He remained so long silent that Nigel began to despair, but thought he would try him once again on the same lines.
"I suppose," he said in a careless way, "that none of the islands are big enough to contain many of the larger wild animals." "My friend," returned Van der Kemp, with a smile of urbanity, as he refilled his pipe, "it is evident that you do not know much about our archipelago.

Borneo, to the woods and wild animals of which I hope ere long to introduce you, is so large that if you were to put your British islands, including Ireland, down on it they would be engulphed and surrounded by a sea of forests.

New Guinea is, perhaps, larger than Borneo.

Sumatra is only a little smaller.

France is not so large as some of our islands.