Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society/Volume 30/In Memoriam
IN MEMORIAM.
REINHOLD ERNST ROST.
The Council of the Straits Asiatic Society received with great regret the news of the death of Dr. REINHOLD ROST, C.I.E., which occurred at Canterbury, on February 7th, 1896.
DR. ROST, who was born at Eisenberg on February 2nd, 1822, was Librarian to the India Office from 1869 till 1894, and was well known as a distinguished orientalist aud Malay scholar.
He edited for the Society the two series of Miscellaneous Papers relating to Indo-China and the Indian Archipelago, which were published in 1886 and 1887, and in recognition of these and other services he was elected an Honorary Member on March 3rd, 1887.
DR. ROST took the deepest interest in the work of the Society and many members who knew him personally are indebted to him for his valuable assistance, always given readily to all who were engaged in any of the various branches of research in which he himself took such a profound interest.
The Society has sustained a severe loss by the unexpected deaths, this year, of two valuable members—the Hon'ble H. A. O'BRIEN, and the Hon'ble MARTIN LISTER.
Both gentlemen from time to time wrote papers for the Journal and contributed in no small degree to the information that has of recent years been obtained about the Malay Peninsula.
Before the Society was founded in the year 1875 Mr. O'BRIEN accompanied the late Mr. DALY on an expedition across the Malay Peninsula, via the Muar aud Pahang rivers. The results of their joint expedition were recorded in the first Map of the Peninsula which was published by the Society in 1879. At that time the interior of the Peninsula was a terra incognita and the expedition was the first attempt to explore the interior and involved no small amount of danger and hardship. From an attack of dysentery contracted on that expedition Mr. O'BRIEN never really recovered his health. After a severe illness he was invalided home, and his name first appears amongst the list of members of the Society in the December number of the Journal for 1878.
In the June number of the Journal for 1888 he published a most valuable paper on the obscure nervous disease of Latah, which is universally admitted to be an excellent attempt to elucidate one of the most interesting mental anomalies in the Malay character.
In No. 14 of the Journal Mr. O'BRIEN published some interesting notes on the History of the Constitution of Jelebu, accompanied by a sketch survey of the Sungei Triang which was published with Journal No. 15. At this period Mr. O'BRIEN was acting as Resident of Sungei Ujong and while so acting the agreement was concluded with Sir. F. A. Weld under which Jelebu was administered under the advice of the Resident in the same way as Sungei Ujong.
A fall from an elephant, which bolted in the jungle with him, in Jelebu, led to a series of complications which terminated in an attack of abscess of the liver. From that time Mr. O'BRIEN was no longer capable of much physical exertion and though he took a keen interest in everything connected with the Society he was no longer able to contribute in the way he would have wished, namely by personal observation and exploration of the Peninsula.
While acting as Col. Treasurer in 1891 some old documents had to be destroyed to make room for new ones and while investigating the blurred and moth-eaten records of 50 years before he came across the interesting minutes of Sir Stamford Raffles, which was published in No. 21 of the Journal. This was his last contribution to the Journal.
The Hon'ble MARTIN LISTER, whose death took place in Egypt. on his way home, in the spring, was also a well-known contributor. He took a deep in terest in the Negri Sembilan States and what Mr. O'BRIEN did for Jelebu and Sungei Ujong and Mr. HERVEY for Rĕmbau, Mr. LISTER did for the Sri Menanti and Johol group, with which he was for a long time intimately connected. His principal contribution was his paper on the Negri Sembilan in Journal No. 19, which he further expanded in his paper on "Malay-Law in Negri Sembilan," in Journal No. 22.
Both Mr. O'BRIEN and Mr. LISTER possessed to a prominent degree that sympathetic manner which renders Europeans popular with Malays, and their loss is equally mourned by Europeans and Natives.
We regret to have to record the death of Mr. Hn. VAUGHAN STEVENS, an ethnological collector in the Malay Peninsula, well known to Members of the Society. He spent many years in investigating the ethnology of the Sakais, visiting all parts of Malay Peninsula. His collections were chiefly sent to the museums of Berlin and St. Petersburg and accounts of them were published in the "Veroffentlichungen aus dem Königlichen Museum fur Völkerkunde" (Berlin), the "Zeitschrift fur Ethcologie, and Archiv der Pharmacie." (1893).
Many members will remember a very interesting exhibition of his Pahang collections, held at the Raffles Library, in June 1890, under the auspices of the President and Council of the Society. His illness, due to the hardships he had undergone in his explorations was of some months' duration, and he expired at Kuching, Sarawak, on April 29th, at the age of sixty-two.