“WHEN we had got aboard the rowboat, the groves and forests on both sides received us, and from everywhere the crying sound of the animals delighted us.” On 20 June 1755, Daniel Rolander, a young Swedish naturalist with a passion for insects, caught his first glimpse of the tropical forest he had come to explore. Eight months earlier Rolander had left Sweden for Suriname. He almost hadn’t made it. Now, as the boat took him deeper into the awesome South American forests, he was sure the discoveries he was about to make would earn him a place in scientific history.
Rolander was one of 17 Swedish men who became known as the Linnaeus Apostles, hand-picked for scientific expeditions by the most famous natural scientist of the age – Carl Linnaeus. Revered for bringing order to the natural world through his system of classifying and naming plants and animals, Linnaeus was a towering figure in 18th-century science: a botanist, zoologist, physician, and mentor to hundreds of talented scholars. Hugely ambitious, his ultimate goal was to describe and classify every species on Earth. The apostles were Linnaeus’s eyes and ears in far-flung lands. Dispatched to all corners of the globe, their task was to record and describe everything they saw and return loaded with exotic specimens for Linnaeus to slot into his hierarchy of life.
Some apostles died trying. Those who returned landed plum jobs. A few – such as Peter Thunberg, who secretly explored Japan, and Daniel Solander, who voyaged round the world with James Cook – became almost as eminent as Linnaeus himself. Dead or alive, they all became national heroes. All, that is, except Rolander.
Advertisement
“Dead or alive, all the apostles became national heroes, except Rolander”
He had been one of Linnaeus’s most promising protégés, his mission to investigate the steamy forests of Suriname. Rolander’s reward was a life of obscurity and poverty. Today he is hardly remembered, and when he is it is as the apostle who failed, took to drink or lost his mind. He has even been accused of abandoning his quest because he was too frightened to go into the forest. The truth, it turns out, is very different.
Rolander’s story has come to light because this year is the 300th anniversary of Linnaeus’s birth, an event being celebrated around the world. To mark the occasion, the UK-based IK Foundation decided to for the first time. For most of the apostles the job was straightforward because their journals had already been printed, mainly in Swedish or German. Rolander’s was trickier. His journal had never been published, though the manuscript was known to be in the botanical library at Denmark’s Natural History Museum in Copenhagen. Instead of dismissing Rolander as everyone else had, the IK Foundation’s director Lars Hansen decided it was time to hear from the man himself. There was just one problem: the manuscript was 700 pages long, handwritten – and in Latin. Few people had even opened it, and just a handful of pages had ever been translated.
Ants and anteaters
Hansen turned to Jim Dobreff, a Latin scholar at Lund University in Sweden, who in turn recruited three helpers. It took the four of them two years to finish the job (see “Lost in translation”).
Rolander’s journal was a revelation. Following Linnaeus’s instructions to the letter, he meticulously recorded everything, paying the same attention to ants, cockroaches and mites as he did to anteaters, monkeys and bird-eating spiders. He described each species and had a good stab at classifying them according to the Linnaean system. His journal is much more than a catalogue of scientific descriptions and names, however. It is a daily diary that conjures up the colours, sights and sounds of Suriname.
In the 18th century, Suriname was a Dutch colony where white plantation owners grew rich from coffee, cocoa, sugar and bananas. Rolander recorded his impressions of the country’s human inhabitants as if they were just another species, contrasting the dissolute lifestyle of the Dutch with the appalling hardships endured by their black slaves. “They do all the work in the houses, at the plantations, and all the whites’ doings, these wretched people…labouring all the way into their graves.”
Dobreff wanted to know why, despite carrying out his duties so diligently, Rolander had been airbrushed out of the Linnaeus story. After six months of detective work in scattered archives, he has the answer. Rolander made the mistake of crossing the all-powerful and hugely influential Linnaeus, a man as ruthless as he was ambitious.
Rolander started off well. In the mid-18th century every budding natural scientist wanted to study under Linnaeus at the University of Uppsala. Rolander arrived in 1744, already an expert entomologist. Linnaeus was impressed enough to hire him as a tutor for his son, Carl the Younger. The arrangement suited Rolander: living with Linnaeus he had access to a great library and the chance to meet eminent scientists from across Europe.
In 1754, Rolander was offered the chance of a lifetime. On a visit to Sweden, one of Linnaeus’s many foreign contacts – Carl Dahlberg, a former army officer with a plantation in Suriname – asked Linnaeus to find him a tutor for his children. Although a trickle of taxonomic specimens had reached Europe from Suriname, no one had systematically recorded its wildlife. Dahlberg promised that whoever got the job would have plenty of opportunity to collect specimens. Rolander was the obvious choice and that December he joined Dahlberg and his travelling companions as they prepared to return to Suriname.
Rolander began work even before leaving Sweden, documenting everything he saw and heard as he journeyed through the country, sailed across the Baltic and then travelled overland to the Netherlands, where the group was to board a ship for Paramaribo in Suriname. In Amsterdam, Rolander contracted a fever, forcing Dahlberg to postpone their passage. He hired doctors and waited. After several weeks at death’s door, Rolander rallied and by April 1755 was well enough to travel.
Five weeks later, the voyagers reached the coast of Suriname: “A large Phalaena butterfly was the first insect of this part of the world to come into view, as it early in the morning flew errantly about our ship…Judging from certain hooked instruments sacred to the plays of Venus that could be seen within the membranous cavity of the anus, I believe it was a male butterfly probably in search of a female.”
Whatever Rolander had heard or read about South America, it could never have prepared him for what lay ahead. The diversity of life was extraordinary and most of it was new to science, but there was a price to pay for discovery. For a northern European the climate was ghastly, tropical diseases were rife and deaths all too frequent. To make matters worse, Rolander arrived just as a growing army of escaped slaves was gaining the upper hand in a war against their former owners.
He had been in Paramaribo just weeks when the local doctor advised him to switch careers. “He went through for me the names and unfortunate fate of all the botanists that had come to this land and asserted that none of them accomplished anything – and none returned to Europe.”
For the next seven months, Rolander went exploring every day except Sundays. He never once mentions his teaching duties, but leaves little else out of his diary. He began with daily walks into the forest surrounding Paramaribo, during which he collected plants, insects, lizards, birds – whatever he and his servant could catch or shoot. Back in his room, Rolander pressed and pinned and bottled his hauls. Occasionally he brought home live animals such as an anteater or sloth so that he could observe their behaviour.
He also carried out experiments. He was entranced by the nightly display of lights that sparkled over the walls, but doubted the locals’ explanation that they were “supernatural illusions”. “Having made a device of a linen cloth I ran to and fro to enfold some sparks…At last, with a quick hand I caught a spark…which by the tickling it immediately aroused in my fist showed that it was a small animal that was incarcerated there.” A prick with a pin revealed the source of the light to be a yellow liquid in the abdomen that flashed and twinkled as the insect, a firefly, flexed its body.
Rolander also pooh-poohed tales of a green lizard that changed colour to match its surroundings, yet thought it best to check. He had the lizard captured and then, in front of some of those who insisted they were right and he was wrong, placed it on several coloured cloths. The tale was true. “The conduct of the experiments brought me, though chagrined and the laughing stock of the company, over to the opinions of my adversaries.”
Further into the forest
Once Rolander had exhausted the possibilities around Paramaribo, he travelled by boat up the Suriname river to Dahlberg’s plantation and from there made excursions to more distant plantations. Wherever he went, he asked forest dwellers and slaves what they knew of the plants and animals. He identified medicinal plants, species that might provide dyes, even a wasp he thought could be set to work making high-quality paper in Sweden.
Suriname fascinated Rolander, but by December he decided he should leave while he still could. He was worried about his health, hated the climate and thought the Dutch colonists stupid and arrogant. Their lifestyle appalled him too: they partied hard, drank too much and picked fights. What he despised about them most was their treatment of their slaves. “The slightest violation condemns terribly miserable black servants to a type of punishment that is horrendous to hear and wretched to view. If, for example, he performs an order too sluggishly…it will cost him a hundred lashes of the whip.”
He was in no doubt that the colonists’ cruelty had sparked the conflict with fugitive slaves, who were becoming increasingly well organised and equipped. Dutch efforts to quell the insurgency almost always failed and Rolander was convinced the slaves would win.
Even if he confined his criticisms to his diary, Rolander wasn’t the sort of man who fitted into colonial life. He was scholarly and unsociable, and since his fever in Amsterdam had fussed constantly about his health. To the colonists there was probably also something odd about a man who kept a live anteater in his bedroom and was kind to cockroaches. “He didn’t want to kill the cockroaches. He wanted to observe them,” says Dobreff.
Despite the difficulties, Rolander had amassed an impressive collection of specimens, and the doctor’s words had begun to haunt him. “He decided he wasn’t going to leave in a coffin. He wanted to get out alive,” says Dobreff.
Before he left, there was one last animal he wanted to study: an insect that bounced about on its “teeth”. He named it Termes saltatorius, the jumping termite. “When I first observed these leaps I couldn’t believe my eyes.” The insect’s “teeth” (its mandibles) were huge for its body. “It positions the tip of these teeth on the spot where it stands. It leans onto them with its face down. With a sudden jerking motion, it bends its teeth backwards and thrusts them outwards. This series of movements propels its body straight up into the air.” Rolander’s termites were the wingless soldier termites of a species that Linnaeus later named Termes fatale.
On 20 January 1756 Rolander packed up and left. After a much delayed and circuitous voyage around the Caribbean, he crossed the Atlantic and reached the Dutch port of Texel on 14 April. He made it as far as Germany before running out of money. Sick and broke, he couldn’t afford to stay but had no money to continue. The entries in his journal end here. Dobreff has had to piece together the rest of the story from other documents, mainly letters between members of Linnaeus’s circle.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences eventually sent Rolander money to get home. He reached Stockholm in October, nine months after leaving Suriname. “What happened to Rolander next was a tragedy for him and for science,” says Dobreff.
Linnaeus was quick to welcome Rolander home and eager to see his specimens. Rolander had other ideas. “He decided not to hand anything over to Linnaeus until he had secured an academic position or support to publish his journal and collections,” says Dobreff. Considering Linnaeus’s efforts to organise and fund his expedition, this appears somewhat ungrateful. But Rolander’s exile in Germany had left him disillusioned and angry. Why had it taken so long to send help? “He had been away two years and had worked hard in horrible conditions and his health was wrecked. He probably felt betrayed and unappreciated,” says Dobreff.
Relations between Linnaeus and his apostle quickly deteriorated. After several months, Linnaeus grew impatient and, desperate to see some particular specimens, broke into Rolander’s apartment and stole them, an incident recorded by one of Linnaeus’s students. “That reflects the complete disintegration of cooperation between the two men,” says Dobreff. In 1758, Linnaeus made his opinion of Rolander quite clear by naming a small black beetle Aphanus rolandri. Aphanus is Greek for ignoble and obscure.
“Linnaeus named a beetle Aphanus rolandri. Aphanus is Greek for obscure”
In 1757, Rolander found a job overseeing the garden of the Seraphimer Hospital in Stockholm. This was a respectable position for a botanist, but Rolander was an entomologist. The post had another drawback: it wasn’t attached to a university, which made it difficult for him to continue his research. In 1761, things finally began to look up when Rolander was recommended for a professorship of natural history and medicine in Stockholm. Linnaeus blocked his appointment. “We know Linnaeus was very influential and vengeful,” says Dobreff. Crossing him was a bad career move.
Rolander decided to try his luck in Denmark, but fared no better. Disappointed, he sold his journal and many of his specimens to Christen Friis Rottböll, a botanist at the University of Copenhagen, and by 1765 he was back in Sweden.
Rottböll did what Rolander should have done: he published official descriptions of 40 genera of plants based on Rolander’s journal and specimens. Although he acknowledged Rolander, it was Rottböll who won academic acclaim. Rolander’s journal eventually found its way into the botanical library at Denmark’s Natural History Museum.
Back in Sweden, Rolander finally found a patron and seemed to be making progress. Then his patron died. Middle-aged and jobless, he “retired” to Lund, where charitable friends provided him with just enough to live on. One provided a room, another bought bedclothes, and another paid for regular meals. Like Rolander they had been part of Linnaeus’s circle, but were now eminent enough not to have to worry about crossing the great man. Rolander died in Lund in 1793.
Dobreff has found nothing to suggest Rolander lost his mind or turned to drink. “He wouldn’t be the first man to have done either when his life’s work came to nothing, but I have yet to see any evidence for it,” says Dobreff. The tales of madness seem to stem from a throwaway comment by a friend, who described Rolander as being a little out of kilter when he returned from Suriname. In fact, he carried on doing research – even when he had no job or money – which suggests he wasn’t a drinker either.
Until specialists have tracked down the rest of Rolander’s specimens and analysed the contents of his journal, it is difficult to assess how big a contribution he made to science. His collections ended up scattered, and some specimens are almost certainly sitting unrecognised on museum shelves. The few biologists who have seen the translated manuscript have been impressed, however. “The journal looks like a modern field scientist’s diary,” says ichthyologist Anders Silvfergrip of the Natural History Museum in Stockholm. “In some cases you can identify the fish from the descriptions – and he wasn’t a fish expert.”
Botanist Pedro Moraes of the State University of Campinas in Brazil agrees. Rolander discovered several species in the avocado family – Moraes’s speciality. “The fact that he recognised they were new species was remarkable enough. His specimens are very good and his descriptions accurate.” Moraes is particularly impressed by the number of plants Rolander collected – possibly as many as a thousand. “Every botanist who has been to the Amazon region knows how difficult it can be to collect plants with the necessary flowers or fruit. Even a much smaller collection would be significant given he spent only seven months there.”
Rolander may not have been easy to get along with, but he showed extraordinary dedication to his mission and accomplished an enormous amount. “The journal totally overturns the general view of this poor fellow,” says Hansen. “Historians have always focused on Rolander’s miserable life and fate and completely ignored his masterpiece,” says Dobreff. “Now perhaps he will be judged for what he accomplished rather than what has been said about him.”
Lost in translation
Reading Rolander’s writing wasn’t easy. “His handwriting looks deceptively tidy until you try to translate,” says Jim Dobreff, who led the translation team. “He wrote a very rounded hand with lots of loops, his dots were often two letters from where they should have been, he rarely crossed his ts and had a nasty habit of dropping the tails off his Ss.”
To make matters worse, Rolander had crossed through parts of his text and squeezed in new material. The quality of his handwriting varies enormously and there are places where the ink has come off the paper. “It looks as if the page has some nasty disease,” says Dobreff. “You can piece together some of the missing parts from the context and because you grow familiar with the shapes of letters and can tell where the missing parts were going. Like most people working in a foreign language, he has a tendency to use the same phrases over again. You get used to someone’s way of expressing themselves and that makes it easier.”
