every side, and say all that was to be said about it. "Wallace on the Palm" is still a textbook.
The debts were paid, and Alfred Russel Wallace at thirty was square with the world, the possessor of much valuable experience. He also had five hundred pounds in cash, with a reputation as a writer and traveler that no longer caused bookworms to sneeze.
Having paid off his obligations, he felt free again to leave England, a thing he had vowed he would not do, so long as his reputation was under a cloud. This time he selected for a natural-history survey a section of the world really less known than South America.