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+Project Gutenberg's Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak, by Harriette McDougall
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak
+
+Author: Harriette McDougall
+
+Release Date: December 19, 2008 [EBook #27568]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES OF OUR LIFE AT SARAWAK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by a Project Gutenberg volunteer working with
+digital material generously made available by the Internet
+Archive
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Cover]
+
+[Illustration: HAPPILY HE HAD A STOUT WALKING-STICK, AND AT ONCE FELLED
+THE REPTILE.
+
+_Frontispiece._ _Page_ 26.]
+
+
+
+
+  SKETCHES
+  OF
+  OUR LIFE AT SARAWAK
+
+
+  BY
+  HARRIETTE McDOUGALL.
+
+
+  _WITH MAP._
+
+
+  PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE.
+
+
+  LONDON:
+  SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
+  NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C.;
+  43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.;
+  26, ST. GEORGE'S PLACE, HYDE PARK CORNER, S.W.
+  BRIGHTON: 135, NORTH STREET.
+  NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG AND CO.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  PART I.
+
+  CHAPTER                                    PAGE
+
+      I.  INTRODUCTORY                          7
+
+     II.  THE COURT-HOUSE                      13
+
+    III.  COLLEGE HILL                         21
+
+     IV.  PIRATES                              32
+
+      V.  THE CHURCH AND THE SCHOOL            45
+
+     VI.  THE GIRLS                            58
+
+    VII.  THE LUNDUS                           68
+
+   VIII.  A BOAT JOURNEY                       82
+
+     IX.  CONTINUATION OF THE TRIP TO REJANG   92
+
+
+  PART II.
+
+      X.  RETURN TO SARAWAK                   105
+
+     XI.  CHINESE INSURRECTION                120
+
+    XII.  CHINESE INSURRECTION (_Continued_)  139
+
+   XIII.  EVENTS OF 1857                      157
+
+    XIV.  THE MALAY PLOT                      174
+
+
+  PART III.
+
+     XV.  THE CHILDREN'S CHAPTER              189
+
+    XVI.  ILLANUN PIRATES                     204
+
+   XVII.  A MALAY WEDDING                     215
+
+  XVIII.  LAST YEARS AT SARAWAK               228
+
+    XIX.  THE ISLAND OF BORNEO                239
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+[Map: BORNEO]
+
+
+
+
+SKETCHES OF OUR LIFE AT SARAWAK.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+Nearly thirty years ago I published a little book of "Letters from
+Sarawak, addressed to a Child." This book is now out of print, and, on
+looking it over with a view to republication, I think it will be better
+to extend the story over the twenty years that Sarawak was our home,
+which will give some idea of the gradual progress of the mission.
+
+This progress was often unavoidably impeded by the struggles of the
+infant State; for war drowns the voice of the missionary, and though the
+Sarawak Government always discouraged the Dyak practice of taking the
+heads of their enemies, still it could not at once be checked, and every
+expedition against lawless tribes, however righteous in its object,
+excited the old superstitions of those wild people. When their warriors
+returned from an expedition, the women of the tribe met them with dance
+and song, receiving the heads they brought with ancient
+ceremonies--"fondling the heads," as it was called; and for months
+afterwards keeping up, by frequent feasts, in which these heads were the
+chief attraction, the heathen customs which it was the object of the
+missionary to discourage.
+
+I dare say, when we first settled at Sarawak, we thought that twenty
+years would plant Christian communities, and build Christian churches
+all over the country: but it is as well that we cannot overlook the
+future; and perhaps, considering the many difficulties which arose from
+time to time, from the missionaries themselves, and the unsettled
+country in which they laboured, we ought not to expect more results than
+have appeared. At any rate we have much to be thankful for, and as every
+year makes Sarawak a more important State, consolidates its Government,
+and extends civilization to its subjects, we may look for more success
+for the missionaries, who can now point to the peace and prosperity of
+the people, and say, "This is the fruit of Christianity and Christian
+rulers."
+
+In giving a short account of our life in Borneo, I shall avoid alike all
+political questions, or, as much as possible, individual histories among
+the English community. It is already so long ago since we lived in that
+lovely place, that events, trials, joys, and the usual vicissitudes of
+life, are wrapt in that mellowing haze of the past, which, while it dims
+the vividness of feeling, throws a robe of charity over all, and perhaps
+causes actors and actions to assume a more true proportion to one
+another than when we walked amongst them. I have, however, not depended
+on memory alone for the records of twenty years, but have journals and
+letters to refer to, which my friends in England have been good enough
+to keep for me. Some parts of "Letters from Sarawak" I shall incorporate
+into the present little book, for as it treats of the first six years we
+lived there, and was written at that time, it is sure to be tolerably
+correct.
+
+In those days, from 1847 to 1853, Sir James Brooke was very popular in
+England. The story of his first occupation of Sarawak, published in his
+journals, and the cruizes of her Majesty's ships in those eastern
+seas--the _Dido_ and the _Samarang_--were read with avidity, and
+furnished the English public with a romance which had all the charm of
+novelty. However difficult and inconvenient it might be for the English
+Government to recognize a native State under an English rajah, who was
+at the same time a subject of the Queen of Great Britain, this question
+had not then arisen; and all classes, high and low, could applaud a
+brave and noble man, who had stepped out of the beaten track to spend
+his fortune and expose his life in the cause of savages. There were many
+fluctuations of sympathy and opinion in after years towards Sir James
+Brooke; but, through evil report and good report, through difficulty and
+danger, Sarawak has still advanced, and is as worthy of the interest of
+the best and wisest of mankind as it was in 1847. At this time, indeed,
+it seems to me to furnish a lesson in the management of native races
+which might be useful in our own colonies. English governors always set
+out with good intentions towards the natives of savage countries, but
+how is it that war almost always follows their occupation? Surely it is
+because the settlers go there, not in the interest of the native race,
+but their own, and the two interests are sure to clash in the long-run.
+
+It requires great patience and forbearance to educate natives up to a
+rule of justice and righteous laws; but that it may be done, and carry
+the co-operation of the people themselves, is evident at Sarawak, where
+the Malays and Dyaks are associated in the Government, and have always
+stood by their English rajah, even when it was necessary to punish or
+exile some of their own chiefs. I am aware that an English colony cannot
+be governed in this way; nevertheless, the spectacle of wild natives,
+rising by the influence of a few good Englishmen from lawless misrule to
+a settled government, where vice is punished without partiality, is very
+beautiful to philanthropists, and makes one think better of human nature
+and its capabilities. I wish I could portray the hilly and thorny road
+by which this has been attained! It would, methinks, create a new
+interest in Sarawak, if the past and the present could be fairly set
+before the discerning world; we should again hear of missionaries
+longing to help in the improvement of people who have shown themselves
+so open to good influences. I have said that I would not touch upon
+politics, but Church and State are so naturally bound together in the
+task of civilization, that it is difficult to relate the history of the
+mission without mentioning the Government. Of course they do not stand
+in the same relation to one another in a Mahometan country, where the
+English Church is but a tolerated sect, as they do in a Christian land;
+still the Christian Church strengthens the Christian ruler, and he in
+his turn protects the Church by good government, although he may not
+favour it except by individual preference. For my own part, I have
+always thought it an advantage to our Dyak Christians that no favour was
+shown them on account of their faith; at any rate, it was for no worldly
+interest that they became Christians.
+
+Although our life in Sarawak extended over a period of twenty years, it
+might naturally be divided into three parts--of six, five, and six years
+respectively, the intervals being spent in visits to England. These
+visits, although absolutely necessary, were a drawback to the mission
+work. When the head of a family is absent, the responsibility is apt to
+fall upon the younger members, and is sometimes too much for them.
+However, they always did their best, and always welcomed us home most
+warmly. It was a joyful sight, on our return, to find the missionaries
+and school-children waiting for us at the wharf below our houses, the
+children's dear little faces glad with smiles, and a warm welcome for
+any baby we brought home. The second time, it was our daughter Mab; and
+in 1862, our last baby, Mildred,--Mab, Edith, and Herbert being left in
+England, for no English child can thrive in that unchangeable climate
+after it is six years old.
+
+The first chapters of this little book will describe the first six years
+of our stay at Sarawak; but, in speaking of subjects of interest, I
+shall not stop short at the end of those years, but carry on the subject
+to the end of our Sarawak experience. It is perhaps necessary to say
+this to prevent confusion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE COURT-HOUSE.
+
+
+While Sir James Brooke was in England, in 1847, he asked his friends to
+help him in his efforts to civilize the Dyaks, by sending a mission to
+live at Sarawak.
+
+Lord Ellesmere, Admiral Sir H. Keppel, Admiral C. D. Bethune, Canon Ryle
+Wood, and the Rev. C. Brereton, formed themselves into a committee, with
+the Rev. I. F. Stocks for their honorary secretary, and soon collected
+funds for the purpose. The Rev. F. McDougall was chosen as the head of
+the mission, and with him were associated the Rev. S. Montgomery and the
+Rev. W. Wright; but Mr. Montgomery died very suddenly, of fever caught
+when ministering to the poor of his parish, before the time came for us
+to embark, so the party was reduced to two clergymen and their wives,
+two babies and two nurses. We sailed from London in the barque _Mary
+Louisa_, four hundred tons, the end of December; Mr. Parr, a nephew of
+Mrs. Wright's, being also one of the passengers. I had all my life loved
+the sea, and longed to take such a voyage as should carry us out of
+sight of land, and give us all the experiences which wait on those "who
+go down to the sea in ships;" but I little thought how we should all
+long for land before we saw it again.
+
+The barque was a poor sailer; we thought it a good run if she made eight
+knots an hour, so no wonder we did not reach Singapore till May 23,
+1848. It was a long monotonous voyage, but we were well occupied, and I
+do not remember ever finding it dull. The sea was all I ever fancied by
+way of a companion, and, like all one's best friends, made me happy or
+unhappy, but was never stupid. Then we had to learn Malay and its Arabic
+characters, with the help of Marsden's grammar and dictionary, and the
+Bible translated into that language by the Dutch. We lived by rule,
+apportioning the hours to certain duties, and every one knows how fast
+time passes under those conditions. The two clergymen busied themselves
+with teaching the sailors, and several of them presented themselves at
+Holy Communion in consequence, the last Sunday before we landed. The
+most trying time we passed was on the coast of Java, becalmed under a
+broiling sun, the very sea dead and slimy with all sorts of creatures
+creeping over it. As for ourselves, we were gasping with thirst, for we
+had already been on short rations of water for six weeks, one of the
+tanks having leaked out. One quart of water a day for each adult, and
+none for the babies, so of course they had the lion's share of their
+parents' allowance. Our one cup of tea in the evening was looked forward
+to for hours; and what a wonderful colour it was, after all!--but that
+was the iron of the tank.
+
+On the 23rd of May we landed at Singapore, and had to wait there for
+four weeks before the schooner _Julia_, then running between that place
+and Sarawak, came to fetch us. We reached Sarawak June 29th, entering
+the Morotabas mouth of the river, which is twenty-four miles from the
+town of Kuching, whither we were bound. The sail up the river, our first
+sight of the country and the people, was indeed exciting, and filled us
+with delight. The river winds continually, and every new reach had its
+interest: a village of palm-leaf houses built close to the water, women
+and children standing on the steps with their long bamboo jars, or
+peeping out of the slits of windows at the schooner; boats of all sizes
+near the houses, fishing-nets hanging up to dry, wicked alligators lying
+basking on the mud; trees of many varieties--the nibong palm which
+furnishes the posts of the houses, the nipa which makes their mat walls,
+and close by the water the light and graceful mangroves, which at night
+are all alive and glittering with fire-flies. On the boughs of some
+larger trees hanging over the stream parties of monkeys might be seen
+eating the fruits, chattering, jumping, flying almost, from bough to
+bough. We afterwards made nearer acquaintance with these droll
+creatures.
+
+At last we reached the Fort, a long white building manned by Malays, and
+with cannon showing at the port-holes. The _Julia_ was not challenged,
+however, but gladly welcomed, as she carried not only the missionaries
+but the mail, and stores for the bazaar; for at that time there were not
+many native trading-vessels--the fear of pirates was great, and there
+was good reason to fear!
+
+The town of Kuching consisted in those days of a Chinese bazaar and a
+Kling bazaar, both very small, and where it was scarcely possible to
+find anything an English man or woman could buy. Beyond was the court of
+justice, the mosques, and a few native houses. Higher up the river lay
+the Malay town, divided into Kampongs, or clusters of houses belonging
+to the different chiefs or principal merchants of the place. Opposite
+the bazaar, on the other side of the river, stood the rajah's bungalow,
+as well as two or three others belonging to Europeans, embosomed in
+trees, cocoa-nuts and betel-nut palms, and other fruit-trees. Behind the
+rajah's house rose the beautiful mountain of Santubong, wooded to its
+summit nearly 3000 feet, with a rock cropping out here and there. At
+this bungalow we landed, and were hospitably entertained for a few days
+until the upper part of the court-house could be made ready for our
+party.
+
+Shall I ever forget my first impressions of the rajah's bungalow? A
+peculiar scent pervaded it. You looked about for the cause till your
+eyes fell on two saucers, one filled with green blossoms, the other
+with deep golden ones, much the same shape--the kenanga and the
+chimpaka, flowering trees, which grew near the house. Their flowers were
+picked every day for the rooms, as the rajah loved the scent, and so did
+the Malays. The ladies steeped the blossoms in cocoa-nut oil and
+anointed themselves, placing them also in their long black hair, with
+wreaths of jessamine flowers threaded on a string. These perfumes were
+rather overpowering at first, but I learnt to like them after I had been
+some time in Sarawak. The large, bare, cool rooms were very refreshing
+after the little cabins of the _Julia_. And then the library! a treasure
+indeed in the jungle; books on all sorts of subjects, bound in enticing
+covers, always inviting you to bodily repose and mental activity or
+amusement, as you might prefer. This library, so dear to us all because
+we were all allowed to share it, was burnt in 1857 by the Chinese
+rebels. It took two days to burn. I watched it from our library over the
+water, and saw the mass of books glowing dull red like a furnace, long
+after the flames had consumed the wooden house. It made one's heart ache
+to see it. An old gentleman of our English society watched it too, and I
+wondered why his head shook continually as he sat with his eyes fixed on
+those sad ruins; but I found afterwards that the sight, and doubtless
+its cause, had palsied him from that day. But I must not linger too long
+in the rajah's bungalow, though the white pigeons seem to call to me
+from the verandahs; we must take boat again (for there are no bridges
+over the Sarawak river), and cross to the court-house.
+
+This square wooden house, with latticed verandahs like a big cage, was
+built by a German missionary, who purposed having a school on the ground
+floor and living in the upper story; but as soon as he had built his
+house he was recalled to Germany, and the only trace of him that
+remained was a box full of torn Bibles and tracts, which, I am sorry to
+say, had been used as waste paper in the bazaar for tying up parcels
+since he left, but as the tracts were not in any language the people
+could understand they were scarcely to blame. Rajah turned the house
+into a court of justice, and we settled ourselves in the upper rooms,
+which were divided from one another by mat walls. The river flowed under
+this house at spring tides, and then nests of ants would swarm into it:
+the rapidity with which these little creatures would carry all their
+eggs up the posts and settle the whole family under a box in your
+bedroom was marvellous; but as they were not pleasant companions there,
+a kettle of hot water had to put an end to the colony.
+
+These little black ants did not sting, but there was a large red ant,
+half an inch long, who was most pugnacious; he stood up on his hind legs
+and fought you with amazing courage, and his jaws were formidable. We
+made our first acquaintance with white ants while we lived in the
+court-house. On unpacking a box of books, which had been our solace
+during the voyage, we found them almost glued together by the secretion
+of these creatures. The box had been standing on the ground floor of the
+hotel. The white ants had eaten through and through the books, and
+picked all the surface off the bindings; they were disgusting to look at
+and to smell. Some years afterwards, one of our missionaries had a box
+of clothes sent her from Singapore. It was necessary clothing, for she
+had lost her effects, like the rest of us, during the Chinese rebellion.
+I warned Miss Coomes that she must unpack the box directly, on account
+of the white ants; but she put it off till the next day, and at night
+these wretches ate through the bottom of the box, and munched up the new
+linen and stockings. We soon learnt to guard against their attacks by
+using no wood except balean, or iron-wood, which is too hard for them to
+bite. English oak seemed like a slice of cake to white ants.
+
+No sooner were we settled at the court-house, than we had visits from
+all the principal Malays, and also some Dyaks who happened to be at
+Sarawak. My husband opened a dispensary in a little room behind the
+store-room, and had plenty of patients. I used to hear continual talking
+and laughing going on there, and by this means Mr. McDougall learnt to
+talk the Malay language, which he only knew from books when he first
+arrived. The pure Malay of books is very different from the colloquial
+_patois_ of Kuching. To my sorrow, I learnt this some time after, when I
+was trying to prepare two women for baptism: they listened to me for
+some time, and then one said to the other, "She talks like a book,"
+which I fear meant that they only half understood me.
+
+Soon after this we took four little half-caste children to bring up.
+They were running about in the bazaar, and their native mothers were
+willing to part with them; so Mary, Julia, Peter, and Tommy were housed
+in a cottage close by, under the care of a Portuguese Christian woman,
+the wife of our cook. Every day I used to spend some hours with them,
+that we might become friends. The eldest of these children was only six
+years old, Tommy, the youngest, but two and a half; so they wanted a
+nurse. They were baptized on Advent Sunday, 1848, and were the beginning
+of our native school.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+COLLEGE HILL.
+
+
+We stayed at the court-house a whole year, while our house on the hill
+was being prepared. The hill, and the ground beyond it, about forty
+acres in all, was given to the mission by Sir James Brooke. It was then
+some way out of the town, but as the Chinese population increased, the
+town grew quite to the foot of the hill--College Hill, as it was then
+called--and a blacksmith's quarter even invaded the mission land. At
+first, in order to cultivate the property, nutmegs and spice-trees were
+planted, but the soil was not good enough for them; when their roots
+pierced through the pit of earth in which they were planted, and reached
+the stiff clay of the hill, they died off. It was necessary to do
+something to keep the land clear of the coarse lalang grass, which grew
+wherever the jungle was cut down. So after a while a herd of cattle was
+collected, and they improved the poverty of the land, at the same time
+furnishing milk and a little butter. I say a _little_, because even
+when seven cows were in milk, as they only gave two quarts a day each,
+and there were always plenty of children in and out of the mission to
+consume it, but little was left for butter-making. Cocoa-nut trees were
+planted in the low ground, and some few grew up; but wild pigs were
+great enemies to them, for they liked to eat the cabbage out of the
+heart of the young tree, which of course killed it. In that seething
+warmth of Sarawak you could almost see plants grow. If you scattered
+seeds in the ground, they sprouted above it on the third day. I planted
+some of those little coral-looking seeds which are to be found in every
+box of Indian shells, the seed of the satin-wood, and they grew up into
+beautiful forest trees in twelve years' time. We used to make long
+strings of these coral seeds, and use them in Christmas decorations.
+
+By degrees we had a very bright garden about the house. The Gardenia,
+with its strongly scented blossom and evergreen leaves, made a capital
+hedge. Great bushes of the Hybiscus, scarlet and buff, glowed in the
+sun--they were called shoe-flowers, for they were used instead of
+blacking to polish our shoes. The pink one-hundred-leaved rose grew
+freely, and blossomed all the year round. Shrubs of the golden
+Allamander were a great temptation to the cows, if they strayed
+into the garden. The Plumbago was one of the few pale-blue flowers
+which liked that blazing heat. Then we had a great variety of
+creepers--jessamine of many sorts, the scarlet Ipomea, the blue
+Clitorea, and passion-flowers, from the huge Grenadilla with its
+excellent fruit, to the little white one set in a calyx of moss. The
+Moon-flower, a large white convolvulus, tight-shut all day, unfolded
+itself at six o'clock, and looked lovely in the flower-vases in the
+evening. The Jessamine and Pergolaria odorotissima climbed up the
+porch, and in the forks of the trees opposite I had air-plants
+fastened, which flowered every three months, and looked like a flight
+of white butterflies on the wing. The great mountain of Matang stood in
+the distance, and when the sun sank behind it, which it always did in
+that invariable latitude about six o'clock, I sat in the porch to watch
+the glory of earth and sky. How dear a mountain becomes to you, is only
+known to those who live in hilly countries. One gets to think of it as
+a friend. It seems to carry a protest against the little frets of life,
+and, by its strength and invariableness, to be a visible image of Him
+who is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." But I am running on
+too fast with the garden before the house is built.
+
+The hill was first cleared of jungle, and flattened at the top, then the
+foundation was dug, and great sleepers were laid ready for the upright
+posts. A wooden house is joiner's work, and rather resembles a great
+bedstead. All the wood is first squared and cut, which takes a long
+time, because the balean-wood is extremely hard, and consumes a great
+deal of labour; but once ready, the house rises from the earth like
+magic, for every beam and post fits into its place.
+
+We had brought a great box of carpenter's tools with us from England,
+among them valuable moulding-planes; we wished the carpenters to learn,
+in building the house, how to make the arches and ornamental mouldings
+for the church.
+
+Happily for us, when the _Mary Louisa_ was wrecked in the straits on her
+way home, the crew were all saved, and the ship-carpenter came over to
+Sarawak to see if my husband would employ him. As he was a capital
+joiner, he was set over a gang of workmen at once. All the plans for the
+house and church were made by Frank (my husband), and I was set to draw
+patterns of the doors and windows, the verandah railings, and the porch.
+Stahl was an intelligent German workman, and soon learnt Malay enough to
+direct the men. The Malays levelled the hill and dug the foundations;
+the Chinese were employed as carpenters, but they, too, could speak
+Malay. I remember making great friends with one of them, Johnny Jangot,
+John of the Beard, so called on account of a few long hairs at the tip
+of his chin, for the Chinese are a beardless race. Johnny used to eat
+his breakfast in the court-house to save himself trouble. What a set-out
+it was! Rice, of course; then three or four little basins with different
+messes--duck, fish, chicken, and plenty of soy-sauce; more basins with
+vegetables, all eaten with the help of chop-sticks; and a teapot snugly
+covered with a cosy. I asked one day to taste the tea, and Johnny
+poured me out a tiny cup of hot, sweet, spirits and water! Samchoo is a
+spirit made from rice, and very strong, as our poor English sailors used
+to find to their cost when her Majesty's ships paid us a visit. The
+Chinese said that the English drank the samchoo cold and raw, and
+therefore it poisoned them, whereas they always qualified it with hot
+water. It did not taste strong, which made it all the more pernicious.
+Johnny drank real tea all day long, and smoked a good deal of
+tobacco--it seemed to me he did very little else; but he was not a bad
+workman, though of course it was not such a day's work as an Englishman
+can do.
+
+In the East you must accept the customs of the country, and be content
+with the people: they are not given to change. Stahl made some
+wheel-barrows for the men to use instead of little baskets in which they
+carried earth, and which held nothing. But it was no use; they laughed
+at the wheel-barrows, and said "Eh yaw!" but went on with the baskets.
+
+Every evening we used to walk up the hill to see how the building was
+getting on, all the children with us; then, as we sat on the timber, I
+used to draw the letters of the alphabet on the white sand, and the
+little ones learnt them. We went home through a piece of ground we
+called our garden. In it grew plenty of pine-apples and sugar-cane, and
+the gardener always supplied us with pieces of the latter to eat--very
+refreshing and nice, but the juice ran all over your hands. As for
+pine-apples, we soon got tired of them; but they made good tarts, and,
+mixed with plantains and lime-juice, a very pleasant and useful jam.
+
+In clearing the hill our workmen disturbed the haunts of many snakes. We
+were a good deal visited by cobras for some years. The natives said that
+the Adam and Eve of all the cobras lived in a cave under our hill.
+
+One day we were having asphalte laid down in the printing-room, to keep
+away white ants. The room had been emptied to do this, and Stahl went in
+to inspect the work after the men had gone to their breakfast at eleven
+o'clock. He saw a large cobra at the end of the room, and hit it with a
+stick he had in his hand; but the stick broke in two, and the cobra
+reared itself up with inflated hood. Another minute must have seen Stahl
+a prey to the monster; but the Bishop, passing by, heard him exclaim
+when the stick broke, and going quickly in saw Stahl standing, white,
+fascinated, and motionless, before the cobra. Happily he had a stout
+walking-stick, and at once felled the reptile; but he took a good deal
+of killing. It was ten feet long.
+
+This was Adam.
+
+Eve was killed under the verandah of the house almost a year afterwards.
+She was eight feet long.
+
+One night the Bishop had been reading the Rev. F. Robertson's sermon
+about St. Paul and the viper. It was late, and being rather sleepy he
+carried the book in one hand and a candle in the other into his
+dressing-room, and was just going to set the candle down, when his eye
+fell on a cobra, coiled up on the chair on which he was about to seat
+himself. No stick was at hand, but he smote the snake with the book.
+Struck in the right place, they are not difficult to kill. So "St. Paul
+and the Viper" put an end to the cobra. That the bite of this snake is
+not, however, certain death we had a curious instance.
+
+One of our servants, a very strict Mahometan, believed himself charmed
+against poisonous reptiles, and used to bring me centipedes and
+scorpions in his hands, saying they never hurt him. He left our service
+and was employed by the Borneo Company, about half a mile from our
+house. One day, while cutting rattans in a shed, a cobra bit his thumb.
+He thought nothing of it, but, putting away his work as usual, went
+home, cooked his rice and ate his supper. By this time, however, his arm
+began to swell and his head to swim. Instead of going to the doctor, who
+then lived close by, he must needs go to the Bishop to cure him; so just
+as we were sitting down to dinner, about seven o'clock, he reeled into
+the house. The Bishop cauterized the wound, although it seemed too late
+to be any use; he was getting cold and faint. However, by dint of being
+walked up and down between two men, and having two whole bottles of
+brandy administered to him, a glass at a time, besides sal volatile,
+chloroform, and every stimulant we had, he got through the night. The
+Bishop sat up with him all night, and I could hear him, when at last I
+went to bed, calling out at intervals, "Oh, Allah! Oh, Lord Bishop!"--so
+terrible was the pain he suffered in his arm. His wife, who was my
+baby's ayah, appeared in the morning. "Come," said she, "make no more
+noise, keeping everybody awake, but take up your bed (mat) and let us go
+home." He meekly obeyed; but, poor man, he had abscesses under his arm,
+and fell into weak health afterwards; so it is evidently unwise to
+despise a cobra.
+
+There were many other snakes besides cobras, some poisonous, but most of
+them harmless.
+
+The Marquis Doria and Signor Becarri, two distinguished naturalists, who
+lived for some months at Sarawak, collecting bird-skins, insects, and
+plants, told me that the natives often represented a snake to be
+poisonous which was not so. However, we had the mata hari, sun-snake,
+black and coral colour, and a metallic green flat-headed creature,
+Fortrex trigonocephalus, which were venomous enough. I once had a little
+flower-snake for a pet. It was beautifully marked with green and lilac,
+and used to catch flies climbing about the room; but one day it mounted
+to the top of a high door, the wind blew the door to, and my pretty
+snake was thrown to the ground and broke its back.
+
+The boa-constrictor--sawar, as the Malays called it--lived in the jungle
+and rice-swamps. Sometimes it attained an enormous size. An Englishman
+told me that he and some Malays were exploring the jungle to find traces
+of antimony ore, and came to an opening in the wood, across which they
+saw the body of a sawar as thick as his own--he was not very
+stout--moving along; but they never saw either the head or tail of that
+snake, for, after watching its progress for a long time, they were
+seized with a panic at its enormous length, and fled.
+
+A Malay whom we knew very well, Abong Hassan by name, and a mighty
+hunter, told us that once, when he was seeking deer in the forest,
+towards evening he sat down to rest, and cook his rice, on what he
+thought was a great fallen tree. While thus occupied, he felt his seat
+moving from under him, and, starting up, found he had been making use of
+a huge sawar lying inert and distended with food. He killed it, and
+found a full-grown deer in its stomach. These snakes must live to a
+great age, and grow always, to attain such a size.
+
+Some people kept a small boa in their house to kill rats, but we found
+they were equally fond of chickens, and therefore not desirable inmates;
+for at Sarawak chickens were the principal animal food to be had, and it
+was necessary to keep a stock of them.
+
+After some years we built up the lower story of the mission-house with
+bricks, to make it more substantial and cooler. The ground floor was at
+first wholly occupied with the school, the dormitory on one side, the
+matron's and girls' room on the other, and a large schoolroom through
+the centre of the house. A similar room over it was our dining-room, and
+was used for divine service until the church was finished. The library
+and our bedroom were over the boys' dormitory, and bedrooms for
+missionaries on the other side. There were also three rooms in the roof,
+which made good bedrooms, but were too hot for use in the daytime. The
+roof was covered with shingles of balean-wood, which only grows harder
+and darker coloured from rain and use. They were blown off sometimes in
+the storms to which we were subject, but were otherwise more lasting
+than any other kind of roofing. We used to call this house Noah's Ark,
+from the variety of its occupants. A bell hung in the porch roof, and
+rung at different hours to call the workmen and regulate the school. The
+people in the town got so used to it that, when we discontinued it for a
+time, they sent a petition that it might begin again, for without it
+they never knew what o'clock it was. When the school outgrew this house
+we built another for the boys, their master, and the matron, close by;
+but I always kept the girls with us until Julia married, when they were
+sent to the Quop, in charge of the missionary's wife there.
+
+Long before we left the court-house, Mr. and Mrs. Wright decided to give
+up the Sarawak mission, and went to Singapore, where Mr. Wright became
+master to the Raffles Institution for the education of boys. We were
+therefore quite alone until February, 1851, when the Bishop of Calcutta
+paid us a visit to consecrate the church, and brought with him Mr. Fox
+from Bishop's College, to be catechist, with a view to his future
+ordination. Very soon after him came the Rev. Walter Chambers from
+England, and about the same time Mr. Nicholls also arrived from Bishop's
+College; but, as he only wished to stay for two years in the country, he
+had scarcely time to learn the language before he returned to Calcutta.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+PIRATES.
+
+
+When we first lived at Sarawak, the coasts and the seas from Singapore
+to China were infested with pirates. "It is in the Malay's nature," says
+a Dutch writer, "to rove the seas in his prahu, as it is in the Arab to
+wander with his steed on the sands of the desert." Before the English
+and Dutch Governments exerted themselves to put down piracy in the
+Eastern seas, there were communities of these Malays settled in various
+parts of the coast of Borneo, who made it the business of their lives to
+rob and destroy all the vessels they could meet with, either killing the
+crews or reducing them to slavery. For this purpose they went out in
+fleets of from ten to thirty war-boats or prahus. These boats were about
+ninety feet long; they carried a large gun in the bow and three or four
+lelahs, small brass guns, in each broadside, besides twenty or thirty
+muskets. Each prahu was rowed by sixty or eighty oars in two tiers, and
+carried from eighty to a hundred men. Over the rowers, and extending
+the whole length of the vessel, was a light flat roof, made of split
+bamboo, and covered with mats. This protected the ammunition and
+provisions from rain, and served as a platform on which they mounted to
+fight, from which they fired their muskets and hurled their spears.
+These formidable boats skulked about in the sheltered bays of the coast,
+at the season of the year when they knew that merchant-vessels would be
+passing with rich cargoes for the ports of Singapore, Penang, or to and
+from China. A scout-boat, with but few men in it, which would not excite
+suspicion, went out to spy for sails. They did not generally attack
+large or armed ships, although many a good-sized Dutch or English craft,
+which had been becalmed or enticed by them into dangerous or shallow
+water, was overpowered by their numbers. But it was usually the small
+unarmed vessels they fell upon, with fearful yells, binding those they
+did not kill, and burning the vessel after robbing it, to avoid
+detection. While the south-west monsoon lasted, the pirates lurked about
+in uninhabited creeks and bays until the trading season was over. But
+when the north-east monsoon set in, they returned to their settlements,
+often rich in booty, and with blood on their hands, only to rejoice over
+the past, and prepare for next year's expedition. There are still some
+nests of pirates in the north of Borneo, although of late the Spaniards
+have done much to exterminate them. But when Sir James Brooke first
+visited Sarawak, the nobles there, and their sultan at Bruni, used to
+permit, nay, encourage, piratical raids against their own subjects at a
+little distance, provided they shared in the profits of the expedition,
+thus impoverishing the country they ruled, and putting a stop to all
+native trade--a short-sighted and wicked policy. It took a good many
+years of stern resistance on Sir James Brooke's part before the Bruni
+nobles could be cured of their connivance of pirates, whether Malay or
+Dyak.
+
+The Dyaks of Sarebas and Sakarran, a brave and noble people, were taught
+piracy by the Malays who dwelt among them. These Dyaks were always
+head-hunters, and used to pull the oars in the Malay prahus for the sake
+of the heads of the slain, which they alone cared for. But, in course of
+time, the Dyaks became expert seamen. They built boats which they called
+bangkongs, and went out with the Malays, devastating the coast and
+killing Malays, Chinese, Dyaks, whoever they met with. The Dyak bangkong
+draws very little water, and is both lighter and faster than the Malay
+prahu; it is a hundred feet long, and nine or ten broad. Sixty or eighty
+men with paddles make her skim through the water as swiftly as a London
+race-boat. She moves without noise, and surprises her victims with
+showers of spears at dead of night; neither can any vessel, except a
+steamer, catch a Dyak bangkong, if the crew deem it necessary to fly.
+These boats can be easily taken to pieces; for the planks, which extend
+the whole length of the boat, are not fastened with nails, but lashed
+together with rattans, and calked with bark, which swells when wet; so
+that, if they wish to hide their retreat into the jungle, they can
+quickly unlace their boats, carry them on their shoulders into the
+woods, and put them together again when they want them. When we first
+lived at Sarawak no merchant-boat dared go out of the river alone and
+unarmed. We were constantly shocked with dreadful accounts of villages
+on the coast, or boats at the entrance, being surprised, and men, women,
+and children barbarously murdered by these wretches. I remember once a
+boat being found with only three fingers of a man in it, and a bloody
+mark at the side, where the heads of those in the boat had been cut off.
+Sometimes the pirates would wait until they knew the men of a village
+were away at their paddy farms, then they would fall suddenly upon the
+defenceless old men, women, and children, kill some, make slaves of the
+young ones, and rob the houses.
+
+Sometimes, having destroyed a village and its inhabitants, they would
+dress themselves in the clothes of the slain, and, proceeding to another
+place, would call out to the women, "The Sarebas are coming, but, if you
+bring down your valuables to us, we will defend you and your property."
+And many fell into the snare, and were carried off. If they attacked a
+house when the men were at home, it was by night. They pulled stealthily
+up the river in their boats, and landing under cover of their shields,
+crept under the long house where many families lived together. These
+houses stand on high poles. The pirates then set fire to dry wood and a
+quantity of chillies which they carried with them for the purpose. This
+made a suffocating smoke, which hindered the inmates from coming out to
+defend themselves. Then they cut down the posts of the house, which
+fell, with all it contained, into their ruthless hands.
+
+In the year 1849, the atrocities of the piratical Dyaks were so
+frequent, that the rajah applied to the English Admiral in the straits
+for some men-of-war to assist him in destroying them. Remonstrances and
+threats had been tried again and again. The pirates would always promise
+good behaviour for the future to avert a present danger; but they never
+kept these promises when an opportunity offered for breaking them with
+impunity. In consequence of Sir James Brooke's application, H.M.S.
+_Albatross_, commanded by Captain Farquhar; H.M.'s sloop _Royalist_,
+commander, Lieutenant Everest; and H.E.I.C.'s steamer _Nemesis_,
+commander, Captain Wallage, were sent by Admiral Collyer to Sarawak.
+Then the rajah had all his war-boats got ready to join the English
+force. There was the _Lion King_, the _Royal Eagle_, the _Tiger_, the
+_Big Snake_, the _Little Snake_, the _Frog_, the _Alligator_, and many
+others belonging to the Datus, who, on occasions like these, are bound
+to call on their servants, and a certain number of able-bodied men
+living in their kampongs, to man and fight in their boats. This is their
+service to the Government. The rajah supplies the whole force with rice
+for the expedition, and a certain number of muskets. The English ships
+were left, the _Albatross_ at Sarawak, and the _Royalist_ to guard the
+entrance of the Batang Lupar River, into which the Sakarran and Sarebas
+Rivers _débouche_; but their boats, and nearly all the officers,
+accompanied the fleet, and the steamer _Nemesis_ went also. On the 24th
+of July they left us, as many as eighteen Malay prahus, manned by from
+twenty to seventy men in each, and decorated with flags and streamers
+innumerable, of the brightest colours,--the Sarawak flag, a red and
+black cross on a yellow ground, always at the stern. For the _Tiger_ I
+made a flag, as it was Mr. Brereton's boat, with a tiger's head painted
+on it, looking wonderfully ferocious. It was an exciting time, with
+gongs and drums, Malay yells and English hurrahs; and our fervent
+prayers for their safety and success accompanied them that night, as
+they dropped down the river in gay procession. They were afterwards
+joined by bangkongs of friendly Dyaks, three hundred men from Lundu,
+eight hundred from Linga, some from Samarahan, Sadong, and various
+places which had suffered from the pirates, and were anxious to assist
+in giving them a lesson. We heard nothing of the fleet until the 2nd of
+August, when I received a little note from the rajah, written in pencil,
+on a scrap of paper, on the night of the 31st of July, and giving an
+account of how they fell in with a great balla (war fleet) of Sarebas
+and Sakarran pirates, consisting of one hundred and fifty bangkongs,
+returning to their homes with plunder and captives in their boats. The
+pirates found all the entrances of the river occupied by their enemies,
+the English, Malay, and Dyak forces being placed in three detachments,
+and the _Nemesis_ all ready to help whenever the attack began. The _Lion
+King_ sent up a rocket when she espied the pirate fleet, to apprise the
+rest. Then there was a dead silence, broken only by three strokes of a
+gong, which called the pirates to a council of war. A few minutes
+afterwards a fearful yell gave notice of their advance, and the fleet
+approached in two divisions. But when they sighted the steamer they
+became aware of the odds against them, and again called a council by
+beat of gong. After another pause, a second yell of defiance showed they
+had decided on giving battle. Then, in the dead of the night, ensued a
+fearful scene. The pirates fought bravely, but could not withstand the
+superior forces of their enemies. Their boats were upset by the paddles
+of the steamer; they were hemmed in on every side, and five hundred men
+were killed, sword in hand; while two thousand five hundred escaped to
+the jungle. The boats were broken to pieces, or deserted on the beach by
+their crews; and the morning light showed a sad spectacle of ruin and
+defeat. Upwards of eighty prahus and bangkongs were captured, many from
+sixty to eighty feet long, with nine or ten feet beam.
+
+The English officers on that night offered prizes to all who should
+bring in captives alive: but the pirates would take no quarter; in the
+water they still fought without surrender, for they could not understand
+a mercy they never accorded to their enemies. Consequently the prisoners
+were very few, and the darkness of the night favoured escape.
+
+The peninsula to which they fled could easily have been so surrounded by
+the Dyak and Malay forces that not one man of that pirate fleet could
+have left it alive. This blockade the Malays entreated the rajah to
+make; but he refused, saying that he hoped they had already received a
+sufficient lesson, and would return to their homes humbled and
+corrected. He therefore ordered his fleet to proceed up the river, and
+the pirates went back to Sarebas and Sakarran. This severe punishment
+cured the Dyaks of those rivers once and for all of piracy, and was the
+greatest blessing which could have been conferred on those fine tribes.
+They allowed forts to be built on their rivers, and submitted to English
+residents, who ruled them with the counsel of their own chiefs. In 1857,
+when the Chinese rebelled and burnt the town of Kuching, these Dyaks
+sent their warriors to assist the Sarawak Government; in doing so they
+joined other tribes whose hereditary enemies they had been for many
+generations. Some of us felt anxious when we saw the fleet of Sakarrans
+and Balows lying side by side at the Linga Fort; but they all kept
+their good faith, and in fighting a common enemy became friends for
+evermore.
+
+In 1852 Sir James Brooke placed Mr. Brereton in a fort at Sakarran,
+built at the entrance of the river. He threw himself heartily into the
+work of improving the people, and gained a good influence over many. One
+of the most important chiefs, Gassim, attached himself to him, and even
+gave up the practice of head-taking to please him.
+
+There were certain paddy farms in the country which by ancient custom
+could only be cultivated by heroes who had taken many heads. One of
+Gassim's people, however, who had never taken a single head, presumed to
+clear and plant some of this ground; whereupon the other chiefs
+complained, and one sent a message to Gassim, that if he did not put a
+stop to this breach of law, he would fight him. Gassim answered that he
+was ready to fight with swords if necessary, but first he begged a
+conference with all the other chiefs to discuss the matter. To this they
+agreed, and by the force of his eloquence and the justice of his cause,
+Gassim proved to them that the old custom was bad and ought to be
+repealed. About that time Brereton brought Gassim and a number of his
+people to visit Kuching, and the chief breakfasted with us. When all the
+school-children came in to prayers--for the church was not yet
+finished--and Gassim heard them repeat the responses and say the Lord's
+Prayer, he was delighted, and said that he and his people would also
+like to be Christians.
+
+We used to like the Sakarrans much better than their neighbours, the
+Sarebas, in those days. They were fine, tall, handsome men, with
+straight noses and pleasant manners. The Sarebas were coarser-looking
+people, who disfigured themselves by wearing brass rings all along the
+lobes of their ears: the one at the bottom was as large as a
+curtain-ring in circumference, though of slender make; it lay on the
+chest, and by its weight dragged a great hole in the ear. These rings
+were inserted when the children were quite young, and pulled their
+little faces out of shape, giving an uncomfortable expression. Sarawak
+Malays always said, "A Sakarran Dyak may be trusted, but a Sarebas is
+deceitful." It is a curious fact, however, that the Sakarrans, with all
+their fair words and sleek prepossessing looks, did not embrace the
+gospel as the Sarebas did. The Rev. Walter Chambers lived at Sakarran
+for some time, but gathered no converts. He then settled himself among
+the Balows of the Batang Lupar and Linga, and when there was a community
+of Christians from these rivers, at Banting, where Mr. Chambers had
+built his church and house, a Sarebas chief, Buda by name, the son of a
+notorious old pirate, happened to meet some of these Christian Dyaks,
+and came himself to be taught. He brought his wife, sister, and child.
+They walked upwards of eighty miles, partly through the mud of the
+sea-shore, carrying their mats and cooking-pots with them, and
+established themselves in the mission-house, where they were kindly
+welcomed, and stayed six weeks, during which time they were so diligent
+that they learnt to read and made some progress in writing. This was in
+the rainy season, when all farming operations are in abeyance. The next
+year they returned at the same time, but, meanwhile, they had not been
+idle, but had taught all they knew to their countrymen. Shortly
+afterwards Buda was made a catechist, and he excited so much interest,
+that in 1867 Mr. Chambers baptized one hundred and eighty of these
+people, who were once the most dangerous enemies of the English and the
+most notorious pirates of Borneo. Then Buda proceeded to the village of
+Seruai, and Mr. Chambers had soon to visit there, for the people were so
+earnest they would scarcely let him sleep, nor seemed to require any
+sleep themselves, but day and night learnt the hymns and catechism,
+which they must know by heart to be baptized. Nearly two hundred were
+baptized on the Kryan River. A catechist had been placed there, called
+Belabut. He married Buda's sister, who walked to Banting for
+instruction. She had much influence over the women of the tribe, and Mr.
+Chambers said it was delightful to hear her read "her beloved gospel"
+with the correct pronunciation of an English lady.
+
+The Christians of the Kryan did not keep the good news to themselves,
+but proceeded to teach the next village of Sinambo. In these villages
+there are now school-chapels, built by the Dyaks themselves. In 1873,
+Mr. Chambers, who was then bishop, wrote: "These Sea Dyaks have made the
+greatest advances in civilization and Christianity. Looking back even
+five years, there is a great difference. They have abandoned
+superstitious habits." "They no longer listen to the voices of birds to
+tell them when to sow their seeds, undertake a journey, or build a
+house; they never consult a manang[1] in sickness or difficulty; above
+all, they set no store by the blackened skulls which used to hang from
+their roofs, but which they have either buried or given away to any
+people from a distance who cared for them, assuring them at the same
+time that they 'were no use.'"
+
+    [Footnote 1: Heathen doctor.]
+
+Thus we see what a just punishment and a fostering Government, added to
+the sweet influences of Christianity, have done for these people; but it
+took years of patience and faith to effect so great a change.
+
+After the pirate fight of 1849, the evil disposed and turbulent, both of
+the Sakarrans and Sarebas, found a leader in Rentab, a Sarebas chief. He
+braved the Government for years. In 1852 his war-boats appeared above
+the Sakarran Fort, and the two young Englishmen there, Mr. Brereton and
+Mr. Lee, too confident in their strength, attacked the boats with a
+small force. In this engagement Mr. Lee was killed, and Mr. Brereton
+escaped with difficulty. Several expeditions were taken into the
+interior against Rentab; but he was so clever, that even when Captain
+Brooke battered his stronghold to pieces by having guns dragged up the
+steep hill on which his fort was built, Rentab managed to escape, and
+was never taken. His followers, however, fell away from him by degrees,
+and there are now no pirates in those rivers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE CHURCH AND THE SCHOOL.
+
+
+As soon as we removed to College Hill, the building of the church began.
+On the 28th August, 1850, a few days after the return of the expedition
+against the pirates, the summit of a rising ground about two hundred
+yards from the house having been cleared and levelled, a large shed was
+built over the ground, which the sailors of H.M.S. _Albatross_, and our
+workmen, adorned with gay flags and green boughs.
+
+A little procession left our house, the rajah walking first, dressed in
+full uniform as Governor of Labuan, and Suboo, the Malay executioner,
+holding a large yellow satin umbrella over his head, as is the custom on
+all state occasions, for yellow is the royal colour in Borneo; then my
+husband, in surplice and hood, the English residents, naval officers,
+and, last, a crowd of Malays and Chinese followed, to witness the
+ceremony of laying the first great block of wood in the foundation of
+St. Thomas's Church. After prayers had been read, the rajah lowered the
+great sleeper into its place, and we all returned home. From that day
+the church began to rise out of the earth with the same seeming magic as
+the house had done. It was entirely built of wood--all the beams,
+rafters, and posts of the hard balean-wood, and the roof covered with
+balean shingles, like the house. The planking was a cedar-coloured wood,
+and all the arches and mouldings were finished like cabinet-work, so
+that it was both handsome and durable. The ornamental pillars were first
+made of polished nibong palms; but in a few years these had to be cut
+away, as they were full of white ants, and hard wood substituted. The
+building of this little church was most interesting to us. When my
+husband was at Singapore for a short time in 1849, he had the pulpit,
+reading-desk, a carved wooden eagle, and the chairs made there; also a
+coloured glass east window was contrived, with the Sarawak flag for a
+centre light. This pleased the Malays; indeed, they admired the house
+and church immensely, and always assured us that they knew we could not
+have built either, unless inspired by good antoos (spirits).
+
+The baptismal font was a huge clam-shell, large enough to dip an infant
+in, if desired; and this natural font was adopted in all the churches
+afterwards built at Dyak stations--at Lundu, at Banting, Quop River.
+
+The church bell was a difficult matter. Nothing larger than a ship bell
+could be found in the straits. At last, a Javanese at Sarawak said he
+could cast a bell large enough if he had the metal; so Frank bought a
+hundredweight of broken gongs--there is a great deal of silver in gong
+metal--and with these the bell was cast. Then an inscription had to be
+put round the rim--"Gloria in excelsis Deo," in large letters; and the
+date, Sir James Brooke's name on one side, and F. T. McDougall on the
+other. It was a great success, and was safe in the little belfry before
+the church was consecrated, in February, 1851. I do not know whether
+this bell is now cracked, but it has worked very hard from that day--two
+services every week-day, and four on Sunday, to say nothing of extra
+occasions. Before long, we found a gilder who could adorn the reredos.
+There were seven compartments at the east end: in the centre one was a
+gilt cross, and in the others, the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, in
+English, Malay, and Chinese. The gilder was a Chinese catechumen, and
+was very anxious to do it well; but he knew nothing of English letters,
+so each letter had to be cut in paper, and he traced it on the wooden
+panel. It was necessary to watch him narrowly, or he put the letters
+upside down! Such are the difficulties of making churches in the jungle.
+All this took some time to complete. I had a very severe illness in
+November, 1850; and when, about Christmas, I was able to sit in the
+verandah, the progress of the church was my great amusement, for it was
+quite near enough to watch from the house.
+
+In August, 1850, a great influx of Chinese came to Sarawak. There was a
+war at Sambas, the principal Dutch settlement in Borneo, between the
+Chinese, who were friendly to the Dutch, and who were living at
+Pernankat, and the Montrado Chinese, who, with the Dyaks of the country,
+rebelled against the Dutch. The Montrados beat the Pernankat Chinese,
+and they fled from the place, carrying with them their wives and
+children, and as much property as they could cram into their boats. The
+boats were overladen, and many of them perished at sea, but some reached
+Tangong Datu. On the 26th of August, four hundred of these poor
+creatures arrived at Sarawak, saying there were three thousand more
+starving on the sands at Datu, who would follow as fast as they could;
+and, in course of time, most of them did find their way up the river,
+although those in charge of the Government (the rajah was at Labuan)
+tried to persuade them to make a town for themselves at Santubong (one
+of the mouths of the river). A few of them did settle at Santubong, but
+every day brought boats full of Chinamen into the place. The rajah fed
+these poor people for months with rice, and gave them tools that they
+might clear the ground and make gardens in the jungle. At first, before
+they could build themselves houses, the whole place seemed upset by
+them. Many lived in their boats on the river; every shed and workshop in
+the town was full. One night Frank walked into the church, to see no one
+was stealing planks from the unfinished building. All was quiet, but by
+a stray moonbeam he perceived that one end of the church, already
+boarded, was full of mosquito curtains, and they as full of sleeping
+Chinamen. Such a thing could not be allowed--nails knocked into the
+polished walls to tie up the curtains, tobacco perfuming the place, to
+say nothing of sparks to light the pipes, and a considerable allowance
+of bugs which Chinese people always carry about with them. Frank jumped
+straight into the middle of the muslin curtains, with a shout; and
+amidst a hubbub of tongues, "yaw-yaw" and laughter, bundled them all out
+into the workmen's shed close by, where they might sleep in peace. It
+occurred to my husband that some of these Chinese would be glad to have
+their children brought up with the seven little orphans we had already,
+so he went to Aboo, the Chinese magistrate, and offered to take ten
+children into our house to be brought up as Christians, baptized, and
+educated for ten years. The Chinese value education, and were very glad
+to give them to us. I shall never forget sitting in the porch one
+morning to receive my new family. Neither parents nor children could
+speak Malay. They walked up the stairs, bringing a little boy or girl,
+nodded and smiled and put the child's hand into mine, as much as to say,
+"There, take it." One of our Chinese servants then explained to them
+what we could do for the child, and that it must remain with us until
+grown up. That day we took Salion, Sunfoon, Chinzu, Queyfat, Assin,
+Umque, Achin, boys; Achong, Moukmoy, Poingzu, girls. The English nurse
+we had brought with us to Sarawak had married Stahl, the carpenter, of
+whom I spoke before, and Mrs. Stahl became the matron of the school when
+we moved to College Hill, and had these ten Chinese children as well as
+the orphans to care for. We were very busy sewing for them, with a
+Chinese tailor to help. Blue jackets and trousers for week-days, and
+black trousers and white jackets for Sundays, had to be made at once.
+The girls wore trousers as well as the boys, only wider, and their
+jackets reached to the knee.
+
+At the end of a week they were all clean and neat. Their heads were
+shaved every Saturday, and their long tails freshly plaited up with
+skeins of black or red strong silk, made on purpose. At first a barber
+came to do this, but soon the elder boys learnt to do it, and it was a
+regular Saturday business. These ten children soon learnt to speak
+Malay. Then we took five more, and after that one or two as
+circumstances threw them in our way. The school at last numbered
+forty-five, but there was not room in the mission-house for so many; we
+did not get beyond thirty the first year of the school.
+
+I scarcely think thirty English children could have been so easily
+reduced to order as these little Chinese. School must have been paradise
+to them after the hardships they had undergone, and that perhaps made it
+easier to please them; besides, the Chinese readily submit to rule and
+method. The day was laid out for them. They rose at half-past five when
+the day dawned; after a bath in a pond in the grounds, they had a slice
+of rice-pudding with treacle on it, and then went to church for morning
+prayers. By seven o'clock they were all at lessons in the big room--such
+a buzzing and curious singsong of Chinese words--until nine, when the
+breakfast took place; rice, of course, and a sort of curry of
+vegetables, also a great dish of fish, either salt or fresh; a little
+tea for the elder children, no milk or sugar, and water for the rest.
+They soon learnt to sing their grace before and after meals.
+
+The same kind of meal was repeated at five o'clock, but on Sunday they
+had pork curried instead of fish, and on festivals chickens. I taught
+these children to sing from the first. The Chinese are not musical
+generally, and some of them found the sounds of _do_, _re_, _mi_, very
+difficult to master, but we had very nice singing in church in time; and
+when a schoolmaster came who knew plenty of songs, glees, and rounds,
+the children learnt them quickly, and were often sent for to sing to the
+rajah and other guests when they came to dinner.
+
+It used to startle strangers to hear "The Hardy Norseman," "The Cuckoo,"
+and such-like songs from the lips of little Chinese boys. Every Saturday
+evening they came to the house to practise the hymns and chants for
+Sunday; I had an harmonium in the dining-room. On these occasions they
+all had a cup of tea and slice of cake, and used to look at the picture
+newspapers which had come from England the last mail. They were very
+intelligent boys. It was necessary they should learn Malay and English
+as well as Chinese, and of course arithmetic, geography, and the usual
+rudiments of learning. I have often watched the Chinese writing-lesson:
+it seemed the most difficult branch of their education--one complicated
+character, something like a five-barred gate, representing a variety of
+sounds as well as meanings; but our little fellows learnt it all. They
+had a Chinese master as well as an English, and they soon spoke English
+as well as we could desire. My husband took the greatest interest in
+this school. When the children first came he taught them games and made
+them playthings, and they were always about him. Whenever we went
+anywhere by boat a crew of boys was added to the rowers. They soon
+learnt to use their paddles well, and at the public boat-races, on New
+Year's Day, pulled their own boat in the race and sometimes won it. When
+my husband became Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak, he always took some of
+the schoolboys with him in his visits to the different stations. They
+helped the church services by their singing, and had their especial
+chums among the Dyak Christian boys in the different tribes. So many
+boys passed through the school during the twenty years we took an
+interest in it, that I cannot even remember all of them. Some are now
+catechists among the Dyak tribes; many entered the service of the
+Government or the Merchant Company as clerks; some went to Singapore and
+found employment there. I know of only one who has as yet been
+ordained, but perhaps that time has scarcely yet arrived in Sarawak. It
+is difficult for Malays or Dyaks to look up to a Chinaman sufficiently
+to make him their minister: they are less clever than the Chinese, but
+look down upon them nevertheless--the Malays, because the Chinese are
+the workers, and they the gentlemen; the Dyaks, I suppose, because they
+gave them such a thrashing in 1857. One good consequence of the Chinese
+school was, that it attracted the attention of the parents towards
+Christianity, and they presented themselves as catechumens. There were
+many difficulties with the languages, for the Chinese at Sarawak were
+not all of the same tribe, and could not understand one another.
+However, after a while a Chinese professor arrived at Sarawak, bringing
+his wife and family with him. In those days the women were forbidden to
+emigrate with their husbands, but Sing Sing put his wife into a large
+chest with air-holes at the top, and brought her safely from China. The
+Bishop employed this man, who was well educated, to make translations,
+and to interpret what he said to the Chinese, so there were soon Bible
+classes at our house every Wednesday evening. Sing Sing became an
+inquirer himself while translating the gospel to others. He was soon
+able to hold cottage lectures in the town, and after some years the
+Bishop had the happiness to ordain him as minister to his people. There
+was a large congregation of Chinese at the Sunday services before we
+left, and it was a good proof of the sincerity of these converts, that
+while all their heathen countrymen worked at their trades on Sunday as
+well as other days, our Christians spent their Sunday in worship and
+rest, which no doubt was an advantage to their health as well as their
+growth in grace.
+
+At Christmas they always shared in our feasting. We killed an ox, and
+all the Christians had beef for their dinner, as well as all the queer
+things they delight in.
+
+In January, 1851, the Church of St. Thomas at Kuching was consecrated by
+Bishop Wilson, of Calcutta. On the afternoon of the 18th, I was
+returning from church, and mounting the flight of steps which led to the
+porch of the house, I saw a large steamer turn the corner of the
+Pedungen Reach and anchor above the fort. It was the _Semiramis_
+bringing the Bishop, Archdeacon Pratt and Mrs. Pratt, the Rev. H. Moule
+from Singapore, Dr. Beale, the Bishop's physician, and Mr. Fox from
+Bishop's College. This party, escorted by Frank, who rushed home to
+dress himself in black (his usual attire being grey flannels and a white
+muslin cassock), very soon marched into the house, exclaiming with
+pleasure at the wreaths of white jessamine growing over the stairs, and
+the fresh air of the hill. We had so lately settled in the house that it
+was not half furnished, but we gave up our rooms to our guests and
+stowed ourselves in an empty corner. I remember the satisfaction with
+which Mrs. Stahl produced the remains of the Christmas plum-pudding,
+and the comfort it was to have a joint of venison in the house. Dinner
+was soon on the table, and immediately afterwards the Bishop read
+prayers and retired to his room. We all went into the library, where we
+had tea and talk. It was very refreshing to have an English lady to
+speak to, and Mrs. Pratt was so tall and fair that everybody admired
+her, especially the Malays, who used to say that it was sufficient
+pleasure to look at her throat only.
+
+The natives used to flock into the house every evening to see the Tuan
+Padre besar (the great priest), and all the new-comers. At half-past
+five a.m. the Bishop's bell used to ring for his servants to dress him,
+and bring his tea. The whole house was astir then. The Indian servants
+of the party slept in the verandahs, and seemed to me to talk all night.
+
+The next day was Sunday, but the church was not cleared out for
+consecration, and most of the fittings had come from Singapore in the
+_Semiramis_, and could not be got out on Saturday night. So morning and
+evening prayers were as usual in the dining-room, and what with the
+officers of the _Semiramis_, the English of the place, the school and
+our home party, the room was very full. The children sang with all their
+might, and were much interested with the visitors. The Bishop and
+Archdeacon Pratt preached morning and afternoon. On Wednesday the church
+was ready. Mrs. Stahl and I were up before dawn, covering hassocks with
+Turkey red cotton. The church was tiled, but platforms of wood, covered
+with mats, which were a present from Mr. and Mrs. Stahl, were placed on
+the tiles, and the chairs just arrived by _Semiramis_ stood on them. We
+afterwards had to clear the platforms away--they became full of white
+ants; but they looked very well at first.
+
+When all was ready, Captain Brooke and all the principal English
+inhabitants met the Bishop at the church door, and presented a petition
+that he would consecrate the building. He then entered, and walked up
+and down the church repeating psalms, etc. Then came morning service;
+afterwards, the Bishop preached, and as he was very energetic and struck
+the desk with his hand, our gentle Datu Bandar thought he was angry, and
+slipped quickly out of church. There was a confirmation of a Chinese
+teacher and my little maid Susan after the celebration of Holy
+Communion, and then, after three hours and a half service, we returned
+home. The next morning, early, the Bishop consecrated the burial-ground.
+He was carried round it in a chair, for he was unable to walk much; and
+though he was a hale old man of seventy-two, his many years' residence
+at Calcutta had, I imagine, spoilt his walking powers.
+
+He was very kind and friendly to us all, and admired the church very
+much. His visit was a boon to the mission. It impressed the native mind
+with the importance Christians attach to their churches and to public
+worship. When our church bell called us to prayers twice every day, the
+Mahometans revived the daily muezzin at the mosque; and the sight of the
+public practice of religion amongst us quickened the Malays in the
+performance of their own religious rites, and from that time there were
+many more pilgrims to Mecca from Sarawak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE GIRLS.
+
+
+Having said so much about the schoolboys, it would be unfair not to
+mention the girls. Mary, Julia, and Phoebe, the half-caste children,
+grew up beside us, and so did Polly, who was a Dyak baby brought to me
+after the pirate expedition of 1849. Her mother fled, and dropped her
+baby in the long grass, where it was found by an English sailor, who
+carried it to the boats and gave it to one of the women captives to
+bring to me--a poor little, skinny thing, with long yellow hair, like a
+fairy changeling. I got a wet nurse for her and fed her with baby food,
+but she got thinner and more elfish-looking. One day her nurse was
+standing by while the other children were eating their dinner, and Polly
+stretched out her arms to the rice and salt fish, and began to cry.
+"Oh," said I, "perhaps she can eat;" and from that day the little one
+ate her rice and discarded the nurse, growing fat and merry like the
+rest.
+
+Polly had a great talent for languages. Of course she learnt English and
+Malay at once, hearing both languages from her earliest years. But how
+she learnt Chinese as well used to surprise me. In 1866 I took Polly to
+Hongkong. She was then nurse to our youngest child. The lady of the
+house where we were staying accosted Polly in the pigeon English of the
+place--a jargon mysterious to unaccustomed ears. It must be allowed that
+Polly was not unlike a Chinese in appearance. She stared at the lady,
+and then at me, upon hearing directions she could not understand. I
+laughed. "Speak to Polly in English," I said, "and she will understand
+what you mean." "Impossible," answered Mrs. M----; "my servants tell me
+she must be Chinese, for she can talk in two dialects."
+
+Polly married a Christian Chinaman afterwards, so her taste lay in that
+direction. When I last heard of her, she was teaching in the day-schools
+at Sarawak.
+
+Mary married the schoolmaster, Mr. Owen. We brought Julia home with us
+in 1869, and put her into a training-school for teachers in Dublin,
+where she was much beloved. When we returned to Sarawak, in 1861, she
+became the schoolmistress to the girls I then had in the house, and
+others who came as day-scholars. She was a thoroughly good girl, and a
+great comfort to me, but of course she married, a young man employed as
+mate in the _Rainbow_, a Government vessel running between Sarawak and
+Singapore. Some years afterwards Forrest died, and Julia married again,
+an older man very well off. I have no doubt she is bringing up her
+family in the fear of God, but I have not heard of her lately. I had
+many trials with the girls, more than I like to recount. All the first
+little family of Chinese girls we received in 1850 belonged to the tribe
+who rebelled in 1857, and their relations carried them off when we were
+driven from the mission-house. They were taken to Bau where their
+relations lived, but what became of them in the terrible flight to the
+Dutch country, when many were killed, and still more died of the
+privations of the jungle, we never could hear.
+
+Sarah and Fanny came to us in 1856. They were little orphans, half
+Chinese, half Dyak, whom, with two more girls and four boys, the
+Government had redeemed from slavery and gave to the mission. Some of
+these children stayed at Lundu with Mr. Gomez and his family; some came
+to me--Sarah, Fanny, and Betsy, a baby whom I gave out to nurse. Poor
+little Sarah had a very scarred face from a burn, but she was a bright,
+clever child. Fanny was better-looking, but more heavy and less
+impressible. These two girls married native catechists in course of
+time. I trust they are doing some good among their own people.
+
+In the year 1862 some little captives fell into the hands of Captain
+Brooke, then ruling at Sarawak. They came from Sarebas, and one of them
+had been wounded by a spear, though he was only a tiny boy of four
+years old. Captain Brooke wrote to me to know if I would take this
+family of children into the school--two girls, Limo and Ambat, and two
+boys, Esau and Nigo. If I could not take them, he said, they must be
+sent back to their own country immediately, as there was a boat
+departing the next day. The Bishop was away from Sarawak, so I had to
+decide; nor would there have been any doubt in my mind about it, but
+Esau the eldest boy was covered with kurap, from head to foot. This is a
+skin disease to which Dyaks are subject, and which suggests the leprosy
+of the Old Testament, for the outer skin peels off in flakes, and gives
+almost a "white as snow" appearance to the surface. I doubted whether I
+ought to take a pupil so afflicted, for it is decidedly catching. I
+found that Ambat and Nigo had both patches of it here and there from
+contact with Esau, whereas Limo, who was older, more clothed, and who
+slept apart, was quite free.
+
+Still, the alternative was nothing less than sending these four children
+to their heathen relations, and to a place at that time beyond the reach
+of Christ's gospel--a terrible idea which could not be entertained for a
+moment. So at last I sent for them, resolving to keep them in our house,
+and not allow them to go down to the school until the Bishop returned.
+Shortly afterwards a Chinese doctor came to the Bishop, and said, "If
+you will give me fifteen dollars I will cure that boy of kurap. I have a
+wonderful medicine for it, made at the Natunas Islands." So he had the
+money on condition of the cure. The medicine was an ointment as black as
+pitch--indeed, I believe there was a good portion of tar in it. With
+this the doctor smeared Esau all over. He was to wear no clothes, and
+not to be washed or touched. I used to see him, poor child, skipping
+about exactly like the little black imps depicted in _Punch_.
+
+The ointment did not hurt him, but every third day the doctor came and
+washed it all off with hot water: this was rather a painful operation,
+but it was worth while undergoing some discomfort, for at the end of a
+month the disease had vanished, and "his skin came again like the flesh
+of a child." Esau grew up to be a good man and catechist to his own
+countrymen, so it was well I ventured to keep him at Sarawak. The other
+children soon got well when separated from him. Kurap arises, I believe,
+from poor food and exposure to weather. A Dyak wears no clothes except a
+long sash wound round him and the ends hanging down before and behind;
+and when we consider the hot sun and frequent rains which beat upon him,
+for he lives mostly out of doors, it is no wonder his skin suffers. Limo
+and Ambat were clever children. In a letter, written about a year after
+they came to us, I find this passage: "I have only four girls who can
+read English and understand it. My two little Dyaks, Limo and Ambat, are
+very fond of learning English hymns, and say them in such a plaintive,
+touching voice, pronouncing each syllable so clearly, but they don't
+understand it until it has been explained to them in Malay. Limo's
+brother and uncle came this week from Sarebas--two fine, tall men, with
+only chawats[2] and earrings by way of clothes. Limo was delighted; she
+would have gone away with them in their great boat if I had allowed her.
+No doubt they told her how much they would do for her at Sarebas.
+However, I drew a little picture of the women setting her to draw large
+bamboos full of water, and to beat out the paddy with a long pole--very
+hard work, and always done by the young girls,--a more truthful and less
+delightful view of things; so Limo said she would stay with me until she
+was grown up. I gave her a pair of trousers for each of the men, a
+present generally much esteemed. But these two were very wild folk; they
+laughed very much at the trousers, and carried them away over their
+shoulders."
+
+    [Footnote 2: A chawat is a long strip of cotton or bark cloth
+    wound round the body.]
+
+I must not forget to tell the story of my dear child Nietfong, although
+it is a very sad one. She was the daughter of the Chinese baker who
+lived in the lane which led from our garden to the town. I used to
+befriend her mother, a delicate little woman, very roughly treated by
+her husband. She twice ran to me for shelter when her husband beat her,
+and though of course I always had to give her up to him when he came
+begging for her the next day, he knew what I thought of him, and had a
+sort of respect for me in consequence. This poor woman died young, and
+left one little girl about four years old. Nietfong used to come up to
+day-school when she was old enough, and in 1858, when I was so happy as
+to have an English governess for my Mab, I took the little Chinese girl
+to live with us and join Mab in her lessons. She was quite a little
+lady, so gentle, teachable, and well mannered. In 1860 we took our
+children to England: Mab was six years old, and could not with any
+safety remain longer in a hot climate. Little Nietfong went home, for
+her father would not allow her to go to the school in my absence. We
+returned in 1861, leaving three children in England, and brought a baby
+girl out with us. As I walked up the lane to the mission-house, Nietfong
+stood watching for me at the gate. "Take me home with you; oh, I am so
+glad you are come back!" So I took her home, and Nietfong told me that
+her father had married again, and that her step-mother was unkind to
+her, and beat her when she said the prayers I had taught her night and
+morning; "but," said the child, "I always prayed, nevertheless." She
+lived with us till she was about thirteen, perhaps not so much; then her
+father came to the Bishop and said he had sold Nietfong for a good sum
+of money to a man in China, and must send her there to stay with her
+grandmother.
+
+In vain I entreated Acheck not to be so wicked. "Tell me how much you
+would get for your daughter," I said, "and we will give you the money."
+He laughed, and said I could not afford it, mentioning a large sum, but
+I do not remember what it was; so I had to break the sad news to
+Nietfong. We wept and prayed together that she might remain steadfast in
+her Christian faith. As she then knew English very well, I gave her an
+English Prayer-book, which she promised to use. Soon after, Acheck
+himself took her to China; and when he came back, he would only say, "Oh
+yes, of course she is happy--she is married and well off." I have always
+felt sure that this dear girl was kept by God's grace from sin and evil,
+for I believe she truly loved and desired to serve God. There was
+something especially pure about her. Nietfong was never wilfully
+naughty; she was one of those blameless ones who seem untouched by the
+evil around them. We shall not know the sequel of her history until by
+God's mercy we meet her in the heavenly home.
+
+As I have spoken about the Dyak kurap, I may as well here mention the
+real leprosy of the East, which was a terrible but not frequent scourge
+among the Chinese. The Rajah had a small house built out of the town for
+any men who were so afflicted, and they were fed by Government. The
+Bishop or his chaplain used to go and teach these poor creatures, but
+there were not more than three or four of them at a time. We knew one
+Chinese woman who had leprosy. She became a Christian, and liked to have
+a cottage lecture at her house. I often went to see her. Her toes
+gradually dropped off, and her fingers. I never heard her complain. One
+day I went to see her and found her very ill, constantly sick. She said
+she had been poisoned; and it seemed probable, for no medicine gave her
+any relief, and in a few hours she died. The natives have such a horror
+of leprosy that they do not like to touch the body of any one who has
+died of it, so the Bishop and Owen, the schoolmaster, laid poor Acheen
+in her coffin; and this charitable act they performed for any
+unfortunate who died of this terrible disease.
+
+Acheen had adopted a little boy, Sifok by name. She must have been very
+kind to the child, for he seemed wild with grief when she died, and was
+very anxious that whoever had poisoned his mother, as he called her,
+should be punished. But the case was not clear, and no one was punished.
+We took Sifok into the school, and I taught him to play the harmonium,
+which at last he accomplished very fairly.
+
+Amongst our schoolboys was one particularly steady and religious. Tung
+Fa was so good a Malay and Chinese scholar that he could interpret at
+the Chinese Bible class, and also the sermon at the Chinese service at
+church on Sunday. I think he knew his Bible almost by heart. He was
+never very strong in health; then his feet began to swell, and leprosy
+declared itself. For a long time he was carried to and from the church
+in a chair, but at last he was so diseased that he was removed from the
+school-house, and a little hut was built for him close to us. The boys
+brought him his food, and of course he had anything he fancied from our
+kitchen. I think the servants were very kind to him, and he exhibited a
+beautiful example of patience and resignation until the disease affected
+his brain; even then he was quite gentle, only he was always begging to
+be baptized over again that he might die free from sin. This mistake
+arose entirely from his illness. We were quite thankful when one morning
+he was found dead in his bed. What a blissful waking, after so much
+suffering!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE LUNDUS.
+
+
+The beginning of the year 1851 brought us much sorrow. After my illness
+in November, 1850, we were persuaded by Sir James Brooke to accompany
+him to Penang Hill, where the Government bungalow had been placed at his
+disposal; consequently, after Christmas, we sailed in H.M.S. _Amazon_,
+through the kindness of Captain Troubridge, for Singapore, taking our
+child Harry with us. We had to wait some weeks at Singapore for the
+Rajah, and soon after our arrival our little boy died of diptheria,
+leaving us childless, for we had already lost two infants at Sarawak.
+This grief threw a veil of sadness over the remaining years of our first
+sojourn in the East. Perhaps it urged us to a deeper interest in the
+native people than we might have felt had there been any little ones of
+our own to care for; but those six years "the flowers all died along our
+way," one infant after another being laid in God's acre.
+
+We stayed six weeks amid the lovely scenery and in the cooler air of
+Penang Hill, and returned to Sarawak in May, Admiral Austin giving us a
+passage in H.M.S. _Fury_. The admiral gave me his cabin to sleep in, all
+the gentlemen sleeping in the cuddy. I woke in the night, hearing a
+rushing sound in the air, then, patter, patter, all over the bed. I
+jumped up, and called Frank to bring a light and see what was the
+matter. "Oh," said a voice from the cuddy, "better not: it is only
+cockroaches, and if you saw them you would not go to sleep again." This
+swarm of cockroaches came out several times before daylight. The next
+night I put up a mosquito-net to protect my face and hands from these
+disgusting creatures. When a steamer has been nearly three years in
+these hot latitudes it becomes horribly full of rats and cockroaches. My
+husband, taking a trip in H.M.S. _Contest_, in 1858, woke one morning
+unable to open one eye. Presently he felt a sharp prick, and found a
+large cockroach sitting on his eyelid and biting the corner of his eye.
+They also bite all round the nails of your fingers and toes, unless they
+are closely covered. It must be said that insects are a great discomfort
+at Sarawak. Mosquitoes, and sand-flies, and stinging flies which turn
+your hands into the likeness of boxing-gloves, infest the banks of the
+rivers, and the sea-shore. Flying bugs sometimes scent the air
+unpleasantly, and there are hornets in the woods whose sting is
+dangerous. When we look back upon the happy days we spent in that
+lovely country, these drawbacks are forgotten; the past is always
+beautiful, and shadows, even of sorrow and sickness, only enhance the
+interest of the picture. Sin alone, in ourselves and those about us, can
+make the past hateful, and the great charm of the future is that it is
+untouched by sin. Happy, then, are those who are able to look back on
+the past with smiles of thankfulness, while they stretch out their arms
+hopefully to the future.
+
+Sarawak looked very peaceful on our return; and now began the interest
+of the Dyak missions. From our first arrival at Kuching my husband had
+taken every opportunity of visiting the Dyak tribes, and sometimes a
+chief would come to the town with a number of his people, to pay their
+rice tax, or purchase clothes, tobacco, gongs, gunpowder, whatever the
+bazaar possessed which they valued. They brought with them beeswax,
+damar, honey, or rattans to exchange for those things. On these
+occasions the whole party came up to the mission-house to hear the
+harmonium, see the magic-lantern, and beg presents. At first they would
+ask for arrack, but finding nothing but claret to be had with us, soon
+left off that request. Plates and cups were always valued, and they used
+to say we had _so many_ more than we could possibly want in the pantry,
+that of course we would give them some. To their honour be it said, they
+never stole one, and were invariably refused, for we had not any more
+than we wanted. The Dyaks hung their plates in loops of rattan very
+ingeniously against the walls of their houses; but a plantain-leaf
+folded up is more often used by them in lieu of plates, and they could
+not have a better substitute. I never enjoyed a meal so much as some
+cold rice and sardines eaten off a plantain-leaf in the jungle at Lundu,
+after a long walk to the waterfall. The servant with the provision
+basket had lost his way, and as we sat hungry under the great trees at
+the foot of the fall, a Dyak friend produced a box of sardines and a
+parcel of cold rice, and divided it amongst us. When at last the basket
+of cold chickens arrived we handed them over to the Dyaks, feeling quite
+superior to such civilized food.
+
+The Lundu Dyak chief was a great friend and admirer of Sir James Brooke
+from his first arrival in the country. He and his tribe were the
+determined enemies of the pirates, and with the Balows of the Batang
+Lupar braved the Sarebas and Sakarrans, even when they were most
+powerful. At the pirate fight of 1849 the Lundu chief lost two of his
+sons: they were killed by an ambush set by Lingi the Sarebas chief. Only
+one son, Callon, remained, and he was not his father's favourite. Poor
+old Orang Kaya! it was a terrible trial, and nearly brought him to his
+grave. Some time afterwards, he and Callon were at Sarawak to pay their
+tax. Lingi, who had then submitted to the Rajah, had been in Sarawak for
+some days, professedly to trade, but really to see if he could not take
+Sir James Brooke's head. This was prevented by the watchfulness of the
+Malays, who, suspecting Lingi, never let him get near the Rajah when
+they sat talking after dinner, as was the custom in those days. So Lingi
+went away foiled, and the day they dropped down the river the Lundus
+heard of it. Revenge seemed ready at hand: they had a fast boat, were a
+large party, and brave to a man. They entreated the Rajah to let them
+follow Lingi and take his head--never again would they take a head, only
+Lingi's, the Rajah's enemy and their own. Of course they were refused,
+and it must have been a terrible strain on their affection and fealty to
+the Rajah, not in this instance to follow the traditions of their
+ancestors, and gratify their personal revenge by killing a traitor. But
+they obeyed, and Lingi got safely back to Sarebas, little knowing how
+narrowly he escaped. The old Lundu chief was a Christian before he died.
+He always professed a desire to be of the same religion and brother to
+the white man, but when, after due instruction, his son and grandson
+came to Kuching to be baptized, he was not well enough to accompany
+them, Mr. Gomes promised to baptize him on their return; but when that
+event took place Orang Kaya was dead, gone where, no doubt, the will was
+taken for the deed, as he was a Christian at heart. Mr. Gomes was from
+Bishop's College, Calcutta. Soon after he came to us, in 1852, he went
+to Lundu and remained there until 1867, when his children requiring more
+education than he could give them at a Dyak station, he went to
+Singapore, and accepted the post of missionary priest there.
+
+Mr. Grant was Government resident at Lundu, and the ruler and missionary
+devoted themselves to the improvement of the people. In 1855, when we
+returned to our home after our first visit to England, we received a
+delightful visit from Mr. Gomes and twelve Dyaks, whom he brought to be
+baptized at St. Thomas's Church. Callon's son Langi, and half a dozen
+other boys, lived with Mr. Gomes, and ran after him all day--nice little
+fellows, who fraternized with our boys at the school-house. There were
+also five men, the chief of whom was Bulan (Moon), one of the manangs,
+or witch-doctors, of the tribe. These manangs, being as it were the
+priests of Dyak superstitions, and getting their living by pretended
+cures, interpretations of omens and the voices of birds, were of course
+the natural enemies of truth and enlightenment. Bulan, however, had
+tried to be an honest manang, and finding it impossible had turned with
+all his heart to Christianity. His brother Bugai, also a Christian, was
+a very intelligent person, and became catechist at Lundu.
+
+There was also a very rich old man, Simoulin by name, who was baptized
+at this time. His wife had opposed his conversion with all her might;
+indeed, she declared she would leave him and carry half the property
+with her. Simoulin said quietly, "If she will she must: she is only a
+woman, and her judgment in the matter is not likely to be good."
+Christianity had strong opponents in the women of all the Dyak tribes.
+They held important parts in all the feasts, incantations, and
+superstitions, which could not be called religion, but were based on the
+dread of evil spirits and a desire to propitiate them. The women
+encouraged head-taking by preferring to marry the man who had some of
+those ghastly tokens of his prowess. When Sir James Brooke forbad
+head-taking among the tribes in his dominions, it was the women who
+would row their lovers out of the rivers in their boats, and set them
+down on the sea-coast to find the head of a stranger. When heads were
+brought in, it was the women who took possession of them, decked them
+with flowers, put food into their mouths, sang to them, mocked them, and
+instituted feasts in honour of the slayers. The young Dyak woman works
+hard; she helps in all the labours of sowing, planting out, weeding, and
+reaping the paddy. She beats out the rice in a wooden trough, with a
+long pole, or pestle. She grows the cotton for clothing, dyes and weaves
+it. She carries heavy burdens, and paddles her boat on the river. All
+these are her duties, and in performing them she quickly loses her
+smooth skin, bright eyes, and slender figure. It is only the young girls
+who can boast of any beauty, but the old women are very important
+personages at a seed-time or harvest festival. They dress themselves in
+long garments embroidered with tiny white shells, representing lizards
+and crocodiles. With long wands in their hands, they dance, singing wild
+incantations. They have already prepared the food for the
+feast--chickens roasted in their feathers; cakes of rice, spun like
+vermicelli and fried in cocoa-nut oil; curries, and salads of bitter and
+acid leaves; sticks of small bamboo filled with pulut rice and boiled,
+when it turns to a jelly and is agreeably flavoured with the young
+bamboo. It is the women also who serve out the tuak, a spirit prepared
+from rice and spiced with various ingredients, tobacco being one. The
+men must drink at these feasts; they are very temperate generally, but
+on this occasion they are rather proud of being drunk and boasting the
+next day of a bad headache! The women urge them to drink, but do not
+join in the orgies, and disappear when the intoxicating stage begins. I
+trust that this description belongs only to the past; at any rate, we
+know that in those places where the missionaries have long taught, their
+people follow a more excellent way of rejoicing in the joy of harvest,
+and, after their thanksgiving service in church, pour out their
+offerings of rice before the altar to maintain the services, and
+minister to the sick and needy.
+
+[Illustration: A DYAK GIRL.
+
+_Page_ 74.]
+
+For many years, however, the women were opposed to a religion which
+cleared away the superstitious customs which were the delight of their
+lives, their chief amusement and dissipation, and a means of influencing
+the men. It was not until the year 1864 that Mr. Gomes asked us to visit
+Lundu and welcome a little party of women, the first converts to the
+faith which their fathers and husbands had long professed. This is a
+long digression from the history of the Lundus' visit to Kuching in
+1855, which was at the time a great event. I find the following passage
+in my journal: "Every evening, before late dinner, the Lundus go up to
+Mr. Gomes's room to say their prayers, and sing, or rather chant, their
+hymns. There is something very affecting in this little service--the
+Dyak voices singing of Christ's second coming with His holy angels, and
+rejoicing that He came once before for their salvation; then praying for
+holy, gentle hearts to receive Him. I always feel on these occasions as
+if I heard these precious truths afresh when they are spoken in a tongue
+till lately ignorant of them. Indeed, there can scarcely be a more
+joyful excitement than such passages in the life of a missionary; they
+are worth any sacrifice. After English morning service, Mr. Gomes has
+prayers in church for his Dyaks. He then instructs them in the baptismal
+service. This makes five daily services in church, two English, two
+Chinese, and one Dyak. We clothed all the candidates in a new suit of
+cotton garments with a bright-coloured handkerchief for their heads. It
+would be considered very irreverent for Easterns to uncover their heads
+in church. I taught the school-children to sing 'Veni, Creator Spiritus'
+at this baptism, while the clergy were arranging the candidates and
+sponsors round the font. The font was wreathed with flowers by my
+children. There was quite a full church, for the Chinese Christians all
+came to see the Dyaks baptized, and all the English of the place were
+present. Mr. Gomes baptized, and my husband signed them with the cross.
+They all spoke up bravely in answering to their vows: may God give them
+grace to keep them."
+
+This baptism took place on Whit Sunday. On Thursday of that week, Mr.
+Gomes, his Dyaks, and Frank, went off to Linga for a week to visit Mr.
+Chambers, and Mr. Horsburgh at Banting, that the converts of both tribes
+might become friends. The Balows and Lundus had always been united in
+their efforts against the pirate tribes, and in their fealty to the
+Rajah's Government. On this account they had a right to the services of
+the first missionaries who came from England to teach Dyaks. The visit
+to Banting had another object besides the mutual friendship of the
+converts. A controversy had arisen in the mission about the right word
+to be used in translations for _Jesus_. Isa is the name the Malays use,
+and the Dutch translations of the Bible employ this name; but there
+happened to be a bad Malay man owning the name of Isa, well known to the
+Balows, and Mr. Chambers feared some confusion would arise in the minds
+of converts in applying the same name to our Lord. It was therefore
+necessary to have a meeting of the clergy to decide this and many other
+religious terms to be used in hymns, catechisms, and in general
+teaching, that there might be unity in the mission: it would not do to
+have any divisions in the camp on such a subject. There are fifty miles
+of sea to cross from the Sarawak River to the Batang Lupar, then a long
+pull from the fort at Linga up to Banting. The journey took three nights
+and two days.
+
+The mission-house at Banting is most romantically placed on the crest of
+a hill overhanging the river about three hundred feet, and stands in a
+grove of beautiful fruit-trees. The view from it is enchanting. The
+river branches at the foot of the hill, and each branch seems to vie
+with the other in the tortuousness of its course through the bright
+green paddy-fields. About a mile off rises Mount Lesong[3] with a
+graceful slope, about three thousand feet, and then terminates abruptly
+in a rugged top. The four clergymen who met at Banting looked almost as
+wild as their people--wide shady hats, long staffs, long beards, not a
+shirt among the party, and but one pair of shoes, belonging to my
+husband, who never could walk barefooted. They spent several days
+together, and had much consultation about religious terms. The most
+intelligent of the Dyak Christians were present, as it was necessary,
+not only to choose words they could understand, but such as they could
+easily pronounce. On Trinity Sunday there were several services in the
+large room of the house, for the church was not yet built. The Lingas
+sang their hymns with great energy to one of their own wild strains, but
+when they heard the Lundus' melodious chant they were ashamed to sing
+after them, and begged them to teach them. The Dyaks love music and
+verse. Mr. Gomes and Mr. Chambers wrote them hymns, and the Creed in
+verse, which they readily commit to memory and understand better than
+prose. Pictures are also used in their instruction: a parable or miracle
+is read, then a picture of it produced and explained, the Dyaks
+repeating each sentence after the teacher, to keep their attention.
+
+    [Footnote 3: _Lesong_, mortar, being mortar-shaped.]
+
+The baptized alone join in the Litany and Holy Communion. The afternoon
+was spent in visiting the sick and giving medicine. Several women came
+to the house for instruction, and seemed to take great interest in Mr.
+Chambers, teaching; but it was not until Mr. Chambers was married that
+any women were baptized. At breakfast the next morning came an old
+chief, called Tongkat Langit--the Staff of Heaven. His son Lingire was
+one of the most pleasing converts, and Tongkat was wavering--had not
+leisure at present! The necessity of forswearing the practise of
+head-taking deters the old men from becoming Christians: they fear to
+lose influence with their tribe. The little party then fixed upon the
+spot where the church should be built, a permanent bilian chancel to
+which a nave could be added when the additional room was required.
+Twenty-five pounds from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
+was all the money then in hand to begin with; but very soon more was
+collected, and when I visited Banting in 1857 there was a lovely little
+church standing on the hill overlooking the village, and surrounded by
+beautiful trees. The walk to it from the mission-house was just like a
+gentleman's park, the green sward and groups of trees with lovely peeps
+of hill and valleys and winding streams between. Again in 1864 we went
+to Banting, that the Bishop might consecrate the church. The nave was
+then built. Every stick in the church was bilian. The white ants walked
+in as soon as the workmen left. In one night they carried their covered
+ways all over the inside of the roof, the walls, the beams, and rafters;
+and finding nothing they could bite, they walked out again, leaving
+their traces plainly marked. Since then a coloured-glass window,
+representing our Lord's Resurrection, has been added at the east end of
+the church; and, what is better far, the church is full of Dyak
+Christians every Sunday, and from this living Church many branches have
+been planted, so that the Banting Mission now includes seven stations,
+where there are school-churches built by the natives themselves, and
+many hundreds of Christian worshippers.
+
+In 1854, six years having passed away since a little band of Sir James
+Brooke's friends founded the Borneo Church Mission, the funds of the
+Society came to an end; and the mission would have collapsed also, had
+not the venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
+Parts consented to become responsible for it. As the missionaries and
+catechists increased in number, and fresh stations were added to the
+church, they opened their arms wider to receive them, until they set
+apart £3000 a year for Borneo. Under their fostering care the mission
+flourished, as it could not have done under the management of any
+private society.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+A BOAT JOURNEY.
+
+
+Throughout the year 1852 and part of '53 my husband was much tried with
+rheumatism in his knee, which made him quite lame, though he would
+hobble to church on crutches, and to hospital to look after his poor
+patients. Meanwhile he taught the young missionaries something of the
+art of healing, dressing wounds and broken bones, and physicking the
+ailments to which natives are most subject--fever, dysentery, etc. It
+was quite necessary they should know something of these subjects before
+they could be any use in the jungle. The first question the Dyaks asked,
+if told a new missionary was coming, would always be, "Is he clever at
+physic?" Medicines and simple remedies were always furnished to every
+mission-station, and the Rajah supplied all the stores that were needed
+for Kuching or elsewhere. We had taken a good stock with us at first,
+and all sorts of surgical instruments, but the Government kept it
+replenished.
+
+The hospital was set up when the great influx of Chinese brought numbers
+of sick people to the place. A long shed was built, and twenty beds
+immediately filled; but the next day, one of the patients having died,
+all the others who could move ran away. They have so great a horror of a
+dead body that they never suffered any one to die in their houses if
+they could help it, but built a little shed for the sick man, and
+visited him twice a day with food and opium while life lasted. A
+separate room was therefore added for the dead. This hospital furnished
+good instruction to the missionaries. It was also their duty to teach
+the sick every day, and the result was that several Chinese were
+baptized on their recovery. This shed was afterwards exchanged for a
+long room above the fort, which was both more airy and substantial. A
+dispensary was attached to it.
+
+When Mr. Chambers came from England and was able to undertake the duties
+at Kuching, my husband accompanied Captain Brooke and some of the
+Government officers in a tour up the Batang Lupar and Rejang Rivers. He
+was very lame at the time, but had no walking to do, only now and then
+to get out of his large boat and scramble up into a Dyak house. How he
+managed it under the circumstances I never could imagine, for the
+staircase from the water to a high Dyak house is only the trunk of a
+tree with a few notches in it, and, at low tide, a case of slippery mud;
+this, placed at a steep angle, without any rail, is not easy climbing
+for any one, but a stiff knee made it still more difficult.
+
+The object of the expedition was to make peace between certain Dyak
+tribes who had long been enemies, and to build a fort on the Rejang
+River, similar to Mr. Brereton's fort at Sakarran, and for the same
+purpose. An Englishman named Steele was to occupy the fort with some
+Malays. Captain Brooke took the _Jolly Bachelor_ gunboat, and Frank
+moved into it to cross the sea from the mouth of the Sarawak to the
+Linga River, for the waves were high and wetted the smaller boats. When
+they reached the Linga River, he was sitting one Sunday night on the
+boom of the _Jolly_, enjoying the moonlight, and watching the swift rush
+of the tide, which is very rapid in that river. Suddenly, the piece of
+wood he was trusting to broke, and he was precipitated over the stern.
+Had he fallen into the water he must have been dragged under the vessel
+by the tide and drowned, but, through God's mercy, the ship's boat
+(_Dingy_), which only a few minutes before was the whole length of its
+painter away from the _Jolly_, swept up to it from the swing of the
+vessel, and, as he fell, he caught hold of the boat and pulled himself
+into it, escaping with only a bruise, when a watery bed, or the jaws of
+an alligator or shark, might have received him. A shark had been
+swimming round the gun-boat during Divine service that day, and an
+alligator had taken a man only the day before from a boat close by. My
+dear husband's comment on this narrow escape is, "Praise the Lord, O my
+soul, and forget not all His benefits; who redeemeth thy life from
+destruction, and crowneth thee with mercy and lovingkindness."
+
+The fleet waited for some days in the Linga River, while the Balow Dyaks
+fetched the jars which they were to exchange with the Sakarrans as a
+pledge of peace. These jars, of which every Dyak tribe possessed some,
+are of unknown antiquity. There is nothing very particular in their
+appearance. They are brown in colour, have handles at the sides, and
+sometimes figures of dragons on them. They vary in value, but though the
+Chinese have tried to imitate them, hoping to sell them to the Dyaks,
+they have never deceived them: they detect a difference where no
+European or Chinese eye can, and at once pronounce the Chinese jars of
+no value. Yet they will not sell their own rusas or tajows for any
+money, and they fancy that some of them have the property of keeping
+water always sweet. If a Dyak tribe offends the law, Government fines
+them so many jars, which are brought to Kuching and kept, or returned on
+their good behaviour. This reminds me of the story of a little Dyak boy
+who was taken prisoner in 1849. His father was killed, and the boy,
+about eight years old, was brought to the Rajah. For some days the child
+seemed quite happy, then he begged to speak to "Tuan Rajah," and told
+him confidentially that he knew a place in the jungle where some
+valuable tajows were secreted, and if he would land him with some
+Malays or the bank of the river, he would point out the place. The Rajah
+believed the child, and the jars were found, and taken on board the
+boat. Then the little boy went again to the Rajah, and bursting into
+tears, said, "I have given you the riches of my tribe; in return give me
+my liberty. Set me down in the jungle path, give me some food, and in
+two days I shall reach my home and my mother." So the child was laden
+with all he took a fancy to--a china cup, a glass tumbler, and a gay
+sarong (waist-cloth), and as much food as he could carry--and we heard
+afterwards that he rejoined his friends in safety.
+
+I must now return to my husband's journal. He says: "While at breakfast
+this morning, one of the men told us he had seen the people with tails,
+of whom we have often heard.[4] They live fifteen days up a river, in
+the interior of the Bruni country. It is a large river, but in some
+places runs through caverns, where they can only pass on small rafts. He
+was sent there by Pangeran Mumeim to get goats, as these tailed gentry
+keep a great many of them. He says their tails are as long as the two
+joints of the middle finger, fleshy and stiff. They must be very
+inconvenient, for they are obliged to sit on logs of wood made on
+purpose, or to make a hole in the earth, to accommodate their tails
+before they can sit down. These people do not eat rice, but sago made
+into cakes and baked in a pot. In their country, he said, was a great
+stone fort, with nine large iron guns, of which the people can give no
+account, not knowing when or by whom it was built.
+
+    [Footnote 4: This legend, though commonly reported, has never
+    been proved.]
+
+"After dinner, when the men sit round me and smoke my cigars, they soon
+enter into conversation. We spoke a good deal to-day on the subject of
+religion, the difference between Christianity and Mahometanism, and,
+above all, the absurdity of their repeating the Koran, like so many
+parrots, without understanding one word of what they say; and the
+irreverence of addressing God in words they do not understand, so that
+their hearts can take no part in their prayers. They agreed that it
+would be better to learn God's law, instead of trusting merely to their
+hadjis, who are often as ignorant as themselves. A respectable old Bruni
+man, speaking of different races of men of various colours, said he had
+visited a tribe of white people, who lived on a high hill in the
+interior of the country; they were very white, and the women beautiful,
+with light hair. The men dress like Dyaks, but the women wear a long
+black robe, tight at the waist, and puffed out on the shoulders. The
+tradition of their origin, he said, was as follows: A long, long time
+ago, an old man who lived on this mountain lost himself in the jungle at
+its foot, and at night, being tired, and afraid of snakes and the evil
+spirits of the wood, he climbed into a tree and fell asleep. He was woke
+by a noise of ravishing music, the sweetest gongs and chanangs mingling
+with voices over his head. The music came nearer and nearer to the
+place where he was, until he heard the sweet voices under the tree, and,
+looking down, beheld a large clear fountain opened, and seven beautiful
+females bathing. They were all of different sizes, like the fingers on a
+man's hand, and they sung as they sported in the water. The old man
+watched them for some time, and thought how much he should like one of
+them as a wife for his only son; but as he was afraid of descending
+among them, he made a noose with a long piece of rattan, lowered it
+gently, and slipping it over one of them, drew her up into the tree. She
+cried out, and they all disappeared with a whirring noise. The girl he
+caught was very young, and she cried sadly because she had no clothes
+on; so he rolled her in a chawat (long sash), and immediately heard the
+gongs at his own house, which he had thought was a long way off. He took
+the child home, and she was brought up by his wife, until she was old
+enough to marry their son. She was very good and sweet-tempered, and
+everybody loved her. In course of time she had a son, as white as
+herself. One day her husband was in a violent rage and beat her. She
+implored him not to make her cry, or she should be taken away from him
+and her child. But he did not heed, and at last pulled her jacket off to
+beat her. Immediately another jacket was dropped with a great noise from
+the sky, upon the house. She put it on, and vanished upwards, leaving
+her son, who was the ancestor of the present tribe."
+
+Who would have thought of a Dyak Undine?
+
+While the Malay was telling this story, the boat was waiting in a
+sheltered nook of the Sakarran River for the bore to pass, before the
+crew dare venture up to the fort. The bore is a great wave, twelve feet
+high, which rushes up with the tide, and is succeeded by two smaller
+waves. It is very dangerous to boats; but happily the natives know where
+to hide while it sweeps past.
+
+When they reached Sakarran Fort it took several days to hear all the
+claims the Lingas and Sakarrans had against each other. Six years
+before, the Rajah had persuaded them to make peace, but they had broken
+it the same day, and laid the blame upon one another. At last matters
+were arranged, and a platform being made under a wide-spreading
+banyan-tree, the chiefs sat round; and Captain Brooke made them a
+speech, describing the evils of piracy and war, and the determination of
+the Rajah that his subjects should live at peace with one another.
+
+"He then presented each chief with a jar, a spear, and a Sarawak flag,
+and desired them to use the flag in their boats for the purposes of
+trade. Nothing could be more picturesque than the scene. The surface of
+the water was dotted over with the long serpent-like bangkongs, gaily
+painted and adorned with flags and streamers of many colours, which
+looked all the brighter against the solemn jungle background. Then
+Gassim and Gila Brani (madly brave), on the part of the Sakarrans, and
+Tongkat Langit (Staff of Heaven), the Linga chief, joined hands; and
+each tribe killed a pig with great ceremony, and inspected the entrails
+to see if the peace was good. Then they feasted and rejoiced together.
+This ended, they proceeded up the Rejang River in the boats, and paddled
+for four days, from twenty-five to thirty miles a day, until they came
+to the Kenowit, on the banks of which the fort was to be built."
+
+The Rejang is a glorious river. It is not visited by a bore, and eighty
+miles from the sea it is half a mile broad, and deep to the banks. The
+flowers and fruits which grow there are a continual surprise and
+pleasure--but how shall I describe the flowers of those great
+woods?--not only up the Rejang, but everywhere in the old jungle. They
+seldom grow on the ground, though you may sometimes come upon a huge bed
+of ground orchids, but mostly climb up the trees, and hang in festoons
+from the branches. One plant, the Ixora, for instance, propagating
+itself undisturbed, will become a garden itself, trailing its red or
+orange blossoms from bough to bough till the forest glows with colour.
+
+The Rhododendron, growing in the forks of the great branches, takes
+possession of the tall trees, making them blush all over with delicate
+pinks and lilacs, or deepest rose clusters. Then the orchideous plants
+fix themselves in the branches, and send out long sprays of blossom of
+many colours and sweetest perfume. Here the voice of the Burong boya
+(crocodile-bird) may be heard, singing like an English thrush. He shakes
+his wings as he sings, and the Malays say that from time immemorial he
+has owed a large sum of money to the crocodile, who comes every year to
+ask payment; then the bird, perched on a high bough out of reach of the
+monster, sings, "How can I pay? I have nothing but my feathers, nothing
+but my feathers!" So the crocodile goes away till next year. There are
+not many singing birds in Borneo besides this thrush. The soft voices of
+many doves and pigeons may always be heard, and often the curious
+creaking noise made by the wings of rhinoceros hornbills as they fly
+past. More musical is the voice of the Wawa monkey, a bubbling like
+water running out of a narrow-necked bottle, always to be heard at early
+dawn, and the sweetest of alarums. A dead stillness reigns in the jungle
+by day, but at sunset every leaf almost becomes instinct with life. You
+might almost fancy yourself beset by Gideon's army, when all the lamps
+in the pitchers rattled and broke, and every man blew his trumpet into
+your ear. It is an astounding noise certainly, and difficult to believe
+that so many pipes and rattles, whirring machines and trumpets, belong
+to good-sized beetles or flies, singing their evening song to the
+setting sun. As the light dies away all becomes still again, unless any
+marshy ground shelters frogs. But to hear all this you must go to the
+old jungle, where the tall trees stand near together and shut out the
+light of day, and almost the air, for there is a painful sense of
+suffocation in the dense wood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CONTINUATION OF THE TRIP TO REJANG.
+
+
+After two days' paddling from the mouth of the Rejang, the boats arrived
+at Sibou, where there is a manufactory for nepa salt. The nepa palm
+grows down to the edge of the banks, which are washed by a salt tide,
+and furnishes the Dyak with many necessaries.
+
+The leaves make the thatch to cover the roofs of the houses, or shelter
+over their boats. Neatly fastened together with split rattans, they form
+the walls of the house. From the juice of the tree they make a fermented
+drink something like sweet beer, also brown sugar. The young shoots are
+eaten in curries and salads. The fruit is salted or pickled. When they
+have got all these good things out of it, they burn the stem of the palm
+with some of the leaves, and wash the burnt ashes in water. This water
+is then boiled until it is evaporated, and some black salt remains at
+the bottom of the pot. It tastes bitter as well as salt; but the Dyaks
+prefer it to common salt, and if you ask why, they say, "It is a fat
+salt." I must now return to my husband's journal. "Arrived at Kenowit. A
+tribe of Milanows have been induced to settle here lately by the Rajah.
+Within the last few weeks they have built two long and substantial
+houses, raised thirty feet from the ground on trunks of trees, some two
+feet in diameter. There are in all sixty doors, or families. The tribe
+furnishes three hundred fighting men, and numbers from fifteen hundred
+to two thousand.
+
+"The bachelors, as with the Dyaks, have a separate dwelling.
+
+"Tanee's tribe, who are returning to Sibou on the Rajah's promise to
+build a fort at Kenowit, are of the same tribe, and number about three
+hundred men. They speak the Milanow language, and have the same customs
+of burial. The men and some of the women are tattooed in the most
+grotesque patterns. When you look at them closely the invention
+displayed is truly remarkable; but at a distance they give a dingy,
+dusky appearance to the men, as if they were daubed with an inky sponge.
+Nature having denied them beards, they tattoo curly locks along their
+faces, always bordered by a vandyke fringe, which must task their utmost
+ingenuity. Tanee, who has followed us with some of his warriors, is the
+very exquisite of a Kenowit. He is made like a Hercules, and is proud of
+showing his strength and agility. He piques himself upon having the
+best sword, of fine Kayan make and native metal, and the strongest arm
+in his tribe. He sits most of the day sharpening one or another of these
+swords, feeling and looking along its edge to see that the weapon is in
+perfect order: then, to prove it, he seeks for a suitable block of wood,
+as thick as his arm, severs it at a blow, gives a yell, and with a grin
+of delight returns the weapon to its sheath. His jacket is of scarlet
+satin; his long hair is confined by a gold-embroidered handkerchief; his
+chawat is of fine white cloth, very long, and richly embroidered--the
+ends hang down to his knees, he wears behind an apron of panther's skin,
+trimmed with red cloth and alligator's teeth, and other charms; this
+hangs from his loins to his knees, and always affords him a dry seat.
+Tanee's boat is long, made out of one tree, like our river canoes, but
+much lighter and faster. His cabin is a raised platform in the centre of
+the boat, covered with a mat, and hung all round with weapons and
+trophies of war--Kyan fighting-coats of bear and buffalo hides, having
+head-pieces adorned with beads or shells, shields and spears all gaily
+decked with Argus' feathers, or human hair dyed red.
+
+"On Sunday we moved from the boats into Palabun's house, and settled
+ourselves in part of the verandah. After breakfast I doctored the sick,
+and then we had the morning service, much to the surprise of the
+natives, who, however, did not disturb us. They sit round us all day,
+hearing and asking us questions.... Meanwhile the seven hundred men who
+came in the flotilla of twenty boats, were busy building the fort. First
+they pulled down a temporary fort already set up by the Kenowits, and
+then cut wood to erect a substantial building. Four guns were mounted on
+the parapet, and there was a house inside for the Malay commandant, and
+a powder magazine. All the chiefs near Kenowit were assembled when the
+fort was finished, and had the same kind of address made them as at
+Sakarran, praising the benefits of peaceful trade instead of the
+miseries of wasteful war. They all listened with respect. That same
+afternoon, dismal howlings issued from Palabun's house. His brother, who
+had left him two years ago with a party of fourteen, to visit a friendly
+tribe at a distance, had been treacherously murdered. He and his party
+had been kindly received by their friends, and they had all gone out
+together on the war-path to seek heads. It is supposed that when they
+met no one, the hosts had turned on their visitors and taken their
+heads, rather than return home without any. Palabun vowed vengeance, and
+the whole tribe go into mourning for three months." (Bishop's Journal.)
+
+A Dyak mourning is not a becoming black costume, made "cheerful," as the
+dressmakers say, by jet ornaments and bugle trimmings. It consists in
+the abandonment of all ornament and their usual clothing, and the
+substitution of a kind of a brown cloth made of the inside bark of
+trees, which must be as rough and uncomfortable as it is ugly. These
+people, being Milanows, have peculiar burial customs. They lay the dead
+in a boat, with all his property and belongings, and send it out to sea;
+for they imagine that in some way a man's possessions may be of use to
+him in another world, if no one claims them on earth.
+
+"In this case there was no corpse to bury. The clothes were so disposed
+on the bier as to represent a figure, and laid beside it were handsome
+gold cloths and ornaments, gold buttons, krises,[5] and breastplates,
+and weapons of Javanese manufacture, representing some hundreds of
+dollars. There were also gongs and two brass guns. Of course the fate of
+such boat-loads, sent adrift in a tidal river, is generally to be
+capsized and lost in the water. But if Malays encounter them they do not
+hesitate to appropriate the effects. Palabun knew this, so he did not
+send his brother's boat away until our fleet had departed." (Bishop's
+Journal.)
+
+    [Footnote 5: A kris is a Malay dagger.]
+
+I remember our once meeting one of these boats. It had been caught by
+branches from the bank, and swayed idly to and fro in the stream. We
+could only see a heap of coloured clothes inside it, but there was a
+weird, ghastly look about the boat which made us shudder. An unburied
+corpse, left to the winds and waves, without a prayer or a blessing! how
+could it be otherwise? Even if we could delude ourselves into fancying
+the Dyaks happy during their lives without Christianity, there can be no
+doubt of their being miserable when death comes. They all believe dimly
+in a future state, but their dread of spirits is so great that they can
+have no ideas of happiness unconnected with their bodies. "Having no
+hope, and without God in the world," describes the mental state of a
+heathen Dyak. In 1856, we were living for a few weeks on a hill called
+Peninjauh, some miles from Kuching, where the Rajah had built a cottage
+as a sanitarium after illness. The cool freshness of the mountain air,
+and the glorious view from See-afar Cottage, were indeed conducive to
+health. On the hillsides lived several villages of Land Dyaks, and I had
+a woman as nurse to my baby who belonged to one of these villages. The
+cholera was in the country at that time, and three men had died of the
+Sebumban Dyaks. Every night the most mournful wailing arose above the
+trees--a sad sound indeed, rising and falling on the wind as the friends
+of the dead walked all through the jungle paths near their homes, now
+near to our cottage, now far off. One night I found my little ayah
+seated in the nursery when she ought to have been in the cook-house
+getting her supper. "What is the matter, Nina? Are you ill, that you are
+eating no supper?" "No, I am not ill, but I dare not go to the
+cook-house to-night." "Why?" "I fear to meet the spirits who are abroad
+to-night in the jungle." "The spirits of the dead men?" "No, the spirits
+who come to fetch them." After three days the bodies of these Dyaks were
+burnt, for this was the custom of the Sebumbans. The dead man is laid
+on a pile of wood, and they all sit round watching. Nina said, that when
+the fire has burnt some time the dead man sits up for a moment,
+whereupon they all burst into renewed waitings of sorrow and farewell. I
+am told that the heat swelling the sinews of the dead body may cause
+this curious phenomenon; but could there be a more mournful, hopeless
+story of death?
+
+It is a relief to return to the party on the Rejang River. They were
+much entertained one day with a war-dance between two warriors, which
+was a graphic pantomime of their customs. "The two men appeared fully
+armed, and were supposed to be each alone on the war-path, looking out
+for a head. They moved to the beat of native drums, and seemed to be
+going through all the motions of looking out for an enemy, pulling out
+the ranjows (sharp pieces of cane stuck in the earth, point upwards, to
+lame an enemy). At length they descried one another, danced defiance,
+and, flourishing swords and shields, commenced the attack. The
+nimbleness with which they parried every stroke of the sword, and
+covered their bodies with their shields, was remarkable. In real combat,
+to strike the shield is certain death, because the sword sticks in the
+wood and cannot be withdrawn in time to prevent the other man from using
+his sword. After a time, one of the combatants fell wounded, and covered
+his body with his shield. The other danced round him triumphantly, and
+with one blow pretended to cut off his head; then, head in hand, he
+capered with the wildest gestures, expressive of the very ecstasy of
+savage delight But, on looking at his trophy closely, he recognized the
+features of a friend, and, smitten with remorse, he replaced the head
+with much solicitude. Then, moving with a slow, measured tread, he wept,
+and with many sighs of grief adjusted the head with much care, caught
+rain in his shield and poured it over the body; then rubbed and shook
+the limbs, which by degrees became alive by his mesmeric-like passings
+and chafings from the feet upwards. Each limb as it revived beat time to
+the music, first faintly, then with more vigour, till it came to the
+head; and when that nodded satisfactorily, and the whole body of his
+friend was in motion, he gave him a few extra shakes, lifted him on his
+legs, and the scene concluded by their dancing merrily together."
+(Bishop's Journal.)
+
+Captain Brooke and my husband were a month away on this expedition. They
+would have liked to pay a visit to Kum Nepa, a Kyan chief, who lived
+much farther up the river,--six days in a fast Kyan boat, said the
+Dyaks, ten days in the boats our friends had with them. But Kum Nepa had
+just lost two children from small-pox, and, according to their custom,
+he and all his tribe had left their houses and taken to the jungle. The
+Dyaks dread small-pox to such a degree that, when it appears, they
+neglect all their usual occupation. The seed is left unsown, the paddy
+unreaped; they leave the sick to die untended, and support themselves
+in the jungle upon wild fruits and roots, until the scourge has passed
+away.
+
+From the time we lived at Sarawak a continual effort was made to
+introduce vaccination. It was difficult to get lymph in good order at so
+distant a place; the sea voyage often rendered it useless. The other
+difficulty was made by the Malays, who inoculated for small-pox; and, as
+they charged the Dyaks a rupee a head for inoculating them, made it
+answer pecuniarily. Some who were adepts in the art went about the
+country inoculating until they caused quite an epidemic of small-pox.
+Now, I believe, the Dyaks have learnt from experience the superior
+advantages of vaccination, and, by a late _Sarawak Gazette_, I gather
+that it is one of the duties of a Resident among the tribes up country
+to vaccinate his people as well as to judge them wisely.
+
+When the guns were mounted at the fort, and a garrison of seventy men,
+under Abong Duraup, settled there to guard it, the fleet left the Rejang
+to return to Sarawak. Captain Brooke had persuaded Palabun to give up
+his ideas of retaliation for his brother's death, on condition that the
+Kapuas people who killed him should give satisfaction. The last
+afternoon was devoted to doctoring the sick and giving them a stock of
+remedies. One poor man had nearly recovered his eyesight during the week
+he had been under treatment. So the Sarawak flag was hoisted at the fort
+and saluted, and after some good advice and renewed promises from the
+Sakarrans and Kenowits, the boats pulled away to the _Jolly Bachelor_,
+which had been left at the Serikei River; and a few days afterwards we
+heard gongs and boat music on the river, and my servant Quangho running
+into my room called out, "Our Tuan is coming," so we all went down to
+the stone wharf and welcomed them home. The lameness which had so long
+hindered my husband from moving about, did not yield to any remedies we
+applied, and at last we went to Singapore for medical advice. The
+doctors there sent their patient to China for a cold season, and he
+spent six weeks at Hongkong with the Bishop of Victoria, and at Canton
+with other friends, to the advantage of his knee. Afterwards we went
+together to Malacca, where there was a hot spring bubbling up in a
+field. Into this spring we put a large tub; and there, in the early
+morning, Frank used to sit, with no neighbours but the snipe feeding in
+the field, and, as he had his gun by his side, he occasionally shot some
+game for breakfast.
+
+In 1853 we went home. My health was very much broken, and my husband was
+called to England by the necessary transfer of the mission from the
+Borneo Mission Society, whose funds came to an end, to the venerable
+Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, who kindly adopted us. We
+arrived at Southampton one grey November day. I wondered to see the sky
+so near the earth, and the trees almost like shrubs in height compared
+to our Eastern forests. But it was sweet to hear the children speaking
+English in the streets, and their fair rosy faces were refreshing
+indeed. I never thought our school-children plain when we were at
+Sarawak, but the contrast was certainly very great when we looked about
+us in England.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+RETURN TO SARAWAK.
+
+
+In 1854, after eighteen months' stay in England, during which time my
+husband worked as deputation for the Society for the Propagation of the
+Gospel, we returned to Sarawak, _via_ Calcutta, in one of Green's
+sailing vessels, for we were too large a party to afford the overland
+route.
+
+Besides ourselves and our baby, we had two young ladies who wished to
+try and teach the Malay women in their homes, and to help with the
+day-scholars at the mission-house. Only one of these ladies reached
+Sarawak; the other left us at Calcutta, and married there eventually.
+The Rev. J. Grayling and Mr. Owen, a schoolmaster, also went with us,
+and a young friend who was put under my charge, and lived with us for
+some years on account of his health.
+
+For nurse I had an old Malay woman who had taken some children to
+England from Singapore, and wanted to return. She was a capital sailor,
+and always able to carry Mab about however rough the sea was. Nothing
+could exceed her devotion to the child, but she had contracted a bad
+habit of always sharing the sailor's grog by day, and requiring a
+tumbler of hot gin and water before she went to bed. This was a great
+trouble to me, but I never saw her tipsy till we were staying at the
+Bishop's palace at Calcutta. Ayah, having been in the bazaar buying
+presents for her children, was brought back lying senseless in a
+palanquin. The Bishop, who was in the hall when the bearers set the
+palanquin down, exclaimed, "Oh! that woman has cholera! take her away."
+
+However, she was kindly cared for by the servants, and appeared the next
+day without any shame, bringing "a toy for missy." All my lecture was
+quite thrown away--she "had only taken a glass of grog in the bazaar,
+and they had put bang into it, so of course it made her insensible; but
+it was no fault of hers." This curious old woman was a Mahometan,
+therefore her tipsiness was inexcusable. She practised the habit of
+alms-giving, however, not only with her own money but mine. She used to
+say I did nothing in that way for the salvation of my soul, and, as she
+loved me, she must do it for me. I remember seeing a beggar-woman with
+twin babies, who used to sit in the streets of Kensington with Mab's
+bonnets on the babies' heads. Ayah gave them for my sake. Indeed, she
+was notorious in Kensington, because she could not resist treating boys
+to ginger-beer, and I sometimes had the mortification of seeing Ayah
+with a small crowd at her heels, and my baby kissing her little hands to
+them as Ayah desired her.
+
+We only spent a week in Calcutta. The object of our going there was that
+the Bishop, in conjunction with Bishop Dealtry of Madras, and Bishop
+Smith of Victoria, should consecrate my husband Bishop of Labuan; but
+the Bishops had not reached Calcutta, and their arrival was uncertain.
+We were anxious to get to Sarawak, and could not wait for them; so it
+was decided that Frank should return by himself in the autumn, and we
+should proceed as quickly as we could. Sad news reached us from Kuching.
+Our dear friend Willie Brereton, who had done so much for the Sakarran
+Dyaks, was dead of dysentery. There was no medical man when my husband
+was away.
+
+Our Rajah had been very dangerously ill of small-pox, and had only a
+Malay doctor, who was devoted but ignorant. Happily Mr. Horsburgh, with
+medical books to aid him, came to the rescue in time, but the return of
+the physician of soul and body was much desired. I see, by my journal,
+that after a weary passage of twenty-four days in a sailing vessel from
+Singapore, we reached Sarawak on the 25th of April. Mr. Horsburgh came
+to fetch us from the mouth of the river in the Siam boat, a long boat
+with a house in it, which the Rajah brought with him from Siam after his
+embassy to that country. Mr. Horsburgh told us that all the chief
+Government officers were away, looking for Lanun pirates on the coast;
+but we had plenty of kind greetings from the Christian Chinese, who came
+about us in the bazaar, and all the school-children came running down
+the hill with Mrs. Stahl, who almost screamed for joy at our return. The
+house looked nicer than ever, for the trees had grown up about it, and I
+felt most vividly that this was our chosen home, endeared to us by many
+sorrows, but the place where we had received much blessing from God, and
+where our work lay, and perhaps some day its reward, in the Church
+gathered from the heathen into Christ's fold. We were not long alone;
+the next day Mr. Chambers arrived from Banting with a party of seven
+baptized Dyaks.
+
+We had brought all sorts of beautiful things from England for the
+Church. A carpet to lay before the altar, a new altar-cloth, also
+painted shields for the roof. Our friends in England had furnished us
+with a box of clothes for the Dyaks, cotton trousers and jackets, and
+gay handkerchiefs for their heads. We always dressed the Christians for
+baptism--it was a sign of the new life they professed at the font; but
+we did not expect them to wear clothes generally, except their own
+chawats, nor was it to be desired until they knew how to wash them. We
+had also brought a beautiful magic lantern with a dissolving-view
+apparatus for our people's amusement and instruction, for some of the
+slides were painted by Miss Rigaud to illustrate the life of our Lord,
+and there were many astronomical slides also. All these treasures
+brought us numerous visitors. The Chinese Christians were all invited to
+a feast at our house, after which the magic lantern was exhibited, and
+we were glad to find that our school-children could explain all the
+Scripture slides quite correctly.
+
+Mr. Horsburgh accompanied Mr. Chambers to Banting that day, to assist
+him in his work for the Balow Dyaks; and soon after, Mr. Gomes arrived
+from Lundu with a large party of men and boys; but I have already
+described their visit. My dear husband went off to Calcutta again in
+September, and was consecrated Bishop of Labuan on St. Luke's Day,
+October 18, 1855. Sir James Brooke added Sarawak to his diocese and
+title on his return; indeed, the small island of Labuan, no larger than
+the Isle of Wight, was only the English title to a bishopric which was
+then almost entirely a missionary one. The Straits Settlements,
+including Singapore, Penang, and Malacca, were then under the Government
+of India, and Labuan was the only spot of land under the immediate
+control of the Colonial Office. The Bishop of Calcutta would, from the
+first, have been glad to part with so distant a portion of his then
+unwieldy diocese, but it could not at that time be effected. As soon as
+the Straits Settlements were passed over to the Queen's Government, the
+Bishop of Labuan became virtually the Bishop of the Straits, and, even
+long before that, performed all episcopal functions in those
+settlements; but the title has only lately been altered.
+
+As I was not present at my husband's consecration, I cannot do better
+than transcribe good Bishop Wilson's letter to the venerable society
+(S.P.G.), describing the ceremony.
+
+    Calcutta, Bishop's Palace, October 22, 1855.
+
+    Thank God, the consecration took place with complete success on
+    Thursday, October 18th, St. Luke's Day. The Bishop elect arrived
+    some days before, the Bishop of Victoria on the 16th, and Bishop
+    Dealtry (of Madras) on the 17th. The crowded cathedral marked
+    the interest which was excited. We sent out two hundred printed
+    invitations to gentry, besides requesting the clergy to attend
+    in their robes. There were more than eight hundred jammed into
+    the cathedral, and hundreds could not gain admittance. The
+    clergy were thirty. After morning prayer the assistant bishops
+    conducted the elect Bishop to the vestry, where, having attired
+    himself in his rochet, he was presented to me when seated near
+    the Communion table. Her Majesty's mandate was then read, and
+    the commission of his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury. The
+    several oaths were next duly administered by the registrar of
+    the diocese. The Litany was devoutly read by the Bishop of
+    Madras, and afterwards the examination of the candidate took
+    place. I should have said that the sermon followed the Nicene
+    Creed. It was by the Bishop of Madras, the text being taken from
+    2 Tim. i. 6, 7:--
+
+        "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the
+        gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.
+        For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power,
+        and of love, and of a sound mind."
+
+    The Bishop has consented at my request to print the discourse,
+    which I shall have the pleasure of sending copies of for the
+    Archbishop and yourself, I was gratified at observing that the
+    text is taken from the solemn words used at the very act itself
+    of consecration. After the examination, the Bishop returned to
+    the vestry to put on the rest of the episcopal dress; and as the
+    vestry in the cathedral is at the west end of the building, he
+    had to pass down the one hundred and twenty feet conducting to
+    it, with the eyes and hearts of the congregation fixed upon him
+    with wonder and pleasure. On his return, the "Veni, Creator
+    Spiritus" was sung, each alternate line being answered by the
+    Bishops and clergy, with the accompaniment of our fine organ.
+    After the appointed prayers, which are directed to follow this
+    hymn, the imposition of hands took place, and the words of the
+    consecration pronounced by myself as presiding metropolitan. The
+    Bible was next placed in his hands, with the admirable
+    exhortation prescribed--an exhortation which I think
+    incomparable and almost inspired, as indeed the whole service
+    is. The collection at the offertory was made for the Sarawak
+    Mission, and above five hundred C. rupees collected. The whole
+    service concluded with the Holy Communion of the body and blood
+    of Christ.
+
+    The new Bishop preached at St. Thomas's Church on Sunday, the
+    21st, for his mission; and a single gentleman contributed one
+    thousand C. rupees. He will preach at the cathedral on the 28th,
+    when something more will be gathered. The Bishop of Madras has
+    presented the four hundred rupees of his voyage expenses, from
+    Madras to Calcutta and back, to the same blessed cause. I have
+    had three breakfast parties (for I don't give dinners) to meet
+    the Bishop, of about forty each, on the day after the
+    consecration, and on Saturday, and this morning, and the
+    addresses made by Bishops Dealtry and Smith were most warmly
+    received. Thus has this great occasion passed off--the first
+    consecration, I believe, that has ever taken place out of
+    England since the glorious Reformation, and perhaps the first
+    missionary Bishop sent out by our Church; unless the Bishop of
+    Mauritius may be considered as having preceded him.
+
+    It was, indeed, a singular event that four Protestant Bishops
+    should meet in the heart of heathen India, amidst one hundred
+    and fifty millions of idolaters and worshippers of the false
+    Prophet.
+
+    God be praised for this completion of episcopal functions in
+    India!
+
+    DANIEL CALCUTTA.
+
+I must add to this graphic letter a note which the venerable Bishop
+wrote to my husband, November 6th of the same year.
+
+    Tennasarim, Bishop's Cabin.
+
+    MY BELOVED REV. BISHOP OF LABUAN,
+
+    Whether to write to you by the pilot or not I can hardly tell.
+    However, I am so anxious for your beginning well at Singapore
+    and Sarawak, and so responsible also from having consecrated you
+    to the Lord, that I must write. I have taken the liberty with
+    you which Mr. Cecil took with me in 1801, to caution you, now
+    you are a chief pastor and a father in God, against excessive
+    hilarity of spirits. There is a mild gravity, with occasional
+    tokens of delight and pleasure, becoming your sacred character,
+    not noisy mirth.
+
+    I met with a letter of a minister, now with God, to a brother
+    minister, who was about to take his duty for a time, which I
+    think will give you pleasure. "Take heed to _thyself_; your own
+    soul is your first and greatest concern. You know that a sound
+    body alone can work with power; much more a healthy soul. Keep a
+    clear conscience through the blood of the Lamb. Keep up close
+    communion with God. Study likeness to Him in all things. Read
+    the Bible for your own growth first, then for your people.
+    Expound much; it is through the truth that souls are to be
+    sanctified, not through essays upon the truth. You will not find
+    many companions; be the more with God. Be of good courage,
+    there remaineth much land to be possessed. Be not dismayed, for
+    Christ shall be with you to deliver you. I am often sore cast
+    down; but the Eternal God is my refuge. Now farewell; the Lord
+    make you a faithful steward." If we do not meet again in the
+    flesh, may we meet, never to part, before the throne of the
+    Great Redeemer!
+
+    I am your affectionate
+
+    D. CALCUTTA.
+
+After my husband's consecration, he undertook a confirmation tour for
+Bishop Wilson, at the mission stations around Calcutta. He also
+consecrated a church at Midnapore in South Bengal. In December, after
+four month's absence, he returned to Sarawak.
+
+Our party in the mission-house during his absence consisted of a
+chaplain, a missionary lady learning Malay and teaching the girls'
+school, our young friend Mr. Grant, myself, and baby Mab. The days ran
+along a smooth groove, although we had all plenty to do. Up early in the
+morning, then a walk, and service in church at seven. After prayers some
+hours' teaching and learning before midday bath and breakfast. The
+afternoon was a more lazy time, though the hum of school went on
+continuously, while we did our sewing and reading in the coolest corners
+we could find. The new school-house, in which all the boys, the Stahls,
+and Mr. Owen, the schoolmaster, lived, was near enough to the
+mission-house for us to know the hour of the day by the lesson going on
+at the time; for all the younger boys repeated their multiplication
+tables in a loud voice together (in Malay), also their Chinese reading;
+then came the singing, rounds and part-songs, the most popular lesson of
+all. At four o'clock the school broke up. The children amused themselves
+as English boys do. There was a season for marbles, for hop-scotch, for
+tops, and for kites. Above all, do Chinese children love kites, and are
+most ingenious in making them. They cut thin paper into the shapes of
+birds, fish, or butterflies, and stretch it over thin slips of the spine
+of the cocoa-nut leaf, then they ornament it with bits of red or blue
+paper, and fasten it together with a pinch of boiled rice. The string is
+the most expensive part, and two pennyworth lasts many kites, for they
+are very frail affairs, and in that land of trees do not long escape
+being caught, though they fly beautifully. Miss J---- had a cockatoo
+which amused her and the little girls during sewing-class. He was a
+beautiful bird with a rosy crest, but extremely mischievous. To sharpen
+his beak he notched all the Venetian shutters in the verandahs; and if
+he spied a looking-glass, flew at it in a rage and broke it: fortunately
+there were no large mirrors in the house. These birds look very pretty
+perching in the trees, and this one became tame enough to be trusted out
+of doors, but they are bad inmates.
+
+We had also a chicken-yard for Alan's amusement, and great were our
+difficulties in preserving the nests from rats, who ate the eggs. If we
+placed the nests on a high shelf, these creatures managed to shove the
+eggs out of the nests so that they fell broken on the floor all ready
+for their supper. At last we circumvented them by slinging the nests by
+long rattans from the roof.
+
+At five o'clock another short service took place in church. In the
+evening we read aloud to one another, while the rest sewed or drew.
+
+This tranquil, even monotonous life was very much to my taste in my
+husband's absence, but after a few weeks it was disturbed by sad trials.
+First, the chaplain had a sunstroke, and fell out with the climate, the
+place, and some members of our little society; so he went to Singapore,
+and from thence to England. When we were recovering from this blow, and
+had again settled down into our usual ways, a worse trial befell me.
+
+One morning Miss J---- did not appear at early breakfast, and little
+Mary, who waited upon her in her room, said she was sound asleep and did
+not wake when she opened the shutters. I thought nothing of it at first,
+for Miss J---- sometimes sat up late at night; but an hour afterwards, I
+went into her room and looked at her. Her breathing was so laboured I
+thought she was in a fit; and first I tried to put leeches on her
+temples, but they would not bite, and we resolved to carry her into the
+fresh breeze in the verandah, for the air of the room seemed laden with
+something close and stifling. When I threw back the covering of the bed,
+I perceived that the veins of both arms had been cut, and a few drops
+of blood stained her night-dress; also there was a small empty bottle in
+the bed with "Laudanum" on its label. The terrible truth was
+evident--she had taken poison and tried to bleed herself to death!
+Probably the action of the laudanum prevented any flow of blood, yet the
+few drops may have relieved the brain. The horror of this discovery
+nearly deprived me of my senses; but there was no time for
+lamentation--she was not dead, thank God, and all our efforts must be
+used to restore her to life. We were very ignorant, but we did all we
+could think of. There was no doctor to apply to, only the chemist who
+served the dispensary. He gave medicine which was certainly very strong,
+and we put mustard plasters on her legs. By the evening she was sensible
+enough to take some food, but for a week there was serious illness, and
+it was a long time before I could ask my poor friend why she had done
+this thing. She had left me a letter to read in the event of her death,
+but of course I never read it. We were very much together, but I had not
+thought her unhappy; indeed the only reason she ever gave me for so
+hating her life was, that she could not learn Malay, and did not think
+she should be any use as a missionary. This despondency was known to me,
+but I had no idea it cut so deep. Miss J---- had a great deal of quiet
+fun--she often amused us by her clever and somewhat caustic remarks. But
+Sarawak was too monotonous a life for her. When, some weeks afterwards,
+she had quite regained the balance of her mind, she went to Singapore,
+and became a very useful member of society for many years before she
+died. I never felt that I could judge her, for I had so much more to
+occupy my mind and interest my heart than my companion. There was baby
+in the first place, and the responsibilities of the school and mission
+naturally fell to my share. No doubt it requires an even temperament to
+live contentedly without society, and with only such excitement as daily
+duties and the beauties of nature afford. Yet these are full of infinite
+happiness, and we were not without friends, although we had no company:
+the little party at Government House, as it was then called, were very
+agreeable and uniformly kind. It is, however, a common mistake to
+imagine that the life of a missionary is an exciting one. On the
+contrary, its trial lies in its monotony. The uneventful day, mapped out
+into hours of teaching and study, sleep, exercise, and religious duties;
+the constant society of natives whose minds are like those of children,
+and who do not sympathize with your English ideas; the sameness of the
+climate, which even precludes discourse about the weather,--all this,
+added to the distance from relations and friends at home, combined with
+the enervating effects of a hot climate, causes heaviness of spirits and
+despondency to single men and women. Married people have not the same
+excuse; for besides duty and nature, they have "one friend who loves
+them best," and that ought to be enough for the most exacting
+temperament. I say nothing about the comforts of religion--they are the
+portion of all, married or single; still some spirits become so
+sensitive in solitude that they are not able to take the cheerful side,
+even of their relation to their Heavenly Father, and these are generally
+the most reserved to their companions. I am glad to find that
+missionaries are now seldom sent alone to any station, and women are
+more often associated in sisterhoods for mission work under our colonial
+Bishops, so that they have the society and sympathy of English ladies
+after the toils of the day. I felt much discouraged after Miss J----
+left me, and afraid of urging any one to follow in her place; but at
+last a cousin of my husband's came out to us, and as she enjoyed the
+climate, and delighted in the place and people, declaring that she had
+never been more happy in her life than with us, I consoled myself that
+it was not all the fault of Sarawak and the mission-house that poor Miss
+J---- could not live there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHINESE INSURRECTION.
+
+    "Mortal! if life smile on thee, and thou find
+          All to thy mind,
+    Think, Who did once to earth from heaven descend
+          Thee to befriend;
+    So shalt thou dare forego, at His dear call,
+          Thy life, thine all."
+
+
+These lines were most applicable to us during the year 1856. It was such
+rest and peace when our Bishop returned from Calcutta and soothed all
+the griefs and heartburnings we had suffered the four months he was
+away. Then ensued the performance of his new episcopal duties. Mr. Gomes
+was ordained priest in March. Confirmations took place, of our elder
+school-children, who were all baptized when they first came to us; also
+many Chinese Christians too, who had long attended the Bible classes at
+the mission-house and stood firm to their baptismal vows. In April we
+had another baby girl; and soon after, the Bishop went to Labuan, to
+arrange about a church being built there. Unfortunately he caught fever
+at Labuan; which declared itself at Singapore on his return. We were
+both very ill, and glad of doctors' advice at Singapore; but Labuan
+fever returns again and again, though in a slighter form after a while,
+and was for years a constant trial to the Bishop's strength. When we
+returned to Sarawak in October, our party was increased. Mr. and Mrs.
+Crookshank had come out from England--she a bride, and quite a new
+element of youth and beauty for Sarawak. A lady friend and her child and
+nurse also came on a long visit to us, the air of Sarawak being
+considered quite a tonic compared to the sea-breeze at Singapore, which
+was at times visited by a hot wind from Java. Very pleasant days
+followed our return home. Mrs. Harvey and I, with our children, went for
+a month to "See-afar" Cottage on the hill of Serambo. I have already
+mentioned this little house, built by Sir James Brooke as a sanitarium
+after his attack of small-pox. The only objection to it was, that it was
+built in the region of clouds: had the hill been five hundred feet
+higher we should have had the clouds below us, as they are on Penang
+Hill. The path up the mountain--if path it can be called--is almost a
+staircase of tumbled rocks, and requires both strength and agility to
+climb. It was quite beyond me; but I was carried on a man's back,
+sitting on a bit of plank, with a strip of cloth fastened round my waist
+and across the man's forehead, my back to his back. The Dyaks are famous
+mountaineers, their bare feet cling to the stones, or notched trunks of
+trees thrown from one rock to another. I never felt unsafe on my Dyak
+friend's back, and he used to laugh when I proposed his setting me down
+and taking a rest, and say, "You are not as heavy as a basket of durian
+fruit." These Dyaks have beautiful groves of fruit-trees, and make a
+good purse in the fruit season by bringing down durians, mangosteen and
+lansat fruit to sell at Kuching. They also carry all their harvest of
+paddy up the mountain to their rice-stores in the villages, so they are
+used to heavy weights.
+
+We took a stock of provisions up with us, fowls and ducks, a goat and
+her kid, etc., and all the bedding we wanted, for of course there was
+not much furniture in the cottage. Our first night was unfortunate. We
+had settled ourselves in the rooms, had our supper, and were about to go
+to bed, when the servants ran out of the cook-house, which was a
+stone's-throw from the cottage, crying out, "Fire!" and in a few minutes
+we saw it wrapped in flames. Of course a house built of sticks and
+leaves does not take long to burn down to the ground, but we were
+distressed to hear the bleatings of the little kid which could not be
+got out in time. The ducks, too, were still in the long basket coop in
+which they were carried up, and were literally roasted in their feathers
+before anybody remembered them. A large party of Dyaks were on the spot
+directly they saw the flames, and they did good service by throwing
+water on the roof of the cottage, and watching lest the thatch should
+catch. In the morning they discovered the burnt ducks, and ate them up
+with much relish, for a Dyak likes the flavour of burnt feathers. The
+next day the cook-house was rebuilt. These native huts look so clean and
+fresh when first put up, the straw-coloured attap[6] walls and green
+leaf roofs are so agreeable to the eye. They quickly turn hay colour and
+then get discoloured by the wood smoke. Except that we were at times
+rather short of food, we enjoyed our mountain retreat very much. The
+bath was a remarkable feature--a natural stone basin, under the shadow
+of a great rock, fed by the clearest streamlet and sheltered from view
+by a heavy bit of curtain, was our bathing-place. We carried a little
+leaf bucket and our towels in our hands, and while we poured the fresh
+water over our heads we could now and then stop to look at the great
+expanse of plain and forest, with silver rivers winding amidst them, and
+blue smoke stealing up here and there to mark a Dyak village. There was,
+however, a particular rock on the spur of the mountain from whence we
+always watched the sun set; there was a much wider view from thence. The
+sea lay on the horizon, and the pointed mountain of Santubong stood on
+the plain, with other ranges of hills far away. I fear we did little
+else but watch the glories of earth and sky at that time, and look after
+our children, who could not be trusted alone a minute on those steep
+paths.
+
+    [Footnote 6: Palm leaf.]
+
+Meanwhile the Bishop was paying a visit to Lundu in his new life-boat, a
+boat of about twenty-eight feet, with a little covered house in it, and
+water-tight compartments in the bow and stern to keep her afloat. She
+was well named, for even in this first voyage she saved the lives of her
+passengers. From the coast at Santubong you see blue hills far away to
+the west, which lie in the Lundu country. The sea runs very high, in the
+north-cast monsoon, between the mouths of these two rivers, the Sarawak
+and Lundu; and on this occasion the waves on their return from Lundu
+were fearful. Seven great waves like green hills advanced one after
+another. The Malay crew prayed aloud with terror. Stahl and the Bishop
+steered the boat and held their breaths. It looked like rushing into the
+jaws of death, but the life-boat mounted the big waves one after
+another, sometimes shuddering with the strain, but buoyant and stiff.
+The danger past, the crew praised Allah and the good boat; and they, as
+well as Stahl who had behaved so well at the time of danger, fell into a
+fit of ague from the nervous shock. We knew on the top of the hill that
+a fearful storm was raging, but we did not see the white boat flying
+like a bird over the seven great rollers, or there would have been no
+sleep for us that night. The crew never forgot it, nor the calm pluck of
+their steersman the Bishop. I must confess that an attack of fever was
+the result of all this exertion when he joined us on the hill.
+
+The rest of the year 1856 passed away quietly. We were all looking
+forward to an event which was to improve the English society of the
+place very much. The Rajah's nephew, Captain Brooke, was bringing out a
+bride; and her brother, Mr. Charles Grant, another. These four young
+people were expected in the early spring of 1857, and the Rajah was
+refurnishing his bungalow to receive these additions to his family. A
+new piano had arrived, and all sorts of pretty things, to brighten up
+the cool dark rooms of Government House. Mr. and Mrs. Crookshank were
+preparing a house for themselves also; and all their boxes, which had
+remained unopened while they lived with the Rajah, were moved up to
+their bungalow. Little did we think that all these treasures would be
+burnt before they were even unpacked!
+
+The Chinese gold-workers of Bau and Seniawan had long given more or less
+trouble to the Sarawak Government. They were governed by their own
+self-elected kunsi (magistrates), and recognized their fealty to Sarawak
+only by the payment of a small tax on the gold they washed from the
+soil. They sent the gold away to China, and habitually cheated as to the
+quantity obtained. They also smuggled opium from the Dutch settlement of
+Sambas, thus defrauding Government of revenue. Worse than all this, they
+introduced secret societies, or hui, among themselves, and threatened to
+rebel if any of their kunsi were punished for breaking the laws of the
+country. At Christmas, 1856, they boasted they could demolish Kuching
+in one night, if they chose; and that a new Joss House they were
+building there should furnish them with a pretext to gather by hundreds
+to set the Joss in his temple, and possess themselves of the place and
+the Europeans who lived there. These uncomfortable rumours seemed to
+have some foundation when a new road was discovered which the Chinese
+had made between Bau and Seniawan, another settlement nearer to Kuching.
+Mr. Crookshank, who was in charge of the Government, sent word to Mr.
+Johnson, who immediately came from Sakarran with a fleet of Dyaks,
+delighted to have a chance of fighting the Chinese, and carrying plenty
+of heads back to their homes. At the same time a gun-boat was stationed
+on the river to prevent any communication between Bau and Kuching. Upon
+this the kunsi came very humbly and begged pardon, declared the whole
+story was a fabrication, and that they never intended mischief. We only
+half believed them, but the Dyaks were dismissed, and unfortunately the
+gun-boat no longer kept watch on the river. Our Christian Chinese
+teacher "Sing-Song," was of the Kay tribe, the same as the Bau people,
+and once a month he went there to teach his countrymen. There were a few
+Christians among them. One, a goldsmith, did his best to let us know
+that danger was impending, but the kunsi suspected him, and put him in
+prison; we were therefore quite unprepared for what took place. On the
+17th of February, three Chinese kunsi were flogged by order of the
+court at Kuching, for taking the law into their own hands, and seizing a
+runaway prisoner, as well as the captain of the boat in which she
+absconded, although he was not guilty of hiding her. This seems to have
+put the finishing touch to the factious state of feeling at Bau. The
+Rajah and the Bishop had determined to take a trip together on the 15th,
+in the life-boat, to Sadong, and from thence to Linga and Sakarran. The
+Rajah had been ailing for some time, and we hoped this little voyage
+would do him good. We prepared all the provisions for this trip: bread
+and rusks were made, salt meat was cooked, and everything was ready
+packed in the provision baskets (this was of great importance to us
+afterwards). That evening we all met out walking, on the only
+riding-road there was in those days. Rajah spoke to the school-children,
+and we all amused ourselves with the little Middletons, boys of four and
+five, strutting along with turbaned hats and long walking-sticks. It was
+a dull evening, and we all felt unaccountably gloomy. We fancied it was
+because Rajah was not well enough to come and dine with us, as he had
+purposed in the morning; but during dinner I remembered afterwards that
+the Bishop said, "If any sudden alarm were to take place to-night it
+would rouse him and make him all right."
+
+We certainly went to bed without expecting anything to happen, but,
+about twelve o'clock, we were roused by shouts and screams, and the
+firing of guns. We got up and looked out. The Rajah's bungalow was in
+flames across the river. On our side the Middletons' house was burning,
+and Mr. Crookshank's new house, a little way up the road, was soon after
+on fire. The most horrid noises filled the air, there was evidently
+fighting going on at the two forts at either end of the town by the
+river's side. We knew there were very few defenders at either of these
+two forts, and that they would soon be taken; for by this time we were
+sure it must be the Chinese miners who had fulfilled their threat to
+take the town. We thought, "When the forts are taken they will come to
+us." Presently the brothers, William and John Channon, who lived near
+us, came to our house, bringing their wives and children for shelter.
+They brought news that the fort near their houses was taken and burnt,
+and they dare not stay in their own cottages, as they were Government
+servants, and would be obnoxious to the rebels.
+
+We took our children out of bed and dressed them, and then we all went
+down to the school-house, from whence we could see the burning houses
+and hear what was going on in the town. A Chinaman came up from the
+bazaar, begging us not to go to them for shelter, for they had been
+warned by the kunsi not to harbour any English people, and they dared
+not take us in. Poor creatures, they were in terror for themselves, as
+they were not of the same tribe of Chinese as the Bau people. What
+should we do?
+
+[Illustration: WE ALL WENT DOWN TO THE SCHOOL-HOUSE, FROM WHENCE WE
+COULD SEE THE BURNING HOUSES.
+
+_Page_ 128.]
+
+We were so large a party, and had so many children amongst us, that we
+did not venture to hide in the jungle: the night was quite dark and we
+might lose one another. Then the Bishop said, "We cannot make any
+resistance: we will hide away the guns we have in the house, and unite
+in prayer to God." So we all knelt round him while he commended us to
+the mercy of our Heavenly Father, and prayed for all our dear friends
+who were exposed to the fury of the Chinese. Then we sat and waited.
+Miss Woolley, who had only been three months in Sarawak, read aloud a
+psalm from time to time to comfort us; but the hours seemed very long.
+At five o'clock in the morning the kunsi, having possessed themselves of
+the Chinese town, sent us word that they did not mean to harm us--"the
+Bishop was a good man and cared for the Chinese," but he must go down to
+the hospital and attend to their wounded. Then came the welcome news
+that the Rajah had escaped, and Mr. Crookshank and Middleton--the three
+people whom the Chinese most desired to kill, for the one was chief
+constable and the other police magistrate, who carried out the Rajah's
+sentence on the kunsi. A price was set on their heads, but the Malays'
+love of their English Rajah made that only an idle threat. We were told
+that Mrs. Crookshank was dead, and the little Middletons, as well as Mr.
+Wellington, who lodged in their house, and Mr. Nicholetts, who was
+staying at the Rajah's house. Mrs. Crookshank, however, was not dead,
+but lying wounded in a ditch near the ashes of her house. When the
+Bishop knew this he demanded her of the kunsi. They said no, at first,
+for they were angry that her husband had escaped; but Bishop refused to
+attend to the wounded unless they gave her up, so at last they gave
+leave to have her carried to our house.
+
+It was about ten o'clock when she was brought in--a pitiful sight, her
+dress covered with blood, her hair matted with grass and dust, her
+fingers bleeding. It did not seem possible she could live after
+remaining all night in this dreadful state. She told us that she and her
+husband did not awake until the house was full of men. They had only
+time to jump up and run down their bath-room stairs, he catching up a
+spear for their defence. Opening the bath-room door it creaked, and a
+man came running round the house shouting, "Assie Moy," the name of the
+woman-prisoner they had seized. He struck down Mrs. Crookshank with a
+sword he had in his hand, and Mr. Crookshank attacked him with the
+spear. They struggled together till the Chinaman cut his right arm to
+the bone, and the spear fell from his hand; then, seeing his wife lying
+dead, as he thought, in the grass, he managed to get away to the edge of
+the jungle, and sitting down, faint with loss of blood, saw his house
+burn to the ground. As morning dawned he found his way to the Datu
+Bandar's house, where the Rajah had already arrived, and Middleton.
+Meanwhile the Chinese, chasing the fowls from the burning fowl-house,
+came upon Mrs. Crookshank lying on her face, and one of them, seizing
+her by her hair, desired her to follow him. She could not walk a step,
+so he carried her in his arms; but when she groaned with the pain, he
+laid her in a ditch near the road. Many Chinese came and stood by her:
+they covered her with their jackets, one held an umbrella over her head,
+another offered her some tobacco, but they would not let any of our
+people touch her until an order came from the kunsi. We had sent our
+eldest school-boy to reassure her, and he stood beside her until our
+servants could bring her away safely. As soon as the Bishop had dressed
+the wounded in the town, he came home for some breakfast. When I saw him
+I called out, for his pith hat was covered with blood. "It is only
+fowl's blood," said he, "don't be frightened: they killed a chicken over
+my head as a sign of friend ship." The Middletons' servants came to us
+early in the morning, and said that they did not know what had become of
+their mistress, but the two little boys were killed by the Chinese,
+their heads cut off, and their bodies thrown into the burning. Later on,
+we heard that Mrs. Middleton, after seeing Mr. Wellington killed in
+trying to defend her, had escaped into the bath-room and hidden herself
+in one of the big water-jars; but, the door being open, she had seen her
+children murdered, and then had got out of the jar and run into the
+jungle, where she concealed herself in a little pool of water, much
+hidden by overhanging boughs. There this poor mother remained for some
+hours, until a Chinaman from the town came to the spring, carrying a
+drawn sword in his hand. "Oh, sir, pray don't kill me!" she called out.
+"Oh no!" answered the man, "I am a friend of Mr. Peter" (her husband),
+"and will take care of you." So he took her to his house, and dressed
+her in Chinese clothes. It was almost a wonder to me that this poor
+young woman lived through that dreadful time. As the day wore on, Mr.
+Ruppell, the banker of the place, and a great friend of the Chinese,
+came and took up his abode with us. Then he, the Bishop, and Mr. Helms,
+the manager of the English Merchant Company, were ordered to meet the
+kunsi at the court-house; also the Datu Bandar, the chief Malay
+magistrate. There a very trying scene took place. The kunsi sat in the
+seats of the magistrates, smoking, their principal in the Rajah's own
+chair. They stated that they did not wish to make war with the English,
+or the Malays, only with the Rajah's government, and they desired those
+present to assist them in the government of the country. This they had
+drawn up in writing, and desired the English and Datu Bandar to sign.
+The Bishop pointed out to them that the best thing they could do would
+be to return to Bau and defend their town; that the Dyaks would
+certainly come in fleets of boats directly they heard of what had
+happened at Kuching, and they would as certainly be killed if they
+remained in the place. This was true enough, but they were afraid of the
+Malays attacking them on the water. The Chinese are bad boatmen. They
+could not therefore make up their minds to go, and much fierce
+discussion arose. The thieves and rogues of the place, being under no
+restraint, robbed all the houses, on this afternoon, whose inmates had
+taken refuge at the mission-house. The Christian Chinese, being afraid
+of their countrymen, rushed into our house, carrying all sorts of goods
+and chattels, and caused me much distress on Mrs. Crookshank's account,
+who was very sensitive to fresh alarms. However, we settled our Chinese
+friends in some of the lower rooms. The Channons and their babies were
+in the attics. Night came at last, and a dead silence fell upon the town
+and the crowded mission-house. Not even the usual sounds in the bazaar
+or on the river were heard; only an occasional gun broke the stillness
+of the night. Friends and foes were alike weary. We did not venture to
+undress, but lay down all ready for flight if necessary, with our hats
+and little bundles beside us. The Bishop and Mr. Ruppell watched all
+night in the porch. Friday morning the Chinese, continually urged by the
+Bishop, determined to return to Bau. Later on they heard a rumour that
+the Malays would attack them on the river; then they made the Datu
+Bandar sign a promise not to follow them. Still they felt no confidence
+that he would not, so they said they would take Mr. Helms with them as a
+hostage for the Datu's good faith. Poor Mr. Helms did not like this idea
+at all, and having a fast boat lying in the creek near his house, he
+slipped away early in the afternoon, down the river, and hid himself in
+the jungle. No one in Sarawak could imagine what had become of him.
+
+About midday the Bishop told me he wished me, Miss Woolley, and the
+children, including Alan Grant, to go to Singapore in a trading schooner
+which Mr. Ruppell had detained at the mouth of the river in case of
+emergency.
+
+Mrs. Stahl and Miss Coomes were to remain and nurse Mrs. Crookshank, but
+it would be a great relief to him to think of us in safety. The Chinese
+kunsi also wished us to go, "that the people at Singapore might see that
+they did not desire our death." It seemed very hard to me to leave my
+husband in such danger, for that morning the kunsi had flourished swords
+in his face and threatened him, knowing very well that he wished to
+bring the Rajah back. Still I knew he could more easily provide for the
+safety of those left behind if we were already out of the way. So I
+packed up some clothes and provisions for the voyage. While I was doing
+this a Chinaman came from the _Good Luck_ schooner to say I must only
+take one box for our party, as the schooner was very full of Chinese
+passengers, fleeing for fear of the kunsi. With this we had to be
+content. At three o'clock we went to the shop of Amoo, the Chinese owner
+of the _Good Luck_. There I found my husband writing to Mr. Johnson at
+Linga, to tell him what had happened. Then Datu Bandar came in to say
+that the kunsi had gone up the river, and had taken some of the fort
+guns with them; that they were very crowded in the boats, and that he
+should follow after them with a Malay force at night. They did nothing,
+however, when the time came; for until the Malays had got their families
+safe out of the place they were not willing to fight. They were brave
+enough when the women and children were moved to Samarahan on Saturday.
+There were many Chinese women collected at Amoo's, belonging to the
+shopkeepers in the bazaar. The wife of the court scribe, whom I knew,
+told me in a whisper that she managed to get some bread to the Rajah and
+his party, and had told Mr. Crookshank that his wife was alive and with
+us. At last the life-boat was ready. Stahl went with us to steer, and
+said there were plenty of Chinese to row the boat. When we got down to
+it, we found it not only fully manned by Chinese, but full of their
+women, children, and boxes, so that we could scarcely find room to
+squeeze ourselves into the stern, and we were so heavily laden that we
+made very slow progress. It was no use protesting, however: we were only
+English folk, and the Chinese had it all their own way in those days.
+About eight o'clock we got down to the mouth of the Morotabas, where the
+schooner lay. Pitch dark and very wet it was, but it was a relief when
+all the Chinese passengers climbed up the schooner ladder, and the men
+hauled the boxes up one after another, last of all a very heavy one
+which it took six men to lift, full of dollars,--so no wonder we were
+overladen. Last of all I climbed into the _Good Luck_, leaving the
+children still in the boat with Stahl and Kimchack, one of our
+school-boys whose family were moving away in the schooner. I found the
+deck covered with Chinese, and when I said to the little Portuguese
+captain, "Where is the little cabin Mr. Ruppell promised me I should
+have?" he answered, "Oh, ma'am, pray go back to your boat. I have
+neither water nor fuel for the people who are already on board. The
+cabin is filled with the family and friends of the Chinese owner of the
+schooner, and I cannot give you even room to sit down anywhere." It was
+indeed true. My friend, the court scribe's wife, said, "Come and sit by
+me on the deck." "But the children, they cannot be exposed day and night
+on deck." "Oh well, there is no other place for them." So I jumped into
+the life-boat again, and reclaimed my treasures. "Rather," said Miss
+Woolley and I, "die on shore than in that horrid boat." Indeed we felt
+quite cheerful now we had the boat to ourselves; and Kimchack said he
+had already been two nights on board the _Good Luck_ and had had no room
+to lie down. There we were, however, in the middle of the river, with no
+one to row the boat. Stahl could not move it by himself. At this moment
+a small boat pulled alongside, and Mr. Helms' face appeared in the
+darkness. How glad we were to see him! and he, faint and exhausted with
+wandering all day in the jungle, was glad of a glass of wine, which was
+soon got out of the provision basket. Then we opened a tin of soup, and
+fed our tired and hungry children, who behaved all through those
+terrible days as if it was a picnic excursion got up for their
+amusement. They enjoyed everything, and were no trouble at all, either
+Alan or Mab. Edith was a baby, and suffered very much from want of
+proper food--but that was later on. Mr. Helms and his crew rowed our
+boat into Jernang Creek, where there were some Malay houses. In one of
+these he and Alan went to sleep, but he advised us to remain in the boat
+until the morning. We laid Mab and Edith on one of the seats; Miss
+Woolley lay on the other; and I sat at the bottom of the boat to prevent
+the children from falling off. The mosquitoes were numerous on that mud
+bank, and I was very glad when the morning dawned. At six o'clock Mr.
+Helms came to say we could have an empty Malay house on shore for a few
+days, so we gladly mounted up the landing-place and found a kind and
+hospitable reception from our Malay friends. They had put up some mat
+partitions in a large room, that we might sleep in private, and
+presented us with a nice curry for breakfast. We then unpacked our box
+and dried the clothes in it, which were wet through from the overlading
+of the life-boat. About midday two Englishmen arrived from the Quop
+River, nearer to Kuching, where they had been with the Rajah. They only
+stayed a short time, but told us that the Kunsi Chinese had really gone
+to Bau, and that the Bishop was with the Rajah at Quop. Late at night I
+had a note from my husband, saying he thought we might return to
+Sarawak, for all was quiet, and he hoped the Rajah would come back early
+on Sunday morning. The next morning, therefore, we prepared to set off
+again in the life-boat, but first I went to pay a visit to Inchi Bouyang
+the Malay writer, who lived in one of the houses near, and who was too
+stout to venture out of his own house into a less strongly built one.
+This seems absurd enough, but the Malay houses were certainly very
+slight; they seemed to sway in the mud of the creek, and the floors of
+the rooms were made of very open strips of nibong palm, so that you had
+to walk turning your feet well out in order not to slip through the
+lantiles. I found many Malays gathered in the writer's house, all to
+entreat me not to go to Kuching, because it was "not a lucky day." "If
+the Malays fight the Chinese to-day," they said, "they will be beaten."
+"What reason have you for saying so?" "No reason exactly, but the day is
+unlucky; it is like Friday to the English, they never go to sea on that
+day." "Oh," said I, "that was long ago: they often go to sea on Friday
+now they know better, and no sensible person thinks anything of lucky or
+unlucky days." "Well, we have told you what we think. If you must go,
+some of us will go with you, and we shall tell the Tuan Padre it was not
+our fault that you would not wait until to-morrow." So Lulut, a servant
+of the Rajah's, and another Malay got into the boat with us, and we set
+off up the river.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHINESE INSURRECTION (_Continued_).
+
+
+As we proceeded up the river we agreed we would ask news of any boat we
+met. Presently we noticed smoke rising above the trees. "The Malays are
+burning the Chinese town," said the men; but as we drew nearer it was
+evidently the Malay town which was burning. At last we met a boat. "Yes;
+the Chinese had returned, and had set fire to the Malay town; they were
+also firing at the Sarawak Chinese in the bazaar." On Saturday the
+Bishop and the Channons and Stahl had unspiked two of the guns left in
+the fort, and had hoisted the Sarawak flag again on the flag-staff. The
+Bishop then went to the Rajah's war boat at the Quop, and told him that
+the Malays had sent away their women, and were ready to fight should the
+Chinese return; and he begged him to come to our house early the next
+morning, where breakfast should be ready for him, and take the command.
+But the Chinese heard of this, and returned in the morning, some by
+river, some by road. As soon as the Malays saw their boats rounding the
+corner near the Malay town, they attacked them bravely, drove them
+ashore, and though suffering much loss from their superior fire,
+captured ten of their boats, and secured them to a Malay prahu in the
+river. While this struggle was going on, a large party of Chinese, who
+walked from Seniawan, were ransacking the town. Enraged with the Bishop
+for trying to bring the Rajah back, they rushed into our house to find
+him; but he, having sent off all our belongings, English and native, ran
+down the back stairs while the Chinese rushed up into the porch in
+front, and escaped to the Chinese town, where shots were flying about in
+plenty, but did not hit him. He got into a little boat passing by, with
+two Malays in it, and they paddled him to the Rajah's war boat, then
+retreating down the river. When they reached the Quop he found a little
+boat, which brought him quickly to Jernang.
+
+We lay off the town in the life-boat, and saw one boat after another
+rowing fast towards us. In one, Mr. Koch, the missionary, with a number
+of school-boys; in another, Mrs. Crookshank, laid on a mattress, Mrs.
+Stahl, and Miss Coomes, and the school-girls; then the Channons'
+families and some Chinese; then the Sing-Song's family, and more boys.
+"Where is the Bishop?" I shouted. "In the Rajah's war boat. We had the
+greatest difficulty in getting boats enough for us; the Chinese were
+running up to the house when he sent us off, and firing had already
+begun in the streets when Mrs. Crookshank was got into the boat."
+
+This was an anxious moment; but before long our servant James appeared
+with a message to me from my husband, to return to Jernang, and stay
+there until he appeared. Our Malay friends here left us, to join their
+families anchored in boats by the banks, and I filled the life-boat with
+the school-children to lighten the other boats. Then we pulled slowly
+back against the tide to Jernang. The little landing-place was crowded
+when we arrived, for the smaller boats had got there first. I had the
+greatest difficulty in persuading the Malays to give shelter to the
+Chinese Christians and children. I answered for their good behaviour;
+but all Chinese, whether rebels or no, were in sufficiently bad odour in
+those days. At last I got them part of a house to themselves. No sooner
+was all arranged than the Bishop arrived in his little boat; it was like
+receiving him from the dead.
+
+Presently appeared the Rajah's war boat, he standing at the stern. We
+all ran down to meet him and Mr. Crookshank, and take them to Bertha,
+who had been carried into a house. While we were all standing on the
+little wharf, built on tall piles into the water, the Malays cried out
+that it was giving way, and we must all go into the houses. The Bishop
+then decided what to do with his large party. Mr. Helms had a schooner
+close by, in which he was going to Sambas, to seek assistance from the
+Dutch, our nearest neighbours. He kindly offered to take Miss Woolley,
+Miss Coomes, and two of our eldest school-boys with him. The rest of us
+could go to Linga, where there was a fort, as a little pinnace belonging
+to Mr. Steele lay handy at the mouth of the river. The Chinese, however,
+implored to go with us; and indeed it would have been cruel to leave
+them a prey to the Malays, or the bad Chinese, or the Dyaks. When we
+were lodged in the pinnace, therefore, the Bishop went back to Jernang,
+and packed all our Chinese into the life-boat, which was attached by a
+rope to the pinnace; so we were all together. It was nearly dark when we
+weighed anchor, and left the mouth of the river. There was a tiny cabin,
+just large enough to hold Bertha on her mattress; a fowl-house, into
+which our native children crept; an open hold, where we women sat down
+on our bundles, with our children in our arms; and there was a place for
+cargo forward, where the men settled themselves. The Rajah in his war
+boat also proceeded to Linga, and we expected him to arrive long before
+our slow boat; he would meet Mr. Johnson, his nephew, there, and
+organize a force of Dyaks from the great rivers, Sakarran and Batang
+Lupar, to drive away the Chinese rebels. We never had any doubt of their
+doing this eventually, though we feared the remedy might be almost as
+bad as the disease, if the Dyaks proved unmanageable and quarrelled with
+one another. The night was very dark and wet, and the deck leaked upon
+us, so that we and our bags and bundles were soon wet through. But we
+neither heeded the rain nor felt the cold. We had eaten nothing since
+early morning, but were not hungry; and although for several nights we
+could scarcely be said to have slept, we were not sleepy. A deep
+thankfulness took possession of my soul; all our dear ones were spared
+to us. My children were in my arms, my husband paced the deck over my
+head. I seemed to have no cares, and to be able to trust to God for the
+future, who had been so merciful to us hitherto. I remember, too, when
+Mrs. Stahl opened the provision basket, and gave us each a slice of
+bread and meat, how very good it was, although we had not thought about
+wanting it. We lit a little fire, and made some hot tea, but soon had a
+message from the Rajah's boat to put out the fire lest we should be
+seen. The only thing that troubled me was a nasty faint smell, for which
+I could not account; but next morning we found a Chinaman's head in a
+basket close by my corner, which was reason enough! We had taken a fine
+young man on board to help pull the sweeps, a Dyak, and this ghastly
+possession was his. He said he was at Kuching, looking about for a
+_head_, and went into the court-house. Hearing some one in a little side
+room, he peeped in, and saw a Chinaman gazing at himself in a bit of
+looking-glass, which was stuck against the wall. He drew his sword, and
+in one moment, stepping close behind him, cut off his head: and having
+obtained this prize, was naturally desirous of getting away from the
+place; so he came off as boatman in one of the flying boats, bringing
+the head in a basket, which he stowed in the side of the boat. It
+entirely spoilt my hand-bag, which lay near it; I had to throw it away,
+and everything in it which could not be washed in hot water.
+
+Towards morning the sea made us all sick, added to the wet, and cold of
+dawn; yet, when the day cleared a little, and we got a fire on deck, and
+some hot tea and biscuits, and the children seemed none the worse for
+their bad night and the swarms of mosquitoes which had feasted upon
+them, we could not repine. In the evening we passed the island of
+Burong, at the mouth of the Batang Lupar River, and Mr. Crookshank tried
+to stimulate the men pulling the sweeps to reach a Sebuyan village
+farther on, before the tide left us and it grew dark. By dint of hard
+pulling we made the village, and its little fort, standing close beside
+the water and washed by its strong tide. A little boat came off from the
+fort, with some Malays, of whom we inquired for the Rajah, thinking his
+boat was far ahead of us, but they said they had seen nothing of him.
+Mr. Crookshank then begged them to bring a boat in which he could take
+Bertha up to Linga Fort that evening, instead of her remaining another
+night in the pinnace. We went on as long as the tide lasted, and then
+anchored in the Batang Lupar. Again we made a fire on deck, and after
+taking some food, settled ourselves for the night. At eleven o'clock the
+promised boat came for Bertha and Mr. Crookshank, and Mrs. Stahl went
+with them as nurse; they thought nothing could be worse than spending
+another night on board the pinnace, but I fear the little boat journey
+was still more painful. When they reached Linga, they found only Malays
+in the fort, and the dwelling-house shut up, for Mr. Johnson was at
+Sakarran. They had to carry Mrs. Crookshank up a ladder into the fort,
+and lay her on a table; but happily Mr. Chambers arrived that night from
+Banting, and furnished a curtain as a screen, and pillows from his boat
+to make a more comfortable couch. As we were setting off again next
+morning, we met Mr. Johnson in a long boat, going straight off to
+Kuching. He was lying ill of fever at Sakarran, when his Malays roused
+him by saying, without preface--"The news is bad, Tuan: the Rajah is
+killed and Kuching in the hands of the rebel Chinese." Upon this he
+jumped up, called together the chiefs, and bidding them follow him with
+a strong force of Dyaks, he set off himself without calling at Linga by
+the way. When we told him that Rajah was alive and on his way to Linga,
+he turned back with us, and taking me, my ayah, and the children into
+his boat, soon landed us at his house. This was Tuesday, but we heard
+nothing of the Rajah until Friday. Mr. Johnson, after breakfasting with
+us at his house, went on to Kuching, and found that, after we lost sight
+of the Rajah's war boat, they had fallen in with the steamer belonging
+to the Borneo Company, the _Sir James Brooke_, just entering the river.
+Mr. Helms' schooner also came across her, so all the passengers in the
+schooner and the war boat had moved into the steamer, and they
+immediately proceeded up the river, preparing the guns on board to
+attack as soon as they reached the town. What must have been the
+feelings of the Chinese in the fort when they saw the smoke of the
+steamer curling above the trees, and then received one ten-pounder shot
+after another into their midst! They fired one round of grape shot at
+the steamer, and shouts of "Run!" rose on all sides. The steamer then
+proceeded up to the Malay town, where the Malays still held out against
+the Chinese; but as they were getting very short of ammunition, and
+their enemies were bringing some large guns to bear on their position,
+they greeted the steamer with shouts of welcome. The Chinese fled in
+every direction. Cut off from their boats, they ran into the jungle; and
+while many no doubt reached Bau in safety, many fell into the hands of
+the Dyaks, who, following their usual course of warfare, spread
+themselves through the jungle, and took the head of every man they met.
+The town was quite clear of the rebels in a few hours, and the _Sir
+James Brooke_, anchored in the river, furnished the base of operations
+which the Rajah required: from thence he could direct the Malay and Dyak
+forces, which were immediately at his disposal, to drive the rebels out
+of the country. The day before, the Chinese had filled our house and
+looted it completely, except the books in the library, for which they
+seem to have had some respect; but we had reason to believe that on
+Monday the house would have been burnt, for gunpowder and inflammable
+materials were found strewed about after they left. They took everything
+they could carry away, and destroyed the rest, cutting long slits in the
+gauze of the mosquito-rooms, and pouring all the chemicals and medicines
+of the dispensary over the contents of the drawers, clothes, and papers
+they did not wish for. They found a long table set out ready for
+breakfast, and had only to gather up the small plate, which, with a
+house full of people, was all in requisition. The church, too, was
+emptied of all its furniture, and the harmonium smashed; but the
+opportune arrival of the steamer prevented these buildings from sharing
+the fate of the other houses.
+
+Meanwhile, we were settling ourselves with our large party in Mr.
+Johnson's house, which he kindly placed at our disposal. This house was
+surrounded by a latticed verandah, the ground immediately about it was
+cleared of jungle and drained by deep ditches. From the fort you looked
+over the wide stretch of water of the Batang Lupar, but it was a lonely
+and monotonous look-out. As the fort men were taken away to fight at
+Kuching, the gentlemen had to form themselves into watches day and
+night, with the few Malays who remained to guard the fort. Boats full of
+Dyaks continually arrived, to join the Rajah's force--Balows, Sarebas,
+and Sakarrans lay side by side on the river, all excited by the
+prospects of war, and frequently causing silly panics among the Malays
+of Linga, lest these warriors, from tribes so long enemies, should fall
+out with one another before they got to Kuching. There were, of course,
+no books or newspapers to read; our Bibles and Prayer-books alone were
+among our luggage. We women were the best off, for we got some
+unbleached calico from Sakarran, and cut out some under-clothing, of
+which we had but little; this gave us occupation. We also had every day
+to wash our linen and towels after bathing. The bath was a clear running
+stream, covered in near the house, very pretty and romantic, but the
+water was of a light brown colour, like toast and water, and had a
+slightly acid taste, very agreeable but not very wholesome. Probably the
+spring forced its way through dead leaves in the jungle; at any rate, it
+did not wash the clothes white. It was very difficult to procure food
+for us all. Rice and gourds made into a kind of curry stew was our daily
+meal; if a chicken was got it was devoted to the children and the sick.
+We were very anxious for some time on account of Mrs. Crookshank. Had
+she remained quiet at Kuching, her wounds would have healed quickly, for
+she was young and perfectly healthy; but all the moving into boats, and
+carrying up ladders and steps, had broken open the wounds, and it was a
+struggle of strength and youth against adverse circumstances. She was so
+patient and cheerful that we never heard a complaint, which was in her
+favour no doubt; still there were some days when her life was in great
+danger in that hot climate. Twice during the month we received a box
+from Kuching, sent by a native boat. Once it contained our mail--an
+immense pleasure; also some bread and biscuits, but they were wet with
+salt water, and mouldy besides. However, Mab and Alan could eat them. I
+used to look with thankful astonishment at those children, both so
+delicate generally, but who throve all the time we were without proper
+food or shelter. But baby Edith shrank and pined, and at last my husband
+said, "We shall lose this child if you stay here any longer: better go
+and live among the Dyaks, who have plenty of fowls."
+
+So Mr. Chambers kindly took us in at his house at Banting, where we had
+a most loving welcome, and saw something of the Dyak women and children.
+The men were mostly gone to the war, and great excitement prevailed
+among the tribe with the prospect of acquiring heads again, for the
+Sarawak Government had quite stopped that hunting in the country. Boats
+were continually arriving, gay with streamers, and noisy with gongs and
+drums beating, with heads of Chinese on board. One day we were invited
+to a feast in one of the long houses. I said, "I hope we shall see no
+heads," and was told I need not see any; so, taking Mab in my hand, I
+went with Mr. Chambers, and we climbed up into the long verandah room
+where all the work of the tribe goes on. This long house was surrounded
+with fruit-trees, and very comfortable. There were plenty of pigs under
+the house, and fowls perching in every direction. About thirty families
+lived in the house, the married people having each their little room,
+the girls a room to themselves, and the long room I spoke of being used
+for cooking, mat-making, paddy-beating, and all the usual occupations of
+their lives. We were seated on white mats, and welcomed by the chief
+people present. The feast was laid on a raised platform along the side
+of the room. There were a good many ornaments of the betel-nut palm,
+plaited into ingenious shapes, standing about the table, so that I did
+not at first remark anything else. As we English folks could not eat
+fowls roasted in their feathers, nor cakes fried in cocoa-nut oil, they
+brought us fine joints of bamboo filled with pulut rice, which turns to
+a jelly in cooking and is fragrant with the scent of the young cane. I
+was just going to eat this delicacy when my eyes fell upon three human
+heads standing on a large dish, freshly killed and slightly smoked, with
+food and sirih leaves in their mouths. Had I known them when alive I
+must have recognized them, for they looked quite natural. I looked with
+alarm at Mab, lest she should see them too; then we made our retreat as
+soon as possible. But I dared say nothing. These Dyaks had killed our
+enemies, and were only following their own customs by rejoicing over
+their dead victims. But the fact seemed to part them from us by
+centuries of feeling--our disgust, and their complacency. Some of them
+told us that afterwards, when they brought home some of the children
+belonging to the slain, and treated them very kindly, wishing to adopt
+them as their own, they were annoyed at the little ones standing looking
+up at their parents' heads hanging from the roof, and crying all day, as
+if it were strange they should do so! Yet the Dyaks are very fond of
+children, and extremely indulgent to them. Our school was recruited
+after the war by the children of Chinese, bought by Government from
+their captors. This was my first and last visit to a Dyak feast. I used
+to go and see the women in the early morning sometimes, and they
+constantly came up to the mission-house to see my children. Of course
+the war had an evil influence on them, increasing their interest in
+heads, and all the heathen ceremonies connected with their possession.
+
+We stayed about ten days at Banting, walking every afternoon to the
+little church through a long avenue of fruit-trees--great forest trees
+which threw a grateful shade over the path, charming for the children's
+walks. They could have chicken broth too for their dinners; and Edith
+revived, but it was a whole year after this before she grew any taller,
+so that when she began to run about, three months later, it looked a
+surprising feat for a baby who should be in long clothes, yet she was
+then sixteen months old. This life at Banting was a kind of dream, after
+all the hurry and anxiety we had gone through. At last we heard that we
+might go back to Kuching, the Chinese had all been driven out of the
+country, or killed. Our house was purified, and the dead bodies lying
+about in the jungle had been buried, so that the air was sweet again. We
+returned to Linga, and all embarked in a little schooner for home. It
+was not a much better boat than the one we had fled in, and we suffered
+two very trying days' voyage; but when we walked into the mission-house
+and found Miss Woolley to welcome us, and our house, though dismantled,
+uninjured, and most of the books in the library, we were very thankful.
+The Sunday after, we had a thanksgiving service in the church, in which
+all joined very heartily.
+
+I must return, however, to the history of the war, from the time the
+Rajah steamed up the river in the _Sir James Brooke_.
+
+At Bau there were supposed to be from three to four thousand Chinese
+rebels, who had lately been strengthened by many malcontents from the
+Dutch country. The Chinese held Bau, Seniawan, the government fort of
+Baleda, and a fort at Peninjauh opposite to Baleda. They boasted that
+they had rice and gunpowder enough to last out six months in these
+places; but they were gradually surrounded on all sides by Malays and
+Dyaks, so that they could get no fresh stores. On the 10th of March a
+body of Chinese came down the river to Leda Tanah (Tongue of Land) about
+halfway to Kuching. They built a breast-work by the river-side, dug a
+trench behind it, placed some brass guns in position, and then retired
+to eat their dinners in comfort behind their defences. There was a
+little house and garden belonging to the Rajah at Leda Tanah. The Datu
+Tumangong and Abang Boujong hearing of this, went up the river with a
+Malay force and attacked the breast-work in front. The Chinese fired one
+volley and ran. The Malays entered, sword in hand, but only killed two
+men; all the rest fled into the arms of the Dyaks, who lay in wait in
+the jungle behind, and took a hundred heads, some say two hundred, but
+stories do not lose in the telling. The Chinese begged hard for their
+lives, wrung their hands, wept, prayed the Dyaks to be friends with
+them; but Dyaks know nothing about prisoners. One of the principal kunsi
+was killed in this affair, and some say that Kamang, the leader of the
+attack on the 18th of February, lost his head to the Sakarran Dyaks.
+
+This success was matter of great rejoicing at Kuching. Two days
+afterwards they heard that Baleda Fort was deserted by the Chinese. Mr.
+Johnson went up and found it quite empty; Seniawan too, and soon after
+Bau also. All had fled towards the Dutch territory. A dreadful march
+they had, poor creatures; carrying their sacred stone Tai pekong with
+them. Nearly a thousand women and children delayed their progress. They
+were harassed all the way by parties of Malays, and Dyaks cutting off
+the stragglers. The party dwindled by degrees, until nearly all the
+kunsi were killed, either by the enemy or their incensed countrymen,
+who found themselves driven from their peaceful homes for the sins of
+these rebels. It is so painful to think of the many innocent who
+suffered with the guilty on this occasion, of the miseries they endured,
+and the relentlessness of their foes, that I cannot detail it. War
+naturally brines such evils in its train; even civilized warfare is not
+without its horrors and its injustice: but when revenge falls into the
+hands of savages these ills are multiplied. The Malays both hated and
+despised the Chinese. That _such_ people should have taken their forts,
+burnt their dwellings, compelling them to seek safety for their families
+by flight, was so great an insult that their most violent passions were
+aroused, and only the blood of all the Kay tribe could wipe out the
+disgrace they had incurred. It was indeed wonderful that these Chinese
+should imagine for a moment that they could remain rulers in a country
+whose inhabitants regarded them as the natural hewers of wood and
+drawers of water to the community; but no doubt they were intoxicated by
+their unlooked-for success on the 18th of February, and a Chinaman seems
+destitute of any appreciation of people who are not Celestials! A
+remnant of these people got safely into the Dutch territory, where the
+authorities took what arms and ammunition they had, and, very properly,
+returned them to the Sarawak Government. They also offered to send a war
+steamer and soldiers if desired. So our misfortunes called out the
+goodwill of our neighbours. Soon after we returned home, H.M.S.
+_Spartan_, Captain Hoste, arrived to protect British interests in
+Sarawak. They stayed with us for a while, but the troubles were over,
+and the only difficulty was how to make any visitors comfortable or to
+feed them. We had to pass round a knife and fork at table for some days,
+and there were only a few spoons left to us. On the beds there were hard
+mattresses, but no pillows, sheets, or in fact any bed-furniture. Our
+guests being travellers and full of resources, slept on their pith hats
+for pillows, and used their pocket-knives. A good deal of fun was made
+of our privations, and indeed, as no beloved friend was missing, we
+could afford to laugh.
+
+We had all great reason to be thankful for the good behaviour of the
+Dyaks during the war. There were no intertribal quarrels, and Mr.
+Chambers told me that his Christians among the Balows were in the first
+boats which went off to succour the Rajah, when they knew nothing of the
+arrival of the steamer, and believed themselves to be facing a great
+danger, and fire-arms, which they do not like. This was not the only
+time that the Christians were among the bravest when all behaved well--a
+fact which recommended their religion to their countrymen, with whom
+courage is the first virtue. It was some years after this, however, that
+Dyak Christians learnt to fight without taking the heads of their
+enemies.
+
+When we left our house, our servants generally, except James a
+Portuguese, and my Bengalee Ayah, fled from the place. But we had an
+old Hindoo Syce, who was much attached to us and to the creatures under
+his charge. He drove the two ponies we rode into the jungle, where they
+looked after themselves, and, living in his cottage next to the stable,
+did what he could for the cow and calves. When the rebels filled our
+house and appropriated our effects, they broke open the plate-chest, and
+melted the silver they found. Then Syce came forward and claimed a
+portion of the spoil They gave him a lump of silver with some alloy in
+it, the produce of some plated salvers, as his share. He pretended to
+help them, but this lump he hid in the earth near his cottage, and, on
+our return, triumphantly produced it as what he had saved for us from
+the wreck. Some years after, this old man was very ill with an abscess
+in his thigh, which he was sure would kill him. Bishop doctored and
+nursed him through it, but he had given him a good-sized bag of dollars,
+his savings, saying he wished Bishop to be his heir. When he got well
+and the money was returned to him, he spent it in paying a visit to his
+relations at Trichinopoli. I believe this faithful creature worshipped
+the bull of our herd, and it was a great trouble to him that the Chinese
+cruelly cut off the tail of the poor animal, thereby depriving him of
+the means of whisking off the flies which sting so vehemently in that
+climate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+EVENTS OF 1857.
+
+
+When we were once more at home we found it would be better to go to
+Singapore, and from thence to Penang, for a little quiet. We were both
+ill, the Bishop seriously so. We wanted for everything, and the bazaar
+in Sarawak could not supply us: besides, ours was the only English
+dwelling-house left in the place, except the Borneo Company's premises.
+Captain Brooke and Mr. Grant with their brides were immediately
+expected, and must be housed at the mission while a bungalow was being
+built across the water. We left Miss Woolley to take care of the
+expected visitors, the children and I went to Singapore in the _Sir
+James Brooke_ steamer, and Sir William Hoste gave a passage in H.M.S.
+_Spartan_ to the Bishop and Alan Grant.
+
+I was glad of an opportunity to get my baby vaccinated, which could only
+happen at Singapore in those days. We were two months away, and the cool
+quiet of Penang Hill was a great refreshment. The first news I heard
+there was that Miss Woolley was to be married to Mr. Chambers. This
+wedding took place immediately on our return home, the end of July. It
+was a great benefit to the Banting Dyaks, for Mrs. Chambers devoted
+herself to the women and young girls, and was a true friend to them. She
+taught them to sew, and instructed them in morals and religion. When I
+went to Banting some years afterwards, I found a set of modest young
+women who were much pleased with gifts of needles, thread, and thimbles;
+they also enjoyed a game of croquet after the lessons were done, and it
+was wonderful to see what smart taps of the mallet were fearlessly given
+under their bare feet; for of course the Dyaks do not wear shoes.
+
+About a month after our return to Sarawak, Captain Brooke's baby boy was
+born. No one can tell what a care and anxiety this event was, in a place
+where there was no doctor except the Bishop. The well-being of so
+important a person as the Rajah mudah's wife, and the birth of the heir
+of Sarawak, called forth much sympathy from everybody. Thank God, all
+went well; but we said it ought never to happen again--there should be a
+medical man whose sole duty it was to care for the bodies of the
+community, while the Bishop was free to minister to their spiritual
+wants. Soon after there was a public baptism of this boy Basil Brooke,
+and his cousin Blanche Grant, in the church, which was full of Malays as
+well as English to witness the ceremony. This was the day before the
+Rajah set off for England.
+
+There were many happy days during the next few months, for there were
+several English ladies in the place and we were all friends. In October
+the Bishop went to Labuan, and while he was away the cholera made its
+first appearance at Sarawak, among the Malays. The Rajah muda and I
+consulted together what physic should be made ready for those who would
+take it. A short time before, a little pamphlet had been sent to us
+about the virtues of camphor, and especially its value in cholera. We
+made a saturated solution of camphor in brandy, and gave a teaspoonful
+of it on moist sugar for a dose, adding three drops of Kayu Puteh oil,
+extracted from a Borneon wood and called cajeput oil in England, a very
+strong aromatic medicine. This mixture proved itself very useful. If the
+patients applied in good time it invariably gave relief to the cramp and
+pain in the stomach; if the disease had gone on to sickness it was more
+difficult to administer. Sometimes we followed it up with laudanum and
+castor oil.
+
+The Malays suffered very much from this epidemic. Constant funerals were
+to be seen on the river, and there was much praying at the mosque. Then
+the Chinese were attacked, but not so fatally. Two dead men were,
+however, found on our premises; they were strangers to us, but we
+supposed they came late at night to the mission for medicine, and, lying
+down in the stable or cow-house, died without reaching the house. It
+was an anxious time. I used to hang little bags of camphor round the
+children's necks, and was very careful of the diet for the household.
+Thank God, we had no case either in the school or the house.
+
+Seven years afterwards the cholera returned much more violently. An
+English gun-boat, lying off the town, lost several of her crew; and at
+last the Bishop advised them to go to sea and let the sea air blow
+through the ship, to carry off the infection. He went on board himself
+to see them off, and while they were going down the river two more men
+were seized with cholera, and died in half an hour.
+
+This time the cholera was very fatal among the Dyaks up some of the
+rivers. The poor creatures were so terrified that they left their
+houses, as in small-pox, and scarcely dared bury their dead. In one
+instance they paid a very strong man to carry the dead on his back to a
+steep hill, and throw them into the ravine at the bottom. The food
+enjoyed by the Dyaks, rotten fish and vegetables, no doubt inclined them
+to get cholera. The first time of its visitation was after a great fruit
+season when durian, that rich and luscious fruit, had been particularly
+abundant. A durian is somewhat larger than a cocoa-nut in its inner
+husk; it has a hard prickly rind, but inside lie the seeds, enclosed in
+a pulp which might be made of cream, garlic, sugar, and green almonds.
+It is very heating to the blood, for when there are plenty of durians
+the people always suffer more from boils and skin disease than usual. We
+never permitted them to enter our house, for we could not bear the smell
+of them. But many English people liked them; and they were so much
+esteemed by the Dyaks, that when the fruit was ripe they encamped for
+the night under the trees. When a durian fell to the ground with a great
+thud, they all jumped up to look for it, as the fallen fruit belongs to
+the finder, and they loved it so that they willingly sacrificed their
+sleep for it. Woe be to the man, however, on whose head the fruit falls,
+for it is so hard and heavy it may kill him.[7]
+
+    [Footnote 7: The Dyaks believe there is a special place in the
+    other world, after death, for those who are killed by the fall
+    of a durian.]
+
+In February three new missionaries came from England--Mr. Hacket, Mr.
+Glover, and Mr. Chalmers. The two last came straight to Sarawak on their
+arrival at Singapore, Mr. Hacket and his wife about a month afterwards.
+They were all from St. Augustine's College, Canterbury, thoroughly good
+people, and a great happiness to us. Mr. Chalmers was settled among the
+Land Dyaks at Peninjauh, afterwards at the Quop. Mr. Glover went to
+Banting, to work among the Balows. The Hackets stayed at Sarawak: indeed
+they all remained with us until Easter, when their ordination took
+place. The Easter services that year, 1858, were very delightful. All
+these missionaries were more or less musical, and Mr. Hacket adorned the
+church as it had never been decked before. Flowers and ferns, and
+lycopodium moss, were always to be had in abundance; and the polished
+wooden walls were brightened by some beautiful scroll texts, printed by
+a friend in England. We had full choral service on Easter Sunday, and
+the school-children sang their part beautifully; indeed, our new comers
+were astonished to find such good material for a choir in little native
+boys.
+
+I had been fully occupied with preparations for these missionaries while
+the bishop was at Labuan; some additions to the comfort of the house for
+the Hackets; a new cook-house and servants' rooms near, to build; and
+the church to reroof. The balean attaps were as good as ever, but the
+strips of wood on which they hung were attacked by white ants, and had
+to be renewed or the shingles would have fallen through. Such
+responsibilities fell to my share when the Bishop was away, and heavy
+cares they were when money was not abundant. The prospect of three new
+missionaries was, however, worth any trouble. They came to teach the
+Dyaks, who had so long waited for teachers, and we hoped they would
+settle themselves among them for many years. In this hope we were to be
+disappointed. Mr. Glover fell ill of dysentery at Banting, and before
+two years had passed away was obliged to remove to a cold climate. He
+went to Australia, and has been doing good work there ever since. Mr.
+Chalmers was a very valuable missionary, and his labours among the Quop
+and Merdang Dyaks bore much fruit in after years; but he also fell ill
+from the climate, and the food which was attainable up country. In 1860,
+he also made up his mind to follow Mr. Glover to Australia. There are no
+doubt many difficulties for Englishmen living in Sarawak jungles. Some
+become acclimatized to them, others cannot bear the low diet, the
+loneliness, the apathy and indifference of the Dyaks. The Bishop was
+once accused, by a person who ought to have known better, that he was
+too apt to gather his clergy at Sarawak and keep them from their Dyak
+parishes: but it was a necessary part of the Bishop's work to keep a
+home where the missionaries could come for change and refreshment; where
+they could enjoy a more generous diet, and the society of English
+friends; where they could consult a medical man, and get some hints how
+to treat the maladies of the Dyaks--for they expected all the
+missionaries to know the art of healing, having had more or less
+experience of the Bishop's skill. Mr. Hacket was consumptive, but
+Sarawak is the best climate in the world for that disease: he got much
+stronger with us, and might have lived many years there, but he was too
+nervous for so unsettled a country. We were often subjected to panics
+for many months after the Chinese insurrection, and though we old
+inhabitants took it very easily, Mr. Hacket always thought his wife and
+child in danger. I remember, one day a Malay was being tried in the
+court-house, when he, by a sudden spring, escaped from the police, and
+snatching a sword from a bystander, ran amuck through the bazaar,
+wounding two or three people he met. The hue and cry in the town fired
+the imaginations of the timid. People came running to the house for
+shelter, bringing their goods and chattels, and all sorts of tales--"The
+Chinese were coming from Sambas," and all sorts of nonsense. Then, Mrs.
+Hacket fainting on the sofa, and the servants all leaving their work to
+listen, and look out of the verandah, provoked us extremely: we
+administered sal volatile and a good scolding, and sent everybody off to
+their business again. But those scenes were very trying to the nerves.
+That a Malay should run amuck (amok, in Malay) with anger or jealousy,
+or a fit of madness arising from both these passions, was an occasional
+event all through our Sarawak life, but it was no more alarming in 1858
+than in former years. It was the breach in the general feeling of
+security under the Sarawak Government, which for a time magnified every
+little disturbance of the peace into a public danger.
+
+Our school was enriched this year by, first, seven new Chinese boys,
+then four more and four girls, the captives of the Lundu Dyaks, ransomed
+by Captain Brooke. Those children were, some of them, miserable objects,
+covered with sores from neglect. One boy had been set to carry red wood
+which blisters the skin, another was badly burnt. Mrs. Stahl took them
+in hand, dressed their wounds, nursed them, clothed them, and soon they
+looked quite nice, sitting on a bench at the end of the church with a
+monitor to take charge of them, for they were still unbaptized--they
+were old enough to be instructed first, except two of the little girls
+who were immediately received into the Church. About this time a little
+Dyak boy, Nigo by name, was paying a visit to the school, and was
+baptized in church, answering for himself. He was about six years old,
+and as he stood at the font his face was lit up with so sweet a smile it
+touched us all. Mab begged him to stay at Sarawak; but the Dyaks never
+part with their children, and in this case it was not necessary, for
+Nigo's father was a Christian. It was a great happiness to us that none
+of our boys were killed in the insurrection; three got away to Sambas,
+the rest came back to the school one by one, having all escaped the
+Dyaks. The Christian goldsmith, too, who was put in prison by the kunsi
+for trying to warn us of the attack on the 18th of February, got to
+Sambas safe, and afterwards returned to us at Sarawak.
+
+This summer a doctor came out to Sarawak with his family. I heard of
+their proposed arrival some months before, and wrote to Mrs. C---- to
+beg they would leave their elder children in England, and only bring the
+babies with them, for the little ones thrive well enough at Sarawak. I
+also gave a plain unvarnished account of the place. But Mr. C----,
+having made up his mind to bring all his family out, put the letter in
+his pocket; and we were very sorry when they arrived, a party of nine,
+having lost one child at Singapore. They only stayed one month; the
+lady was so disgusted with the place--"no shops, no amusements, always
+hot weather, and food so dear!"--that she persuaded her husband to take
+advantage of some difference he had with the Government, and return in
+the same steamer by which they came out. I, however, gained by their
+departure, for they brought a sweet young girl with them as governess,
+and as she did not wish to return so soon, she remained with me, and
+became Mab's governess and friend. We liked her very much, and I cannot
+help mentioning an incident of her spirit and courage. One of our
+children being ill, I had taken her down to Santubong, where we had a
+seaside cottage; but as the house was full of clergy preparing for
+ordination, I left Miss McKee to do the housekeeping and take care of
+our guests for a few days. She slept at the top of the house, and little
+Edith in a cot beside her. It was late at night, and the moon shining
+into Miss McKee's room, when she woke and saw a Chinaman standing at the
+foot of her bed with a great knife in his hand. She felt under her
+pillow if the keys were safe, for the box of silver was put in her room
+while I was absent; then she jumped up, shouting "Thieves!" with all her
+might. The man ran and she after him, down a long passage, down the
+staircase, out of the house, by which time her cries had roused the
+gentlemen--the Bishop was nursing a sick man in fever, and was not in
+the house that night. They looked out of their doors, asking what was
+the matter? However, Miss McKee had by this time made up her mind that
+the thief was our own cook; she had seen enough of him by her courageous
+pursuit to be sure of it. No doubt he thought she would be fast asleep,
+and he should carry off the silver and the keys without discovery. Only
+a servant of the house would have known where they were kept. This young
+lady afterwards married Mr. Koch, one of the missionaries. He came from
+Ceylon, and eventually returned to his native country, where I hope they
+are still.
+
+Now we were again without a doctor, and in the autumn Mrs. Brooke
+expected her second confinement. This brings me to what we always called
+the sad, dark time at Sarawak. The weather was rainy beyond any former
+experience. We always had heavy rains in November, but this year they
+began in October, and the sky scarcely seemed to clear. In October, God
+gave us a little son, and in a usual way I should have been quite well
+at the end of three weeks, and across the water to see Mrs. Brooke many
+times before her confinement. But a long influenza cold kept me at home,
+and the weather being always wet, there was no prospect of getting over
+in a boat without a drenching, so only notes passed between us.
+
+On November 15th, Mrs. Brooke had another boy, and though there was some
+anxiety at the time, she seemed pretty well until the fourth day, when
+inflammation set in with puerperal fever, and at the end of ten days our
+much-loved friend was gone to her home in heaven, leaving her husband
+and children desolate. It seemed so impossible that so bright a creature
+should pass away from us, that to the last day we believed she would
+recover. That afternoon she called her husband and brothers and sisters
+to her bedside, and said, "I have tried hard to live for your sakes, but
+I cannot;" then she calmly and sweetly bade them good-bye, and no
+earthly cares touched her afterwards. Very sad hearts were left behind,
+but her example remained to us and called us upwards. Her short life had
+been continual self-sacrifice. She gave up her beautiful home in
+Scotland for love, and the prospect of doing good to Sarawak. On her
+arrival there the most rigid economy was practised, on account of the
+losses in the Chinese insurrection. A mat house, called "The Refuge,"
+neither airy nor comfortable, was her only home; but it was always
+bright with Annie's good taste and cheerful spirits. Then came the last
+sacrifice, her husband and children. These, too, she laid at her Lord's
+feet with a willing heart. Everybody went into mourning; for in so small
+a place it was quite a calamity to lose the head of our little society.
+But to the Bishop this event was a great trial. He had spent most of his
+time, day and night, striving to save this precious life. He was very
+fond of her; he ministered to her as her priest; from his hands she
+received the Blessed Sacrament a few hours before she died, and he heard
+her say with almost her last breath, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit;"
+but he had also to witness agony which he could not relieve, and no
+effort could prolong her life. It made him quite ill for some time, and
+all the happy holiday days passed away with Annie Brooke. Government
+House was never again, in our time, a bright and cheerful home: it
+returned to its bachelor ways; and business, not social pleasure,
+presided there. On Christmas Day, exactly a month after Mrs. Brooke died
+and was laid in the churchyard, we placed a bouquet of flowers from her
+garden on the altar, but there could be no festivities. The Chinese
+Christians had their feast, and the school-children; but we who had lost
+our companion and friend could not rejoice. It was sad enough to go over
+the water and see Annie's empty room, kept just as she had left it, and
+no sound in the house except the wails of the motherless baby, who we
+feared would soon follow his mother to the grave. Captain Brooke was
+obliged to go to England very soon after his wife's death; the Rajah was
+struck with paralysis, and it was at first doubtful whether he would
+recover. In the midst of all this sorrow I had the trouble of losing my
+faithful servant, Mrs. Stahl, who took all the care of the
+school-children off my hands. Her husband had found more lucrative work
+at Singapore, and sent for her to join him. It was a grief to both of
+us, and a great addition to my responsibilities. Mrs. William Channon,
+then a widow, was installed matron of the school, but she had neither
+knowledge nor experience. She did as well as she could, with continual
+supervision. The sick children now came to me to be doctored early every
+morning. I also had a large sewing-class of boys, and a tailor to teach
+us how to cut out and make their peculiar-shaped clothes: however, we
+soon learnt to do without the tailor. Mrs. Hacket taught the little ones
+to sew, and I had the elder ones from seven to ten every morning.
+Sometimes I gave a music lesson between whiles; sometimes I had to leave
+them for a while, first to see what the cook had brought from the bazaar
+for their day's food, and to give out the rice which was kept in my
+store-room; also the cocoa-nut oil, which trimmed the lamps of both
+house and school. Sometimes I read aloud to my boys, stories from
+history. They could understand English quite well.
+
+While our spirits were at their lowest ebb, and the rain still pouring
+with little intermission, we had a visit from H.M.S. _Esk_, Sir Robert
+J. McClure captain. He did his best to cheer us. How kind and bright he
+was I shall never forget, nor how he used to sit patiently under a tree
+in the rain to be photographed, simply to amuse us. There are certainly
+some people who have more of the wine of life than others, and who are a
+wonderful refreshment to their friends. It was during this year, 1858,
+that we built our seaside cottage at Santubong--Sandrock Cottage, as we
+called it, which sounds rather cockney; but as it stood on the sand,
+with great boulders of granite rock scattered about, it seemed the most
+appropriate name. Santubong is the most beautiful of the two mouths of
+the Sarawak River, but not as safe as the Morotabas for ships to enter.
+The Bishop had a mission yacht this year; consequently he was away,
+visiting the mission stations. The next year he sailed the _Sarawak
+Cross_ to Labuan. The voyage took only one week either way, whereas in
+other years he had to go to Singapore, more than four hundred miles off,
+in order to get to Labuan by P. and O. steamer, or any man-of-war
+chancing to go there. Months instead of weeks were consumed by this
+means.
+
+Our cottage took three weeks to build. We sent three men down with a
+thousand palm-leaf attaps for the outside walls and roof, and thirty
+mats to make inner walls. The men went into the jungle and felled wood
+for posts and rafters, then nibong palms were split into strips for the
+floors. The whole building was tied together with rattans, like all
+Malay houses. There were three rooms, twelve feet by fifteen each, and
+two little bath-rooms. A verandah ran along the whole length of the
+front, and this was planked to prevent little feet from slipping
+through. But the rooms were covered with thick mats, and the floor was
+so springy it danced as you moved. We put very little furniture into
+these rooms, and the inside walls were only eight feet high, so that
+though you could not see into the next room, you could hear all that
+went on in all three rooms. The cook-house and servants' room were
+separate.
+
+As early as the year 1848, the Rajah had a little Dyak house built on
+high poles, under the mountain of Santubong. It was an inconvenient
+little place, into which you climbed up a steep ladder--only one room,
+in fact, with a verandah; but we spent some happy days there, for the
+beauty of that shore made the house a secondary consideration. A small
+Malay village nestled in cocoa-nut palms at the foot of Santubong; in
+front lay a smooth stretch of sand, and a belt of casuarina-trees always
+whispering, without any apparent wind to move their slender spines. The
+deer in those days stole out of the jungle at night to eat the sea-foam
+which lay in flakes along the sand, and wild pigs could often be shot in
+a moonlight stroll under the trees. In the morning, we used to set off
+as soon as it was light to a fresh spring in the jungle, where we took
+our bath. Dawdling along the edge of the waves, then quite warm to our
+bare feet, with towels and leaf buckets in our hands, we reached the
+little stream, running under the shade of tall trees in which the
+wood-pigeons were cooing. How delicious and fresh that water was! and
+every sense was charmed at the same time, unless some stinging ants
+walked over our feet, which was not uncommon.
+
+Then we trudged home again, with the wet towels folded on our heads to
+shield us from the sun, who by that time was an enemy to be shunned.
+
+A little colony of Chinese were settled here in 1852, but they never
+took to the place; the soil was perhaps not good enough for their
+gardens. In 1857 the Malays fell upon them and killed them all, because
+they were of the same tribe as the rebels, although they had nothing
+whatever to do with the insurrection. When we were building our cottage
+on the sands two Chinese skulls were dug up. We were all indignant at
+this wanton cruelty, but unable to resent it, except by the expression
+of our opinion, for the English were a mere handful of individuals in
+Sarawak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE MALAY PLOT.
+
+
+Our cottage at Santubong was a source of much pleasure to many people.
+We often lent it to invalids, sometimes to newly married couples, who
+certainly had a good opportunity of studying each other's characters and
+tastes in that lonely solitude.
+
+Sometimes we sent down all the children from the school, who wanted
+sea-air and a holiday. Indeed, when we were staying there, we always had
+relays of children to play on the sands and enjoy themselves. We had a
+place staked round with strong hurdles, where we could bathe in safety
+from sharks and alligators, who both infested the coast. I have often
+seen quantities of jelly-fish and octopus sticking on the outside of the
+hurdles: they sting dreadfully, so they were quite welcome to stay
+there.
+
+During one of our visits to Santubong I remember a timber-ship lying off
+the mouth of the river, to lade planks from a saw-mill which was on the
+other side. One day three sailors came ashore to fill a cask with fresh
+water; there was a spring among the rocks close to the water's edge. As
+they neared the shore, the three men jumped into the sea for a swim; but
+suddenly, one of them threw up his arms and disappeared. In vain his
+comrades searched for him, but the next day his body, partly devoured by
+a shark, was thrown upon the rocks. No doubt he was seized and dragged
+under water. His comrades were much distressed, for he was a favourite
+among the crew. Frank buried him, and helped the men to put a wooden
+cross on the grave.
+
+In the north-west monsoon we sometimes went to Buntal, a bay on the
+other side of the mountain of Santubong. No soul resided there, but it
+was the resort of great flocks of wild-fowl at that season. We rowed
+into the bay while it was still high tide, then left the boat; and our
+men made little huts of boughs some distance from the shore, where we
+could sit without being perceived. As the tide ebbed the birds
+arrived--tall storks, fishing eagles, gulls, curlew, plover, godwits,
+and many others we did not know. They flew in long lines, till they
+seemed to vanish and reappear, circling round and round, then swooping
+down upon the sand where the receding waves were leaving their supper. I
+never saw a prettier sight. The tall storks seemed to act like
+sentinels, watching while the others fed. At a note of alarm they all
+rose in the air, flew about screaming, and then settled again on the
+sands in long lines, the smaller birds together, the larger ones in
+ascending rows. At last, alas! a gun fired into their midst caused death
+and dismay. A few fell dead, and the rest fled to some happier shore,
+where no destroying man could mar their happiness. And there are many
+such spots in Borneo where no human foot ever trod, and where trees,
+flowers, and insects flourish exceedingly; where the birds sing songs of
+praise which are only heard by their Maker, and where the wild animals
+of the forest live and die unmolested. There is always something
+delightful to me in this idea. We are apt to think that this earth is
+made for man, but, after many ages, there are still some parts of his
+domain unconquered, some fair lands where the axe, the fire, and the
+plough are still unknown.
+
+While we were at Santubong, in 1859, we were distressed to hear that Mr.
+Fox and Mr. Steele, two Government officers in charge of a fort at
+Kenowit, had been murdered by some Dyaks, whom they were judging in the
+court-house. We were very grieved for our friends, especially for Mr.
+Fox, who was for two years with us as catechist in the mission, and only
+left because he could not make up his mind to be ordained. However, he
+was most faithful in the performance of his duties at that lonely fort,
+and most blameless in his life; we could only regret the loss of so good
+a young man. We did not at that time connect this event with any general
+enmity to Englishmen among the natives, but only thought that
+particular tribe of Kenowits were not to be trusted.
+
+It was really a much more serious matter. Mr. Charles Johnson went up to
+Kenowit directly, taking the Bishop's yacht, the _Sarawak Cross_, as his
+floating fortress. He sent a thousand Dyaks to attack the fortified
+village of the Kenowits, who were engaged in the murders. These Dyaks
+were repulsed, but he led them on again himself with two hundred Sarawak
+Malays, good men and true. They took a brass gun overland to the
+village, and pounded them for a day; then the Malays and Dyaks attacked
+and fired the place, and took it.
+
+There were many killed, but it was their own fault; for, before
+attacking, a flag of truce had been hoisted, and all who would were
+invited to submit, and promised their lives, but only a few women and
+children availed themselves of it and were saved. Tanee the brave was
+killed, and Hadji Mahomet. It was found that these traitors had spread a
+report that all the English at Sarawak and at Labuan, as well as at
+Bunjermassin, had been killed, and this was so thoroughly believed that
+the Kenowits thought they had only to kill Mr. Fox and Mr. Steele, in
+order to possess themselves of the arms and goods in the fort with
+impunity. It was true that the Malays at Bunjermassin had risen upon the
+Europeans there, and killed twenty Dutch officials and their families;
+also four of the German missionaries living among the Dyaks, and a Mr.
+Mattley, with his wife and three children, who used to live at Labuan.
+The Dutch took summary vengeance for this massacre, but in spite of that
+the Malays at Coti killed the Europeans who lived there; so that
+neighbouring countries showed a bad example to our people, and we were
+afraid that religious fanaticism might have something to do with the
+hatred to Christians, whether Dutch or English.
+
+In every country there are unfortunately some bad men, who are
+irreclaimable by kindness or severity. Such were the two who instigated
+a plot to murder all the English in the Sarawak territory, and take the
+Government to themselves. The oldest and most shameless of these men was
+the Datu Patinghi of Sarawak, and to tell his story I must go back to
+the early days of Sarawak. When Sir James Brooke first visited Mudah
+Hassim, the Malay Rajah, he found him endeavouring to put down a
+rebellion among his subjects. After a time Sir James Brooke helped him
+with the guns of his yacht and the services of his blue jackets. The
+enemy submitted, and then he begged their lives of Mudah Hassim. It was
+with very great difficulty this unprecedented favour was granted.
+
+Gapoor and his followers were pardoned, and when Sarawak was given over
+to Sir James Brooke by the Sultan of Bruni, it was naturally supposed
+that this man who owed his life to the English Rajah would remain his
+faithful friend and follower. He was made the chief datu, or magistrate,
+of whom there were three--the Datu Patinghi, the Tumangong, and the
+Bandhar. These Malay chiefs were members of the Council, and represented
+Home Department, War Office, and Treasury in the State. For some time
+all seemed to go well, but the Rajah soon found that the Datu Patinghi
+could not be restrained from oppressing the Dyaks under his charge,
+levying more than the proper tax, or obliging them to buy whatever he
+wished to sell, at exorbitant prices. His power over the Dyaks was
+therefore taken away, and a fixed income given him to preclude
+temptation. When the Rajah was in England, in 1851, this Datu intrigued
+with the Bruni Malays to upset the Government; he mounted yellow
+umbrellas, a sign of royalty, and arrogated power to himself which might
+have been mischievous had he been more popular with the natives. But he
+had many relations among the high Malays of the place, and it was a
+question whether they would resent his being publicly disgraced. Captain
+Brooke told them plainly that he must be exiled, but that it should be
+done in the most cautious way, and appearances should be saved. Datu
+Patinghi was therefore advised to go a pilgrimage to Mecca. Money and
+servants were supplied him, but he had no choice about it. We all hoped
+he would never return.
+
+About a year afterwards Sir James Brooke said to me, "Did you ever feel
+pleasure at hearing of the death of an old friend?" Before I could
+consider this knotty question, he added Gapoor had died of small-pox at
+Mecca. It was only a report, and proved untrue. Datu came back a hadji,
+but was desired to go and live at Malacca the rest of his days. In 1859
+he begged to be allowed to return to Sarawak, and, as it was hoped he
+could not be ungrateful for so much kindness and forbearance, he was
+permitted; but he was only biding his time. After his return to Sarawak
+he married his daughter to Seriff Bujang, the brother of Seriff
+Messahore, whose rascality and bad faith were on a par with his own.
+Bujang was a quiet creature enough, drawn into the wicked plots of his
+brother and father-in-law, but they were bad to the core. A Seriff is
+supposed to be a descendant of the Prophet Mahomet, at any rate he is an
+Arab, and Messahore was said to be invulnerable and sacred in his
+person. He was a fine, handsome creature, with insinuating manners, but
+there was nothing more to say in his favour. He was at the bottom of
+every disturbance in the country, but was cunning enough to keep himself
+in the background. Directly a plot miscarried, he came forward zealously
+to punish the wrong-doers.
+
+He instigated the murder of Mr. Fox and Mr. Steele; nay, it was intended
+to be a general massacre of all the English in Sarawak territory; but by
+a mistake of the Kenowits these two unfortunates were killed
+prematurely. The day had not arrived, and this led to the discovery of
+the plot. When Mr. C. Johnson went with an armed force to Kenowit,
+Seriff Messahore had already killed the fort men, who had only executed
+his own orders. For some time he, the guilty one, escaped detection. At
+last some Christian Dyaks of Lundu and Banting disclosed to their
+missionaries that Malays had visited them to say they had better turn
+Mahometans, for soon there would be no English left in the country.
+These stories being communicated by the Bishop to Mr. Johnson, he
+consulted the Malay members of the council and other trustworthy native
+friends, and it was evident they knew there was good reason for anxiety,
+as they advised all the English to wear firearms, even the ladies.
+
+At last the rumours of threats were traced to old Gapoor, the
+ex-Patinghi, and he was again banished the country by order of the
+council. Seriffs Messahore and Bujang, being connected with him by
+marriage, were also suspected. Messahore was warned that if he came to
+Kuching he would be treated as an enemy. Nevertheless he advanced up the
+river; his boat was greeted by a shower of balls, and he ignominiously
+fled. When the glamour was thus taken from him everybody was ready to
+divulge what they knew of the plot, and that a pension of six hundred
+rupees a year was promised to any one who would kill Mr. C. Johnson. The
+Rajah was in England, and known to be in bad health. Very few English
+men-of-war visited Sarawak at that time. Rumours were got up at Bruni
+that the Rajah was in disgrace with his own queen. This was the
+consequence of the commission of inquiry about piracy, which had taken
+place in 1858, by order of the English Parliament; for though the
+results of that commission thoroughly exculpated Sir James Brooke from
+any blame, there was never any _amende honourable_ made for subjecting
+him to such an indignity. It was never understood by the natives as
+anything but a slur on the Rajah's character, and was a terrible injury
+to his prestige for a time. Indeed, it was the seed of the Malay plot;
+and if we had all been killed, our own English Government would have
+been the remote cause of our death. It is no doubt difficult for
+Englishmen to understand the feelings of Malays and Dyaks. We are
+accustomed in England to find fault with our rulers, and submit to them
+all the same. But in the East it is different: no breath of blame must
+touch the Rajah, nor can he be arraigned before any court, except the
+throne of God.
+
+Fatima, Seriff Bujang's wife, was an old friend of mine. She had always
+visited me from the time of our first arrival at Sarawak, and was then a
+very handsome girl, with a pale, clear complexion, and fine hair and
+eyes. We took a great interest in her marriage, and Seriff Bujang
+frequently came to our house. He was apparently fond of Mab, and liked
+to hear her tell fairy tales. Mab spoke Malay very well, and was always
+popular with the natives, to whom she would sing, dance, or relate
+Cinderella, the White Cat, or the Three Bears, etc. It was curious to
+see a grave-looking Malay sitting to listen to fairy stories; still more
+so when all the time he was party to a plot for the destruction of the
+household he visited. He was more weak than wicked; and two years after
+that he died. I had occasion to visit some Malays in his kampong after
+his death, and found poor Fatima bereft of all her ornaments and gay
+dresses, and working as a drudge in the house. Widows are little
+accounted of in Eastern households.
+
+To return to the events of October, 1859.
+
+A timber-ship, the _Planet_, was lying in the river, and Mr. Johnson
+requested that the women and children of the mission should be sent on
+board until the panic passed away, and the old Datu was got safely out
+of the place. The fort and Government House were manned and armed, and
+the rest of the Europeans sheltered there. The Hacket family went down
+at once, and in the evening we sent Miss McKee and the two youngest
+children with her; but Mab was ill of fever, and could not be moved. So
+the Bishop and I stayed with her, and ten Chinamen guarded our house.
+
+Mr. Chalmers had come from Merdang with news that some of those Dyaks
+had joined the Datu Hadji, and also some bad Lundus, who had been
+punished for sedition four years before. We all sat up that night; but I
+was too much occupied with my sick child to be nervous about anything
+else. The night passed over without any rising of the disaffected, and
+the next day Gapoor consented to leave the country quietly, finding no
+chief Malays would stand by him, and to be taken in a Government
+gunboat to a brig just leaving the river. Thus, through God's mercy and
+the loyalty of the people, no harm came of this plot, except that Mr.
+and Mrs. Hacket decided to leave the mission, not being strong enough to
+stand such alarms. They went to Malacca, where he became Government
+chaplain, and died there of consumption, after some years' service.
+
+The heat of Sarawak climate was so injurious to our child Mab, who had
+frequent attacks of fever, that as soon as the place was quiet again, we
+resolved to pay another visit to England. The Bishop's health was much
+shaken, and the doctors at Singapore ordered him home at once. But it
+was winter, and we were afraid of taking our children too quickly into
+the rigorous cold of England; therefore we took a passage in the
+_Bahiana_, a steamer which had brought out a telegraph cable to lay
+between Singapore and Batavia, and having accomplished her purpose, was
+returning empty to England. The Bishop went with us as far as Bombay,
+and then took P. and O. boat to England; whilst we called first at
+Mauritius, then at the Cape of Good Hope, staying some days at each
+place, and at the latter adding several passengers to our small party.
+We proceeded very happily until we were within a day's steam of the
+Island of St. Vincent, off the coast of Africa; then the great crank of
+the steam-engine snapped in two, and we had to sail. It took us ten days
+to beat up to the island, for a large screw steamer was never intended
+to be propelled by sails.
+
+We began to have gloomy forebodings of the time which must elapse before
+we could reach England, sailing at this rate, when we saw, lying in the
+roads at St. Vincent, a very large West Indian steamer on her way home.
+It was difficult to communicate with this ship, because she lay in
+quarantine, yellow flag flying; and we did not know whether she had
+yellow fever on board or not. Our captain, however, called us all
+together, and said, "I hoped to have found some provisions in this
+island, to add to our stores; but I find there is nothing." The island
+seemed just a bare rock, with one solitary palm-tree growing by the
+office door, and not a blade of grass. It was difficult to imagine what
+provisions there could be, except the coal left by ships to supply
+passing steamers. "It will be necessary," added Captain Grenfell, "that
+some of you should go home in the _Magnolia_, West Indian steamer, for
+we have not food on board for all, and cannot expect to be less than
+another month reaching England under sail: therefore you must each of
+you decide to-night what you will do; and if you choose to go home in
+the _Magnolia_, I will pay your passage. But I ought to tell you that
+probably there are cases of yellow fever on board that ship; for it is
+the time of year when it is rife at the South American stations."
+
+Here was a problem to solve in the night! Should I take my children on
+board a ship where there was probable infection, or should I subject my
+husband to harassing anxiety about us for a whole month? In the morning
+I decided to go home in the _Magnolia_; and I was rewarded when we
+climbed up into that great ship, with two hundred passengers on board,
+by finding that there was not a single case of yellow fever, or anything
+infectious. We had a delightful ten days' passage, stopping a few hours
+at Lisbon, but not allowed to land, and then straight to Southampton. My
+only regret was leaving Captain Grenfell, who had been so kind to the
+children all the way.
+
+The _Bahiana_ took just a month to get to England from St. Vincent.
+
+
+
+
+PART III.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE CHILDREN'S CHAPTER.
+
+
+In 1861 we again returned to our Eastern home, leaving our three
+children behind, and taking only our baby girl for companion. What a
+difference it makes in India, to "leave the children behind!"--a common
+fate indeed for parents, but not the less to be deplored. We used to
+think and speak of Sarawak as home until 1861; but ever after, we spoke
+of going home to our children, for where the treasure is there must the
+heart be also. To do the work so that the time might pass quickly and
+peacefully, to live upon the mails from England, to carry on two lives
+as it were, one in the present, the other in the pictures our English
+letters presented--such at any rate was my fate, though my husband was
+too true a missionary to feel as I did.
+
+Most of our old Sarawak friends had either died or gone away when we
+returned in '61, but the mission grew more and more interesting as
+Christian Churches sprang up on the Dyak rivers. Four new missionaries
+came out soon after our arrival. Mr. and Mrs. Abè, Mr. Zehnder, Mr.
+Mesney, and Mr. Crossland, the two latter from St. Augustine's College,
+Canterbury, from whence had formerly come those two good men, Mr.
+Chalmers and Mr. Glover. They had both gone to Australia on account of
+their health, but the teaching of Mr. Chalmers had left its mark among
+the land Dyaks of Murdang and the Quop, so that Mr. Abè, who was
+afterwards placed on that station, reaped the harvest which had been
+sown with many prayers two years before. Mr. Mesney succeeded Mr. Glover
+at Banting, and its many branch missions; and Mr. Crossland went farther
+off, to the Dyaks, on the Undop, where he eventually built a church and
+gathered a little flock of Christians about him. Mr. Richardson came as
+catechist about the same time, and after staying a short time at Lundu,
+built himself a house among the Selaku Dyaks at Sedemac, in the country
+towards Sambas. He was much beloved by those simple people, who speak
+quite a different language to the Lundus. They exerted themselves to
+build their own church of substantial balean-wood, and their women
+learnt to pray as well as the men. "To learn to pray" is the Dyak
+description of a Christian. "What will you do," asked a missionary, "to
+bring those around you to Christ?" "I will teach them to pray," was the
+answer. And surely this is the great distinction between the Christian
+and the heathen--the one has communion with his Father in heaven, an
+all-powerful, wise, and loving Friend; the other may cherish some vague
+belief and worship of an unknown God, but has neither love nor trust to
+carry him above this world's troubles and trials.
+
+Another baby was added to our family in May, 1862, whose mother died at
+her birth. This little one stayed with us only seventeen months, and was
+a great happiness to me; then Sir James Brooke took her to England.
+However, it was a pleasant chapter as long as it lasted.
+
+Julia, one of our original school-girls, became very useful to me at
+this time. We had taken her home with us in '59, and sent her to a
+training-school for teachers in Dublin, so that she was quite competent
+on our return to take the management of the girls' school. We had eight
+girls in the house, and a few day-scholars from the town. Lessons used
+to go on in a room on the basement, where of course I was
+superintendent, and they learnt sewing in the afternoon. Julia was a
+very gentle mistress, and I was feeling very happy about my girls, when
+I found to my sorrow that Julia had an admirer, and I must make up my
+mind to part with my child who had lived with us since she was four
+years old. Such natural events must not be considered trials, but the
+difficulty of replacing her was insuperable. I was obliged at last to
+send my girls to Mrs. Abè, at the Quop Station, for I was too often away
+in the mission-boat with the Bishop to keep them at the mission-house.
+This was not until 1865, however. Poor Mildred felt parting with "her
+girls," as she called them, very much, and often said, "Mamma, if Sarah
+and Fanny might come back we would never, never quarrel any more." Are
+not such pricks of conscience common to us all when our dear ones leave
+us? But the past never returns!
+
+In 1863, the Bishop built a charming little yawl for mission work. The
+_Fanny_ was just suited, from her light draught of water, to cross the
+bars of the rivers, and she was a very good sea-boat too. Not only was
+she wanted to take the Bishop on his missionary, tours, but she brought
+the missionaries to Sarawak when, they came for ordinations, or the
+annual synod; also when they were sick, and required medical aid or
+change. Very few clergymen know much about the management of boats, and
+native crafts are very unsafe, so that until the Bishop had a yacht many
+accidents used to occur, not actually dangerous, for the natives swim
+like fishes, but drenchings and loss of goods from the upsetting of
+boats. In the north-east monsoon _Fanny_ was thatched over and laid
+snugly up a creek, but all the south-west monsoon she was very useful;
+and no one wanted to travel about, if they could help it, during the wet
+tempestuous weather which prevailed from November to March.
+
+The Bishop paid his annual visit to Labuan in any steamer which happened
+to be going. We had the great advantage of frequent visits from an
+English gunboat, for the admiral of the Chinese seas had orders from
+England to tell off one gun-boat for the two stations of Labuan and
+Sarawak. This arose from our being also blest with the presence of an
+English consul. But after he and his wife had remained two years at
+Sarawak, they were heartily tired of the dulness of their lives, and did
+their best to get removed to a more stirring station. However, the
+recognition of England gave confidence to native traders and security to
+the well disposed, so that there ensued a time of peace such as we had
+not experienced during our former sojourns in the country.
+
+[Illustration: Tommy. Fanny. Mary. Mab. Sarah. Nietfong.
+
+SCHOOL CHILDREN. _Page_ 194.]
+
+I think the history of our life during these years may be partly told by
+the letters I wrote to my children at home, or extracts from them; so
+that this may be called the children's chapter.
+
+    Sunday before Easter, 1862.
+
+    MY DARLING MAB,
+
+    I am glad you are not here, for it is very, very hot, and you
+    would probably have a bad headache. Julia is sitting in the
+    verandah teaching Polly, Sarah, Fanny, and Phoebe the Easter
+    hymn for next Sunday. Ayah is walking up and down with Mildred,
+    and Louis Koch is running about, making her laugh. I must tell
+    you how we spend the day. Papa gets up at five, and takes a ride
+    on his pony. I make the tea at six, and cut bread and butter for
+    Ayah and Julia, and Samchoon, one of the boys who has had fever
+    and wants feeding up. The bell calls us to church at seven, but
+    I don't go till the afternoon. The gardener brings me a tray of
+    flowers, and I make the nosegays for the day. Then I go
+    downstairs and see the butter made. The boy brings in a great
+    jar of milk, with which he mixes some warm water; into this he
+    puts a long piece of bamboo, with cross pieces fixed in it like
+    the spokes of a wheel. This he twirls round and round in the jar
+    till the butter comes. Then he takes it out with his black
+    hands, and I carry it off and wash and salt it. We only get five
+    ounces now at a time, though there are six cows in milk; but the
+    calves are such miserable little things they have to be helped
+    first, and fed with rice-gruel also. The butter finished, I go
+    up to the sewing-class, who are very busy making their Easter
+    clothes, both boys and girls; and I help them with my
+    sewing-machine until half-past ten, only running away
+    twice--once to see what the school cook has brought for their
+    breakfast, and then to order our own. Then we all bathe and
+    breakfast, and Ayah goes away for two hours for her breakfast
+    and midday nap; and I take care of Mildred, which is, I own, the
+    hardest part of my day's work, for the little restless thing
+    will never let me sit down, and is up to all sorts of mischief.
+    At two o'clock Ayah comes and sings Mildred to sleep, with the
+    same old tune of "Doo doo baby" which you used to sing to your
+    dolls. I think in the next box I have from home you might send
+    your old friends Sarah and Fanny a doll each, and dress them
+    yourself. Our Malay Tuan Ku was here the other day and asked
+    after you; he remembered your Malay fairy tales.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    MY BELOVED CHILD,
+
+    Our letters were very welcome last Sunday, _Easter Sunday_,
+    telling us good news of you all. Our church was very gay with
+    flowers and moss ferns; and the font was filled with large pink
+    water-lilies, whose beautiful round green leaves, a foot wide at
+    least, looked quite lovely round the white shell font. All holy
+    week and Easter Monday and Tuesday we had full service at seven
+    o'clock in the morning, papa preaching a short sermon from the
+    altar. It was delightfully cool at that hour, and began the day
+    so pleasantly. I always love Easter, when all our dear ones seem
+    to be gathered to us in Christ our Lord, whether those in Heaven
+    or those far away--all one family, and Christ's children through
+    God the Father's love and mercy. I have been very busy. The
+    school-children had all new clothes for Easter. We worked
+    diligently for three hours every morning. The jackets were made
+    of the Irish gingham I brought from home. This week is holiday,
+    and Julia and I have had a fine wash, and have clear-starched
+    the Bishop's sleeves and ruffles--such a business! My hand aches
+    to-day with lifting the heavy smoothing-iron, which is not iron,
+    but a large brass box, hollow and filled with hot charcoal. We
+    shall get more used to it in time. Mrs. Stahl used to do it. Now
+    she is gone it is quite impossible to let the Kling Dobie touch
+    papa's sleeves; they would soon be torn to ribbons. I gave the
+    school a treat on Easter Tuesday. They had two soup-tureens full
+    of syllabub, plum cake, and pine-apple puffs. My cook stared
+    when I said, "Make forty large pine-apple puffs." However, they
+    were for his own countrymen--he is Chinese. I thought at first
+    he understood English, for he always said "Yes" to my orders;
+    but it was his one word. After the school-children had finished
+    off with fruit and native cakes, they had, what they like best
+    of all, quantities of crackers, which filled the house with the
+    smell of gunpowder, and frightened baby Mildred out of her
+    sleep. Good-bye.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    July, 1862.
+
+    MY PRECIOUS MAB,
+
+    Thank you for your note, written on the 4th of May, which I
+    received the other day. I always rejoice to think of you in the
+    springtime, because, like other young things, you enjoy the
+    opening buds, flowers, and sunshine after the long grave winter.
+    But winter is a good friend, although he has a grave face; we
+    should be all the better for a visit from him out here. My
+    garden is now as full of flowers as it will hold; Mrs. Little
+    brought me so many new ones from Singapore. I have a very gay
+    nosegay every morning, and still, leave flowers to adorn the
+    beds outside. We have turned out some of the fruit-trees to make
+    more room for flowers. This morning I have sown a quantity of
+    blue and purple convolvulus, which only display their beauties
+    to those who rise early before the sun closes their blossoms;
+    but we have flowers which only open at night, the moon-flower,
+    and night-blowing cereus, both white and fragrant. Dr. Little
+    has been travelling about the country looking for new plants. He
+    and Mr. Koch went to the top of the mountain of Poè near Lundu.
+    It was so cold six thousand feet above the level of the sea,
+    that they had to supply the natives who went with them with
+    blankets. At the very top of the mountain they found a new
+    orchid growing on the ground, a bright yellow flower, with
+    streaks of magenta colour inside. Dr. Little picked some of the
+    blossoms, and dug up one hundred roots, two of which he gave me;
+    but they will not live in my garden, they want mountain air. He
+    also gave me the dead flowers, and asked me to paint a picture
+    of one from his description and the faded blossom. I did it as
+    well as I could, but I fear it was not very good, and, after
+    all, the flower was not nearly as pretty as a bunch of laburnum
+    in England. They also found growing on the roots of a tree that
+    strange fungus flower described by Sir Stamford Raffles in his
+    book on Java and Sumatra--a yard wide across the petals,
+    brilliantly coloured red, purple, yellow and white, and, in the
+    hollow of the flower (nectarium), capable of holding twelve
+    pints of water, the whole weighing from fifteen to twenty
+    pounds; for it is a thick fleshy flower, not frail and delicate
+    as one likes a flower to be. It is very curious and gorgeous,
+    but as soon as it is fully expanded it begins to decay and
+    smells putrid. Sir James Brooke once found a specimen of this
+    gigantic flower in the jungle, and sent it to me to look at; but
+    it had lost all its beauty in the journey, and I held my nose as
+    I looked at it. The Dyaks said, "It is an auton" (spirit), which
+    is their explanation of anything they never saw before. The
+    natives of Sumatra call it "The Devil's sirih-box."[8] Are you
+    as fond of frogs as you used to be? Last week, some people were
+    dining with us. I had just helped the soup, and, letting my hand
+    fall upon my lap, picked up one of your friends who had settled
+    himself there. Not knowing at first what the cold clammy thing
+    was, I jumped up, and everybody else jumped up too, to see what
+    was the matter; for it might have been a snake, you know!
+    Good-bye.
+
+    [Footnote 8: The real name is _Rafflesia Arnoldi_. See page 343,
+    vol. i., "Raffles' Life and Journals."]
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    December 1, 1862.
+
+    MY DEAREST MAB,
+
+    Uncle told me of your walk with him to West Hyde Church, and how
+    you made believe to get to Sarawak and see mamma walking in the
+    verandah. You are much better off in the cold December air of
+    England, than you would be in this sultry place, for all its
+    green beauty and never-failing flowers. I had rather you carried
+    the roses in your cheeks than have them in the garden all the
+    year round. Last month papa went to visit the Quop Mission,
+    where Mr. and Mrs. Abi and their little baby, and your old Ayah
+    Fatima, live. To get there he goes down the Sarawak River and
+    up the Quop River, then lands at a Malay village, from whence
+    there is a walk of three or four miles, up and down pretty hills
+    and across Dyak bridges, and over paths made of two bamboos tied
+    together, with a muddy swamp on either side. Then you come to
+    the mission-house which papa has built, and to Mr. Chalmers' old
+    house, which at present serves as the church, and to some long
+    Dyak houses. Papa baptized twenty-four men, women, and girls,
+    and confirmed nineteen people who had been baptized by Mr.
+    Chalmers. The old Pangara, one of the principal chiefs, was
+    baptized, and three of his grown-up sons, and one little
+    grandson whom the old man held in his arms. We had made white
+    jackets for the baptized, but the old Pangara had not quite made
+    up his mind, fearing the ridicule of the other elders of the
+    tribe, till papa talked to him; so there was no jacket for him,
+    and papa gave him a clean white shirt, round the skirt of which
+    we tied his chawat, a very long waist-band which wraps round and
+    round the body, and that was all! no trousers, and very funny he
+    looked; but papa was too rejoiced at his becoming a Christian,
+    to laugh at him. These people will all be Christians soon. They
+    come to Mr. and Mrs. Abi, morning, noon, and night, to be
+    taught, and there are two daily services; so the missionaries
+    have plenty to do. Two of our old school-boys, now grown up, are
+    catechists there, Semirum and Aloch. There is much love between
+    the people and their teachers; they are so happy at the Quop
+    they never want to come away. However, I have asked the Abis to
+    come for a fortnight at Christmas, and bring their poor little
+    baby to be fattened on cow's milk. There are no cows at the
+    Quop.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+     January, 1863.
+
+     MY BELOVED CHILDREN,
+
+     As I cannot have you with me this Christmas and new year, I
+     must comfort myself as best I may by writing you an account of
+     all we have been doing, and how we have tried to fancy
+     ourselves in old England amidst the frost and snow,
+     notwithstanding the bright sunshine and perpetual green of our
+     Eastern home. When we woke before daylight on Christmas morning
+     the school boys were singing under our windows, "When Joseph
+     was a-walking he heard an angel sing," so we got up and looked
+     out, wishing the children a happy Christmas. Then we dressed,
+     for there was a great deal to do. Papa had many services in
+     church, Chinese, English, and Dyak. I had the wreaths to make.
+     The church had been decked with moss fern the day before, but
+     the flowers must be added in the morning, or they would be
+     faded. So Julia and I made a crown of French marigolds to hang
+     on the cross over the altar, two large wreaths for either side,
+     and one at the west end made entirely of the golden allamanda,
+     in the buds of which you used to imprison fire-flies when you
+     lived here. The font was adorned all over, in preparation for
+     the baptisms to take place in the morning service. At half-past
+     eleven we all went to church, and after the Litany there were
+     sixteen Dyaks from Murdang, six Chinamen, and six little
+     children baptized. Mr. Koch read the service in Malay, and papa
+     baptized. It was a beautiful sight. The children, four of my
+     little girls, and two small boys from the school behaved very
+     well, and looked pretty in their new clothes. But they all
+     understood something of why they were sprinkled with the
+     blessed water, for we had been teaching them for some time, and
+     Limo told me on Christmas Eve, that "our Saviour came into this
+     world a little child, to teach us to be good; and when He had
+     blessed them in their baptism, they must take pains to do all
+     He desired them." I thought this pretty well for a beginning.
+     Ambat always repeats what Limo says, so I do not know how much
+     is her own: she is Limo's sister. Ango and Llan, the other two
+     girls, have been taught by Miss Rocke, who has given them to
+     me; they know but little, but are gentle children. The school
+     had a feast at five o'clock, beef curry (papa had an ox
+     killed), salt pork, rice, and a huge plum-pudding. They had
+     newly white-washed their dining-room the week before, and
+     decked it with boughs, so that it looked very nice with six
+     lanterns hanging from the roof. They played there while we were
+     at dinner, and the Christian Chinese feasted at Sing Song's
+     house. Julia had her little party in her school-room, and
+     dinner from our table: some of the grown-up schoolboys and
+     Polly. We had Mr. and Mrs. Koch, Mr. and Mrs. Owen, Mr.
+     Zehnder, and Mrs. Crookshank at our table. Papa counted that
+     ninety-seven people were fed on the mission premises on
+     Christmas Day. After dinner we had a bonfire in the hollow
+     below our hill, between the house and the church. Quantities of
+     dry bamboo had been collected there, which threw up columns of
+     sparks, and lit up all the under leaves of the trees, making
+     the dark sky and the young moon look so far far away. Then the
+     boys began with crackers and rockets. Baby Agnes was not
+     frightened, but poor Mildred could not sleep for terror. Every
+     rocket made her call out "Bumah," and hide her face on my
+     shoulder; however, she got used to it at last. Christmas is the
+     time of year which belongs especially to children, because our
+     Lord Jesus Christ then deigned to become a little child. We
+     forget what happened to us when we were very young--even a
+     mother does not know all the feelings, little troubles, ardent
+     wishes and desires of her little ones--but it is impossible
+     that our Saviour can ever forget. He knows exactly all that
+     belongs to the daily life of a child, not only because He is
+     God and knows everything, but because He was once a child
+     Himself, and remembers all the joys and sorrows of His
+     child-life in the cottage at Nazareth; and so children are very
+     dear to Him--He listens to their prayers, accepts their
+     praises, and watches over them always. Remember, my darling,
+     that He is your best friend; to Him you may tell all your
+     little troubles and confess all your faults, for He is very
+     pitiful and of tender mercy.
+
+     I gave my school-girls a box of dominoes and a set of
+     draughtsmen with a board for their Christmas present. They play
+     very well. All the sewing-class boys, too, had each a
+     present--either a knife, or belt, or box or basket to keep
+     their treasures in, or a head-handkerchief; but the Sarawak
+     bazaar does not furnish many desirable things, even for
+     school-boys. H.M.S. _Renard_ has arrived since I wrote thus
+     far, and we have had the boat races, which always take place in
+     January. Eleven of our school-boys won the boys' race, pulling
+     against Inchi Boyangs' school, the Mahometan school, and some
+     other boats. We dressed our boys in white and blue, and they
+     pulled beautifully. Papa had taught them to pull all together,
+     when they went to mission stations with him, and they are
+     really good paddlers. They disdained the short course marked
+     out for the boys, and pulled all the way out to the
+     winning-post, a boat anchored near the wharf, round it, and
+     back again, winning by two boats' lengths. They won five
+     dollars, and papa added two more; they gave some of the money
+     to their school-fellows, and celebrated their victory by
+     singing all the evening so nicely, and hurrahing at the end of
+     each song. They are good boys, and much happiness to us.
+     Good-bye.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+ILLANUN PIRATES.
+
+
+I have described in a former chapter the habits of the Dyak pirates of
+Sakarran and Sarebas, and how, after being punished by Sir James Brooke
+when they were caught at the entrance of their river, with captives and
+plunder in their boats, they were required to live at one with their
+neighbours, and to study the arts of peace. Happily for them, they had a
+wise and paternal Government to repress their vices, and, after a time,
+Christian missionaries to teach them the fear and love of God. But the
+Malay pirates who lived on the islands and coasts of North Borneo were
+governed by sultans who encouraged piracy, and insisted on sharing their
+spoils; moreover, they are Mahometans by religion, and that is not a
+faith which teaches mercy or respects life. To this day, therefore,
+these Illanuns remain pirates. They have larger prahus and carry heavier
+guns than the Dyaks, and nothing can exceed their cruelty. When we
+lived at Kuching there was scarcely a Malay family there who had not
+suffered from them, either by the loss of relations or property; for
+they are naturally a trading people.
+
+It is a common practice for a party of men to join together in hiring a
+boat in which to venture goods or gold-dust by trading on the coast, or
+even to Singapore three hundred and sixty miles away, These small and
+comparatively unarmed boats fell an easy prey to the pirate prahus, who
+went out in fleets.
+
+The Spaniards and the Dutch were every now and then roused to search the
+seas for these pests of the human race, but they were so cunning they
+generally evaded them. At last they had a signal lesson. In the year
+1862, Captain Brooke, then governing Sarawak in his uncle's absence,
+decided to go to Bintulu on the north-west coast of Borneo, a territory
+which had lately been ceded to the Rajah by the Sultan, and build a fort
+on the river, to check piracy and protect the peaceable inhabitants who
+were settling there on the promise of such protection. For this purpose
+he took the _Rainbow_, a small screw steamer of eighty-nine tons and
+thirty-five horse power; and the _Jolly Bachelor_, a Government
+gun-boat. The Bishop accompanied him, to see what missionary prospects
+there were in that distant spot, also because he was at that time
+anxious about Captain Brooke's health. Mr. Helms, the manager of the
+Borneo mercantile company, accompanied them as far as Muka, where was
+an establishment to collect sago for exportation. On the second day
+after his arrival, a piratical fleet of Ilanuns, consisting of six
+large, and as many smaller vessels, appeared on the coast, and blockaded
+the town. For two days they remained off Muka, capturing there, and on
+the coast southwards, thirty-two persons.
+
+Mr. Helms persuaded Hadji Mataim and a few natives to start in a fast
+boat and apprize Captain Brooke; and this boat, though chased by the
+pirates, got safe to Bintulu. Hadji Mataim got alongside the steamer
+early on Thursday morning, while it was still dark, and the Bishop,
+recognizing his voice, called him on board. He delivered a letter from
+Mr. Helms, asking for help. Steam was got up directly, the Chinese
+carpenters who were to build the fort were landed, and the guns which
+had been brought to protect it were put on board, as well as the fort
+men who were to man the fort, that they might strengthen the crew. With
+the first dawn of light the _Rainbow_ steamed over the bar taking the
+_Jolly Bachelor_ in tow, and steered for Muka.
+
+Meanwhile all preparation was made for fighting. Planks were hung over
+the railing to raise the sides of the poop where there were no bulwarks,
+and mattresses were laid inside to receive the shot and spears of the
+enemy; this doubtless saved the lives of several of the crew. There were
+eight Europeans on board, including the captain of the _Rainbow_ and his
+mate, the engineer, Captain Brooke, Mr. Stuart Johnson, Mr. Hay, Mr.
+Walters, and the Bishop. As soon as there were any wounded, Mr. Walters
+assisted the Bishop in his work of mercy. The Bishop always carried a
+medicine chest and case of surgical instruments wherever he went; and,
+happily, a large sheet had been packed among his things this voyage,
+which was speedily torn up into bandages. Now all was ready, but it was
+not until Friday morning that they sighted what looked like three large
+palm drifts to seaward off Tanjong Kidorong, to the north-east of the
+British River. They proved to be three large prahus, with their masts
+struck, and bristling with men, who were rowing like the Maltese,
+standing, and pushing for shore, casting off their sampans[9] one by one
+to make better way. Hadji Mataim recognized the sampan which chased and
+fired at him when he slipped away from Muka. Brooke then asked one of
+the chief officers of the Sarawak Government, who was on board, and
+Pangeran Matussim of Muka, if they were perfectly sure that these prahus
+were Illanuns? "Not a shadow of doubt," they said. So they loaded their
+guns and prepared for action. The leading prahu was going almost as fast
+as the steamer herself, and though steam was put on, and every effort
+made to get between her and the Point, the prahu won the race, and got
+into shallow water where the steamer could not follow; then she opened
+fire on the steamer, which was returned with interest. This prahu had
+three long brass swivel guns, and plenty of rifles and muskets. As she
+was beyond the reach of the steamer, Captain Brooke turned to the second
+prahu, which was now fast nearing the shore. His plan was to silence the
+brass guns by the fire of the rifles on board the steamer, and shake the
+rowers at their oars by a discharge of grape and round shot; then to put
+on all steam and run at them with the stem of the _Rainbow_. This was
+done with great coolness by Captain Hewat when Captain Brooke gave the
+order; the steamer struck the prahu amid-ships and went over her. Those
+on board called to the slaves, and all who would surrender, to hold on
+by the wreck until the boats could take them off; then they steamed away
+after the third prahu, which had already got into two-fathom water and
+was struck too far forward to sink. All the pirates in her jumped
+overboard and swam for shore, leaving their own wounded, the slaves, and
+captives, who were also bid to remain by their vessel till they were
+rescued.
+
+    [Footnote 9: Small boats.]
+
+Meanwhile the first prahu, seeing the fate of the others, ran ashore
+among the rocks inside Tanjong Kidorong; and all the crew, pirates, and
+slaves ran into the jungle. Had the captives known better they would not
+have run away. The _Jolly Bachelor_ was left to look after these
+runaways, and then the captives of the other two prahus were helped on
+board the steamer. Several of the crew of the _Rainbow_ recognized
+friends and acquaintances among the saved; and the joyous, thankful look
+of the captives, as they came on board and found themselves among
+friends, was indeed a compensation for the awful destruction of the
+pirates. Many were wounded, either with shot or the fearful cuts of the
+Illanun swords of the pirates, who tried to murder their captives when
+they saw all was lost. The Bishop was dressing one man who was shot
+through the wrist, when he spoke to him in English, and after pouring
+out his gratitude for his wonderful escape, said he was a Singapore
+policeman, and was going to see his friends in Java when he was
+captured. There were also two Singapore women, and a child, and two
+British-born Bencoolen Malays, who were taken in their own trading boat
+going to Tringanau. The husband of the younger woman had been killed by
+the pirates, and she, like all women who fall into their hands, had
+suffered every outrage and insult which could be offered her. They were
+almost living skeletons. One was shot through the thigh, and after the
+Bishop had dressed her wound, Mr. Walters said quaintly, "Poor thing,
+she has not meat enough on her bones to bait a rat-trap." It is a wonder
+how the poor creatures lived at all, under the treatment to which they
+were subjected. When the Bishop asked some of the men whether their
+wounds hurt much, they answered, "Nothing hurts so much as the salt
+water the Illanuns gave us to drink. We never had fresh water; they
+mixed three parts of fresh with four of salt water: and all we had to
+eat was a handful of rice or raw sago twice a day." Very few of the
+pirates who were not wounded surrendered. They are marvellous swimmers:
+took their arms with them into the water, and fought the men in the
+boats who were trying to pick up the captives. The Bishop and Mr.
+Walters were fully occupied doctoring friends and foes, arresting
+hemorrhage, extracting balls, and closing frightful sword or chopper
+wounds. One man came on board with the top of his skull as cleanly
+lifted up by a Sooloo knife, as if a surgeon had desired to take a peep
+at the brain inside! It took considerable force to close it in the right
+place. This man had also two cuts in his back, yet the next morning he
+was discovered eating a large plate of rice, and he ultimately
+recovered. Another poor fellow could not be got up the ladder because he
+had a long-handled three-barbed spear sticking in his back: the Bishop
+had to go down and cut it out before he could be moved.
+
+While all this was going on, the captives told Captain Brooke that there
+were three more pirate vessels out at sea, waiting for those near shore
+to rejoin them; as soon, therefore, as the steamer had picked up as many
+captives as she could find, she steamed out to sea in search of them.
+After an hour, the look-out from the mast-head reported three vessels in
+sight. It was then a dead calm, and they were using their long sweeps,
+when they were seen from the deck, to arrange themselves side by side,
+with their bows towards the steamer; but, a breeze springing up, they
+hoisted sail, spread themselves out broadside on, and opened fire on
+the _Rainbow_ as soon as she was within range, so that there was no
+question as to whether these were pirate prahus or not. The same plan
+was followed as in the case of the other boats, and with more success,
+as there was no shore to escape to.
+
+The pirates had secured their captives below the decks of the prahus,
+but when the steamer struck them and opened their sides, they were
+liberated. But few of them were drowned, being all good swimmers; but
+some were killed by the pirates in their rage and despair, and some had
+been lashed to the vessel and could not therefore escape.
+
+One poor Chinaman came swimming along, holding up his long tail of hair
+lest he should be suspected to be a pirate; other men held up the ropes
+round their necks, to show they were captives. The deck of the steamer
+was soon covered with those who had been picked out of the water, men of
+every nation and race in the Archipelago, who had been captured during
+this cruise, which had lasted seven months. These vessels left
+Tawi-Tawi, an island to the south-west of Sooloo, in October. The Sultan
+of Sooloo is in league with the pirates, and receives part of the
+plunder and slaves. In the only boat boarded by Captain Brooke was found
+the Sultan's flag, which is only given to people of high rank; also the
+usual Illanun flag, six Dutch, and one Spanish flag, which no doubt
+belonged to vessels they had captured. The men who were saved gave
+details of the taking of two large vessels--one a Singapore prahu
+trading to Tringanau; the other a Dutch tope, of one hundred and fifty
+tons, on the coast of Borneo to the south of Pontianak. There they fell
+in with five other Illanun boats, which had come down from the
+northward--they themselves were going up from the southward. The
+new-comers told them of a merchant vessel near at hand, and proposed
+they should join them in capturing her, which they did. She had a
+valuable cargo, worth ten thousand dollars. They killed everybody on
+board, plundered and burnt the vessel. Only the one Chinaman escaped who
+told this tale. The captives stated that this was the usual proceeding
+if resistance was made. When they spare their captives' lives, they beat
+them with a flat piece of bamboo over the elbows and knees, and the
+muscles of arms and legs, until they are unable to move; then a halter
+is put round their necks, and, when they are sufficiently tamed, they
+are put to the oars and made to row in gangs, with one of their own
+fellow-captives as overseer to keep them at work. If he does not do it
+effectually, he is krissed and thrown overboard. If these miserable
+creatures jump into the sea they spear them in the water. They row in
+relays, night and day; and to keep them awake, cayenne pepper is rubbed
+into their eyes or into cuts dealt them on their arms.
+
+The masts of these prahus are very small, so that they may not be seen
+at a distance. They go very fast. Those encountered by the _Rainbow_
+were seen off Datu on Monday night, and on Friday morning they were near
+Bintulu, a distance of two hundred and forty miles, although they had
+delayed nearly two days at Muka, picking up thirty people on the coast.
+Most of these were recaptured and returned to Muka. On reckoning up, it
+was found that one hundred and sixty-five people had been rescued, and
+perhaps one hundred and fifty or two hundred had got away from the
+vessels sunk on shore. In every pirate prahu were from forty to fifty
+Illanuns, and from sixty to seventy captives, many of whom were killed
+by the pirates when they found themselves beaten, among them two women.
+Nine women and six children were saved; seven of the women belonged to
+Muka or Oya. Of the Illanuns, thirty-two were taken alive; ten of these
+were boys. Some died afterwards of their wounds; some were taken to
+Kuching in irons, there tried, and some of them executed. They died the
+death of murderers; but Captain Brooke gave the boys to respectable
+people to bring up, hoping they might be reformed. We had one young
+fellow, about fourteen years old, when he had been cured of his wounds
+in the hospital. I kept him about me, and used to teach him; but he
+could not be tamed. He turned Mahometan, and left us to be employed at
+the fort; but there he stole money, and had to be sent elsewhere. The
+nature of an Illanun pirate seems almost unmixed evil, because they are
+taught to be cruel from their childhood.
+
+There were two circumstances in this affray with the Illanuns which
+called for thankfulness on the part of the victors. First, that they met
+the pirates in two detachments, which enabled them to attack them
+successfully, without the danger of their boarding the steamer, which,
+from their numbers, would have been fatal to the little party on board
+the _Rainbow_. Secondly, that their ammunition lasted through the two
+engagements. It was quite finished; only a little loose powder in a
+barrel, and a few broken cartridges, remained when the last prahus were
+taken. Had they fallen in with another fleet, they would have been at
+their mercy. Almost while I write these last words, we have received a
+letter from the present Rajah of Sarawak--Charles Johnson Brooke. He
+says, "I have heard this morning that one of our schooners has been
+captured by the Sooloo pirates, and the crew murdered." The last twenty
+years have not therefore altered the character of these people, and
+their extermination seems the only remedy for the misery they inflict on
+their fellow creatures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+A MALAY WEDDING.
+
+
+    MY DARLING MAB,
+
+    I am sitting in a darkened room, while Mildred is having her day
+    sleep; and as I am thinking of you, I may as well begin a letter
+    for next mail. Last week I went to a Malay wedding, the first I
+    ever attended, although I have been here so many years. It
+    amused me very much; so I shall try to describe it to you.
+
+    Early in the morning the bridegroom's friends came to beg
+    flowers from our garden. Then papa told them I would go to the
+    wedding, and they said, "Be sure not to be later than twelve
+    o'clock." Accordingly, Mr. and Mrs. Ricketts, the British Consul
+    and his wife, Mr. Zehnder, and I set off in two boats, after
+    eleven o'clock breakfast; but we need not have got there before
+    two o'clock.
+
+    Eastern people set little value on time. They would just as soon
+    sit cross-legged on the floor smoking for three hours as for
+    one. The bride is the daughter of one of the first merchants in
+    the place, Nakodah Sadum, and the bridegroom is the grandson of
+    the old Datu Tumangong, whom you may remember. A handsome young
+    man is Matussim, and enlightened, for a Malay. He made his
+    betrothed a present of his photograph last year. Formerly Malays
+    objected to having their portraits taken, fancying it a breach
+    of the second commandment.
+
+    The bride's father's house was gay with flags and streamers, and
+    in front of it lay, by the river's brink, four small cannon,
+    which had been busy, for days before and all that morning,
+    saluting the occasion. We walked up into the house, which was
+    full of guests. A long verandah, lined with hadjis and elders,
+    all smoking and talking, led to the principal room, which,
+    unlike any Malay house before built in Sarawak, had large
+    Venetian-shuttered doors all round, and was therefore cool and
+    airy. There was a little round table, and some armchairs covered
+    with white mats for the expected guests, in the middle of the
+    room. Sadum and his wife came forward and greeted us very
+    cordially, and then we were told to sit down on the chairs. I
+    looked about for the bride, and saw a crowd of women in one
+    corner, and a boy holding a gilt umbrella over the young lady,
+    who was being shaved. A woman with a razor was shearing her
+    eyebrows into a delicate line, and all round her forehead
+    trimming disorderly hairs. Four women, seated on their heels in
+    front of her, were fidgeting over her face; she, impassive as a
+    log in their hands. A vast deal of singing and drumming went on
+    all the time, a row of musicians keeping it up all round the
+    room. The girl was washed; then her hair, magnificent black hair
+    down to her heels, knotted in two great bows on either side of
+    her head. Over these, gold ornaments like wings were fixed, and
+    a little tower of gold bells above them. Then the women painted
+    a black band round her forehead, and added a silver edge to it,
+    also painted. Her eyebrows were likewise touched up, and her
+    skin rubbed all over with yellow powder. Poor child! she was a
+    curious figure by the time it was all finished, and her skin
+    must have felt painfully stiff. She was then attired in very
+    handsome silk robes, ornamented with solid gold, and the
+    attendants carried her to a raised dais or bed-place at one end
+    of the room. There she sat, not daring to lift her eyes until
+    the bridegroom's arrival.
+
+    The divan was gorgeous with silk curtains and cushions
+    embroidered with gold thread and embossed with tinsel ornaments,
+    the work of the bride herself. The seat for the bridegroom was
+    somewhat higher and larger than the bride's. At last the
+    bridegroom approached in a large barge, which held about two
+    hundred people. A small boat preceded it with three guns, which
+    kept up a deafening noise as he drew near. He was carried up the
+    steps, and the house door was shut to in his face, according to
+    the Malay custom. Then he begged admittance very humbly, and
+    after paying a fee of five dollars, was admitted. His followers
+    rush in first--such a clatter! Greetings, welcomes, jokes, and
+    laughter, make a Babel of noise; everybody speaking at once.
+    Then a cloth was laid down for the bridegroom to pass over, and
+    he was pulled with apparent reluctance into the room, panting
+    and shutting his eyes as if exhausted. His head was wreathed
+    with Indian jessamine. He was naked to the waist, except a gold
+    scarf over one shoulder; otherwise he had plenty of gold and red
+    silk about him. He was pulled up to the bride, turning his head
+    away as if he was ashamed to look at her, and dropped a red silk
+    handkerchief over her face for a moment. Then he sat down on the
+    divan, and all the old women of both houses sprinkled the couple
+    with yellow rice, and rubbed their foreheads with some charm,
+    which looked like a bit of stone and a nutmeg-grater, and wished
+    them all kinds of luck--but especially that they might be the
+    parents of _sons_ only. After the young people had endured this
+    long enough, the curtains were let down round the dais, and only
+    two or three old women kept going in and out. We found they were
+    taking off all the finery, and dressing the bride and bridegroom
+    in their usual clothes; for while we were drinking coffee and
+    eating Malay cakes at the little table, they came out from the
+    curtains, looking quite pleasant and natural. So we shook hands,
+    made our congratulations, and bade them adieu. We got home at
+    four o'clock, very hot and tired, and papa laughed at us for
+    going; but I was glad I did for once in a way.
+
+    A wedding is a very serious expense to Malays of any rank. The
+    bridegroom has to make settlements on the bride, and the bride's
+    father has to keep open house for weeks, besides fees to the
+    hadjis, and gunpowder _ad libitum_. The religious part of the
+    ceremony is enacted some days before the marriage. One day papa
+    was calling at a Malay house, where a wedding was about to take
+    place, and found the bridegroom learning a passage in the Koran,
+    in Arabic, which he could not translate, but which it was
+    necessary he should repeat. A hadji was standing by, driving the
+    words into his head. The hadji could not translate it either;
+    but the Koran may only be read in Arabic, lest it should be
+    desecrated. Sometimes papa would read a chapter to any Malay who
+    desired to understand the meaning of his sacred book; but they
+    were generally content with learning it as a charm, or certain
+    parts of it.
+
+    The Rajah often made a present of an ox for a great man's
+    wedding. This was a great help, for many dishes of curry could
+    be made out of so much meat. When we wished for some meat at
+    Christmas and Easter, we sent for the Mahometan butcher to kill
+    the animal. He turned its head towards Mecca, repeated prayers
+    over him, and then cut his throat in such a way that no drop of
+    blood was left in the flesh; for the Malays hold to the Jewish
+    law in that as well as many other particulars. Then the people
+    would buy whatever beef we did not want ourselves; but not
+    otherwise.
+
+    This is a long letter, but as I am on the subject of weddings, I
+    may as well tell you about a Chinese wedding we had the other
+    day at our house. The bridegroom was Akiat, a carpenter, about
+    six feet two inches high. He was dressed in whity-brown silk,
+    which made him look like a tall spectre; and the bride was Quey
+    Ginn, a fat, dumpy little girl of sixteen, the Chinese deacon's
+    daughter, and one of my scholars. She did not choose her old
+    husband of fifty years, but her parents arranged it, and Akiat
+    paid one hundred dollars for his wife. I went to see her the day
+    before the wedding, and she showed me all her clothes and
+    ornaments; but I thought she did not look as if she cared for
+    them. So I whispered, "Are you happy, child?" "No, not at all,"
+    burst out Quey Ginn. "I don't want to be married and leave my
+    parents." Whereupon I could not help taking her in my arms and
+    comforting her, telling her to be a good wife, and she would
+    soon learn to be content. She has been to visit me since her
+    marriage, and I am amused to see that she is quite a little
+    woman, instead of the shy girl she used to be; and, whereas as a
+    girl she was never allowed to be seen in the streets, or even to
+    go to church, she now does exactly as she likes, and, I am happy
+    to say, comes regularly to church. These people were all sincere
+    Christians. Akiat was the Chinese churchwarden, and, as papa
+    esteemed them very highly, he allowed the breakfast to take
+    place at our house.
+
+    I had a cake made for the occasion, which Quey Ginn cut up with
+    much pleasure. The ring in it fell to Mr. Zehnder's share, which
+    amused him also. Good-bye.
+
+It was this year, 1865, that Mr. Waterhouse, the chaplain of Singapore,
+came to visit us. The doctors often sent us a patient or friend to be
+under the Bishop's care, and for rest and change; the latter was the
+cause of Mr. Waterhouse's visit, and six weeks of jungle life did him
+good, while his society and sympathy were a great pleasure to us, the
+Bishop especially. The Bishop took him to visit the different mission
+stations, and he often spoke to me with satisfaction of the "real
+mission work" he witnessed at Banting, Lundu, and the Quop. At each of
+these stations he found a consecrated church and a community of
+Christian people; whilst the missionaries set over them, not only
+instructed and ministered to the tribe among whom they lived, but
+journeyed to outlying places, founding branch missions and setting
+catechists to work under them. I find in one of my letters, when Mr.
+Waterhouse returned from Banting, he said, "I cannot but admire the
+patience with which Mr. Chambers talks all day, morning, noon, and
+night, to every party of Dyaks, who march into the house whenever they
+like, making it quite their home: it is what very few people could do
+day after day." This is the trial of Dyak teaching. You cannot appoint
+specific hours for instruction. People come when they can, sometimes
+long distances. They can never be denied, except you are actually at
+meals, and then they sit down and wait till the eating is over. Here is
+a programme of a day at Banting:--
+
+By seven in the morning Mr. Chambers goes to one or another Dyak house
+to teach. These houses contain many families under one roof. The people
+understand now that teaching is the sole object of Mr. Chambers' visit,
+so, when he enters, all who are at leisure gather round him. He returns
+home to eleven o'clock breakfast. After breakfast his school of boys
+occupies him for the afternoon; but every party of Dyaks who come in
+must be listened to, and, if they are willing, instructed, taught a
+prayer, a hymn, a parable, or some Scripture lesson. This goes on till
+five o'clock, when the bell calls them to daily prayers, and they all
+walk together down the beautiful jungle avenue to the pretty church. A
+short service, in which the Dyaks respond heartily, and a catechizing
+follows, during which they are allowed to ask questions of their
+teacher. Then an hour's rest before dinner. But immediately after dinner
+more Dyaks, sometimes a whole house, _i.e._ forty or fifty persons, come
+in, and have coffee, and pictures, and a lecture. All this does not
+happen every day, but most days during what we call the working season,
+from March till October, and no doubt so much talking and so little
+leisure is very fatiguing. But then comes the harvest, and afterwards
+the wet monsoon, and the schools fall off, and the Dyaks no longer come
+from a distance to be taught. It is sufficiently dull and lonely then in
+the jungle stations. The sea runs too high for boats to bring mails, or
+books, or provisions; the rain falls heavily, and with little
+intermission, and food becomes scarce. Mrs. Chambers told me that the
+prayer for daily bread, which seems to us to relate to the daily needs
+of our souls for the bread and water of life, bore a literal meaning to
+them in the north-east monsoon, when the day's food was by no means
+certain. Rice they had, it is true; but English people get nearly
+starved upon rice alone, without fish, meat, or bread. It was therefore
+with sincere thankfulness that they welcomed a chicken, however skinny,
+in that season.
+
+After the Banting expedition, the Bishop took Mr. Waterhouse to Lundu,
+and Mr. Hawkins, a missionary lately come out, went with them. They
+arrived on a Saturday. On Sunday there was a great gathering of
+Christian Dyaks: fifty-two people were confirmed, eighty received the
+Holy Communion, so that they were more than three hours in church, the
+Bishop preaching to them in Malay. On Monday Mr. Waterhouse and Mr.
+Hawkins paid a visit to a beautiful waterfall, about two miles from the
+town; and on Tuesday all the party, Mr. Gomez included, went in boats
+forty miles up the river Lundu, with three hundred Dyaks, to tuba fish.
+The Bishop had paid the Dyaks to collect tuba the week before. It is a
+plant found in the jungle, the root of which washed in water makes a
+milky-looking poison. It does not make the fish unwholesome to eat, only
+intoxicates them for the time, so that they rise floundering about on
+the surface of the water, but it destroys human life, and is the poison
+chosen by Dyaks who commit suicide, though I do not believe that this
+crime is common among them.
+
+When the party had ascended the river far enough, the Dyaks built a hut
+for the English to sleep in. They made a floor of logs of wood, spread
+over with the bark of trees, which, beaten down hard, made a capital
+mattress on which to lay their mats and pillows. The kajangs (leaf mats)
+off the boat made some shelter from the weather, although it takes a
+good deal to keep Borneo rain out! The Dyaks were much too busy to go to
+sleep at all: they drove stakes all across the river to secure their
+fish, then they beat out the tuba in the bottom of their boats. It took
+all night, by the light of torches, to do this; and a wild sight it was,
+in the midst of the solemn old jungle. Very early in the morning, when
+the tide was at its lowest ebb, they put the tuba into the river; the
+flood coming up, and bringing plenty of fish, encountered this
+intoxicating milk, and carried over the stakes a whole shoal of dead and
+tipsy fish. Then the Dyaks, darting about in little boats, speared the
+big fishes, and caught the small ones in landing-nets.
+
+Hundreds of fish were caught, and the Dyaks had a grand feast; also,
+they salted quantities, in their nasty way--pounding the fish up,
+letting it turn sour, and then packing it into bamboos with salt, as a
+relish to eat with their rice. Certainly it has a strong flavour! They
+all camped two nights in the jungle, then returned to Lundu, and reached
+Sarawak in the yacht _Fanny_, after an absence of ten days. We had a
+visit from H.M.S. _Scout_ about this time, and one day sat down sixteen
+to dinner in the mission-house, some of the officers having come up to
+spend the day. It is difficult to improvise a dinner in a country where
+no joints of meat are to be had, unless you kill an ox for the purpose.
+Sheep there are none. A capon or goose, or a sucking pig, are the only
+big dishes, and not always to be had. However, we did very well, and our
+visitors were delighted with Sarawak, and with the schoolboys' singing;
+for I had them up to sing glees and rounds, and "Rule Britannia," after
+dinner. Captain Corbett was so pleased with the little fellows that he
+invited them all to see the ship the next morning. Accordingly our
+largest boat took the choir down very early to Morotabas, where the
+_Scout_ lay, and Captain Corbett took them all over it himself, even
+down to the screw chamber. The boys had never seen so large a man-of-war
+before (1600 tons), so they were delighted. Some Dyaks who went with
+them were much terrified lest they should be carried off to sea, for the
+captain ordered "up anchor," that the boys might see how it was done,
+and then sent them off the last minute. They came home in high glee.
+Only those who live at the ends of the earth can tell what a pleasure
+and refreshment is a little visit from her Majesty's ships from time to
+time. The whiff of English air they bring with them, and the hearty
+English enthusiasm which has not had time to evaporate, is most
+reviving.
+
+Many Chinese Christians returned to China this summer. I hope they
+carried the good seed of the word of life with them. They are only birds
+of passage at Sarawak: when they grow rich they prefer to spend their
+money in their native country. Our Chinese deacon took his family for a
+visit to their Chinese relations. Even the married daughter went with
+them; and a few days afterwards, Akiat, her husband, came to tell me
+that he was so wretched without his wife, that he should go to Singapore
+for the few months of her absence, to while away the time, and he meant
+to have a nice new house ready for her on her return.
+
+Voon Yen Knoon deserved a holiday, certainly, for he worked hard among
+his countrymen, besides teaching every day in the school. Three evenings
+every week were devoted to the instruction of the Chinese, at the
+mission-house. Two distinct languages were spoken by the different
+tribes of Chinese who had settled at Sarawak. They could not be taught
+together. The people of the Kay tribe came on one evening, the Hokien
+another, each having their own interpreter. On the third evening the
+interpreters were instructed in the lessons for the following week. On
+these nights our long dining-room was full of Chinamen, and a large tray
+of tiny cups of tea was carried in, and consumed before the teaching
+began.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+LAST YEARS AT SARAWAK.
+
+
+Mr. Chalmers' Merdang Dyaks once said to him, "See how many races of
+people there are: Dyaks, Malays, Klings, Chinese, English. They have all
+different religions: this is proper, for God has given to each the
+religion suited to them."
+
+I remembered this ingenious remark when I was reading Mr. Helms's
+interesting book, just published, "Pioneering in the Far East." He says:
+"Like most barbarous and savage nations, the Dyak identifies his gods
+and spirits with the great phenomena of nature, and assigns them abodes
+on the lofty mountains. Though, in his opinion, all spirits are not
+equally malignant, all are more or less to be dreaded. The silent
+surroundings of primæval forests in which the Dyak spends most of his
+time, the mountains, the gloomy caves, often looming mysteriously
+through cloud and mist, predispose him to identify them with
+supernatural influences, which in his imagination take the form of
+monsters and genii. With no better guide than the untutored imagination
+of a mind which in religious matters is a blank, who shall wonder that
+this is so? I have myself often felt the influences of such
+surroundings, when dark clouds deepened the forest gloom, and the
+approaching storm set the trees whispering: if, at such a moment, the
+shaggy red-haired and goblin form of the orang-outang, with which some
+of the Dyaks identify their genii, should appear among the branches, it
+requires little imagination to people the mystic gloom with unearthly
+beings."
+
+Mr. Helms is quite right--the religion which springs from circumstance
+and surrounding nature is always one of fear; evil is so close to the
+heart of man that the very elements and mysteries of nature seem his
+enemies, so long as he is ignorant of the love of God. The great
+creating Spirit, whose existence is acknowledged by all Dyaks, inspires
+them with neither love nor trust; it is only malign spirits who are
+active, who concern themselves with his affairs, and threaten his
+happiness and prosperity, and who must therefore be propitiated. What a
+different aspect his native woods must present to the Christian Dyak,
+who can look around without fear, and believe that his Heavenly Father
+made all these things! You would imagine that Christianity would be
+welcomed as a deliverance from such superstition; but here the apathy of
+long habit raises a barrier. The Dyak who professed to think his dismal
+religion was given him by God, was probably too intellectually idle to
+think at all. "What you say is most likely true, but we have received
+our belief from our forefathers, and it is good enough for us," is the
+common remark of the Land Dyak. This listlessness was perhaps originally
+caused by oppression and misery, a hard life and cruel masters. In the
+days we knew these people they had a sad and patient expression in their
+faces, as if they could not forget the time when they were ground down
+by Malay extortion, and despoiled by stronger, more warlike tribes. The
+present generation may have more spirit, more independence, and the
+blessings of peace and liberty may leave their minds more open to the
+light of truth. It is, however, interesting to note how different races
+of men develop different religious beliefs, and how these Dyaks
+intuitively perceive spirit through matter, and are governed, however
+blindly and ignorantly, by the powers of the unseen world.
+
+The orang-outang, or wild man, in not very commonly met in the jungle. I
+have seen the trees alive with monkeys, but never met an orang-outang at
+liberty. The Dyaks may well be afraid of them if it is true, as they
+say, that if one of these monsters attacks a man, he picks his flesh off
+his bones like a cook plucking a chicken. They are immensely powerful,
+but once caged are gentle enough. Their one desire in confinement is
+clothing, why I cannot tell; large-sized monkeys always wrapped
+themselves in any bit of cloth they could find, partly in imitation of
+their keepers, and perhaps also because they are very chilly creatures,
+and, deprived of their usual violent gymnastics, suffered from cold. A
+Chinaman had a female orang in his shop while we were at Sarawak, who
+took a violent liking to the Bishop, and always expected to be noticed
+when he passed the shop. Then she would kiss and fondle his hand; but if
+he forgot to speak to "Jemima," she went into a passion, screamed, and
+dashed about her cage.
+
+I never allowed any kind of monkey to be kept at the mission-house. We
+had too many children on the premises, and they are jealous and
+uncertain in their behaviour to children. Indeed I always regretted
+their being either shot or caged--they enjoy life so intensely in the
+jungle, and are so amusing, swinging themselves from the branches of
+tall trees, leaping, flying almost, in pursuit of one another for mere
+fun, that it was sad to put them in prison, where they never lived long,
+and where they only exhibited a ludicrous and humiliating parody on the
+habits of mankind.
+
+There was a race of monkeys at Sarawak called by the natives "Unkah,"
+from the noise they made, but which we called Noseys, for they had long
+noses which fell over their mouths, so that the large males had to lift
+their noses with one hand, while they put food into their mouths with
+the other. When we first lived in the country, and were anxious to send
+specimens of every new and curious thing to England, my husband shot one
+of these large monkeys for the sake of his skin, but he was so
+distressed at the look the beast gave him when he felt himself hit, he
+was so like his own uncle in England, who had rather a red face and long
+nose, that he resolved never again to shoot a monkey. This ape was
+clothed in long brown fur, while his legs were encased in much shorter
+hair of a tan colour, which gave the idea of leather breeches. I once
+saw a monkey's nest in a high tree. The tree was very bare of leaf or
+the nest might have escaped notice. It was formed of big sticks laid in
+a strong fork of the branches; and whether it was lined with anything
+softer could not be seen from below, but the sticks stuck out, covering
+a large space, which had no appearance of comfort or snugness.
+
+The one monkey I liked, and that at a distance, was the wa-wa, whose
+voice was very sweet and melodious, like the soft bubbling of water; but
+it was a very melancholy animal, and never seemed to possess the fun and
+trickishness of the more common sorts of ape. They are all delicate and
+difficult to rear, and invariably die of over-eating, or rather eating
+what is unwholesome for them, if they have a chance. It seems as if, in
+approaching the form of man, they lost the instinct of the brute. It was
+a great addition to the pleasures of life in Sarawak that there were no
+wild beasts to be feared in the jungles. When we were once staying at
+Malacca, and, for the sake of a natural hot spring, inhabited a little
+bungalow in the country, we were always liable to encounter a tiger in
+our walks; on Penang Hill, also, there was a large tiger staying in the
+woods. During one of our visits, we tracked his footsteps in a cave on
+the hill; and he carried off a calf from a gentleman's cow-house near
+us--at another time a pony from a neighbour's stable. Tigers do not,
+however, live at Penang: they occasionally swim over the strait from
+Johore, opposite the island, if driven by hunger. The natives made deep
+pits to catch them, with bamboo spears at the bottom to transfix them
+when they fall in. On one occasion a French Roman Catholic missionary
+fell into one of these tiger-pits, and remained there, starved and
+wounded, for three days before he was discovered. He was a very good
+man, and gave a wonderful account of his happiness, his visions of
+heavenly bliss while dying in that slow torture, for he was too far gone
+to be restored. He died rejoicing that he had known what it was to
+suffer with Christ.
+
+The last two years of our life at Sarawak, the Bishop's health failed
+and caused me much anxiety. The long jungle walks, which were so
+necessary in getting about from one mission to another, became more and
+more difficult to him. Often he had to stop and lie down under a tree
+till the palpitation of his heart abated; repeated attacks of Labuan
+fever affected his liver; and our friends often warned us that we ought
+to go home to save his life. The interest of the different missions
+increased so much at this time, that it seemed hard to give up a post
+in which many trials and disappointments had been lived through, just as
+success seemed about to reward the years of patient labour. The peace
+and harmony of the mission was greatly promoted, the last three years of
+our stay, by an annual meeting of the clergy with their bishop. They
+came from their different rivers to spend a week at the mission-house,
+and for certain hours of each day met in the church to discuss
+missionary operations, Church discipline, religious terms, translations,
+etc. It was very desirable there should be no diversity of opinion in
+these matters, but that the different missions should have the same
+plans, uses, and customs. And these meetings, besides the importance of
+the subjects discussed, knit the missionaries to one another and all to
+the Bishop, promoting also that _esprit de corps_ which strengthens any
+institution, be it school, college, or Church in a heathen country.
+
+A curious adventure happened to the Bishop in 1865. It was the rainy
+season, and the roads were saturated with water and full of holes,
+especially a new bit of road towards Pedungan, where sleepers of wood
+had been laid down, to steady what would otherwise have been a bog; but
+holes here and there could not be avoided. The Bishop always took a ride
+early in the morning, before seven o'clock service in church. That
+morning I had asked him to go to a house down that road, to inquire
+about a servant. He came home late, and covered with mud all down one
+side. "Papa has fallen," said little Mildred, playing in the garden. At
+her voice her father seemed to wake up out of a deep sleep, and
+gradually he became conscious of a severe bruise on his face and pain in
+his head; but he could give no account of the matter, which was,
+however, explained by a Malay in the course of the day. This man was
+walking on the road to Pedungan, when he met the Bishop returning home.
+He saw the horse put his foot into a deep hole and come down, the Bishop
+also. He did not, however, at once fall off, not until the horse in his
+efforts to rise had inflicted a blow with his head on his rider's face.
+The Malay helped the horse up, which was not hurt, and the Bishop on his
+back; and seeing he was much stunned, he followed them for some way lest
+the Bishop should need assistance: but when they reached the town and
+seemed all right, he went back. All this time, however, the Bishop was
+perfectly unconscious; the horse carried him as he chose, over a ditch,
+up a steep bank, under low-hanging trees, and quite safely until he
+stopped at our own door. A headache and some stiffness were the only
+results of what might have been a fatal accident. We were very thankful
+to God for having sent His angel to guard steps as unconscious and
+heedless as any little child's could have been. No memory of what had
+happened ever came back to the Bishop.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1866 the _Rifleman_, her Majesty's surveying ship, gave us a passage
+to Labuan, where the Bishop wanted to hold a confirmation. This ship
+was going to Manilla, and from thence to Hong Kong, before she returned
+to Singapore, and, through the kindness of Captain Reed, we accompanied
+her. At Labuan I caught the fever of the country, but it did not come
+out for ten days, by which time we were at Manilla. We anchored off
+Manilla on Christmas-day evening: it had been a very wet day, but
+cleared up at night, and we sat on deck watching the lights on shore,
+and listening to the constant chimes of the numerous church bells,
+whilst the sailors sang songs and did their best to amuse us. It seemed
+so strange to be in a Christian country again.
+
+They have some customs at Manilla which I could not help admiring. When
+the Vesper bell rings at six o'clock, all business and pleasure is
+suspended for a few minutes, and all the world, man, woman, and child,
+say a prayer. The coachmen on the carriages stop their horses, the
+pedestrians stand still, friends engaging in animated conversation are
+suddenly silent. The setting sun is a signal for the heart to rise to
+God; it is a public recognition of His protecting care, and an act of
+thanksgiving. When it is over, the children ask their parents' blessing
+for the night. This was told me by a native of Manilla, an educated
+gentleman, who gave his children every advantage of learning and travel.
+The Vesper custom I saw for myself every time I took an evening drive.
+We witnessed a very gorgeous procession on the feast of the Epiphany.
+All the city functionaries, the military, the priests, bands of music,
+and a masquerade of the three kings on horseback, surrounded by troops
+of children beautifully dressed in white and scattering flowers, passed
+through the streets to a church, into which they all poured, the three
+horses riding in too, to attend high mass. I saw but little of Manilla,
+being ill nearly all the time. It is a place shaken to pieces by
+earthquakes. When we were there the great square, where the Government
+offices once stood, was a heap of ruins, and the treasury was too poor
+even to clear them away. The bridges were all broken in the middle, and
+patched up somehow; and all the rooms in the houses were crooked, the
+timbers of the walls being joined loosely together to admit of the
+frequent trembling, heaving, and subsidence of the ground, without their
+cracking. I believe the country all round was lovely, but I only took
+one drive when I was convalescent, and then we steamed away to Hong
+Kong. I shall say nothing about Hong Kong, for all the world knows what
+a beautiful place it is in winter--how bright and sparkling the blue
+sea, how clean and trim the streets, and how stately the buildings; also
+what a dream of loveliness is the one drive out of the town to the Happy
+Valley, where many an Englishman lies buried in the cemetery. I had a
+second bout of fever at Hong Kong. Happily for us, we found kind
+relatives both at Manilla and Hong Kong, who nursed me, and who were
+very good to us. We found it very cold there after stewing for six
+years in Borneo, and the Bishop caught a chill which made him ill all
+the rest of the way home. Had we thought when we left Sarawak in '66
+that we should never return there, it would have been a great trial to
+bid adieu to our old home, but we had no such intention. We were only
+taking Mildred to England, and seeking a necessary change for the
+Bishop's failing health. The knowledge that he would not be able to
+resume his work in the East dawned upon us by degrees. It was a great
+disappointment, but we were thankful that an English vicarage was found
+for us, where we could make a home for our children, and where the
+duties and pleasures of an English parish remained to us. It is,
+however, very pleasant, on a foggy day in November or February, to
+return in fancy to that land of sunshine and flowers; to imagine one's
+self again sitting in the porch of the mission-house, gazing at the
+mountain of Matang, lit up with sunset glories of purple and gold. Then,
+when the last gleam of colour has faded, to find the Chinaman lighting
+the lamps in the verandah, and little dusky faces peeping out, to know
+if you will sing with them "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," or the hymn
+about the "Purple-headed mountain and river running by," which must have
+surely been written for Sarawak children.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE ISLAND OF BORNEO.
+
+
+Borneo is so little known that a short account of it may be interesting.
+If any one will examine a map of Borneo they will see that it is a large
+island, in shape something like a box with the lid open. The interior of
+the square part of it presents almost a blank on the map, for the coasts
+only are known to the civilized world. Its greatest length is eight
+hundred miles, and its greatest breadth six hundred and twenty-five
+miles. Ranges of mountains through the centre of the island provide the
+sources of many fine rivers which are the highways of the country.
+
+The Dutch claim the south and south-west of the island. They have
+settlements at Sambas, at Pontianak, and at Banjermassin; and forts on
+the rivers, inhabited by Dutch residents, or Malay chiefs in their pay:
+but they have never won the hearts of the aborigines, for the Dutch
+maxim is always to get as much money as possible out of native
+subjects, consequently they are every now and then obliged to send
+European troops to enforce the obedience of the Chinese and Dyaks to
+their rule. On the west of Borneo lies the little kingdom of Sarawak,
+about three hundred miles of coast line from Cape Datu to Point
+Kiderong.
+
+The Sultan of Bruni, who was the nominal ruler of all the north-west of
+Borneo, gave up this province to Sir James Brooke in 1841, "to him and
+his heirs for ever," on condition a small sum of money was paid him
+annually. The province consisted originally of "about sixty miles of
+coast, from Cape Datu to the entrance of the Samarahan River, with an
+average breadth of fifty miles inland;"[10] but from time to time the
+Sultan entreated Sir James Brooke to take the rule of one river after
+another beyond this province towards Borneo Proper, for, owing to his
+own weakness, and the rapacity of his nobles who governed in his name,
+no revenue came to him from those rivers, nor could he protect native
+trade, or secure the lives of his subjects from the extortions and
+covetousness of their Malay chiefs. So Sarawak grew, and peace, and
+justice, and free trade flourished where before there were only poverty
+and oppression. The country is traversed by fine rivers. The Rejang,
+four fathoms deep two hundred miles from the mouth, the Batang Lupar,
+and the Sarawak are the largest, and the great highways of the country;
+along the banks of which are cultivated clearings and Dyak villages,
+but beyond these extend dense jungle which even clothes the sides of the
+mountains. Besides the before-mentioned rivers are many smaller ones
+which are still noble streams--the Sarebas, Samarahan, Sadong, Lundu,
+etc. It is indeed a well-watered country, and only requires the industry
+of man to develop its riches.
+
+    [Footnote 10: Letter of Sir J. Brooke to J. Gardner, Esq.]
+
+There are great mountain ranges to the north-west and through the
+interior of the island, and the natives speak of lakes of vast extent,
+with Dyak villages on their shores. But this is only tradition. There is
+a lake commonly reported only two days' journey from the foot of Kini
+Balu, a high mountain on the north-west, but no Englishman has yet trod
+its shores. The difficulties of exploring such dense jungles and
+mountain precipices as bar the way across Borneo are almost insuperable.
+I quote from Mr. Hornaday's recent lecture at Rochester. He says, "Owing
+to the peculiar and almost impassable nature of the country, Borneo has
+never been crossed by the white man. Travelling over some of the
+mountains seems to be an absolute impossibility. Many of them consist
+almost wholly of huge blocks of basalt, soft, moist, and too slippery to
+walk upon. I would rather attempt to cross the continent of Africa than
+the island of Borneo. The explorer must carry with him provisions enough
+to last both going and returning. The jungle affords nothing fit for
+human sustenance, and there are no inhabitants to supply the explorer
+with food. Fame awaits the man who will thoroughly explore the interior
+of the island."[11]
+
+    [Footnote 11: Mr. Hornaday's lecture before the Young Men's
+    Christian Association.]
+
+Sir Spencer St. John, who has had more experience of Borneo jungles than
+any other Englishman hitherto, says, "As I have now made many journeys
+in Borneo, and seen much of forest walking, I can speak of it with
+something like certainty. I have ever found, in recording progress, that
+we can seldom allow more than a mile an hour under ordinary
+circumstances. Sometimes, when extremely difficult or winding, we do not
+make half a mile an hour. On certain occasions, when very hard pressed,
+I have seen the men manage a mile and a half; but, with all our
+exertions, I have never yet recorded more than ten miles' progress in a
+day, through thick pathless forests, and that was after ten hours of
+hard work. It requires great experience not to judge distance by the
+fatigue we feel."[12]
+
+    [Footnote 12: St. John's Limbong Journal.]
+
+It seems that the Sultan of Bruni has found out that the best way he can
+govern his subjects and gain a revenue without trouble, is by ceding
+parts of his territory to others. He has given over the whole of the
+north of the island to an English company, on condition they pay twelve
+thousand five hundred dollars for it annually. This country, embracing
+an area of twenty thousand square miles, has fine harbours on its
+coasts very suitable for a commercial settlement. The great mountain of
+Kini Balu, nearly fourteen thousand feet high, with its range of lesser
+mountains, stands on the north-west, and between it and the sea lies a
+very fertile country, thus described some years ago by Sir Spencer St.
+John, in his "Forests of the Far East": "We rode over towards Pandusan
+in search of plants. From the summit of the first low hill we had a
+beautiful view of the lovely plain of Tampusak, extending from the sea
+far into the interior. Groves of cocoanuts were interspersed among the
+rice-grounds which extended, intermixed with grassy fields, to the
+sea-shore, bounded by a long line of Casuarina trees. Little hamlets lie
+scattered in all directions, some distinctly visible, other nearly
+hidden by the rich green foliage of fruit-trees. The prospect was
+bounded on the west by low sandstone hills, whose red colour
+occasionally showing through the lately burnt grass, afforded a varied
+tint in the otherwise verdant landscape. In the south Kini Balu and its
+attendant ranges were hidden by clouds."
+
+Here is another description after a day's journey towards the
+mountain:--
+
+"While reclining under the shade of cocoanut palms, we had a beautiful
+view of the country beyond. The river Tampusak flowed past us, bubbling
+and breaking over its uneven bed, here shallower and therefore broader
+than usual. To the left the country was open almost to the base of the
+great mountain, to the right the land was more hilly, and Saduk Saduk
+showed itself as a high peak, but dwarfed by the neighbourhood of Kini
+Balu, whose rocky precipices looked a deep purple colour. The summit was
+beautifully clear. The people in this part of the country are called
+Idaan. They seem industrious and good agriculturists, even using a rough
+plough, and cultivating the whole valley; a rich black soil produces
+good crops of rice, and Killadis, an arum root used for food. They also
+grow tobacco."
+
+These people live too far from Bruni to be robbed by the Sultan and his
+nobles. The Lanuns who inhabit the north coasts are very warlike, and
+have always been pirates within the memory of man. They will not be easy
+subjects to deal with, nor will the Sooloos on the east coast, but if
+they can be reclaimed they may become an enterprising and fine people,
+like the Sarebas pirates of Sarawak.
+
+I hope the Company will have patience with the natives of this vast
+territory. They will probably _not work for wages_. Chinese labour must
+be depended upon, and as they are the most industrious people on the
+face of the earth, and will do anything for money, they are always
+available. But they require a firm government, and great care must be
+taken that they do not infringe on the rights of the natives or there
+will be quarrels and bloodshed. Tradition says that there was once a
+Chinese kingdom at the north of Borneo, whose chiefs married into the
+families of the principal Dyak chiefs; but it is the misfortune of the
+Chinese character to be both boastful and cowardly, and when they had
+irritated the Malays by their big words, they stood no chance of
+prevailing against them in war. If their enemies did not run away after
+the first attack and discharge of firearms, they were pretty sure to
+show them an example by doing so themselves. I speak of the Chinese
+fifty years ago; since they have had wars with Europeans they have
+learnt better to stand to their arms. But they were gradually
+exterminated by the Malays in these petty wars, and now all that remains
+of them is a trace of Celestial physiognomy in their Dyak descendants,
+and the knowledge of agriculture which they still retain.
+
+The Bruni Government protects no one. It is wonderful that any Chinese
+should still trade at a place where riches, however moderate, are sure
+to excite the cupidity of the Malay nobles, and to be transferred, under
+some pretext or another, to their own pockets. I rejoice to think that
+English rule and justice is now to be offered to the inhabitants of the
+North of Borneo. They expect an Englishman to be just and generous,
+brave and firm, and they ground this expectation on their knowledge and
+experience of Labuan and Sarawak, and the lessons which her Majesty's
+ships of war have from time to time impressed on the corrupt and
+faithless Bruni people. I trust this experience will never be reversed
+by unworthy agents or settlers. The climate is too tropical for
+colonization, no families of emigrants can be reared in such heat.
+There are, no doubt, more decided seasons in the north of the island
+than in the centre: it is hotter at one part of the year, and colder at
+another, than in the lands bordering on the equator, which are the rain
+nurseries of the world. A less fierce heat, but rain almost every day in
+the year, was our lot at Sarawak; and though it was very healthy for
+English men and women, it was not so good for crops: pepper and coffee
+prefer a drier climate.
+
+There will be one difficulty in the North Borneo settlement which will
+require wise handling. I mean the slaves which are the possession of
+every petty chief and every Malay family in the country. All pirates
+bring home fresh slaves from every expedition. This can be put an end to
+at once. But it will be as impolitic as impossible to put a sudden end
+to the state of slavery in which so large a proportion of the
+inhabitants will be found. In this respect I hope the North Borneo
+Company will take a leaf out of Sarawak experience. Sir James Brooke, as
+long ago as 1841, appealed to the English Government "to assist him to
+put down piracy and the slave trade, which," he said, "are openly
+carried on within a short distance of three European settlements, on a
+scale and system revolting to humanity."
+
+The exertions of Sir James Brooke and his nephews, aided occasionally by
+her Majesty's ships, have indeed nearly put a stop to piracy, and
+therefore to the kidnapping of slaves. Still the descendants of Dyak
+slaves remain the property of their masters. Besides these, there are
+slave debtors, whole families who have sold themselves to pay the
+accumulations arising from taxes or impositions of the Malays which they
+had no hope of repaying. Usury, which was the fountain of this evil, has
+been forbidden at Sarawak, and many are the slave debtors whom the
+Rajah's purse has freed.
+
+"Slavery in the East," says Mr. Low,[13] "has always been of a more mild
+and gentle character than that which in the West so disgusted the
+intelligent natives of Europe. The slaves in Borneo are generally Dyaks
+and their descendants, who have been captured by the rulers of the
+country to swell the number of their personal attendants. Their duties
+consist in helping their master, who always works with them, in his
+house or boat building operations, accompanying him in his trading
+expeditions, assisting in the navigation of his boats, etc. Their
+masters generally allot them wives from amongst their female domestics,
+and many of them acquire the affection and confidence of their
+superiors. The price of a slave in Sarawak is from thirty to sixty
+dollars, but as the trade is being as quickly repressed as possible,
+without too much shocking the prejudices of the inhabitants, they have
+of late become very scarce, and difficult to be bought. The price of a
+girl varies from thirty to one hundred dollars, but at Sarawak they are
+even more difficult than men to obtain." Thus wrote Mr. Low in the year
+1848. By this time, 1882, slavery is almost nominal at Sarawak. I read,
+in a _Sarawak Gazette_, six months ago, that Rajah Brooke had proposed
+to his Supreme Council, which consists of four Malays and two
+Englishmen, that slavery should be by law abolished in Sarawak
+territory. He had proposed this, he said, six months previously, and the
+Malay councillors present assented heartily as far as themselves and the
+people of Kuching were concerned, but they thought it would be desirable
+to give six months' notice to the outlying rivers and coasts, where the
+people were not as advanced in civilization as those at the capital. Now
+the six months had passed away, were they prepared to assent to the law?
+They again expressed their cordial approval of the abolition of slavery,
+but recommended three months more delay before it was enforced on the
+out-stations. In the same _Gazette_ I noticed a letter from the Resident
+at Bintulu, one of the farthest stations from Kuching, in which he
+speaks of a Malay noble, warmly attached to the Sarawak Government, who
+claimed all the inhabitants of a large district as his slaves. It was
+merely a nominal claim, as they did no work for him, but he said they
+belonged to him. Still, when he was assured by Mr. De Crespigny[14] that
+such a claim would not be allowed by the Rajah, he submitted without
+complaint. We may hope that such will be the universal acceptance of
+the new law, but it is easy to see that forty years of past repression
+and discountenance, and the strong influence of English opinion on the
+subject of slavery, has effected what would doubtless have caused strong
+opposition and estrangement if attempted hastily.
+
+    [Footnote 13: "Sarawak, its Inhabitants and Productions," by
+    Hugh Low.]
+
+    [Footnote 14: The Resident.]
+
+I have just received a _Sarawak Gazette_, dated July 1st, which contains
+an account of a further cession of territory from the Sultan of Bruni to
+Rajah Brooke of Sarawak.
+
+This is the passage:
+
+    "On Saturday, the 10th June, his Highness the Sultan signified
+    his willingness to cede to the Rajah of Sarawak, and his heirs,
+    all the country and rivers that lie between Points Kadurong and
+    Barram, including about three miles of coast on the east side of
+    Barram Point. Negotiations about the sum to be paid for this
+    hundred miles of coast continued for three days, when the deed
+    of cession was finally sealed and delivered. This deed of
+    cession, sealed with the respective seals of his Highness the
+    Sultan of Bruni and the Rajah of Sarawak, was read out in full
+    court on the 10th June. After which his Highness the Rajah
+    addressed a few words to the people, telling them that he
+    intended going to the river Barram towards the end of this moon,
+    for the purpose of choosing a site whereon to erect a fort, and
+    establishing a government there, to be a nucleus of trade. He
+    added that all those who wished to trade there might now do so
+    without fear."
+
+This is an important addition to the country of Sarawak.
+
+The time may indeed not be far distant when the country of Bruni, now
+wedged in between Sarawak and the territory of British North Borneo, may
+disappear altogether, and with it the misrule and oppression of that
+corrupt Eastern court. Then English people will be responsible for the
+whole of the north and north-west of the island of Borneo, and a new era
+of peace and happiness will dawn upon its inhabitants.
+
+
+THE END.
+
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+
+=Saint John of Damascus.= By the Rev. J. H. LUPTON, M.A.
+
+=The Apostolic Fathers.= By the Rev. Canon HOLLAND.
+
+=The Defenders of the Faith; or, The Christian Apologists of the Second
+and Third Centuries.= By the Rev. F. WATSON, M.A.
+
+=The Venerable Bede.= By the Rev. G. F. BROWNE.
+
+
+CONVERSION OF THE WEST.
+_Fcap. 8vo, cloth boards, 2s. each._
+
+=The Celts.= By the Rev. G. F. MACLEAR, D.D. With Two Maps.
+
+=The English.= By the above Author. With Two Maps.
+
+=The Northmen.= By the above Author. With Map.
+
+=The Slavs.= By the above Author. With Map.
+
+=The Continental Teutons.= By the Very Rev. CHARLES MERIVALE, D.D.,
+D.C.L., Dean of Ely. With Map.
+
+
+NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS.
+_Fcap. 8vo, cloth boards, 2s. 6d. each._
+
+=Buddhism: being a Sketch, of the Life and Teachings of Gautama the
+Buddha.= By T. W. RHYS DAVIDS. With Map.
+
+=Buddhism in China.= By the Rev. S. BEAL. With Map.
+
+=Confucianism and Taouism.= By ROBERT K. DOUGLAS, of the British Museum.
+With Map.
+
+=Hinduism.= By Professor MONIER WILLIAMS. With Map
+
+=Islam and its Founder.= By J. W. H. STOBART. With Map.
+
+=The Corân: its Composition and Teaching, and the Testimony it bears to
+the Holy Scriptures.= By Sir WILLIAM MUIR, K.C.S.I., LL.D.
+
+
+ANCIENT HISTORY FROM THE MONUMENTS.
+_Fcap. 8vo, cloth boards, 2s. each._
+
+=Sinai: from the Fourth Egyptian Dynasty to the Present Day.= By HENRY
+S. PALMER, Major R.E., F.R.A.S. With Map.
+
+=Babylonia (The History of).= By the late GEORGE SMITH, Esq. Edited by
+the Rev. A. H. SAYCE.
+
+=Greek Cities and Islands of Asia Minor.= By W. S. W. VAUX, M.A., F.R.S.
+
+=Assyria, from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Nineveh.= By the late
+GEORGE SMITH, Esq.
+
+=Egypt, from the Earliest Times to B.C. 300.= By S. BIRCH, LL.D., etc.
+
+=Persia, from the Earliest Period to the Arab Conquest.= By W. S. W.
+VAUX, M.A., F.R.S.
+
+
+THE HEATHEN WORLD AND ST. PAUL.
+_Fcap. 8vo, with Map, cloth boards, 2s. each._
+
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+Godalming.
+
+=St. Paul in Damascus and Arabia.= By the Rev. GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A.,
+Canon of Canterbury.
+
+=St. Paul at Rome.= By the Very Rev. CHARLES MERIVALE, D. D., D.C.L.,
+Dean of Ely.
+
+=St. Paul in Asia Minor and at the Syrian Antioch.= By the Very Rev. E.
+H. PLUMPTRE, D.D.
+
+
+DIOCESAN HISTORIES.
+
+=Canterbury.= By the Rev. R. C. JENKINS. With Map. Fcap. 8vo, _cloth
+boards_, 3s. 6d.
+
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+boards_, 2s. 6d.
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+2s. 6d.
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+_cloth boards_, 2s. 6d.
+
+=Worcester.= By the Rev. I. GREGORY SMITH and the Rev. PHIPPS ONSLOW.
+With Map. Fcap. 8vo, _cloth boards_, 3s. 6d.
+
+=York.= By the Rev. GEORGE ORNSBY, M.A. With Map. Fcap. 8vo, _cloth
+boards_, 3s. 6d.
+
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+LONDON:
+NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C.;
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+PUBLICATIONS OF THE Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
+
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+HISTORY OF INDIA.
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+Author of "Sequel to Thornton's History of India." With eight full-page
+Woodcuts on toned paper, and numerous smaller Woodcuts. Post 8vo. Cloth
+boards, 10s. 6d.
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+STUDIES AMONG THE PAINTERS.
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+By J. B. ATKINSON, Esq. With seventeen full-page Illustrations. Small
+Post 4to. Cloth boards, 7s. 6d.
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+BEAUTY IN COMMON THINGS.
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+Illustrated by twelve Drawings from Nature, by Mrs. J. W. WHYMPER;
+Printed in Colours, by WILLIAM DICKES. With descriptive Letterpress, by
+the Author of "Life in the Walls," "Robin the Bold," &c. Demy 4to. Cloth
+boards, 10s. 6d.
+
+
+SCENES IN THE EAST.
+
+Consisting of twelve Coloured Photographic Views of Places mentioned in
+the Bible, beautifully executed, with Descriptive Letterpress. By the
+Rev. CANON TRISTRAM, Author of "Bible Places," "The Land of Israel," &c.
+4to. Cloth, bevelled boards, gilt edges, 7s. 6d.
+
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+SINAI AND JERUSALEM; OR, SCENES FROM BIBLE LANDS.
+
+Consisting of Coloured Photographic Views of Places mentioned in the
+Bible, including a Panoramic View of Jerusalem with Descriptive
+Letterpress. By the Rev. F. W. HOLLAND, M.A., Honorary Secretary to the
+Palestine Exploration Fund. Demy 4to. Cloth, bevelled boards, gilt
+edges, 7s. 6d.
+
+
+BIBLE PLACES; OR, THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY LAND.
+
+A succinct account of all the Places, Rivers, and Mountains of the Land
+of Israel mentioned in the Bible, so far as they have been identified;
+together with their modern names and historical references. By the Rev.
+CANON TRISTRAM. With Map. A new and revised edition. Crown 8vo. Cloth
+boards, 4s.
+
+
+THE LAND OF ISRAEL.
+
+A Journal of Travel in Palestine, undertaken with special reference to
+its Physical Character. By the Rev. CANON TRISTRAM. Fourth edition,
+revised. With Maps and numerous Illustrations. Large post 8vo. Cloth
+boards, 10s. 6d.
+
+
+NARRATIVE OF A MODERN PILGRIMAGE THROUGH PALESTINE ON HORSEBACK, AND
+WITH TENTS.
+
+By the Rev. ALFRED CHARLES SMITH, M.A., Rector of Yatesbury, Wilts,
+Author of "The Attractions of the Nile," &c. Numerous Illustrations and
+four Coloured Plates. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BIBLE.
+
+By the Rev. CANON TRISTRAM, Author of "Bible Places," &c. With numerous
+Woodcuts. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 7s. 6d.
+
+
+A HISTORY OF THE JEWISH NATION.
+
+From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. By the late E. H. PALMER,
+Esq., M.A., Fellow of St. John's College, Author of "The Desert of the
+Exodus," &c. With Map of Palestine and numerous Illustrations. Crown
+8vo. Cloth boards, 4s.
+
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+BRITISH BIRDS IN THEIR HAUNTS.
+
+Being a Popular Account of the Birds which have been observed in the
+British Isles; their Haunts and Habits; their systematic, common, and
+provincial Names; together with a Synopsis of Genera; and a brief
+Summary of Specific characters. By the late Rev. C. A. JOHNS, B.A.,
+F.L.S. Post 8vo. Cloth boards, 10s.
+
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+THE CYCLE OF LIFE.
+
+A Book of Poems for Young and Old, Town and Country. Printed on toned
+paper. Illustrated with eighteen Woodcuts. Fcap. 4to. Handsomely bound
+in cloth, gilt edges, bevelled boards, 5s.
+
+
+THE ART TEACHING OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.
+
+With an Index of Subjects, Historical and Emblematic. By the Rev. R. ST.
+JOHN TYRWHITT. 7s. 6d.
+
+
+AFRICA, SEEN THROUGH ITS EXPLORERS.
+
+By CHARLES H. EDEN, Esq. With Map and several Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+Satteen cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+AFRICA UNVEILED.
+
+By the Rev. H. ROWLEY. With Map, and eight full-page Illustrations on
+toned paper. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+AUSTRALIA'S HEROES:
+
+Being a slight Sketch of the most prominent amongst the band of gallant
+men who devoted their lives and energies to the cause of Science, and
+the development of the Fifth Continent. By C. H. EDEN, Esq., Author of
+"Fortunes of the Fletchers," &c. With Map. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+SOME HEROES OF TRAVEL; OR, CHAPTERS FROM THE HISTORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL
+DISCOVERY & ENTERPRISE.
+
+Compiled and re-written by W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS, Author of "Great
+English Churchmen," &c. With Map. Crown 8vo. Satteen cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+CHRISTIANS UNDER THE CRESCENT IN ASIA.
+
+By the Rev. EDWARD L. CUTTS, B.A., Author of "Turning Points of Church
+History," &c. With numerous Illustrations. Post 8vo. Cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+THE FIFTH CONTINENT, WITH THE ADJACENT ISLANDS.
+
+Being an Account of Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea, with
+Statistical Information to the latest date. By C. H. EDEN, Author of
+"Australia's Heroes," &c. With Map. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+FROZEN ASIA: A SKETCH OF MODERN SIBERIA.
+
+By CHARLES H. EDEN, Esq., Author of "Australia's Heroes," &c. With Map.
+Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+HEROES OF THE ARCTIC AND THEIR ADVENTURES.
+
+By FREDERICK WHYMPER, Esq., Author of "Travels in Alaska," &c. With Map,
+eight full-page and numerous small Woodcuts. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards,
+3s. 6d.
+
+
+CHINA.
+
+By Professor ROBERT K. DOUGLAS, of the British Museum. With Map, and
+Eight full-page Illustrations on toned paper, and several Vignettes.
+Post 8vo. Cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+RUSSIA: PAST AND PRESENT.
+
+Adapted from the German of Lankenau and Oelnitz. By Mrs. CHESTER. With
+Map, and Three full-page Woodcuts and Vignettes. Post 8vo. Cloth boards,
+5s.
+
+
+Depositories:
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+NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS;
+43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET; 26, ST. GEORGE'S PLACE, S.W.;
+AND 135, NORTH STREET, BRIGHTON.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
+
+
+Inconsistencies in the hyphenation of words preserved. (cocoanut/s,
+cocoa-nut/s; firearms, fire-arms; gunboat, gun-boats; schoolboys,
+school-boys; schoolroom, school-room)
+
+Pg. 32, duplicated word "the" removed. (the coasts and the seas)
+
+Pg. 42, inserted period after "Mr". (that in 1867 Mr. Chambers)
+
+Pg. 63, closing double quote inserted at end of what appears to be the
+end of a quoted passage.(carried them away over their shoulders.")
+
+Pg. 95, duplicated period removed at sentence end. (by jet ornaments and
+bugle trimmings.)
+
+Pg. 111, "examition" changed to "examination". (After the examination,)
+
+Pg. 118, added period at sentence end. (agreeable and uniformly kind.)
+
+Pg. 138, period changed to comma. (If you must go, some of us will go
+with you)
+
+Pg. 162, unusual construction retained. (a new cook-house and servants'
+rooms near, to build;)
+
+Pg. 243, closing double quote added at end of title of a book. (in his
+"Forests of the Far East":)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak, by 
+Harriette McDougall
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+
+Project Gutenberg's Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak, by Harriette McDougall
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak
+
+Author: Harriette McDougall
+
+Release Date: December 19, 2008 [EBook #27568]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES OF OUR LIFE AT SARAWAK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by a Project Gutenberg volunteer working with
+digital material generously made available by the Internet
+Archive
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="cover" id="cover"></a>
+<img  src="images/cover.jpg" width="391" height="600" alt="cover" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a>
+<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="398" height="600" alt="Bishop McDougall striking a snake with a walking stick" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">HAPPILY HE HAD A STOUT WALKING-STICK, AND AT ONCE FELLED
+THE REPTILE.</p>
+<p class="capleft"><i>Frontispiece.</i></p>
+<p class="capright"><i>Page</i> <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><small>SKETCHES</small><br />
+<span class="tiny">OF</span><br />
+OUR LIFE AT SARAWAK</h1>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="title"><b><small>BY</small><br />
+HARRIETTE McDOUGALL.</b></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="title"><small><i><b>WITH MAP.</b></i></small></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr class="hr1" />
+<p class="center"><small>PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE.</small></p>
+<hr class="hr1" />
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="title" style="line-height: 1.2;">LONDON:<br />
+<small>SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,<br />
+NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C.;</small><br />
+<span class="tiny">43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.;<br />
+26, ST. GEORGE'S PLACE, HYDE PARK CORNER, S.W.</span><br />
+<small>BRIGHTON:</small> <span class="tiny">135, NORTH STREET.</span><br />
+<small><span class="smcap">New York:</span> E. &amp; J. B. YOUNG AND CO.</small></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img class="imgborder" src="images/l-bee.jpg" width="492" height="86" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0em;">CONTENTS.</h2>
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="70%" summary="Table of contents">
+
+<tr><td class="tochead" colspan="3">PART I.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt" style="padding-right: 1em;"><span class="tiny">CHAPTER</span></td><td></td><td class="tocpg"><span class="tiny">PAGE</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">I.</td><td class="toc">Introductory</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">II.</td><td class="toc">The Court-house</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">III.</td><td class="toc">College Hill</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">IV.</td><td class="toc">Pirates</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">V.</td><td class="toc">The Church and the School</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">VI.</td><td class="toc">The Girls</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">VII.</td><td class="toc">The Lundus</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">VIII.</td><td class="toc">A Boat Journey</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">IX.</td><td class="toc">Continuation of the Trip to Rejang</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tochead" colspan="3">PART II.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">X.</td><td class="toc">Return to Sarawak</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">XI.</td><td class="toc">Chinese Insurrection</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">XII.</td><td class="toc">Chinese Insurrection (<span style="font-variant: normal"><i>Continued</i></span>)</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">XIII.</td><td class="toc">Events of 1857</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">XIV.</td><td class="toc">The Malay Plot</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tochead" colspan="3">PART III.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">XV.</td><td class="toc">The Children's Chapter</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">XVI.</td><td class="toc">Illanun Pirates</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_204">204</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">XVII.</td><td class="toc">A Malay Wedding</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">XVIII.</td><td class="toc">Last Years at Sarawak</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_228">228</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt">XIX.</td><td class="toc">The Island of Borneo</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/t-fly.jpg" width="150" height="114" alt="decorative triangle" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>PART I.</h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p class="center"><small><a href="images/map-big.jpg">View larger image</a></small></p>
+
+<a name="map" id="map"></a>
+<img src="images/map-th.jpg" width="498" height="600" alt="Map of Borneo" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption" style="font-weight: normal;"><i><small>London: Published by The Society for Promotion of Christian Knowledge.</small></i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/l-padi.jpg" width="500" height="113" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h1><small>SKETCHES OF</small><br />
+OUR LIFE AT SARAWAK.</h1>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.<br />
+<small>INTRODUCTORY.</small></h3>
+
+
+<p>Nearly thirty years ago I published a little book of "Letters from
+Sarawak, addressed to a Child." This book is now out of print, and, on
+looking it over with a view to republication, I think it will be better
+to extend the story over the twenty years that Sarawak was our home,
+which will give some idea of the gradual progress of the mission.</p>
+
+<p>This progress was often unavoidably impeded by the struggles of the
+infant State; for war drowns the voice of the missionary, and though the
+Sarawak Government always discouraged the Dyak practice of taking the
+heads of their enemies, still it could not at once be checked, and every
+expedition<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> against lawless tribes, however righteous in its object,
+excited the old superstitions of those wild people. When their warriors
+returned from an expedition, the women of the tribe met them with dance
+and song, receiving the heads they brought with ancient
+ceremonies&mdash;"fondling the heads," as it was called; and for months
+afterwards keeping up, by frequent feasts, in which these heads were the
+chief attraction, the heathen customs which it was the object of the
+missionary to discourage.</p>
+
+<p>I dare say, when we first settled at Sarawak, we thought that twenty
+years would plant Christian communities, and build Christian churches
+all over the country: but it is as well that we cannot overlook the
+future; and perhaps, considering the many difficulties which arose from
+time to time, from the missionaries themselves, and the unsettled
+country in which they laboured, we ought not to expect more results than
+have appeared. At any rate we have much to be thankful for, and as every
+year makes Sarawak a more important State, consolidates its Government,
+and extends civilization to its subjects, we may look for more success
+for the missionaries, who can now point to the peace and prosperity of
+the people, and say, "This is the fruit of Christianity and Christian
+rulers."</p>
+
+<p>In giving a short account of our life in Borneo, I shall avoid alike all
+political questions, or, as much as possible, individual histories among
+the English community. It is already so long ago<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> since we lived in that
+lovely place, that events, trials, joys, and the usual vicissitudes of
+life, are wrapt in that mellowing haze of the past, which, while it dims
+the vividness of feeling, throws a robe of charity over all, and perhaps
+causes actors and actions to assume a more true proportion to one
+another than when we walked amongst them. I have, however, not depended
+on memory alone for the records of twenty years, but have journals and
+letters to refer to, which my friends in England have been good enough
+to keep for me. Some parts of "Letters from Sarawak" I shall incorporate
+into the present little book, for as it treats of the first six years we
+lived there, and was written at that time, it is sure to be tolerably
+correct.</p>
+
+<p>In those days, from 1847 to 1853, Sir James Brooke was very popular in
+England. The story of his first occupation of Sarawak, published in his
+journals, and the cruizes of her Majesty's ships in those eastern
+seas&mdash;the <i>Dido</i> and the <i>Samarang</i>&mdash;were read with avidity, and
+furnished the English public with a romance which had all the charm of
+novelty. However difficult and inconvenient it might be for the English
+Government to recognize a native State under an English rajah, who was
+at the same time a subject of the Queen of Great Britain, this question
+had not then arisen; and all classes, high and low, could applaud a
+brave and noble man, who had stepped out of the beaten track to spend
+his fortune and expose his life in the cause of savages. There were many
+fluctuations of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> sympathy and opinion in after years towards Sir James
+Brooke; but, through evil report and good report, through difficulty and
+danger, Sarawak has still advanced, and is as worthy of the interest of
+the best and wisest of mankind as it was in 1847. At this time, indeed,
+it seems to me to furnish a lesson in the management of native races
+which might be useful in our own colonies. English governors always set
+out with good intentions towards the natives of savage countries, but
+how is it that war almost always follows their occupation? Surely it is
+because the settlers go there, not in the interest of the native race,
+but their own, and the two interests are sure to clash in the long-run.</p>
+
+<p>It requires great patience and forbearance to educate natives up to a
+rule of justice and righteous laws; but that it may be done, and carry
+the co-operation of the people themselves, is evident at Sarawak, where
+the Malays and Dyaks are associated in the Government, and have always
+stood by their English rajah, even when it was necessary to punish or
+exile some of their own chiefs. I am aware that an English colony cannot
+be governed in this way; nevertheless, the spectacle of wild natives,
+rising by the influence of a few good Englishmen from lawless misrule to
+a settled government, where vice is punished without partiality, is very
+beautiful to philanthropists, and makes one think better of human nature
+and its capabilities. I wish I could portray the hilly and thorny road
+by which this has been attained! It would, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>methinks, create a new
+interest in Sarawak, if the past and the present could be fairly set
+before the discerning world; we should again hear of missionaries
+longing to help in the improvement of people who have shown themselves
+so open to good influences. I have said that I would not touch upon
+politics, but Church and State are so naturally bound together in the
+task of civilization, that it is difficult to relate the history of the
+mission without mentioning the Government. Of course they do not stand
+in the same relation to one another in a Mahometan country, where the
+English Church is but a tolerated sect, as they do in a Christian land;
+still the Christian Church strengthens the Christian ruler, and he in
+his turn protects the Church by good government, although he may not
+favour it except by individual preference. For my own part, I have
+always thought it an advantage to our Dyak Christians that no favour was
+shown them on account of their faith; at any rate, it was for no worldly
+interest that they became Christians.</p>
+
+<p>Although our life in Sarawak extended over a period of twenty years, it
+might naturally be divided into three parts&mdash;of six, five, and six years
+respectively, the intervals being spent in visits to England. These
+visits, although absolutely necessary, were a drawback to the mission
+work. When the head of a family is absent, the responsibility is apt to
+fall upon the younger members, and is sometimes too much for them.
+However, they always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> did their best, and always welcomed us home most
+warmly. It was a joyful sight, on our return, to find the missionaries
+and school-children waiting for us at the wharf below our houses, the
+children's dear little faces glad with smiles, and a warm welcome for
+any baby we brought home. The second time, it was our daughter Mab; and
+in 1862, our last baby, Mildred,&mdash;Mab, Edith, and Herbert being left in
+England, for no English child can thrive in that unchangeable climate
+after it is six years old.</p>
+
+<p>The first chapters of this little book will describe the first six years
+of our stay at Sarawak; but, in speaking of subjects of interest, I
+shall not stop short at the end of those years, but carry on the subject
+to the end of our Sarawak experience. It is perhaps necessary to say
+this to prevent confusion.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/t-plant.jpg" width="150" height="118" alt="decorative triangle" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/l-radish.jpg" width="496" height="113" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.<br />
+<small>THE COURT-HOUSE.</small></h3>
+
+
+<p>While Sir James Brooke was in England, in 1847, he asked his friends to
+help him in his efforts to civilize the Dyaks, by sending a mission to
+live at Sarawak.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Ellesmere, Admiral Sir H. Keppel, Admiral C. D. Bethune, Canon Ryle
+Wood, and the Rev. C. Brereton, formed themselves into a committee, with
+the Rev. I. F. Stocks for their honorary secretary, and soon collected
+funds for the purpose. The Rev. F. McDougall was chosen as the head of
+the mission, and with him were associated the Rev. S. Montgomery and the
+Rev. W. Wright; but Mr. Montgomery died very suddenly, of fever caught
+when ministering to the poor of his parish, before the time came for us
+to embark, so the party was reduced to two clergymen and their wives,
+two babies and two nurses. We sailed from London in the barque <i>Mary
+Louisa</i>, four hundred tons, the end of December; Mr. Parr<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>, a nephew of
+Mrs. Wright's, being also one of the passengers. I had all my life loved
+the sea, and longed to take such a voyage as should carry us out of
+sight of land, and give us all the experiences which wait on those "who
+go down to the sea in ships;" but I little thought how we should all
+long for land before we saw it again.</p>
+
+<p>The barque was a poor sailer; we thought it a good run if she made eight
+knots an hour, so no wonder we did not reach Singapore till May 23,
+1848. It was a long monotonous voyage, but we were well occupied, and I
+do not remember ever finding it dull. The sea was all I ever fancied by
+way of a companion, and, like all one's best friends, made me happy or
+unhappy, but was never stupid. Then we had to learn Malay and its Arabic
+characters, with the help of Marsden's grammar and dictionary, and the
+Bible translated into that language by the Dutch. We lived by rule,
+apportioning the hours to certain duties, and every one knows how fast
+time passes under those conditions. The two clergymen busied themselves
+with teaching the sailors, and several of them presented themselves at
+Holy Communion in consequence, the last Sunday before we landed. The
+most trying time we passed was on the coast of Java, becalmed under a
+broiling sun, the very sea dead and slimy with all sorts of creatures
+creeping over it. As for ourselves, we were gasping with thirst, for we
+had already been on short rations of water for six weeks, one of the
+tanks having leaked out. One<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> quart of water a day for each adult, and
+none for the babies, so of course they had the lion's share of their
+parents' allowance. Our one cup of tea in the evening was looked forward
+to for hours; and what a wonderful colour it was, after all!&mdash;but that
+was the iron of the tank.</p>
+
+<p>On the 23rd of May we landed at Singapore, and had to wait there for
+four weeks before the schooner <i>Julia</i>, then running between that place
+and Sarawak, came to fetch us. We reached Sarawak June 29th, entering
+the Morotabas mouth of the river, which is twenty-four miles from the
+town of Kuching, whither we were bound. The sail up the river, our first
+sight of the country and the people, was indeed exciting, and filled us
+with delight. The river winds continually, and every new reach had its
+interest: a village of palm-leaf houses built close to the water, women
+and children standing on the steps with their long bamboo jars, or
+peeping out of the slits of windows at the schooner; boats of all sizes
+near the houses, fishing-nets hanging up to dry, wicked alligators lying
+basking on the mud; trees of many varieties&mdash;the nibong palm which
+furnishes the posts of the houses, the nipa which makes their mat walls,
+and close by the water the light and graceful mangroves, which at night
+are all alive and glittering with fire-flies. On the boughs of some
+larger trees hanging over the stream parties of monkeys might be seen
+eating the fruits, chattering, jumping, flying almost, from bough to
+bough. We afterwards made nearer acquaintance with these droll
+creatures.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>At last we reached the Fort, a long white building manned by Malays, and
+with cannon showing at the port-holes. The <i>Julia</i> was not challenged,
+however, but gladly welcomed, as she carried not only the missionaries
+but the mail, and stores for the bazaar; for at that time there were not
+many native trading-vessels&mdash;the fear of pirates was great, and there
+was good reason to fear!</p>
+
+<p>The town of Kuching consisted in those days of a Chinese bazaar and a
+Kling bazaar, both very small, and where it was scarcely possible to
+find anything an English man or woman could buy. Beyond was the court of
+justice, the mosques, and a few native houses. Higher up the river lay
+the Malay town, divided into Kampongs, or clusters of houses belonging
+to the different chiefs or principal merchants of the place. Opposite
+the bazaar, on the other side of the river, stood the rajah's bungalow,
+as well as two or three others belonging to Europeans, embosomed in
+trees, cocoa-nuts and betel-nut palms, and other fruit-trees. Behind the
+rajah's house rose the beautiful mountain of Santubong, wooded to its
+summit nearly 3000 feet, with a rock cropping out here and there. At
+this bungalow we landed, and were hospitably entertained for a few days
+until the upper part of the court-house could be made ready for our
+party.</p>
+
+<p>Shall I ever forget my first impressions of the rajah's bungalow? A
+peculiar scent pervaded it. You looked about for the cause till your
+eyes fell on two saucers, one filled with green blossoms, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> other
+with deep golden ones, much the same shape&mdash;the kenanga and the
+chimpaka, flowering trees, which grew near the house. Their flowers were
+picked every day for the rooms, as the rajah loved the scent, and so did
+the Malays. The ladies steeped the blossoms in cocoa-nut oil and
+anointed themselves, placing them also in their long black hair, with
+wreaths of jessamine flowers threaded on a string. These perfumes were
+rather overpowering at first, but I learnt to like them after I had been
+some time in Sarawak. The large, bare, cool rooms were very refreshing
+after the little cabins of the <i>Julia</i>. And then the library! a treasure
+indeed in the jungle; books on all sorts of subjects, bound in enticing
+covers, always inviting you to bodily repose and mental activity or
+amusement, as you might prefer. This library, so dear to us all because
+we were all allowed to share it, was burnt in 1857 by the Chinese
+rebels. It took two days to burn. I watched it from our library over the
+water, and saw the mass of books glowing dull red like a furnace, long
+after the flames had consumed the wooden house. It made one's heart ache
+to see it. An old gentleman of our English society watched it too, and I
+wondered why his head shook continually as he sat with his eyes fixed on
+those sad ruins; but I found afterwards that the sight, and doubtless
+its cause, had palsied him from that day. But I must not linger too long
+in the rajah's bungalow, though the white pigeons seem to call to me
+from the verandahs; we must take boat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> again (for there are no bridges
+over the Sarawak river), and cross to the court-house.</p>
+
+<p>This square wooden house, with latticed verandahs like a big cage, was
+built by a German missionary, who purposed having a school on the ground
+floor and living in the upper story; but as soon as he had built his
+house he was recalled to Germany, and the only trace of him that
+remained was a box full of torn Bibles and tracts, which, I am sorry to
+say, had been used as waste paper in the bazaar for tying up parcels
+since he left, but as the tracts were not in any language the people
+could understand they were scarcely to blame. Rajah turned the house
+into a court of justice, and we settled ourselves in the upper rooms,
+which were divided from one another by mat walls. The river flowed under
+this house at spring tides, and then nests of ants would swarm into it:
+the rapidity with which these little creatures would carry all their
+eggs up the posts and settle the whole family under a box in your
+bedroom was marvellous; but as they were not pleasant companions there,
+a kettle of hot water had to put an end to the colony.</p>
+
+<p>These little black ants did not sting, but there was a large red ant,
+half an inch long, who was most pugnacious; he stood up on his hind legs
+and fought you with amazing courage, and his jaws were formidable. We
+made our first acquaintance with white ants while we lived in the
+court-house. On unpacking a box of books, which had been our solace
+during the voyage, we found them almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> glued together by the secretion
+of these creatures. The box had been standing on the ground floor of the
+hotel. The white ants had eaten through and through the books, and
+picked all the surface off the bindings; they were disgusting to look at
+and to smell. Some years afterwards, one of our missionaries had a box
+of clothes sent her from Singapore. It was necessary clothing, for she
+had lost her effects, like the rest of us, during the Chinese rebellion.
+I warned Miss Coomes that she must unpack the box directly, on account
+of the white ants; but she put it off till the next day, and at night
+these wretches ate through the bottom of the box, and munched up the new
+linen and stockings. We soon learnt to guard against their attacks by
+using no wood except balean, or iron-wood, which is too hard for them to
+bite. English oak seemed like a slice of cake to white ants.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner were we settled at the court-house, than we had visits from
+all the principal Malays, and also some Dyaks who happened to be at
+Sarawak. My husband opened a dispensary in a little room behind the
+store-room, and had plenty of patients. I used to hear continual talking
+and laughing going on there, and by this means Mr. McDougall learnt to
+talk the Malay language, which he only knew from books when he first
+arrived. The pure Malay of books is very different from the colloquial
+<i>patois</i> of Kuching. To my sorrow, I learnt this some time after, when I
+was trying to prepare two women for baptism: they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> listened to me for
+some time, and then one said to the other, "She talks like a book,"
+which I fear meant that they only half understood me.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after this we took four little half-caste children to bring up.
+They were running about in the bazaar, and their native mothers were
+willing to part with them; so Mary, Julia, Peter, and Tommy were housed
+in a cottage close by, under the care of a Portuguese Christian woman,
+the wife of our cook. Every day I used to spend some hours with them,
+that we might become friends. The eldest of these children was only six
+years old, Tommy, the youngest, but two and a half; so they wanted a
+nurse. They were baptized on Advent Sunday, 1848, and were the beginning
+of our native school.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/t-beans.jpg" width="150" height="120" alt="decorative triangle" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img class="imgborder" src="images/l-peas.jpg" width="487" height="104" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.<br />
+<small>COLLEGE HILL.</small></h3>
+
+<p>We stayed at the court-house a whole year, while our house on the hill
+was being prepared. The hill, and the ground beyond it, about forty
+acres in all, was given to the mission by Sir James Brooke. It was then
+some way out of the town, but as the Chinese population increased, the
+town grew quite to the foot of the hill&mdash;College Hill, as it was then
+called&mdash;and a blacksmith's quarter even invaded the mission land. At
+first, in order to cultivate the property, nutmegs and spice-trees were
+planted, but the soil was not good enough for them; when their roots
+pierced through the pit of earth in which they were planted, and reached
+the stiff clay of the hill, they died off. It was necessary to do
+something to keep the land clear of the coarse lalang grass, which grew
+wherever the jungle was cut down. So after a while a herd of cattle was
+collected, and they improved the poverty of the land, at the same time
+furnishing milk and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> little butter. I say a <i>little</i>, because even
+when seven cows were in milk, as they only gave two quarts a day each,
+and there were always plenty of children in and out of the mission to
+consume it, but little was left for butter-making. Cocoa-nut trees were
+planted in the low ground, and some few grew up; but wild pigs were
+great enemies to them, for they liked to eat the cabbage out of the
+heart of the young tree, which of course killed it. In that seething
+warmth of Sarawak you could almost see plants grow. If you scattered
+seeds in the ground, they sprouted above it on the third day. I planted
+some of those little coral-looking seeds which are to be found in every
+box of Indian shells, the seed of the satin-wood, and they grew up into
+beautiful forest trees in twelve years' time. We used to make long
+strings of these coral seeds, and use them in Christmas decorations.</p>
+
+<p>By degrees we had a very bright garden about the house. The Gardenia,
+with its strongly scented blossom and evergreen leaves, made a capital
+hedge. Great bushes of the Hybiscus, scarlet and buff, glowed in the
+sun&mdash;they were called shoe-flowers, for they were used instead of
+blacking to polish our shoes. The pink one-hundred-leaved rose grew
+freely, and blossomed all the year round. Shrubs of the golden
+Allamander were a great temptation to the cows, if they strayed into the
+garden. The Plumbago was one of the few pale-blue flowers which liked
+that blazing heat. Then we had a great variety of creepers&mdash;jessamine of
+many sorts,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> the scarlet Ipomea, the blue Clitorea, and
+passion-flowers, from the huge Grenadilla with its excellent fruit, to
+the little white one set in a calyx of moss. The Moon-flower, a large
+white convolvulus, tight-shut all day, unfolded itself at six o'clock,
+and looked lovely in the flower-vases in the evening. The Jessamine and
+Pergolaria odorotissima climbed up the porch, and in the forks of the
+trees opposite I had air-plants fastened, which flowered every three
+months, and looked like a flight of white butterflies on the wing. The
+great mountain of Matang stood in the distance, and when the sun sank
+behind it, which it always did in that invariable latitude about six
+o'clock, I sat in the porch to watch the glory of earth and sky. How
+dear a mountain becomes to you, is only known to those who live in hilly
+countries. One gets to think of it as a friend. It seems to carry a
+protest against the little frets of life, and, by its strength and
+invariableness, to be a visible image of Him who is "the same yesterday,
+to-day, and for ever." But I am running on too fast with the garden
+before the house is built.</p>
+
+<p>The hill was first cleared of jungle, and flattened at the top, then the
+foundation was dug, and great sleepers were laid ready for the upright
+posts. A wooden house is joiner's work, and rather resembles a great
+bedstead. All the wood is first squared and cut, which takes a long
+time, because the balean-wood is extremely hard, and consumes a great
+deal of labour; but once ready, the house rises from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>the earth like
+magic, for every beam and post fits into its place.</p>
+
+<p>We had brought a great box of carpenter's tools with us from England,
+among them valuable moulding-planes; we wished the carpenters to learn,
+in building the house, how to make the arches and ornamental mouldings
+for the church.</p>
+
+<p>Happily for us, when the <i>Mary Louisa</i> was wrecked in the straits on her
+way home, the crew were all saved, and the ship-carpenter came over to
+Sarawak to see if my husband would employ him. As he was a capital
+joiner, he was set over a gang of workmen at once. All the plans for the
+house and church were made by Frank (my husband), and I was set to draw
+patterns of the doors and windows, the verandah railings, and the porch.
+Stahl was an intelligent German workman, and soon learnt Malay enough to
+direct the men. The Malays levelled the hill and dug the foundations;
+the Chinese were employed as carpenters, but they, too, could speak
+Malay. I remember making great friends with one of them, Johnny Jangot,
+John of the Beard, so called on account of a few long hairs at the tip
+of his chin, for the Chinese are a beardless race. Johnny used to eat
+his breakfast in the court-house to save himself trouble. What a set-out
+it was! Rice, of course; then three or four little basins with different
+messes&mdash;duck, fish, chicken, and plenty of soy-sauce; more basins with
+vegetables, all eaten with the help of chop-sticks; and a teapot snugly
+covered with a cosy. I asked one day to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> taste the tea, and Johnny
+poured me out a tiny cup of hot, sweet, spirits and water! Samchoo is a
+spirit made from rice, and very strong, as our poor English sailors used
+to find to their cost when her Majesty's ships paid us a visit. The
+Chinese said that the English drank the samchoo cold and raw, and
+therefore it poisoned them, whereas they always qualified it with hot
+water. It did not taste strong, which made it all the more pernicious.
+Johnny drank real tea all day long, and smoked a good deal of
+tobacco&mdash;it seemed to me he did very little else; but he was not a bad
+workman, though of course it was not such a day's work as an Englishman
+can do.</p>
+
+<p>In the East you must accept the customs of the country, and be content
+with the people: they are not given to change. Stahl made some
+wheel-barrows for the men to use instead of little baskets in which they
+carried earth, and which held nothing. But it was no use; they laughed
+at the wheel-barrows, and said "Eh yaw!" but went on with the baskets.</p>
+
+<p>Every evening we used to walk up the hill to see how the building was
+getting on, all the children with us; then, as we sat on the timber, I
+used to draw the letters of the alphabet on the white sand, and the
+little ones learnt them. We went home through a piece of ground we
+called our garden. In it grew plenty of pine-apples and sugar-cane, and
+the gardener always supplied us with pieces of the latter to eat&mdash;very
+refreshing and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> nice, but the juice ran all over your hands. As for
+pine-apples, we soon got tired of them; but they made good tarts, and,
+mixed with plantains and lime-juice, a very pleasant and useful jam.</p>
+
+<p>In clearing the hill our workmen disturbed the haunts of many snakes. We
+were a good deal visited by cobras for some years. The natives said that
+the Adam and Eve of all the cobras lived in a cave under our hill.</p>
+
+<p>One day we were having asphalte laid down in the printing-room, to keep
+away white ants. The room had been emptied to do this, and Stahl went in
+to inspect the work after the men had gone to their breakfast at eleven
+o'clock. He saw a large cobra at the end of the room, and hit it with a
+stick he had in his hand; but the stick broke in two, and the cobra
+reared itself up with inflated hood. Another minute must have seen Stahl
+a prey to the monster; but the Bishop, passing by, heard him exclaim
+when the stick broke, and going quickly in saw Stahl standing, white,
+fascinated, and motionless, before the cobra. Happily he had a stout
+walking-stick, and at once felled the reptile; but he took a good deal
+of killing. It was ten feet long.</p>
+
+<p>This was Adam.</p>
+
+<p>Eve was killed under the verandah of the house almost a year afterwards.
+She was eight feet long.</p>
+
+<p>One night the Bishop had been reading the Rev. F. Robertson's sermon
+about St. Paul and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> the viper. It was late, and being rather sleepy he
+carried the book in one hand and a candle in the other into his
+dressing-room, and was just going to set the candle down, when his eye
+fell on a cobra, coiled up on the chair on which he was about to seat
+himself. No stick was at hand, but he smote the snake with the book.
+Struck in the right place, they are not difficult to kill. So "St. Paul
+and the Viper" put an end to the cobra. That the bite of this snake is
+not, however, certain death we had a curious instance.</p>
+
+<p>One of our servants, a very strict Mahometan, believed himself charmed
+against poisonous reptiles, and used to bring me centipedes and
+scorpions in his hands, saying they never hurt him. He left our service
+and was employed by the Borneo Company, about half a mile from our
+house. One day, while cutting rattans in a shed, a cobra bit his thumb.
+He thought nothing of it, but, putting away his work as usual, went
+home, cooked his rice and ate his supper. By this time, however, his arm
+began to swell and his head to swim. Instead of going to the doctor, who
+then lived close by, he must needs go to the Bishop to cure him; so just
+as we were sitting down to dinner, about seven o'clock, he reeled into
+the house. The Bishop cauterized the wound, although it seemed too late
+to be any use; he was getting cold and faint. However, by dint of being
+walked up and down between two men, and having two whole bottles of
+brandy administered to him, a glass at a time, besides sal volatile,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+chloroform, and every stimulant we had, he got through the night. The
+Bishop sat up with him all night, and I could hear him, when at last I
+went to bed, calling out at intervals, "Oh, Allah! Oh, Lord Bishop!"&mdash;so
+terrible was the pain he suffered in his arm. His wife, who was my
+baby's ayah, appeared in the morning. "Come," said she, "make no more
+noise, keeping everybody awake, but take up your bed (mat) and let us go
+home." He meekly obeyed; but, poor man, he had abscesses under his arm,
+and fell into weak health afterwards; so it is evidently unwise to
+despise a cobra.</p>
+
+<p>There were many other snakes besides cobras, some poisonous, but most of
+them harmless.</p>
+
+<p>The Marquis Doria and Signor Becarri, two distinguished naturalists, who
+lived for some months at Sarawak, collecting bird-skins, insects, and
+plants, told me that the natives often represented a snake to be
+poisonous which was not so. However, we had the mata hari, sun-snake,
+black and coral colour, and a metallic green flat-headed creature,
+Fortrex trigonocephalus, which were venomous enough. I once had a little
+flower-snake for a pet. It was beautifully marked with green and lilac,
+and used to catch flies climbing about the room; but one day it mounted
+to the top of a high door, the wind blew the door to, and my pretty
+snake was thrown to the ground and broke its back.</p>
+
+<p>The boa-constrictor&mdash;sawar, as the Malays called it&mdash;lived in the jungle
+and rice-swamps. Sometimes it attained an enormous size. An<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> Englishman
+told me that he and some Malays were exploring the jungle to find traces
+of antimony ore, and came to an opening in the wood, across which they
+saw the body of a sawar as thick as his own&mdash;he was not very
+stout&mdash;moving along; but they never saw either the head or tail of that
+snake, for, after watching its progress for a long time, they were
+seized with a panic at its enormous length, and fled.</p>
+
+<p>A Malay whom we knew very well, Abong Hassan by name, and a mighty
+hunter, told us that once, when he was seeking deer in the forest,
+towards evening he sat down to rest, and cook his rice, on what he
+thought was a great fallen tree. While thus occupied, he felt his seat
+moving from under him, and, starting up, found he had been making use of
+a huge sawar lying inert and distended with food. He killed it, and
+found a full-grown deer in its stomach. These snakes must live to a
+great age, and grow always, to attain such a size.</p>
+
+<p>Some people kept a small boa in their house to kill rats, but we found
+they were equally fond of chickens, and therefore not desirable inmates;
+for at Sarawak chickens were the principal animal food to be had, and it
+was necessary to keep a stock of them.</p>
+
+<p>After some years we built up the lower story of the mission-house with
+bricks, to make it more substantial and cooler. The ground floor was at
+first wholly occupied with the school, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>dormitory on one side, the
+matron's and girls' room on the other, and a large schoolroom through
+the centre of the house. A similar room over it was our dining-room, and
+was used for divine service until the church was finished. The library
+and our bedroom were over the boys' dormitory, and bedrooms for
+missionaries on the other side. There were also three rooms in the roof,
+which made good bedrooms, but were too hot for use in the daytime. The
+roof was covered with shingles of balean-wood, which only grows harder
+and darker coloured from rain and use. They were blown off sometimes in
+the storms to which we were subject, but were otherwise more lasting
+than any other kind of roofing. We used to call this house Noah's Ark,
+from the variety of its occupants. A bell hung in the porch roof, and
+rung at different hours to call the workmen and regulate the school. The
+people in the town got so used to it that, when we discontinued it for a
+time, they sent a petition that it might begin again, for without it
+they never knew what o'clock it was. When the school outgrew this house
+we built another for the boys, their master, and the matron, close by;
+but I always kept the girls with us until Julia married, when they were
+sent to the Quop, in charge of the missionary's wife there.</p>
+
+<p>Long before we left the court-house, Mr. and Mrs. Wright decided to give
+up the Sarawak mission, and went to Singapore, where Mr. Wright became
+master to the Raffles Institution for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> education of boys. We were
+therefore quite alone until February, 1851, when the Bishop of Calcutta
+paid us a visit to consecrate the church, and brought with him Mr. Fox
+from Bishop's College, to be catechist, with a view to his future
+ordination. Very soon after him came the Rev. Walter Chambers from
+England, and about the same time Mr. Nicholls also arrived from Bishop's
+College; but, as he only wished to stay for two years in the country, he
+had scarcely time to learn the language before he returned to Calcutta.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/t-sun.jpg" width="150" height="115" alt="decorative triangle" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img class="imgborder" src="images/l-bee.jpg" width="492" height="86" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.<br />
+<small>PIRATES.</small></h3>
+
+<p>When we first lived at Sarawak, the coasts and the seas from
+Singapore to China were infested with pirates. "It is in the Malay's
+nature," says a Dutch writer, "to rove the seas in his prahu, as it is
+in the Arab to wander with his steed on the sands of the desert." Before
+the English and Dutch Governments exerted themselves to put down piracy
+in the Eastern seas, there were communities of these Malays settled in
+various parts of the coast of Borneo, who made it the business of their
+lives to rob and destroy all the vessels they could meet with, either
+killing the crews or reducing them to slavery. For this purpose they
+went out in fleets of from ten to thirty war-boats or prahus. These
+boats were about ninety feet long; they carried a large gun in the bow
+and three or four lelahs, small brass guns, in each broadside, besides
+twenty or thirty muskets. Each prahu was rowed by sixty or eighty oars
+in two tiers, and carried from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> eighty to a hundred men. Over the
+rowers, and extending the whole length of the vessel, was a light flat
+roof, made of split bamboo, and covered with mats. This protected the
+ammunition and provisions from rain, and served as a platform on which
+they mounted to fight, from which they fired their muskets and hurled
+their spears. These formidable boats skulked about in the sheltered bays
+of the coast, at the season of the year when they knew that
+merchant-vessels would be passing with rich cargoes for the ports of
+Singapore, Penang, or to and from China. A scout-boat, with but few men
+in it, which would not excite suspicion, went out to spy for sails. They
+did not generally attack large or armed ships, although many a
+good-sized Dutch or English craft, which had been becalmed or enticed by
+them into dangerous or shallow water, was overpowered by their numbers.
+But it was usually the small unarmed vessels they fell upon, with
+fearful yells, binding those they did not kill, and burning the vessel
+after robbing it, to avoid detection. While the south-west monsoon
+lasted, the pirates lurked about in uninhabited creeks and bays until
+the trading season was over. But when the north-east monsoon set in,
+they returned to their settlements, often rich in booty, and with blood
+on their hands, only to rejoice over the past, and prepare for next
+year's expedition. There are still some nests of pirates in the north of
+Borneo, although of late the Spaniards have done much to exterminate
+them. But when Sir James<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> Brooke first visited Sarawak, the nobles
+there, and their sultan at Bruni, used to permit, nay, encourage,
+piratical raids against their own subjects at a little distance,
+provided they shared in the profits of the expedition, thus
+impoverishing the country they ruled, and putting a stop to all native
+trade&mdash;a short-sighted and wicked policy. It took a good many years of
+stern resistance on Sir James Brooke's part before the Bruni nobles
+could be cured of their connivance of pirates, whether Malay or Dyak.</p>
+
+<p>The Dyaks of Sarebas and Sakarran, a brave and noble people, were taught
+piracy by the Malays who dwelt among them. These Dyaks were always
+head-hunters, and used to pull the oars in the Malay prahus for the sake
+of the heads of the slain, which they alone cared for. But, in course of
+time, the Dyaks became expert seamen. They built boats which they called
+bangkongs, and went out with the Malays, devastating the coast and
+killing Malays, Chinese, Dyaks, whoever they met with. The Dyak bangkong
+draws very little water, and is both lighter and faster than the Malay
+prahu; it is a hundred feet long, and nine or ten broad. Sixty or eighty
+men with paddles make her skim through the water as swiftly as a London
+race-boat. She moves without noise, and surprises her victims with
+showers of spears at dead of night; neither can any vessel, except a
+steamer, catch a Dyak bangkong, if the crew deem it necessary to fly.
+These boats can be easily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> taken to pieces; for the planks, which extend
+the whole length of the boat, are not fastened with nails, but lashed
+together with rattans, and calked with bark, which swells when wet; so
+that, if they wish to hide their retreat into the jungle, they can
+quickly unlace their boats, carry them on their shoulders into the
+woods, and put them together again when they want them. When we first
+lived at Sarawak no merchant-boat dared go out of the river alone and
+unarmed. We were constantly shocked with dreadful accounts of villages
+on the coast, or boats at the entrance, being surprised, and men, women,
+and children barbarously murdered by these wretches. I remember once a
+boat being found with only three fingers of a man in it, and a bloody
+mark at the side, where the heads of those in the boat had been cut off.
+Sometimes the pirates would wait until they knew the men of a village
+were away at their paddy farms, then they would fall suddenly upon the
+defenceless old men, women, and children, kill some, make slaves of the
+young ones, and rob the houses.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, having destroyed a village and its inhabitants, they would
+dress themselves in the clothes of the slain, and, proceeding to another
+place, would call out to the women, "The Sarebas are coming, but, if you
+bring down your valuables to us, we will defend you and your property."
+And many fell into the snare, and were carried off. If they attacked a
+house when the men were at home, it was by night. They pulled stealthily
+up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> the river in their boats, and landing under cover of their shields,
+crept under the long house where many families lived together. These
+houses stand on high poles. The pirates then set fire to dry wood and a
+quantity of chillies which they carried with them for the purpose. This
+made a suffocating smoke, which hindered the inmates from coming out to
+defend themselves. Then they cut down the posts of the house, which
+fell, with all it contained, into their ruthless hands.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1849, the atrocities of the piratical Dyaks were so
+frequent, that the rajah applied to the English Admiral in the straits
+for some men-of-war to assist him in destroying them. Remonstrances and
+threats had been tried again and again. The pirates would always promise
+good behaviour for the future to avert a present danger; but they never
+kept these promises when an opportunity offered for breaking them with
+impunity. In consequence of Sir James Brooke's application, H.M.S.
+<i>Albatross</i>, commanded by Captain Farquhar; H.M.'s sloop <i>Royalist</i>,
+commander, Lieutenant Everest; and H.E.I.C.'s steamer <i>Nemesis</i>,
+commander, Captain Wallage, were sent by Admiral Collyer to Sarawak.
+Then the rajah had all his war-boats got ready to join the English
+force. There was the <i>Lion King</i>, the <i>Royal Eagle</i>, the <i>Tiger</i>, the
+<i>Big Snake</i>, the <i>Little Snake</i>, the <i>Frog</i>, the <i>Alligator</i>, and many
+others belonging to the Datus, who, on occasions like these, are bound
+to call on their servants, and a certain number of able-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>bodied men
+living in their kampongs, to man and fight in their boats. This is their
+service to the Government. The rajah supplies the whole force with rice
+for the expedition, and a certain number of muskets. The English ships
+were left, the <i>Albatross</i> at Sarawak, and the <i>Royalist</i> to guard the
+entrance of the Batang Lupar River, into which the Sakarran and Sarebas
+Rivers <i>d&eacute;bouche</i>; but their boats, and nearly all the officers,
+accompanied the fleet, and the steamer <i>Nemesis</i> went also. On the 24th
+of July they left us, as many as eighteen Malay prahus, manned by from
+twenty to seventy men in each, and decorated with flags and streamers
+innumerable, of the brightest colours,&mdash;the Sarawak flag, a red and
+black cross on a yellow ground, always at the stern. For the <i>Tiger</i> I
+made a flag, as it was Mr. Brereton's boat, with a tiger's head painted
+on it, looking wonderfully ferocious. It was an exciting time, with
+gongs and drums, Malay yells and English hurrahs; and our fervent
+prayers for their safety and success accompanied them that night, as
+they dropped down the river in gay procession. They were afterwards
+joined by bangkongs of friendly Dyaks, three hundred men from Lundu,
+eight hundred from Linga, some from Samarahan, Sadong, and various
+places which had suffered from the pirates, and were anxious to assist
+in giving them a lesson. We heard nothing of the fleet until the 2nd of
+August, when I received a little note from the rajah, written in pencil,
+on a scrap of paper, on the night of the 31st of July,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> and giving an
+account of how they fell in with a great balla (war fleet) of Sarebas
+and Sakarran pirates, consisting of one hundred and fifty bangkongs,
+returning to their homes with plunder and captives in their boats. The
+pirates found all the entrances of the river occupied by their enemies,
+the English, Malay, and Dyak forces being placed in three detachments,
+and the <i>Nemesis</i> all ready to help whenever the attack began. The <i>Lion
+King</i> sent up a rocket when she espied the pirate fleet, to apprise the
+rest. Then there was a dead silence, broken only by three strokes of a
+gong, which called the pirates to a council of war. A few minutes
+afterwards a fearful yell gave notice of their advance, and the fleet
+approached in two divisions. But when they sighted the steamer they
+became aware of the odds against them, and again called a council by
+beat of gong. After another pause, a second yell of defiance showed they
+had decided on giving battle. Then, in the dead of the night, ensued a
+fearful scene. The pirates fought bravely, but could not withstand the
+superior forces of their enemies. Their boats were upset by the paddles
+of the steamer; they were hemmed in on every side, and five hundred men
+were killed, sword in hand; while two thousand five hundred escaped to
+the jungle. The boats were broken to pieces, or deserted on the beach by
+their crews; and the morning light showed a sad spectacle of ruin and
+defeat. Upwards of eighty prahus and bangkongs were captured, many from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+sixty to eighty feet long, with nine or ten feet beam.</p>
+
+<p>The English officers on that night offered prizes to all who should
+bring in captives alive: but the pirates would take no quarter; in the
+water they still fought without surrender, for they could not understand
+a mercy they never accorded to their enemies. Consequently the prisoners
+were very few, and the darkness of the night favoured escape.</p>
+
+<p>The peninsula to which they fled could easily have been so surrounded by
+the Dyak and Malay forces that not one man of that pirate fleet could
+have left it alive. This blockade the Malays entreated the rajah to
+make; but he refused, saying that he hoped they had already received a
+sufficient lesson, and would return to their homes humbled and
+corrected. He therefore ordered his fleet to proceed up the river, and
+the pirates went back to Sarebas and Sakarran. This severe punishment
+cured the Dyaks of those rivers once and for all of piracy, and was the
+greatest blessing which could have been conferred on those fine tribes.
+They allowed forts to be built on their rivers, and submitted to English
+residents, who ruled them with the counsel of their own chiefs. In 1857,
+when the Chinese rebelled and burnt the town of Kuching, these Dyaks
+sent their warriors to assist the Sarawak Government; in doing so they
+joined other tribes whose hereditary enemies they had been for many
+generations. Some of us felt anxious when we saw the fleet of Sakarrans
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> Balows lying side by side at the Linga Fort; but they all kept
+their good faith, and in fighting a common enemy became friends for
+evermore.</p>
+
+<p>In 1852 Sir James Brooke placed Mr. Brereton in a fort at Sakarran,
+built at the entrance of the river. He threw himself heartily into the
+work of improving the people, and gained a good influence over many. One
+of the most important chiefs, Gassim, attached himself to him, and even
+gave up the practice of head-taking to please him.</p>
+
+<p>There were certain paddy farms in the country which by ancient custom
+could only be cultivated by heroes who had taken many heads. One of
+Gassim's people, however, who had never taken a single head, presumed to
+clear and plant some of this ground; whereupon the other chiefs
+complained, and one sent a message to Gassim, that if he did not put a
+stop to this breach of law, he would fight him. Gassim answered that he
+was ready to fight with swords if necessary, but first he begged a
+conference with all the other chiefs to discuss the matter. To this they
+agreed, and by the force of his eloquence and the justice of his cause,
+Gassim proved to them that the old custom was bad and ought to be
+repealed. About that time Brereton brought Gassim and a number of his
+people to visit Kuching, and the chief breakfasted with us. When all the
+school-children came in to prayers&mdash;for the church was not yet
+finished&mdash;and Gassim heard them repeat the responses and say the Lord's
+Prayer, he was delighted, and said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> that he and his people would also
+like to be Christians.</p>
+
+<p>We used to like the Sakarrans much better than their neighbours, the
+Sarebas, in those days. They were fine, tall, handsome men, with
+straight noses and pleasant manners. The Sarebas were coarser-looking
+people, who disfigured themselves by wearing brass rings all along the
+lobes of their ears: the one at the bottom was as large as a
+curtain-ring in circumference, though of slender make; it lay on the
+chest, and by its weight dragged a great hole in the ear. These rings
+were inserted when the children were quite young, and pulled their
+little faces out of shape, giving an uncomfortable expression. Sarawak
+Malays always said, "A Sakarran Dyak may be trusted, but a Sarebas is
+deceitful." It is a curious fact, however, that the Sakarrans, with all
+their fair words and sleek prepossessing looks, did not embrace the
+gospel as the Sarebas did. The Rev. Walter Chambers lived at Sakarran
+for some time, but gathered no converts. He then settled himself among
+the Balows of the Batang Lupar and Linga, and when there was a community
+of Christians from these rivers, at Banting, where Mr. Chambers had
+built his church and house, a Sarebas chief, Buda by name, the son of a
+notorious old pirate, happened to meet some of these Christian Dyaks,
+and came himself to be taught. He brought his wife, sister, and child.
+They walked upwards of eighty miles, partly through the mud of the
+sea-shore, carrying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> their mats and cooking-pots with them, and
+established themselves in the mission-house, where they were kindly
+welcomed, and stayed six weeks, during which time they were so diligent
+that they learnt to read and made some progress in writing. This was in
+the rainy season, when all farming operations are in abeyance. The next
+year they returned at the same time, but, meanwhile, they had not been
+idle, but had taught all they knew to their countrymen. Shortly
+afterwards Buda was made a catechist, and he excited so much interest,
+that in 1867 Mr. Chambers baptized one hundred and eighty of these
+people, who were once the most dangerous enemies of the English and the
+most notorious pirates of Borneo. Then Buda proceeded to the village of
+Seruai, and Mr. Chambers had soon to visit there, for the people were so
+earnest they would scarcely let him sleep, nor seemed to require any
+sleep themselves, but day and night learnt the hymns and catechism,
+which they must know by heart to be baptized. Nearly two hundred were
+baptized on the Kryan River. A catechist had been placed there, called
+Belabut. He married Buda's sister, who walked to Banting for
+instruction. She had much influence over the women of the tribe, and Mr.
+Chambers said it was delightful to hear her read "her beloved gospel"
+with the correct pronunciation of an English lady.</p>
+
+<p>The Christians of the Kryan did not keep the good news to themselves,
+but proceeded to teach the next village of Sinambo. In these villages<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+there are now school-chapels, built by the Dyaks themselves. In 1873,
+Mr. Chambers, who was then bishop, wrote: "These Sea Dyaks have made the
+greatest advances in civilization and Christianity. Looking back even
+five years, there is a great difference. They have abandoned
+superstitious habits." "They no longer listen to the voices of birds to
+tell them when to sow their seeds, undertake a journey, or build a
+house; they never consult a manang<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> in sickness or difficulty; above
+all, they set no store by the blackened skulls which used to hang from
+their roofs, but which they have either buried or given away to any
+people from a distance who cared for them, assuring them at the same
+time that they 'were no use.'"</p>
+
+<p>Thus we see what a just punishment and a fostering Government, added to
+the sweet influences of Christianity, have done for these people; but it
+took years of patience and faith to effect so great a change.</p>
+
+<p>After the pirate fight of 1849, the evil disposed and turbulent, both of
+the Sakarrans and Sarebas, found a leader in Rentab, a Sarebas chief. He
+braved the Government for years. In 1852 his war-boats appeared above
+the Sakarran Fort, and the two young Englishmen there, Mr. Brereton and
+Mr. Lee, too confident in their strength, attacked the boats with a
+small force. In this engagement Mr. Lee was killed, and Mr. Brereton
+escaped with difficulty. Several expeditions were taken into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+interior against Rentab; but he was so clever, that even when Captain
+Brooke battered his stronghold to pieces by having guns dragged up the
+steep hill on which his fort was built, Rentab managed to escape, and
+was never taken. His followers, however, fell away from him by degrees,
+and there are now no pirates in those rivers.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Heathen doctor.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/t-fly.jpg" width="150" height="114" alt="decorative triangle" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/l-sunflo.jpg" width="500" height="112" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER V.<br />
+<small>THE CHURCH AND THE SCHOOL.</small></h3>
+
+
+<p>As soon as we removed to College Hill, the building of the church began.
+On the 28th August, 1850, a few days after the return of the expedition
+against the pirates, the summit of a rising ground about two hundred
+yards from the house having been cleared and levelled, a large shed was
+built over the ground, which the sailors of H.M.S. <i>Albatross</i>, and our
+workmen, adorned with gay flags and green boughs.</p>
+
+<p>A little procession left our house, the rajah walking first, dressed in
+full uniform as Governor of Labuan, and Suboo, the Malay executioner,
+holding a large yellow satin umbrella over his head, as is the custom on
+all state occasions, for yellow is the royal colour in Borneo; then my
+husband, in surplice and hood, the English residents, naval officers,
+and, last, a crowd of Malays and Chinese followed, to witness the
+ceremony of laying the first great block of wood in the foundation of
+St. Thomas's Church. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>After prayers had been read, the rajah lowered the
+great sleeper into its place, and we all returned home. From that day
+the church began to rise out of the earth with the same seeming magic as
+the house had done. It was entirely built of wood&mdash;all the beams,
+rafters, and posts of the hard balean-wood, and the roof covered with
+balean shingles, like the house. The planking was a cedar-coloured wood,
+and all the arches and mouldings were finished like cabinet-work, so
+that it was both handsome and durable. The ornamental pillars were first
+made of polished nibong palms; but in a few years these had to be cut
+away, as they were full of white ants, and hard wood substituted. The
+building of this little church was most interesting to us. When my
+husband was at Singapore for a short time in 1849, he had the pulpit,
+reading-desk, a carved wooden eagle, and the chairs made there; also a
+coloured glass east window was contrived, with the Sarawak flag for a
+centre light. This pleased the Malays; indeed, they admired the house
+and church immensely, and always assured us that they knew we could not
+have built either, unless inspired by good antoos (spirits).</p>
+
+<p>The baptismal font was a huge clam-shell, large enough to dip an infant
+in, if desired; and this natural font was adopted in all the churches
+afterwards built at Dyak stations&mdash;at Lundu, at Banting, Quop River.</p>
+
+<p>The church bell was a difficult matter. Nothing larger than a ship bell
+could be found in the straits.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> At last, a Javanese at Sarawak said he
+could cast a bell large enough if he had the metal; so Frank bought a
+hundredweight of broken gongs&mdash;there is a great deal of silver in gong
+metal&mdash;and with these the bell was cast. Then an inscription had to be
+put round the rim&mdash;"Gloria in excelsis Deo," in large letters; and the
+date, Sir James Brooke's name on one side, and F. T. McDougall on the
+other. It was a great success, and was safe in the little belfry before
+the church was consecrated, in February, 1851. I do not know whether
+this bell is now cracked, but it has worked very hard from that day&mdash;two
+services every week-day, and four on Sunday, to say nothing of extra
+occasions. Before long, we found a gilder who could adorn the reredos.
+There were seven compartments at the east end: in the centre one was a
+gilt cross, and in the others, the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, in
+English, Malay, and Chinese. The gilder was a Chinese catechumen, and
+was very anxious to do it well; but he knew nothing of English letters,
+so each letter had to be cut in paper, and he traced it on the wooden
+panel. It was necessary to watch him narrowly, or he put the letters
+upside down! Such are the difficulties of making churches in the jungle.
+All this took some time to complete. I had a very severe illness in
+November, 1850; and when, about Christmas, I was able to sit in the
+verandah, the progress of the church was my great amusement, for it was
+quite near enough to watch from the house.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>In August, 1850, a great influx of Chinese came to Sarawak. There was a
+war at Sambas, the principal Dutch settlement in Borneo, between the
+Chinese, who were friendly to the Dutch, and who were living at
+Pernankat, and the Montrado Chinese, who, with the Dyaks of the country,
+rebelled against the Dutch. The Montrados beat the Pernankat Chinese,
+and they fled from the place, carrying with them their wives and
+children, and as much property as they could cram into their boats. The
+boats were overladen, and many of them perished at sea, but some reached
+Tangong Datu. On the 26th of August, four hundred of these poor
+creatures arrived at Sarawak, saying there were three thousand more
+starving on the sands at Datu, who would follow as fast as they could;
+and, in course of time, most of them did find their way up the river,
+although those in charge of the Government (the rajah was at Labuan)
+tried to persuade them to make a town for themselves at Santubong (one
+of the mouths of the river). A few of them did settle at Santubong, but
+every day brought boats full of Chinamen into the place. The rajah fed
+these poor people for months with rice, and gave them tools that they
+might clear the ground and make gardens in the jungle. At first, before
+they could build themselves houses, the whole place seemed upset by
+them. Many lived in their boats on the river; every shed and workshop in
+the town was full. One night Frank walked into the church, to see no one
+was stealing planks <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>from the unfinished building. All was quiet, but by
+a stray moonbeam he perceived that one end of the church, already
+boarded, was full of mosquito curtains, and they as full of sleeping
+Chinamen. Such a thing could not be allowed&mdash;nails knocked into the
+polished walls to tie up the curtains, tobacco perfuming the place, to
+say nothing of sparks to light the pipes, and a considerable allowance
+of bugs which Chinese people always carry about with them. Frank jumped
+straight into the middle of the muslin curtains, with a shout; and
+amidst a hubbub of tongues, "yaw-yaw" and laughter, bundled them all out
+into the workmen's shed close by, where they might sleep in peace. It
+occurred to my husband that some of these Chinese would be glad to have
+their children brought up with the seven little orphans we had already,
+so he went to Aboo, the Chinese magistrate, and offered to take ten
+children into our house to be brought up as Christians, baptized, and
+educated for ten years. The Chinese value education, and were very glad
+to give them to us. I shall never forget sitting in the porch one
+morning to receive my new family. Neither parents nor children could
+speak Malay. They walked up the stairs, bringing a little boy or girl,
+nodded and smiled and put the child's hand into mine, as much as to say,
+"There, take it." One of our Chinese servants then explained to them
+what we could do for the child, and that it must remain with us until
+grown up. That day we took Salion, Sunfoon, Chinzu, Queyfat, Assin,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>Umque, Achin, boys; Achong, Moukmoy, Poingzu, girls. The English nurse
+we had brought with us to Sarawak had married Stahl, the carpenter, of
+whom I spoke before, and Mrs. Stahl became the matron of the school when
+we moved to College Hill, and had these ten Chinese children as well as
+the orphans to care for. We were very busy sewing for them, with a
+Chinese tailor to help. Blue jackets and trousers for week-days, and
+black trousers and white jackets for Sundays, had to be made at once.
+The girls wore trousers as well as the boys, only wider, and their
+jackets reached to the knee.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of a week they were all clean and neat. Their heads were
+shaved every Saturday, and their long tails freshly plaited up with
+skeins of black or red strong silk, made on purpose. At first a barber
+came to do this, but soon the elder boys learnt to do it, and it was a
+regular Saturday business. These ten children soon learnt to speak
+Malay. Then we took five more, and after that one or two as
+circumstances threw them in our way. The school at last numbered
+forty-five, but there was not room in the mission-house for so many; we
+did not get beyond thirty the first year of the school.</p>
+
+<p>I scarcely think thirty English children could have been so easily
+reduced to order as these little Chinese. School must have been paradise
+to them after the hardships they had undergone, and that perhaps made it
+easier to please them; besides, the Chinese readily submit to rule and
+method. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>day was laid out for them. They rose at half-past five when
+the day dawned; after a bath in a pond in the grounds, they had a slice
+of rice-pudding with treacle on it, and then went to church for morning
+prayers. By seven o'clock they were all at lessons in the big room&mdash;such
+a buzzing and curious singsong of Chinese words&mdash;until nine, when the
+breakfast took place; rice, of course, and a sort of curry of
+vegetables, also a great dish of fish, either salt or fresh; a little
+tea for the elder children, no milk or sugar, and water for the rest.
+They soon learnt to sing their grace before and after meals.</p>
+
+<p>The same kind of meal was repeated at five o'clock, but on Sunday they
+had pork curried instead of fish, and on festivals chickens. I taught
+these children to sing from the first. The Chinese are not musical
+generally, and some of them found the sounds of <i>do</i>, <i>re</i>, <i>mi</i>, very
+difficult to master, but we had very nice singing in church in time; and
+when a schoolmaster came who knew plenty of songs, glees, and rounds,
+the children learnt them quickly, and were often sent for to sing to the
+rajah and other guests when they came to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>It used to startle strangers to hear "The Hardy Norseman," "The Cuckoo,"
+and such-like songs from the lips of little Chinese boys. Every Saturday
+evening they came to the house to practise the hymns and chants for
+Sunday; I had an harmonium in the dining-room. On these occasions they
+all had a cup of tea and slice of cake, and used to look at the picture
+newspapers which had come from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>England the last mail. They were very
+intelligent boys. It was necessary they should learn Malay and English
+as well as Chinese, and of course arithmetic, geography, and the usual
+rudiments of learning. I have often watched the Chinese writing-lesson:
+it seemed the most difficult branch of their education&mdash;one complicated
+character, something like a five-barred gate, representing a variety of
+sounds as well as meanings; but our little fellows learnt it all. They
+had a Chinese master as well as an English, and they soon spoke English
+as well as we could desire. My husband took the greatest interest in
+this school. When the children first came he taught them games and made
+them playthings, and they were always about him. Whenever we went
+anywhere by boat a crew of boys was added to the rowers. They soon
+learnt to use their paddles well, and at the public boat-races, on New
+Year's Day, pulled their own boat in the race and sometimes won it. When
+my husband became Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak, he always took some of
+the schoolboys with him in his visits to the different stations. They
+helped the church services by their singing, and had their especial
+chums among the Dyak Christian boys in the different tribes. So many
+boys passed through the school during the twenty years we took an
+interest in it, that I cannot even remember all of them. Some are now
+catechists among the Dyak tribes; many entered the service of the
+Government or the Merchant Company as clerks; some went to Singapore and
+found <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>employment there. I know of only one who has as yet been
+ordained, but perhaps that time has scarcely yet arrived in Sarawak. It
+is difficult for Malays or Dyaks to look up to a Chinaman sufficiently
+to make him their minister: they are less clever than the Chinese, but
+look down upon them nevertheless&mdash;the Malays, because the Chinese are
+the workers, and they the gentlemen; the Dyaks, I suppose, because they
+gave them such a thrashing in 1857. One good consequence of the Chinese
+school was, that it attracted the attention of the parents towards
+Christianity, and they presented themselves as catechumens. There were
+many difficulties with the languages, for the Chinese at Sarawak were
+not all of the same tribe, and could not understand one another.
+However, after a while a Chinese professor arrived at Sarawak, bringing
+his wife and family with him. In those days the women were forbidden to
+emigrate with their husbands, but Sing Sing put his wife into a large
+chest with air-holes at the top, and brought her safely from China. The
+Bishop employed this man, who was well educated, to make translations,
+and to interpret what he said to the Chinese, so there were soon Bible
+classes at our house every Wednesday evening. Sing Sing became an
+inquirer himself while translating the gospel to others. He was soon
+able to hold cottage lectures in the town, and after some years the
+Bishop had the happiness to ordain him as minister to his people. There
+was a large congregation of Chinese at the Sunday <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>services before we
+left, and it was a good proof of the sincerity of these converts, that
+while all their heathen countrymen worked at their trades on Sunday as
+well as other days, our Christians spent their Sunday in worship and
+rest, which no doubt was an advantage to their health as well as their
+growth in grace.</p>
+
+<p>At Christmas they always shared in our feasting. We killed an ox, and
+all the Christians had beef for their dinner, as well as all the queer
+things they delight in.</p>
+
+<p>In January, 1851, the Church of St. Thomas at Kuching was consecrated by
+Bishop Wilson, of Calcutta. On the afternoon of the 18th, I was
+returning from church, and mounting the flight of steps which led to the
+porch of the house, I saw a large steamer turn the corner of the
+Pedungen Reach and anchor above the fort. It was the <i>Semiramis</i>
+bringing the Bishop, Archdeacon Pratt and Mrs. Pratt, the Rev. H. Moule
+from Singapore, Dr. Beale, the Bishop's physician, and Mr. Fox from
+Bishop's College. This party, escorted by Frank, who rushed home to
+dress himself in black (his usual attire being grey flannels and a white
+muslin cassock), very soon marched into the house, exclaiming with
+pleasure at the wreaths of white jessamine growing over the stairs, and
+the fresh air of the hill. We had so lately settled in the house that it
+was not half furnished, but we gave up our rooms to our guests and
+stowed ourselves in an empty corner. I remember the satisfaction with
+which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>Mrs. Stahl produced the remains of the Christmas plum-pudding,
+and the comfort it was to have a joint of venison in the house. Dinner
+was soon on the table, and immediately afterwards the Bishop read
+prayers and retired to his room. We all went into the library, where we
+had tea and talk. It was very refreshing to have an English lady to
+speak to, and Mrs. Pratt was so tall and fair that everybody admired
+her, especially the Malays, who used to say that it was sufficient
+pleasure to look at her throat only.</p>
+
+<p>The natives used to flock into the house every evening to see the Tuan
+Padre besar (the great priest), and all the new-comers. At half-past
+five a.m. the Bishop's bell used to ring for his servants to dress him,
+and bring his tea. The whole house was astir then. The Indian servants
+of the party slept in the verandahs, and seemed to me to talk all night.</p>
+
+<p>The next day was Sunday, but the church was not cleared out for
+consecration, and most of the fittings had come from Singapore in the
+<i>Semiramis</i>, and could not be got out on Saturday night. So morning and
+evening prayers were as usual in the dining-room, and what with the
+officers of the <i>Semiramis</i>, the English of the place, the school and
+our home party, the room was very full. The children sang with all their
+might, and were much interested with the visitors. The Bishop and
+Archdeacon Pratt preached morning and afternoon. On Wednesday the church
+was ready. Mrs. Stahl and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>I were up before dawn, covering hassocks with
+Turkey red cotton. The church was tiled, but platforms of wood, covered
+with mats, which were a present from Mr. and Mrs. Stahl, were placed on
+the tiles, and the chairs just arrived by <i>Semiramis</i> stood on them. We
+afterwards had to clear the platforms away&mdash;they became full of white
+ants; but they looked very well at first.</p>
+
+<p>When all was ready, Captain Brooke and all the principal English
+inhabitants met the Bishop at the church door, and presented a petition
+that he would consecrate the building. He then entered, and walked up
+and down the church repeating psalms, etc. Then came morning service;
+afterwards, the Bishop preached, and as he was very energetic and struck
+the desk with his hand, our gentle Datu Bandar thought he was angry, and
+slipped quickly out of church. There was a confirmation of a Chinese
+teacher and my little maid Susan after the celebration of Holy
+Communion, and then, after three hours and a half service, we returned
+home. The next morning, early, the Bishop consecrated the burial-ground.
+He was carried round it in a chair, for he was unable to walk much; and
+though he was a hale old man of seventy-two, his many years' residence
+at Calcutta had, I imagine, spoilt his walking powers.</p>
+
+<p>He was very kind and friendly to us all, and admired the church very
+much. His visit was a boon to the mission. It impressed the native mind
+with the importance Christians attach to their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>churches and to public
+worship. When our church bell called us to prayers twice every day, the
+Mahometans revived the daily muezzin at the mosque; and the sight of the
+public practice of religion amongst us quickened the Malays in the
+performance of their own religious rites, and from that time there were
+many more pilgrims to Mecca from Sarawak.</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/t-plant.jpg" width="150" height="118" alt="decorative triangle" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/l-radis2.jpg" width="496" height="113" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VI.<br />
+<small>THE GIRLS.</small></h3>
+
+
+<p>Having said so much about the schoolboys, it would be unfair not to
+mention the girls. Mary, Julia, and Phoebe, the half-caste children,
+grew up beside us, and so did Polly, who was a Dyak baby brought to me
+after the pirate expedition of 1849. Her mother fled, and dropped her
+baby in the long grass, where it was found by an English sailor, who
+carried it to the boats and gave it to one of the women captives to
+bring to me&mdash;a poor little, skinny thing, with long yellow hair, like a
+fairy changeling. I got a wet nurse for her and fed her with baby food,
+but she got thinner and more elfish-looking. One day her nurse was
+standing by while the other children were eating their dinner, and Polly
+stretched out her arms to the rice and salt fish, and began to cry.
+"Oh," said I, "perhaps she can eat;" and from that day the little one
+ate her rice and discarded the nurse, growing fat and merry like the
+rest.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>Polly had a great talent for languages. Of course she learnt English and
+Malay at once, hearing both languages from her earliest years. But how
+she learnt Chinese as well used to surprise me. In 1866 I took Polly to
+Hongkong. She was then nurse to our youngest child. The lady of the
+house where we were staying accosted Polly in the pigeon English of the
+place&mdash;a jargon mysterious to unaccustomed ears. It must be allowed that
+Polly was not unlike a Chinese in appearance. She stared at the lady,
+and then at me, upon hearing directions she could not understand. I
+laughed. "Speak to Polly in English," I said, "and she will understand
+what you mean." "Impossible," answered Mrs. M&mdash;&mdash;; "my servants tell me
+she must be Chinese, for she can talk in two dialects."</p>
+
+<p>Polly married a Christian Chinaman afterwards, so her taste lay in that
+direction. When I last heard of her, she was teaching in the day-schools
+at Sarawak.</p>
+
+<p>Mary married the schoolmaster, Mr. Owen. We brought Julia home with us
+in 1869, and put her into a training-school for teachers in Dublin,
+where she was much beloved. When we returned to Sarawak, in 1861, she
+became the schoolmistress to the girls I then had in the house, and
+others who came as day-scholars. She was a thoroughly good girl, and a
+great comfort to me, but of course she married, a young man employed as
+mate in the <i>Rainbow</i>, a Government vessel running between <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>Sarawak and
+Singapore. Some years afterwards Forrest died, and Julia married again,
+an older man very well off. I have no doubt she is bringing up her
+family in the fear of God, but I have not heard of her lately. I had
+many trials with the girls, more than I like to recount. All the first
+little family of Chinese girls we received in 1850 belonged to the tribe
+who rebelled in 1857, and their relations carried them off when we were
+driven from the mission-house. They were taken to Bau where their
+relations lived, but what became of them in the terrible flight to the
+Dutch country, when many were killed, and still more died of the
+privations of the jungle, we never could hear.</p>
+
+<p>Sarah and Fanny came to us in 1856. They were little orphans, half
+Chinese, half Dyak, whom, with two more girls and four boys, the
+Government had redeemed from slavery and gave to the mission. Some of
+these children stayed at Lundu with Mr. Gomez and his family; some came
+to me&mdash;Sarah, Fanny, and Betsy, a baby whom I gave out to nurse. Poor
+little Sarah had a very scarred face from a burn, but she was a bright,
+clever child. Fanny was better-looking, but more heavy and less
+impressible. These two girls married native catechists in course of
+time. I trust they are doing some good among their own people.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1862 some little captives fell into the hands of Captain
+Brooke, then ruling at Sarawak. They came from Sarebas, and one of them
+had been wounded by a spear, though he was only a tiny <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>boy of four
+years old. Captain Brooke wrote to me to know if I would take this
+family of children into the school&mdash;two girls, Limo and Ambat, and two
+boys, Esau and Nigo. If I could not take them, he said, they must be
+sent back to their own country immediately, as there was a boat
+departing the next day. The Bishop was away from Sarawak, so I had to
+decide; nor would there have been any doubt in my mind about it, but
+Esau the eldest boy was covered with kurap, from head to foot. This is a
+skin disease to which Dyaks are subject, and which suggests the leprosy
+of the Old Testament, for the outer skin peels off in flakes, and gives
+almost a "white as snow" appearance to the surface. I doubted whether I
+ought to take a pupil so afflicted, for it is decidedly catching. I
+found that Ambat and Nigo had both patches of it here and there from
+contact with Esau, whereas Limo, who was older, more clothed, and who
+slept apart, was quite free.</p>
+
+<p>Still, the alternative was nothing less than sending these four children
+to their heathen relations, and to a place at that time beyond the reach
+of Christ's gospel&mdash;a terrible idea which could not be entertained for a
+moment. So at last I sent for them, resolving to keep them in our house,
+and not allow them to go down to the school until the Bishop returned.
+Shortly afterwards a Chinese doctor came to the Bishop, and said, "If
+you will give me fifteen dollars I will cure that boy of kurap. I have a
+wonderful medicine for it, made at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>the Natunas Islands." So he had the
+money on condition of the cure. The medicine was an ointment as black as
+pitch&mdash;indeed, I believe there was a good portion of tar in it. With
+this the doctor smeared Esau all over. He was to wear no clothes, and
+not to be washed or touched. I used to see him, poor child, skipping
+about exactly like the little black imps depicted in <i>Punch</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The ointment did not hurt him, but every third day the doctor came and
+washed it all off with hot water: this was rather a painful operation,
+but it was worth while undergoing some discomfort, for at the end of a
+month the disease had vanished, and "his skin came again like the flesh
+of a child." Esau grew up to be a good man and catechist to his own
+countrymen, so it was well I ventured to keep him at Sarawak. The other
+children soon got well when separated from him. Kurap arises, I believe,
+from poor food and exposure to weather. A Dyak wears no clothes except a
+long sash wound round him and the ends hanging down before and behind;
+and when we consider the hot sun and frequent rains which beat upon him,
+for he lives mostly out of doors, it is no wonder his skin suffers. Limo
+and Ambat were clever children. In a letter, written about a year after
+they came to us, I find this passage: "I have only four girls who can
+read English and understand it. My two little Dyaks, Limo and Ambat, are
+very fond of learning English hymns, and say them in such a plaintive,
+touching voice, pronouncing each syllable <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>so clearly, but they don't
+understand it until it has been explained to them in Malay. Limo's
+brother and uncle came this week from Sarebas&mdash;two fine, tall men, with
+only chawats<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> and earrings by way of clothes. Limo was delighted; she
+would have gone away with them in their great boat if I had allowed her.
+No doubt they told her how much they would do for her at Sarebas.
+However, I drew a little picture of the women setting her to draw large
+bamboos full of water, and to beat out the paddy with a long pole&mdash;very
+hard work, and always done by the young girls,&mdash;a more truthful and less
+delightful view of things; so Limo said she would stay with me until she
+was grown up. I gave her a pair of trousers for each of the men, a
+present generally much esteemed. But these two were very wild folk; they
+laughed very much at the trousers, and carried them away over their
+shoulders."</p>
+
+<p>I must not forget to tell the story of my dear child Nietfong, although
+it is a very sad one. She was the daughter of the Chinese baker who
+lived in the lane which led from our garden to the town. I used to
+befriend her mother, a delicate little woman, very roughly treated by
+her husband. She twice ran to me for shelter when her husband beat her,
+and though of course I always had to give her up to him when he came
+begging for her the next day, he knew what I thought of him, and had a
+sort <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>of respect for me in consequence. This poor woman died young, and
+left one little girl about four years old. Nietfong used to come up to
+day-school when she was old enough, and in 1858, when I was so happy as
+to have an English governess for my Mab, I took the little Chinese girl
+to live with us and join Mab in her lessons. She was quite a little
+lady, so gentle, teachable, and well mannered. In 1860 we took our
+children to England: Mab was six years old, and could not with any
+safety remain longer in a hot climate. Little Nietfong went home, for
+her father would not allow her to go to the school in my absence. We
+returned in 1861, leaving three children in England, and brought a baby
+girl out with us. As I walked up the lane to the mission-house, Nietfong
+stood watching for me at the gate. "Take me home with you; oh, I am so
+glad you are come back!" So I took her home, and Nietfong told me that
+her father had married again, and that her step-mother was unkind to
+her, and beat her when she said the prayers I had taught her night and
+morning; "but," said the child, "I always prayed, nevertheless." She
+lived with us till she was about thirteen, perhaps not so much; then her
+father came to the Bishop and said he had sold Nietfong for a good sum
+of money to a man in China, and must send her there to stay with her
+grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>In vain I entreated Acheck not to be so wicked. "Tell me how much you
+would get for your daughter," I said, "and we will give you the money."
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>He laughed, and said I could not afford it, mentioning a large sum, but
+I do not remember what it was; so I had to break the sad news to
+Nietfong. We wept and prayed together that she might remain steadfast in
+her Christian faith. As she then knew English very well, I gave her an
+English Prayer-book, which she promised to use. Soon after, Acheck
+himself took her to China; and when he came back, he would only say, "Oh
+yes, of course she is happy&mdash;she is married and well off." I have always
+felt sure that this dear girl was kept by God's grace from sin and evil,
+for I believe she truly loved and desired to serve God. There was
+something especially pure about her. Nietfong was never wilfully
+naughty; she was one of those blameless ones who seem untouched by the
+evil around them. We shall not know the sequel of her history until by
+God's mercy we meet her in the heavenly home.</p>
+
+<p>As I have spoken about the Dyak kurap, I may as well here mention the
+real leprosy of the East, which was a terrible but not frequent scourge
+among the Chinese. The Rajah had a small house built out of the town for
+any men who were so afflicted, and they were fed by Government. The
+Bishop or his chaplain used to go and teach these poor creatures, but
+there were not more than three or four of them at a time. We knew one
+Chinese woman who had leprosy. She became a Christian, and liked to have
+a cottage lecture at her house. I often went to see her. Her toes
+gradually dropped <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>off, and her fingers. I never heard her complain. One
+day I went to see her and found her very ill, constantly sick. She said
+she had been poisoned; and it seemed probable, for no medicine gave her
+any relief, and in a few hours she died. The natives have such a horror
+of leprosy that they do not like to touch the body of any one who has
+died of it, so the Bishop and Owen, the schoolmaster, laid poor Acheen
+in her coffin; and this charitable act they performed for any
+unfortunate who died of this terrible disease.</p>
+
+<p>Acheen had adopted a little boy, Sifok by name. She must have been very
+kind to the child, for he seemed wild with grief when she died, and was
+very anxious that whoever had poisoned his mother, as he called her,
+should be punished. But the case was not clear, and no one was punished.
+We took Sifok into the school, and I taught him to play the harmonium,
+which at last he accomplished very fairly.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst our schoolboys was one particularly steady and religious. Tung
+Fa was so good a Malay and Chinese scholar that he could interpret at
+the Chinese Bible class, and also the sermon at the Chinese service at
+church on Sunday. I think he knew his Bible almost by heart. He was
+never very strong in health; then his feet began to swell, and leprosy
+declared itself. For a long time he was carried to and from the church
+in a chair, but at last he was so diseased that he was removed from the
+school-house, and a little hut was built for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>him close to us. The boys
+brought him his food, and of course he had anything he fancied from our
+kitchen. I think the servants were very kind to him, and he exhibited a
+beautiful example of patience and resignation until the disease affected
+his brain; even then he was quite gentle, only he was always begging to
+be baptized over again that he might die free from sin. This mistake
+arose entirely from his illness. We were quite thankful when one morning
+he was found dead in his bed. What a blissful waking, after so much
+suffering!</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> A chawat is a long strip of cotton or bark cloth wound
+round the body.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/t-leaf.jpg" width="150" height="117" alt="decorative triangle" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/l-weeds.jpg" width="500" height="114" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VII.<br />
+<small>THE LUNDUS.</small></h3>
+
+
+<p>The beginning of the year 1851 brought us much sorrow. After my illness
+in November, 1850, we were persuaded by Sir James Brooke to accompany
+him to Penang Hill, where the Government bungalow had been placed at his
+disposal; consequently, after Christmas, we sailed in H.M.S. <i>Amazon</i>,
+through the kindness of Captain Troubridge, for Singapore, taking our
+child Harry with us. We had to wait some weeks at Singapore for the
+Rajah, and soon after our arrival our little boy died of diptheria,
+leaving us childless, for we had already lost two infants at Sarawak.
+This grief threw a veil of sadness over the remaining years of our first
+sojourn in the East. Perhaps it urged us to a deeper interest in the
+native people than we might have felt had there been any little ones of
+our own to care for; but those six years "the flowers all died along our
+way," one infant after another being laid in God's acre.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>We stayed six weeks amid the lovely scenery and in the cooler air of
+Penang Hill, and returned to Sarawak in May, Admiral Austin giving us a
+passage in H.M.S. <i>Fury</i>. The admiral gave me his cabin to sleep in, all
+the gentlemen sleeping in the cuddy. I woke in the night, hearing a
+rushing sound in the air, then, patter, patter, all over the bed. I
+jumped up, and called Frank to bring a light and see what was the
+matter. "Oh," said a voice from the cuddy, "better not: it is only
+cockroaches, and if you saw them you would not go to sleep again." This
+swarm of cockroaches came out several times before daylight. The next
+night I put up a mosquito-net to protect my face and hands from these
+disgusting creatures. When a steamer has been nearly three years in
+these hot latitudes it becomes horribly full of rats and cockroaches. My
+husband, taking a trip in H.M.S. <i>Contest</i>, in 1858, woke one morning
+unable to open one eye. Presently he felt a sharp prick, and found a
+large cockroach sitting on his eyelid and biting the corner of his eye.
+They also bite all round the nails of your fingers and toes, unless they
+are closely covered. It must be said that insects are a great discomfort
+at Sarawak. Mosquitoes, and sand-flies, and stinging flies which turn
+your hands into the likeness of boxing-gloves, infest the banks of the
+rivers, and the sea-shore. Flying bugs sometimes scent the air
+unpleasantly, and there are hornets in the woods whose sting is
+dangerous. When we look back upon the happy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>days we spent in that
+lovely country, these drawbacks are forgotten; the past is always
+beautiful, and shadows, even of sorrow and sickness, only enhance the
+interest of the picture. Sin alone, in ourselves and those about us, can
+make the past hateful, and the great charm of the future is that it is
+untouched by sin. Happy, then, are those who are able to look back on
+the past with smiles of thankfulness, while they stretch out their arms
+hopefully to the future.</p>
+
+<p>Sarawak looked very peaceful on our return; and now began the interest
+of the Dyak missions. From our first arrival at Kuching my husband had
+taken every opportunity of visiting the Dyak tribes, and sometimes a
+chief would come to the town with a number of his people, to pay their
+rice tax, or purchase clothes, tobacco, gongs, gunpowder, whatever the
+bazaar possessed which they valued. They brought with them beeswax,
+damar, honey, or rattans to exchange for those things. On these
+occasions the whole party came up to the mission-house to hear the
+harmonium, see the magic-lantern, and beg presents. At first they would
+ask for arrack, but finding nothing but claret to be had with us, soon
+left off that request. Plates and cups were always valued, and they used
+to say we had <i>so many</i> more than we could possibly want in the pantry,
+that of course we would give them some. To their honour be it said, they
+never stole one, and were invariably refused, for we had not any more
+than we wanted. The Dyaks hung their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>plates in loops of rattan very
+ingeniously against the walls of their houses; but a plantain-leaf
+folded up is more often used by them in lieu of plates, and they could
+not have a better substitute. I never enjoyed a meal so much as some
+cold rice and sardines eaten off a plantain-leaf in the jungle at Lundu,
+after a long walk to the waterfall. The servant with the provision
+basket had lost his way, and as we sat hungry under the great trees at
+the foot of the fall, a Dyak friend produced a box of sardines and a
+parcel of cold rice, and divided it amongst us. When at last the basket
+of cold chickens arrived we handed them over to the Dyaks, feeling quite
+superior to such civilized food.</p>
+
+<p>The Lundu Dyak chief was a great friend and admirer of Sir James Brooke
+from his first arrival in the country. He and his tribe were the
+determined enemies of the pirates, and with the Balows of the Batang
+Lupar braved the Sarebas and Sakarrans, even when they were most
+powerful. At the pirate fight of 1849 the Lundu chief lost two of his
+sons: they were killed by an ambush set by Lingi the Sarebas chief. Only
+one son, Callon, remained, and he was not his father's favourite. Poor
+old Orang Kaya! it was a terrible trial, and nearly brought him to his
+grave. Some time afterwards, he and Callon were at Sarawak to pay their
+tax. Lingi, who had then submitted to the Rajah, had been in Sarawak for
+some days, professedly to trade, but really to see if he could not take
+Sir James Brooke's head. This was prevented by the watchfulness of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>the
+Malays, who, suspecting Lingi, never let him get near the Rajah when
+they sat talking after dinner, as was the custom in those days. So Lingi
+went away foiled, and the day they dropped down the river the Lundus
+heard of it. Revenge seemed ready at hand: they had a fast boat, were a
+large party, and brave to a man. They entreated the Rajah to let them
+follow Lingi and take his head&mdash;never again would they take a head, only
+Lingi's, the Rajah's enemy and their own. Of course they were refused,
+and it must have been a terrible strain on their affection and fealty to
+the Rajah, not in this instance to follow the traditions of their
+ancestors, and gratify their personal revenge by killing a traitor. But
+they obeyed, and Lingi got safely back to Sarebas, little knowing how
+narrowly he escaped. The old Lundu chief was a Christian before he died.
+He always professed a desire to be of the same religion and brother to
+the white man, but when, after due instruction, his son and grandson
+came to Kuching to be baptized, he was not well enough to accompany
+them, Mr. Gomes promised to baptize him on their return; but when that
+event took place Orang Kaya was dead, gone where, no doubt, the will was
+taken for the deed, as he was a Christian at heart. Mr. Gomes was from
+Bishop's College, Calcutta. Soon after he came to us, in 1852, he went
+to Lundu and remained there until 1867, when his children requiring more
+education than he could give them at a Dyak station, he went to
+Singapore, and accepted the post of missionary priest there.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>Mr. Grant was Government resident at Lundu, and the ruler and missionary
+devoted themselves to the improvement of the people. In 1855, when we
+returned to our home after our first visit to England, we received a
+delightful visit from Mr. Gomes and twelve Dyaks, whom he brought to be
+baptized at St. Thomas's Church. Callon's son Langi, and half a dozen
+other boys, lived with Mr. Gomes, and ran after him all day&mdash;nice little
+fellows, who fraternized with our boys at the school-house. There were
+also five men, the chief of whom was Bulan (Moon), one of the manangs,
+or witch-doctors, of the tribe. These manangs, being as it were the
+priests of Dyak superstitions, and getting their living by pretended
+cures, interpretations of omens and the voices of birds, were of course
+the natural enemies of truth and enlightenment. Bulan, however, had
+tried to be an honest manang, and finding it impossible had turned with
+all his heart to Christianity. His brother Bugai, also a Christian, was
+a very intelligent person, and became catechist at Lundu.</p>
+
+<p>There was also a very rich old man, Simoulin by name, who was baptized
+at this time. His wife had opposed his conversion with all her might;
+indeed, she declared she would leave him and carry half the property
+with her. Simoulin said quietly, "If she will she must: she is only a
+woman, and her judgment in the matter is not likely to be good."
+Christianity had strong opponents in the women of all the Dyak tribes.
+They held important <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>parts in all the feasts, incantations, and
+superstitions, which could not be called religion, but were based on the
+dread of evil spirits and a desire to propitiate them. The women
+encouraged head-taking by preferring to marry the man who had some of
+those ghastly tokens of his prowess. When Sir James Brooke forbad
+head-taking among the tribes in his dominions, it was the women who
+would row their lovers out of the rivers in their boats, and set them
+down on the sea-coast to find the head of a stranger. When heads were
+brought in, it was the women who took possession of them, decked them
+with flowers, put food into their mouths, sang to them, mocked them, and
+instituted feasts in honour of the slayers. The young Dyak woman works
+hard; she helps in all the labours of sowing, planting out, weeding, and
+reaping the paddy. She beats out the rice in a wooden trough, with a
+long pole, or pestle. She grows the cotton for clothing, dyes and weaves
+it. She carries heavy burdens, and paddles her boat on the river. All
+these are her duties, and in performing them she quickly loses her
+smooth skin, bright eyes, and slender figure. It is only the young girls
+who can boast of any beauty, but the old women are very important
+personages at a seed-time or harvest festival. They dress themselves in
+long garments embroidered with tiny white shells, representing lizards
+and crocodiles. With long wands in their hands, they dance, singing wild
+incantations. They have already prepared the food for the
+feast&mdash;chickens <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>roasted in their feathers; cakes of rice, spun like
+vermicelli and fried in cocoa-nut oil; curries, and salads of bitter and
+acid leaves; sticks of small bamboo filled with pulut rice and boiled,
+when it turns to a jelly and is agreeably flavoured with the young
+bamboo. It is the women also who serve out the tuak, a spirit prepared
+from rice and spiced with various ingredients, tobacco being one. The
+men must drink at these feasts; they are very temperate generally, but
+on this occasion they are rather proud of being drunk and boasting the
+next day of a bad headache! The women urge them to drink, but do not
+join in the orgies, and disappear when the intoxicating stage begins. I
+trust that this description belongs only to the past; at any rate, we
+know that in those places where the missionaries have long taught, their
+people follow a more excellent way of rejoicing in the joy of harvest,
+and, after their thanksgiving service in church, pour out their
+offerings of rice before the altar to maintain the services, and
+minister to the sick and needy.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="girl" id="girl"></a>
+<img src="images/girl.jpg" width="399" height="600" alt="Dyak girl" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">A DYAK GIRL.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>Page</i> <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>For many years, however, the women were opposed to a religion which
+cleared away the superstitious customs which were the delight of their
+lives, their chief amusement and dissipation, and a means of influencing
+the men. It was not until the year 1864 that Mr. Gomes asked us to visit
+Lundu and welcome a little party of women, the first converts to the
+faith which their fathers and husbands had long professed. This is a
+long <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>digression from the history of the Lundus' visit to Kuching in
+1855, which was at the time a great event. I find the following passage
+in my journal: "Every evening, before late dinner, the Lundus go up to
+Mr. Gomes's room to say their prayers, and sing, or rather chant, their
+hymns. There is something very affecting in this little service&mdash;the
+Dyak voices singing of Christ's second coming with His holy angels, and
+rejoicing that He came once before for their salvation; then praying for
+holy, gentle hearts to receive Him. I always feel on these occasions as
+if I heard these precious truths afresh when they are spoken in a tongue
+till lately ignorant of them. Indeed, there can scarcely be a more
+joyful excitement than such passages in the life of a missionary; they
+are worth any sacrifice. After English morning service, Mr. Gomes has
+prayers in church for his Dyaks. He then instructs them in the baptismal
+service. This makes five daily services in church, two English, two
+Chinese, and one Dyak. We clothed all the candidates in a new suit of
+cotton garments with a bright-coloured handkerchief for their heads. It
+would be considered very irreverent for Easterns to uncover their heads
+in church. I taught the school-children to sing 'Veni, Creator Spiritus'
+at this baptism, while the clergy were arranging the candidates and
+sponsors round the font. The font was wreathed with flowers by my
+children. There was quite a full church, for the Chinese Christians all
+came to see the Dyaks baptized, and all the English of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>the place were
+present. Mr. Gomes baptized, and my husband signed them with the cross.
+They all spoke up bravely in answering to their vows: may God give them
+grace to keep them."</p>
+
+<p>This baptism took place on Whit Sunday. On Thursday of that week, Mr.
+Gomes, his Dyaks, and Frank, went off to Linga for a week to visit Mr.
+Chambers, and Mr. Horsburgh at Banting, that the converts of both tribes
+might become friends. The Balows and Lundus had always been united in
+their efforts against the pirate tribes, and in their fealty to the
+Rajah's Government. On this account they had a right to the services of
+the first missionaries who came from England to teach Dyaks. The visit
+to Banting had another object besides the mutual friendship of the
+converts. A controversy had arisen in the mission about the right word
+to be used in translations for <i>Jesus</i>. Isa is the name the Malays use,
+and the Dutch translations of the Bible employ this name; but there
+happened to be a bad Malay man owning the name of Isa, well known to the
+Balows, and Mr. Chambers feared some confusion would arise in the minds
+of converts in applying the same name to our Lord. It was therefore
+necessary to have a meeting of the clergy to decide this and many other
+religious terms to be used in hymns, catechisms, and in general
+teaching, that there might be unity in the mission: it would not do to
+have any divisions in the camp on such a subject. There are fifty miles
+of sea to cross from the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>Sarawak River to the Batang Lupar, then a long
+pull from the fort at Linga up to Banting. The journey took three nights
+and two days.</p>
+
+<p>The mission-house at Banting is most romantically placed on the crest of
+a hill overhanging the river about three hundred feet, and stands in a
+grove of beautiful fruit-trees. The view from it is enchanting. The
+river branches at the foot of the hill, and each branch seems to vie
+with the other in the tortuousness of its course through the bright
+green paddy-fields. About a mile off rises Mount Lesong<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> with a
+graceful slope, about three thousand feet, and then terminates abruptly
+in a rugged top. The four clergymen who met at Banting looked almost as
+wild as their people&mdash;wide shady hats, long staffs, long beards, not a
+shirt among the party, and but one pair of shoes, belonging to my
+husband, who never could walk barefooted. They spent several days
+together, and had much consultation about religious terms. The most
+intelligent of the Dyak Christians were present, as it was necessary,
+not only to choose words they could understand, but such as they could
+easily pronounce. On Trinity Sunday there were several services in the
+large room of the house, for the church was not yet built. The Lingas
+sang their hymns with great energy to one of their own wild strains, but
+when they heard the Lundus' melodious chant they were ashamed to sing
+after them, and begged them to teach them. The Dyaks love <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>music and
+verse. Mr. Gomes and Mr. Chambers wrote them hymns, and the Creed in
+verse, which they readily commit to memory and understand better than
+prose. Pictures are also used in their instruction: a parable or miracle
+is read, then a picture of it produced and explained, the Dyaks
+repeating each sentence after the teacher, to keep their attention.</p>
+
+<p>The baptized alone join in the Litany and Holy Communion. The afternoon
+was spent in visiting the sick and giving medicine. Several women came
+to the house for instruction, and seemed to take great interest in Mr.
+Chambers, teaching; but it was not until Mr. Chambers was married that
+any women were baptized. At breakfast the next morning came an old
+chief, called Tongkat Langit&mdash;the Staff of Heaven. His son Lingire was
+one of the most pleasing converts, and Tongkat was wavering&mdash;had not
+leisure at present! The necessity of forswearing the practise of
+head-taking deters the old men from becoming Christians: they fear to
+lose influence with their tribe. The little party then fixed upon the
+spot where the church should be built, a permanent bilian chancel to
+which a nave could be added when the additional room was required.
+Twenty-five pounds from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
+was all the money then in hand to begin with; but very soon more was
+collected, and when I visited Banting in 1857 there was a lovely little
+church standing on the hill overlooking the village, and surrounded by
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>beautiful trees. The walk to it from the mission-house was just like a
+gentleman's park, the green sward and groups of trees with lovely peeps
+of hill and valleys and winding streams between. Again in 1864 we went
+to Banting, that the Bishop might consecrate the church. The nave was
+then built. Every stick in the church was bilian. The white ants walked
+in as soon as the workmen left. In one night they carried their covered
+ways all over the inside of the roof, the walls, the beams, and rafters;
+and finding nothing they could bite, they walked out again, leaving
+their traces plainly marked. Since then a coloured-glass window,
+representing our Lord's Resurrection, has been added at the east end of
+the church; and, what is better far, the church is full of Dyak
+Christians every Sunday, and from this living Church many branches have
+been planted, so that the Banting Mission now includes seven stations,
+where there are school-churches built by the natives themselves, and
+many hundreds of Christian worshippers.</p>
+
+<p>In 1854, six years having passed away since a little band of Sir James
+Brooke's friends founded the Borneo Church Mission, the funds of the
+Society came to an end; and the mission would have collapsed also, had
+not the venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
+Parts consented to become responsible for it. As the missionaries and
+catechists increased in number, and fresh stations were added to the
+church, they opened their arms wider to receive them, until they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>set
+apart &pound;3000 a year for Borneo. Under their fostering care the mission
+flourished, as it could not have done under the management of any
+private society.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>Lesong</i>, mortar, being mortar-shaped.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/l-padi2.jpg" width="500" height="113" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII.<br />
+<small>A BOAT JOURNEY.</small></h3>
+
+
+<p>Throughout the year 1852 and part of '53 my husband was much tried with
+rheumatism in his knee, which made him quite lame, though he would
+hobble to church on crutches, and to hospital to look after his poor
+patients. Meanwhile he taught the young missionaries something of the
+art of healing, dressing wounds and broken bones, and physicking the
+ailments to which natives are most subject&mdash;fever, dysentery, etc. It
+was quite necessary they should know something of these subjects before
+they could be any use in the jungle. The first question the Dyaks asked,
+if told a new missionary was coming, would always be, "Is he clever at
+physic?" Medicines and simple remedies were always furnished to every
+mission-station, and the Rajah supplied all the stores that were needed
+for Kuching or elsewhere. We had taken a good stock with us at first,
+and all sorts of surgical instruments, but the Government kept it
+replenished.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>The hospital was set up when the great influx of Chinese brought numbers
+of sick people to the place. A long shed was built, and twenty beds
+immediately filled; but the next day, one of the patients having died,
+all the others who could move ran away. They have so great a horror of a
+dead body that they never suffered any one to die in their houses if
+they could help it, but built a little shed for the sick man, and
+visited him twice a day with food and opium while life lasted. A
+separate room was therefore added for the dead. This hospital furnished
+good instruction to the missionaries. It was also their duty to teach
+the sick every day, and the result was that several Chinese were
+baptized on their recovery. This shed was afterwards exchanged for a
+long room above the fort, which was both more airy and substantial. A
+dispensary was attached to it.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Chambers came from England and was able to undertake the duties
+at Kuching, my husband accompanied Captain Brooke and some of the
+Government officers in a tour up the Batang Lupar and Rejang Rivers. He
+was very lame at the time, but had no walking to do, only now and then
+to get out of his large boat and scramble up into a Dyak house. How he
+managed it under the circumstances I never could imagine, for the
+staircase from the water to a high Dyak house is only the trunk of a
+tree with a few notches in it, and, at low tide, a case of slippery mud;
+this, placed at a steep angle, without any rail, is not easy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>climbing
+for any one, but a stiff knee made it still more difficult.</p>
+
+<p>The object of the expedition was to make peace between certain Dyak
+tribes who had long been enemies, and to build a fort on the Rejang
+River, similar to Mr. Brereton's fort at Sakarran, and for the same
+purpose. An Englishman named Steele was to occupy the fort with some
+Malays. Captain Brooke took the <i>Jolly Bachelor</i> gunboat, and Frank
+moved into it to cross the sea from the mouth of the Sarawak to the
+Linga River, for the waves were high and wetted the smaller boats. When
+they reached the Linga River, he was sitting one Sunday night on the
+boom of the <i>Jolly</i>, enjoying the moonlight, and watching the swift rush
+of the tide, which is very rapid in that river. Suddenly, the piece of
+wood he was trusting to broke, and he was precipitated over the stern.
+Had he fallen into the water he must have been dragged under the vessel
+by the tide and drowned, but, through God's mercy, the ship's boat
+(<i>Dingy</i>), which only a few minutes before was the whole length of its
+painter away from the <i>Jolly</i>, swept up to it from the swing of the
+vessel, and, as he fell, he caught hold of the boat and pulled himself
+into it, escaping with only a bruise, when a watery bed, or the jaws of
+an alligator or shark, might have received him. A shark had been
+swimming round the gun-boat during Divine service that day, and an
+alligator had taken a man only the day before from a boat close by. My
+dear husband's comment on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>this narrow escape is, "Praise the Lord, O my
+soul, and forget not all His benefits; who redeemeth thy life from
+destruction, and crowneth thee with mercy and lovingkindness."</p>
+
+<p>The fleet waited for some days in the Linga River, while the Balow Dyaks
+fetched the jars which they were to exchange with the Sakarrans as a
+pledge of peace. These jars, of which every Dyak tribe possessed some,
+are of unknown antiquity. There is nothing very particular in their
+appearance. They are brown in colour, have handles at the sides, and
+sometimes figures of dragons on them. They vary in value, but though the
+Chinese have tried to imitate them, hoping to sell them to the Dyaks,
+they have never deceived them: they detect a difference where no
+European or Chinese eye can, and at once pronounce the Chinese jars of
+no value. Yet they will not sell their own rusas or tajows for any
+money, and they fancy that some of them have the property of keeping
+water always sweet. If a Dyak tribe offends the law, Government fines
+them so many jars, which are brought to Kuching and kept, or returned on
+their good behaviour. This reminds me of the story of a little Dyak boy
+who was taken prisoner in 1849. His father was killed, and the boy,
+about eight years old, was brought to the Rajah. For some days the child
+seemed quite happy, then he begged to speak to "Tuan Rajah," and told
+him confidentially that he knew a place in the jungle where some
+valuable tajows were secreted, and if he would land him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>with some
+Malays or the bank of the river, he would point out the place. The Rajah
+believed the child, and the jars were found, and taken on board the
+boat. Then the little boy went again to the Rajah, and bursting into
+tears, said, "I have given you the riches of my tribe; in return give me
+my liberty. Set me down in the jungle path, give me some food, and in
+two days I shall reach my home and my mother." So the child was laden
+with all he took a fancy to&mdash;a china cup, a glass tumbler, and a gay
+sarong (waist-cloth), and as much food as he could carry&mdash;and we heard
+afterwards that he rejoined his friends in safety.</p>
+
+<p>I must now return to my husband's journal. He says: "While at breakfast
+this morning, one of the men told us he had seen the people with tails,
+of whom we have often heard.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> They live fifteen days up a river, in
+the interior of the Bruni country. It is a large river, but in some
+places runs through caverns, where they can only pass on small rafts. He
+was sent there by Pangeran Mumeim to get goats, as these tailed gentry
+keep a great many of them. He says their tails are as long as the two
+joints of the middle finger, fleshy and stiff. They must be very
+inconvenient, for they are obliged to sit on logs of wood made on
+purpose, or to make a hole in the earth, to accommodate their tails
+before they can sit down. These people do not eat rice, but sago made
+into cakes and baked in a pot. In their country, he said, was a great
+stone fort, with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>nine large iron guns, of which the people can give no
+account, not knowing when or by whom it was built.</p>
+
+<p>"After dinner, when the men sit round me and smoke my cigars, they soon
+enter into conversation. We spoke a good deal to-day on the subject of
+religion, the difference between Christianity and Mahometanism, and,
+above all, the absurdity of their repeating the Koran, like so many
+parrots, without understanding one word of what they say; and the
+irreverence of addressing God in words they do not understand, so that
+their hearts can take no part in their prayers. They agreed that it
+would be better to learn God's law, instead of trusting merely to their
+hadjis, who are often as ignorant as themselves. A respectable old Bruni
+man, speaking of different races of men of various colours, said he had
+visited a tribe of white people, who lived on a high hill in the
+interior of the country; they were very white, and the women beautiful,
+with light hair. The men dress like Dyaks, but the women wear a long
+black robe, tight at the waist, and puffed out on the shoulders. The
+tradition of their origin, he said, was as follows: A long, long time
+ago, an old man who lived on this mountain lost himself in the jungle at
+its foot, and at night, being tired, and afraid of snakes and the evil
+spirits of the wood, he climbed into a tree and fell asleep. He was woke
+by a noise of ravishing music, the sweetest gongs and chanangs mingling
+with voices over his head. The music came <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>nearer and nearer to the
+place where he was, until he heard the sweet voices under the tree, and,
+looking down, beheld a large clear fountain opened, and seven beautiful
+females bathing. They were all of different sizes, like the fingers on a
+man's hand, and they sung as they sported in the water. The old man
+watched them for some time, and thought how much he should like one of
+them as a wife for his only son; but as he was afraid of descending
+among them, he made a noose with a long piece of rattan, lowered it
+gently, and slipping it over one of them, drew her up into the tree. She
+cried out, and they all disappeared with a whirring noise. The girl he
+caught was very young, and she cried sadly because she had no clothes
+on; so he rolled her in a chawat (long sash), and immediately heard the
+gongs at his own house, which he had thought was a long way off. He took
+the child home, and she was brought up by his wife, until she was old
+enough to marry their son. She was very good and sweet-tempered, and
+everybody loved her. In course of time she had a son, as white as
+herself. One day her husband was in a violent rage and beat her. She
+implored him not to make her cry, or she should be taken away from him
+and her child. But he did not heed, and at last pulled her jacket off to
+beat her. Immediately another jacket was dropped with a great noise from
+the sky, upon the house. She put it on, and vanished upwards, leaving
+her son, who was the ancestor of the present tribe."</p>
+
+<p>Who would have thought of a Dyak Undine?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>While the Malay was telling this story, the boat was waiting in a
+sheltered nook of the Sakarran River for the bore to pass, before the
+crew dare venture up to the fort. The bore is a great wave, twelve feet
+high, which rushes up with the tide, and is succeeded by two smaller
+waves. It is very dangerous to boats; but happily the natives know where
+to hide while it sweeps past.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached Sakarran Fort it took several days to hear all the
+claims the Lingas and Sakarrans had against each other. Six years
+before, the Rajah had persuaded them to make peace, but they had broken
+it the same day, and laid the blame upon one another. At last matters
+were arranged, and a platform being made under a wide-spreading
+banyan-tree, the chiefs sat round; and Captain Brooke made them a
+speech, describing the evils of piracy and war, and the determination of
+the Rajah that his subjects should live at peace with one another.</p>
+
+<p>"He then presented each chief with a jar, a spear, and a Sarawak flag,
+and desired them to use the flag in their boats for the purposes of
+trade. Nothing could be more picturesque than the scene. The surface of
+the water was dotted over with the long serpent-like bangkongs, gaily
+painted and adorned with flags and streamers of many colours, which
+looked all the brighter against the solemn jungle background. Then
+Gassim and Gila Brani (madly brave), on the part of the Sakarrans, and
+Tongkat Langit (Staff of Heaven), the Linga chief, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>joined hands; and
+each tribe killed a pig with great ceremony, and inspected the entrails
+to see if the peace was good. Then they feasted and rejoiced together.
+This ended, they proceeded up the Rejang River in the boats, and paddled
+for four days, from twenty-five to thirty miles a day, until they came
+to the Kenowit, on the banks of which the fort was to be built."</p>
+
+<p>The Rejang is a glorious river. It is not visited by a bore, and eighty
+miles from the sea it is half a mile broad, and deep to the banks. The
+flowers and fruits which grow there are a continual surprise and
+pleasure&mdash;but how shall I describe the flowers of those great
+woods?&mdash;not only up the Rejang, but everywhere in the old jungle. They
+seldom grow on the ground, though you may sometimes come upon a huge bed
+of ground orchids, but mostly climb up the trees, and hang in festoons
+from the branches. One plant, the Ixora, for instance, propagating
+itself undisturbed, will become a garden itself, trailing its red or
+orange blossoms from bough to bough till the forest glows with colour.</p>
+
+<p>The Rhododendron, growing in the forks of the great branches, takes
+possession of the tall trees, making them blush all over with delicate
+pinks and lilacs, or deepest rose clusters. Then the orchideous plants
+fix themselves in the branches, and send out long sprays of blossom of
+many colours and sweetest perfume. Here the voice of the Burong boya
+(crocodile-bird) may be heard, singing like an English thrush. He shakes
+his wings as he sings, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>and the Malays say that from time immemorial he
+has owed a large sum of money to the crocodile, who comes every year to
+ask payment; then the bird, perched on a high bough out of reach of the
+monster, sings, "How can I pay? I have nothing but my feathers, nothing
+but my feathers!" So the crocodile goes away till next year. There are
+not many singing birds in Borneo besides this thrush. The soft voices of
+many doves and pigeons may always be heard, and often the curious
+creaking noise made by the wings of rhinoceros hornbills as they fly
+past. More musical is the voice of the Wawa monkey, a bubbling like
+water running out of a narrow-necked bottle, always to be heard at early
+dawn, and the sweetest of alarums. A dead stillness reigns in the jungle
+by day, but at sunset every leaf almost becomes instinct with life. You
+might almost fancy yourself beset by Gideon's army, when all the lamps
+in the pitchers rattled and broke, and every man blew his trumpet into
+your ear. It is an astounding noise certainly, and difficult to believe
+that so many pipes and rattles, whirring machines and trumpets, belong
+to good-sized beetles or flies, singing their evening song to the
+setting sun. As the light dies away all becomes still again, unless any
+marshy ground shelters frogs. But to hear all this you must go to the
+old jungle, where the tall trees stand near together and shut out the
+light of day, and almost the air, for there is a painful sense of
+suffocation in the dense wood.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> This legend, though commonly reported, has never been
+proved.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/l-radish.jpg" width="496" height="113" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IX.<br />
+<small>CONTINUATION OF THE TRIP TO REJANG.</small></h3>
+
+
+<p>After two days' paddling from the mouth of the Rejang, the boats arrived
+at Sibou, where there is a manufactory for nepa salt. The nepa palm
+grows down to the edge of the banks, which are washed by a salt tide,
+and furnishes the Dyak with many necessaries.</p>
+
+<p>The leaves make the thatch to cover the roofs of the houses, or shelter
+over their boats. Neatly fastened together with split rattans, they form
+the walls of the house. From the juice of the tree they make a fermented
+drink something like sweet beer, also brown sugar. The young shoots are
+eaten in curries and salads. The fruit is salted or pickled. When they
+have got all these good things out of it, they burn the stem of the palm
+with some of the leaves, and wash the burnt ashes in water. This water
+is then boiled until it is evaporated, and some black salt remains at
+the bottom of the pot. It <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>tastes bitter as well as salt; but the Dyaks
+prefer it to common salt, and if you ask why, they say, "It is a fat
+salt." I must now return to my husband's journal. "Arrived at Kenowit. A
+tribe of Milanows have been induced to settle here lately by the Rajah.
+Within the last few weeks they have built two long and substantial
+houses, raised thirty feet from the ground on trunks of trees, some two
+feet in diameter. There are in all sixty doors, or families. The tribe
+furnishes three hundred fighting men, and numbers from fifteen hundred
+to two thousand.</p>
+
+<p>"The bachelors, as with the Dyaks, have a separate dwelling.</p>
+
+<p>"Tanee's tribe, who are returning to Sibou on the Rajah's promise to
+build a fort at Kenowit, are of the same tribe, and number about three
+hundred men. They speak the Milanow language, and have the same customs
+of burial. The men and some of the women are tattooed in the most
+grotesque patterns. When you look at them closely the invention
+displayed is truly remarkable; but at a distance they give a dingy,
+dusky appearance to the men, as if they were daubed with an inky sponge.
+Nature having denied them beards, they tattoo curly locks along their
+faces, always bordered by a vandyke fringe, which must task their utmost
+ingenuity. Tanee, who has followed us with some of his warriors, is the
+very exquisite of a Kenowit. He is made like a Hercules, and is proud of
+showing his strength and agility. He piques himself <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>upon having the
+best sword, of fine Kayan make and native metal, and the strongest arm
+in his tribe. He sits most of the day sharpening one or another of these
+swords, feeling and looking along its edge to see that the weapon is in
+perfect order: then, to prove it, he seeks for a suitable block of wood,
+as thick as his arm, severs it at a blow, gives a yell, and with a grin
+of delight returns the weapon to its sheath. His jacket is of scarlet
+satin; his long hair is confined by a gold-embroidered handkerchief; his
+chawat is of fine white cloth, very long, and richly embroidered&mdash;the
+ends hang down to his knees, he wears behind an apron of panther's skin,
+trimmed with red cloth and alligator's teeth, and other charms; this
+hangs from his loins to his knees, and always affords him a dry seat.
+Tanee's boat is long, made out of one tree, like our river canoes, but
+much lighter and faster. His cabin is a raised platform in the centre of
+the boat, covered with a mat, and hung all round with weapons and
+trophies of war&mdash;Kyan fighting-coats of bear and buffalo hides, having
+head-pieces adorned with beads or shells, shields and spears all gaily
+decked with Argus' feathers, or human hair dyed red.</p>
+
+<p>"On Sunday we moved from the boats into Palabun's house, and settled
+ourselves in part of the verandah. After breakfast I doctored the sick,
+and then we had the morning service, much to the surprise of the
+natives, who, however, did not disturb us. They sit round us all day,
+hearing and asking us questions.... Meanwhile the seven hundred men <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>who
+came in the flotilla of twenty boats, were busy building the fort. First
+they pulled down a temporary fort already set up by the Kenowits, and
+then cut wood to erect a substantial building. Four guns were mounted on
+the parapet, and there was a house inside for the Malay commandant, and
+a powder magazine. All the chiefs near Kenowit were assembled when the
+fort was finished, and had the same kind of address made them as at
+Sakarran, praising the benefits of peaceful trade instead of the
+miseries of wasteful war. They all listened with respect. That same
+afternoon, dismal howlings issued from Palabun's house. His brother, who
+had left him two years ago with a party of fourteen, to visit a friendly
+tribe at a distance, had been treacherously murdered. He and his party
+had been kindly received by their friends, and they had all gone out
+together on the war-path to seek heads. It is supposed that when they
+met no one, the hosts had turned on their visitors and taken their
+heads, rather than return home without any. Palabun vowed vengeance, and
+the whole tribe go into mourning for three months." (Bishop's Journal.)</p>
+
+<p>A Dyak mourning is not a becoming black costume, made "cheerful," as the
+dressmakers say, by jet ornaments and bugle trimmings. It consists in
+the abandonment of all ornament and their usual clothing, and the
+substitution of a kind of a brown cloth made of the inside bark of
+trees, which must be as rough and uncomfortable as it is ugly. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>These
+people, being Milanows, have peculiar burial customs. They lay the dead
+in a boat, with all his property and belongings, and send it out to sea;
+for they imagine that in some way a man's possessions may be of use to
+him in another world, if no one claims them on earth.</p>
+
+<p>"In this case there was no corpse to bury. The clothes were so disposed
+on the bier as to represent a figure, and laid beside it were handsome
+gold cloths and ornaments, gold buttons, krises,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> and breastplates,
+and weapons of Javanese manufacture, representing some hundreds of
+dollars. There were also gongs and two brass guns. Of course the fate of
+such boat-loads, sent adrift in a tidal river, is generally to be
+capsized and lost in the water. But if Malays encounter them they do not
+hesitate to appropriate the effects. Palabun knew this, so he did not
+send his brother's boat away until our fleet had departed." (Bishop's
+Journal.)</p>
+
+<p>I remember our once meeting one of these boats. It had been caught by
+branches from the bank, and swayed idly to and fro in the stream. We
+could only see a heap of coloured clothes inside it, but there was a
+weird, ghastly look about the boat which made us shudder. An unburied
+corpse, left to the winds and waves, without a prayer or a blessing! how
+could it be otherwise? Even if we could delude ourselves into fancying
+the Dyaks happy during their lives without Christianity, there can be no
+doubt of their being miserable when <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>death comes. They all believe dimly
+in a future state, but their dread of spirits is so great that they can
+have no ideas of happiness unconnected with their bodies. "Having no
+hope, and without God in the world," describes the mental state of a
+heathen Dyak. In 1856, we were living for a few weeks on a hill called
+Peninjauh, some miles from Kuching, where the Rajah had built a cottage
+as a sanitarium after illness. The cool freshness of the mountain air,
+and the glorious view from See-afar Cottage, were indeed conducive to
+health. On the hillsides lived several villages of Land Dyaks, and I had
+a woman as nurse to my baby who belonged to one of these villages. The
+cholera was in the country at that time, and three men had died of the
+Sebumban Dyaks. Every night the most mournful wailing arose above the
+trees&mdash;a sad sound indeed, rising and falling on the wind as the friends
+of the dead walked all through the jungle paths near their homes, now
+near to our cottage, now far off. One night I found my little ayah
+seated in the nursery when she ought to have been in the cook-house
+getting her supper. "What is the matter, Nina? Are you ill, that you are
+eating no supper?" "No, I am not ill, but I dare not go to the
+cook-house to-night." "Why?" "I fear to meet the spirits who are abroad
+to-night in the jungle." "The spirits of the dead men?" "No, the spirits
+who come to fetch them." After three days the bodies of these Dyaks were
+burnt, for this was the custom of the Sebumbans. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>dead man is laid
+on a pile of wood, and they all sit round watching. Nina said, that when
+the fire has burnt some time the dead man sits up for a moment,
+whereupon they all burst into renewed waitings of sorrow and farewell. I
+am told that the heat swelling the sinews of the dead body may cause
+this curious phenomenon; but could there be a more mournful, hopeless
+story of death?</p>
+
+<p>It is a relief to return to the party on the Rejang River. They were
+much entertained one day with a war-dance between two warriors, which
+was a graphic pantomime of their customs. "The two men appeared fully
+armed, and were supposed to be each alone on the war-path, looking out
+for a head. They moved to the beat of native drums, and seemed to be
+going through all the motions of looking out for an enemy, pulling out
+the ranjows (sharp pieces of cane stuck in the earth, point upwards, to
+lame an enemy). At length they descried one another, danced defiance,
+and, flourishing swords and shields, commenced the attack. The
+nimbleness with which they parried every stroke of the sword, and
+covered their bodies with their shields, was remarkable. In real combat,
+to strike the shield is certain death, because the sword sticks in the
+wood and cannot be withdrawn in time to prevent the other man from using
+his sword. After a time, one of the combatants fell wounded, and covered
+his body with his shield. The other danced round him triumphantly, and
+with one blow pretended to cut off his head; then, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>head in hand, he
+capered with the wildest gestures, expressive of the very ecstasy of
+savage delight But, on looking at his trophy closely, he recognized the
+features of a friend, and, smitten with remorse, he replaced the head
+with much solicitude. Then, moving with a slow, measured tread, he wept,
+and with many sighs of grief adjusted the head with much care, caught
+rain in his shield and poured it over the body; then rubbed and shook
+the limbs, which by degrees became alive by his mesmeric-like passings
+and chafings from the feet upwards. Each limb as it revived beat time to
+the music, first faintly, then with more vigour, till it came to the
+head; and when that nodded satisfactorily, and the whole body of his
+friend was in motion, he gave him a few extra shakes, lifted him on his
+legs, and the scene concluded by their dancing merrily together."
+(Bishop's Journal.)</p>
+
+<p>Captain Brooke and my husband were a month away on this expedition. They
+would have liked to pay a visit to Kum Nepa, a Kyan chief, who lived
+much farther up the river,&mdash;six days in a fast Kyan boat, said the
+Dyaks, ten days in the boats our friends had with them. But Kum Nepa had
+just lost two children from small-pox, and, according to their custom,
+he and all his tribe had left their houses and taken to the jungle. The
+Dyaks dread small-pox to such a degree that, when it appears, they
+neglect all their usual occupation. The seed is left unsown, the paddy
+unreaped; they leave the sick to die untended, and support <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>themselves
+in the jungle upon wild fruits and roots, until the scourge has passed
+away.</p>
+
+<p>From the time we lived at Sarawak a continual effort was made to
+introduce vaccination. It was difficult to get lymph in good order at so
+distant a place; the sea voyage often rendered it useless. The other
+difficulty was made by the Malays, who inoculated for small-pox; and, as
+they charged the Dyaks a rupee a head for inoculating them, made it
+answer pecuniarily. Some who were adepts in the art went about the
+country inoculating until they caused quite an epidemic of small-pox.
+Now, I believe, the Dyaks have learnt from experience the superior
+advantages of vaccination, and, by a late <i>Sarawak Gazette</i>, I gather
+that it is one of the duties of a Resident among the tribes up country
+to vaccinate his people as well as to judge them wisely.</p>
+
+<p>When the guns were mounted at the fort, and a garrison of seventy men,
+under Abong Duraup, settled there to guard it, the fleet left the Rejang
+to return to Sarawak. Captain Brooke had persuaded Palabun to give up
+his ideas of retaliation for his brother's death, on condition that the
+Kapuas people who killed him should give satisfaction. The last
+afternoon was devoted to doctoring the sick and giving them a stock of
+remedies. One poor man had nearly recovered his eyesight during the week
+he had been under treatment. So the Sarawak flag was hoisted at the fort
+and saluted, and after some good advice and renewed promises <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>from the
+Sakarrans and Kenowits, the boats pulled away to the <i>Jolly Bachelor</i>,
+which had been left at the Serikei River; and a few days afterwards we
+heard gongs and boat music on the river, and my servant Quangho running
+into my room called out, "Our Tuan is coming," so we all went down to
+the stone wharf and welcomed them home. The lameness which had so long
+hindered my husband from moving about, did not yield to any remedies we
+applied, and at last we went to Singapore for medical advice. The
+doctors there sent their patient to China for a cold season, and he
+spent six weeks at Hongkong with the Bishop of Victoria, and at Canton
+with other friends, to the advantage of his knee. Afterwards we went
+together to Malacca, where there was a hot spring bubbling up in a
+field. Into this spring we put a large tub; and there, in the early
+morning, Frank used to sit, with no neighbours but the snipe feeding in
+the field, and, as he had his gun by his side, he occasionally shot some
+game for breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>In 1853 we went home. My health was very much broken, and my husband was
+called to England by the necessary transfer of the mission from the
+Borneo Mission Society, whose funds came to an end, to the venerable
+Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, who kindly adopted us. We
+arrived at Southampton one grey November day. I wondered to see the sky
+so near the earth, and the trees almost like shrubs in height compared
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>to our Eastern forests. But it was sweet to hear the children speaking
+English in the streets, and their fair rosy faces were refreshing
+indeed. I never thought our school-children plain when we were at
+Sarawak, but the contrast was certainly very great when we looked about
+us in England.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> A kris is a Malay dagger.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/t-sun.jpg" width="150" height="115" alt="decorative triangle" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>PART II.</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/l-loops.jpg" width="500" height="94" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER X.<br />
+<small>RETURN TO SARAWAK.</small></h3>
+
+
+<p>In 1854, after eighteen months' stay in England, during which time my
+husband worked as deputation for the Society for the Propagation of the
+Gospel, we returned to Sarawak, <i>via</i> Calcutta, in one of Green's sailing
+vessels, for we were too large a party to afford the overland route.</p>
+
+<p>Besides ourselves and our baby, we had two young ladies who wished to
+try and teach the Malay women in their homes, and to help with the
+day-scholars at the mission-house. Only one of these ladies reached
+Sarawak; the other left us at Calcutta, and married there eventually.
+The Rev. J. Grayling and Mr. Owen, a schoolmaster, also went with us,
+and a young friend who was put under my charge, and lived with us for
+some years on account of his health.</p>
+
+<p>For nurse I had an old Malay woman who had taken some children to
+England from Singapore, and wanted to return. She was a capital sailor,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+and always able to carry Mab about however rough the sea was. Nothing
+could exceed her devotion to the child, but she had contracted a bad
+habit of always sharing the sailor's grog by day, and requiring a
+tumbler of hot gin and water before she went to bed. This was a great
+trouble to me, but I never saw her tipsy till we were staying at the
+Bishop's palace at Calcutta. Ayah, having been in the bazaar buying
+presents for her children, was brought back lying senseless in a
+palanquin. The Bishop, who was in the hall when the bearers set the
+palanquin down, exclaimed, "Oh! that woman has cholera! take her away."</p>
+
+<p>However, she was kindly cared for by the servants, and appeared the next
+day without any shame, bringing "a toy for missy." All my lecture was
+quite thrown away&mdash;she "had only taken a glass of grog in the bazaar, and
+they had put bang into it, so of course it made her insensible; but it
+was no fault of hers." This curious old woman was a Mahometan, therefore
+her tipsiness was inexcusable. She practised the habit of alms-giving,
+however, not only with her own money but mine. She used to say I did
+nothing in that way for the salvation of my soul, and, as she loved me,
+she must do it for me. I remember seeing a beggar-woman with twin
+babies, who used to sit in the streets of Kensington with Mab's bonnets
+on the babies' heads. Ayah gave them for my sake. Indeed, she was
+notorious in Kensington, because she could not resist treating boys to
+ginger-beer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> and I sometimes had the mortification of seeing Ayah with
+a small crowd at her heels, and my baby kissing her little hands to them
+as Ayah desired her.</p>
+
+<p>We only spent a week in Calcutta. The object of our going there was that
+the Bishop, in conjunction with Bishop Dealtry of Madras, and Bishop
+Smith of Victoria, should consecrate my husband Bishop of Labuan; but
+the Bishops had not reached Calcutta, and their arrival was uncertain.
+We were anxious to get to Sarawak, and could not wait for them; so it
+was decided that Frank should return by himself in the autumn, and we
+should proceed as quickly as we could. Sad news reached us from Kuching.
+Our dear friend Willie Brereton, who had done so much for the Sakarran
+Dyaks, was dead of dysentery. There was no medical man when my husband
+was away.</p>
+
+<p>Our Rajah had been very dangerously ill of small-pox, and had only a
+Malay doctor, who was devoted but ignorant. Happily Mr. Horsburgh, with
+medical books to aid him, came to the rescue in time, but the return of
+the physician of soul and body was much desired. I see, by my journal,
+that after a weary passage of twenty-four days in a sailing vessel from
+Singapore, we reached Sarawak on the 25th of April. Mr. Horsburgh came
+to fetch us from the mouth of the river in the Siam boat, a long boat
+with a house in it, which the Rajah brought with him from Siam after his
+embassy to that country. Mr. Horsburgh told us that all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> chief
+Government officers were away, looking for Lanun pirates on the coast;
+but we had plenty of kind greetings from the Christian Chinese, who came
+about us in the bazaar, and all the school-children came running down
+the hill with Mrs. Stahl, who almost screamed for joy at our return. The
+house looked nicer than ever, for the trees had grown up about it, and I
+felt most vividly that this was our chosen home, endeared to us by many
+sorrows, but the place where we had received much blessing from God, and
+where our work lay, and perhaps some day its reward, in the Church
+gathered from the heathen into Christ's fold. We were not long alone;
+the next day Mr. Chambers arrived from Banting with a party of seven
+baptized Dyaks.</p>
+
+<p>We had brought all sorts of beautiful things from England for the
+Church. A carpet to lay before the altar, a new altar-cloth, also
+painted shields for the roof. Our friends in England had furnished us
+with a box of clothes for the Dyaks, cotton trousers and jackets, and
+gay handkerchiefs for their heads. We always dressed the Christians for
+baptism&mdash;it was a sign of the new life they professed at the font; but
+we did not expect them to wear clothes generally, except their own
+chawats, nor was it to be desired until they knew how to wash them. We
+had also brought a beautiful magic lantern with a dissolving-view
+apparatus for our people's amusement and instruction, for some of the
+slides were painted by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> Miss Rigaud to illustrate the life of our Lord,
+and there were many astronomical slides also. All these treasures
+brought us numerous visitors. The Chinese Christians were all invited to
+a feast at our house, after which the magic lantern was exhibited, and
+we were glad to find that our school-children could explain all the
+Scripture slides quite correctly.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Horsburgh accompanied Mr. Chambers to Banting that day, to assist
+him in his work for the Balow Dyaks; and soon after, Mr. Gomes arrived
+from Lundu with a large party of men and boys; but I have already
+described their visit. My dear husband went off to Calcutta again in
+September, and was consecrated Bishop of Labuan on St. Luke's Day,
+October 18, 1855. Sir James Brooke added Sarawak to his diocese and
+title on his return; indeed, the small island of Labuan, no larger than
+the Isle of Wight, was only the English title to a bishopric which was
+then almost entirely a missionary one. The Straits Settlements,
+including Singapore, Penang, and Malacca, were then under the Government
+of India, and Labuan was the only spot of land under the immediate
+control of the Colonial Office. The Bishop of Calcutta would, from the
+first, have been glad to part with so distant a portion of his then
+unwieldy diocese, but it could not at that time be effected. As soon as
+the Straits Settlements were passed over to the Queen's Government, the
+Bishop of Labuan became virtually the Bishop of the Straits,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> and, even
+long before that, performed all episcopal functions in those
+settlements; but the title has only lately been altered.</p>
+
+<p>As I was not present at my husband's consecration, I cannot do better
+than transcribe good Bishop Wilson's letter to the venerable society
+(S.P.G.), describing the ceremony.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="sigblock"><small>Calcutta, Bishop's Palace, October 22, 1855.</small></p>
+
+<p>Thank God, the consecration took place with complete success on
+Thursday, October 18th, St. Luke's Day. The Bishop elect
+arrived some days before, the Bishop of Victoria on the 16th,
+and Bishop Dealtry (of Madras) on the 17th. The crowded
+cathedral marked the interest which was excited. We sent out
+two hundred printed invitations to gentry, besides requesting
+the clergy to attend in their robes. There were more than eight
+hundred jammed into the cathedral, and hundreds could not gain
+admittance. The clergy were thirty. After morning prayer the
+assistant bishops conducted the elect Bishop to the vestry,
+where, having attired himself in his rochet, he was presented
+to me when seated near the Communion table. Her Majesty's
+mandate was then read, and the commission of his Grace the
+Archbishop of Canterbury. The several oaths were next duly
+administered by the registrar of the diocese. The Litany was
+devoutly read by the Bishop of Madras, and afterwards the
+examination of the candidate took place. I should have said
+that the sermon followed<span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> the Nicene Creed. It was by the
+Bishop of Madras, the text being taken from 2 Tim. i. 6, 7:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot" style="font-size: 100%;"><p>"Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift
+of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God
+hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of
+love, and of a sound mind."</p></div>
+
+<p>The Bishop has consented at my request to print the discourse, which I
+shall have the pleasure of sending copies of for the Archbishop and
+yourself, I was gratified at observing that the text is taken from the
+solemn words used at the very act itself of consecration. After the
+examination, the Bishop returned to the vestry to put on the rest of the
+episcopal dress; and as the vestry in the cathedral is at the west end
+of the building, he had to pass down the one hundred and twenty feet
+conducting to it, with the eyes and hearts of the congregation fixed
+upon him with wonder and pleasure. On his return, the "Veni, Creator
+Spiritus" was sung, each alternate line being answered by the Bishops
+and clergy, with the accompaniment of our fine organ. After the
+appointed prayers, which are directed to follow this hymn, the
+imposition of hands took place, and the words of the consecration
+pronounced by myself as presiding metropolitan. The Bible was next
+placed in his hands, with the admirable exhortation prescribed&mdash;an
+exhortation which I think incomparable and almost inspired, as indeed
+the whole service is. The collection at the offertory was made for the<span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+Sarawak Mission, and above five hundred C. rupees collected. The whole
+service concluded with the Holy Communion of the body and blood of
+Christ.</p>
+
+<p>The new Bishop preached at St. Thomas's Church on Sunday, the 21st, for
+his mission; and a single gentleman contributed one thousand C. rupees.
+He will preach at the cathedral on the 28th, when something more will be
+gathered. The Bishop of Madras has presented the four hundred rupees of
+his voyage expenses, from Madras to Calcutta and back, to the same
+blessed cause. I have had three breakfast parties (for I don't give
+dinners) to meet the Bishop, of about forty each, on the day after the
+consecration, and on Saturday, and this morning, and the addresses made
+by Bishops Dealtry and Smith were most warmly received. Thus has this
+great occasion passed off&mdash;the first consecration, I believe, that has
+ever taken place out of England since the glorious Reformation, and
+perhaps the first missionary Bishop sent out by our Church; unless the
+Bishop of Mauritius may be considered as having preceded him.</p>
+
+<p>It was, indeed, a singular event that four Protestant Bishops should
+meet in the heart of heathen India, amidst one hundred and fifty
+millions of idolaters and worshippers of the false Prophet.</p>
+
+<p>God be praised for this completion of episcopal functions in India!</p>
+
+<p class="sigblock"><span class="smcap">Daniel Calcutta.</span></p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>I must add to this graphic letter a note which the venerable Bishop
+wrote to my husband, November 6th of the same year.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="sigblock"><small>Tennasarim, Bishop's Cabin.</small></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My Beloved Rev. Bishop of Labuan,</span></p>
+
+<p>Whether to write to you by the pilot or not I can hardly tell.
+However, I am so anxious for your beginning well at Singapore
+and Sarawak, and so responsible also from having consecrated
+you to the Lord, that I must write. I have taken the liberty
+with you which Mr. Cecil took with me in 1801, to caution you,
+now you are a chief pastor and a father in God, against
+excessive hilarity of spirits. There is a mild gravity, with
+occasional tokens of delight and pleasure, becoming your sacred
+character, not noisy mirth.</p>
+
+<p>I met with a letter of a minister, now with God, to a brother
+minister, who was about to take his duty for a time, which I
+think will give you pleasure. "Take heed to <i>thyself</i>; your own
+soul is your first and greatest concern. You know that a sound
+body alone can work with power; much more a healthy soul. Keep
+a clear conscience through the blood of the Lamb. Keep up close
+communion with God. Study likeness to Him in all things. Read
+the Bible for your own growth first, then for your people.
+Expound much; it is through the truth that souls are to be
+sanctified, not through essays upon the truth. You will not
+find many companions; be the more with God. Be of good<span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
+courage, there remaineth much land to be possessed. Be not
+dismayed, for Christ shall be with you to deliver you. I am
+often sore cast down; but the Eternal God is my refuge. Now
+farewell; the Lord make you a faithful steward." If we do not
+meet again in the flesh, may we meet, never to part, before the
+throne of the Great Redeemer!</p>
+
+<p class="sigblock" style="margin-right: 15%">I am your affectionate</p>
+
+<p class="sigblock" style="margin-top: 0.75em;"><span class="smcap">D. Calcutta.</span></p></div>
+
+<p>After my husband's consecration, he undertook a confirmation tour for
+Bishop Wilson, at the mission stations around Calcutta. He also
+consecrated a church at Midnapore in South Bengal. In December, after
+four month's absence, he returned to Sarawak.</p>
+
+<p>Our party in the mission-house during his absence consisted of a
+chaplain, a missionary lady learning Malay and teaching the girls'
+school, our young friend Mr. Grant, myself, and baby Mab. The days ran
+along a smooth groove, although we had all plenty to do. Up early in the
+morning, then a walk, and service in church at seven. After prayers some
+hours' teaching and learning before midday bath and breakfast. The
+afternoon was a more lazy time, though the hum of school went on
+continuously, while we did our sewing and reading in the coolest corners
+we could find. The new school-house, in which all the boys, the Stahls,
+and Mr. Owen, the schoolmaster, lived, was near enough to the
+mission-house for us to know the hour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> of the day by the lesson going on
+at the time; for all the younger boys repeated their multiplication
+tables in a loud voice together (in Malay), also their Chinese reading;
+then came the singing, rounds and part-songs, the most popular lesson of
+all. At four o'clock the school broke up. The children amused themselves
+as English boys do. There was a season for marbles, for hop-scotch, for
+tops, and for kites. Above all, do Chinese children love kites, and are
+most ingenious in making them. They cut thin paper into the shapes of
+birds, fish, or butterflies, and stretch it over thin slips of the spine
+of the cocoa-nut leaf, then they ornament it with bits of red or blue
+paper, and fasten it together with a pinch of boiled rice. The string is
+the most expensive part, and two pennyworth lasts many kites, for they
+are very frail affairs, and in that land of trees do not long escape
+being caught, though they fly beautifully. Miss J&mdash;&mdash; had a cockatoo
+which amused her and the little girls during sewing-class. He was a
+beautiful bird with a rosy crest, but extremely mischievous. To sharpen
+his beak he notched all the Venetian shutters in the verandahs; and if
+he spied a looking-glass, flew at it in a rage and broke it: fortunately
+there were no large mirrors in the house. These birds look very pretty
+perching in the trees, and this one became tame enough to be trusted out
+of doors, but they are bad inmates.</p>
+
+<p>We had also a chicken-yard for Alan's amusement, and great were our
+difficulties in preserving the nests from rats, who ate the eggs. If we
+placed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> the nests on a high shelf, these creatures managed to shove the
+eggs out of the nests so that they fell broken on the floor all ready
+for their supper. At last we circumvented them by slinging the nests by
+long rattans from the roof.</p>
+
+<p>At five o'clock another short service took place in church. In the
+evening we read aloud to one another, while the rest sewed or drew.</p>
+
+<p>This tranquil, even monotonous life was very much to my taste in my
+husband's absence, but after a few weeks it was disturbed by sad trials.
+First, the chaplain had a sunstroke, and fell out with the climate, the
+place, and some members of our little society; so he went to Singapore,
+and from thence to England. When we were recovering from this blow, and
+had again settled down into our usual ways, a worse trial befell me.</p>
+
+<p>One morning Miss J&mdash;&mdash; did not appear at early breakfast, and little
+Mary, who waited upon her in her room, said she was sound asleep and did
+not wake when she opened the shutters. I thought nothing of it at first,
+for Miss J&mdash;&mdash; sometimes sat up late at night; but an hour afterwards, I
+went into her room and looked at her. Her breathing was so laboured I
+thought she was in a fit; and first I tried to put leeches on her
+temples, but they would not bite, and we resolved to carry her into the
+fresh breeze in the verandah, for the air of the room seemed laden with
+something close and stifling. When I threw back the covering of the bed,
+I perceived that the veins of both arms had been cut,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> and a few drops
+of blood stained her night-dress; also there was a small empty bottle in
+the bed with "Laudanum" on its label. The terrible truth was
+evident&mdash;she had taken poison and tried to bleed herself to death!
+Probably the action of the laudanum prevented any flow of blood, yet the
+few drops may have relieved the brain. The horror of this discovery
+nearly deprived me of my senses; but there was no time for
+lamentation&mdash;she was not dead, thank God, and all our efforts must be
+used to restore her to life. We were very ignorant, but we did all we
+could think of. There was no doctor to apply to, only the chemist who
+served the dispensary. He gave medicine which was certainly very strong,
+and we put mustard plasters on her legs. By the evening she was sensible
+enough to take some food, but for a week there was serious illness, and
+it was a long time before I could ask my poor friend why she had done
+this thing. She had left me a letter to read in the event of her death,
+but of course I never read it. We were very much together, but I had not
+thought her unhappy; indeed the only reason she ever gave me for so
+hating her life was, that she could not learn Malay, and did not think
+she should be any use as a missionary. This despondency was known to me,
+but I had no idea it cut so deep. Miss J&mdash;&mdash; had a great deal of quiet
+fun&mdash;she often amused us by her clever and somewhat caustic remarks. But
+Sarawak was too monotonous a life for her. When, some weeks afterwards,
+she had quite regained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> the balance of her mind, she went to Singapore,
+and became a very useful member of society for many years before she
+died. I never felt that I could judge her, for I had so much more to
+occupy my mind and interest my heart than my companion. There was baby
+in the first place, and the responsibilities of the school and mission
+naturally fell to my share. No doubt it requires an even temperament to
+live contentedly without society, and with only such excitement as daily
+duties and the beauties of nature afford. Yet these are full of infinite
+happiness, and we were not without friends, although we had no company:
+the little party at Government House, as it was then called, were very
+agreeable and uniformly kind. It is, however, a common mistake to
+imagine that the life of a missionary is an exciting one. On the
+contrary, its trial lies in its monotony. The uneventful day, mapped out
+into hours of teaching and study, sleep, exercise, and religious duties;
+the constant society of natives whose minds are like those of children,
+and who do not sympathize with your English ideas; the sameness of the
+climate, which even precludes discourse about the weather,&mdash;all this,
+added to the distance from relations and friends at home, combined with
+the enervating effects of a hot climate, causes heaviness of spirits and
+despondency to single men and women. Married people have not the same
+excuse; for besides duty and nature, they have "one friend who loves
+them best," and that ought to be enough for the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> exacting
+temperament. I say nothing about the comforts of religion&mdash;they are the
+portion of all, married or single; still some spirits become so
+sensitive in solitude that they are not able to take the cheerful side,
+even of their relation to their Heavenly Father, and these are generally
+the most reserved to their companions. I am glad to find that
+missionaries are now seldom sent alone to any station, and women are
+more often associated in sisterhoods for mission work under our colonial
+Bishops, so that they have the society and sympathy of English ladies
+after the toils of the day. I felt much discouraged after Miss J&mdash;&mdash;
+left me, and afraid of urging any one to follow in her place; but at
+last a cousin of my husband's came out to us, and as she enjoyed the
+climate, and delighted in the place and people, declaring that she had
+never been more happy in her life than with us, I consoled myself that
+it was not all the fault of Sarawak and the mission-house that poor Miss
+J&mdash;&mdash; could not live there.</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/l-ferns.jpg" width="500" height="93" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0em;">CHAPTER XI.<br />
+<small>CHINESE INSURRECTION.</small></h3>
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 2.4em;">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem">
+<tr><td class="tdstanza">
+<span class="i0">"Mortal! if life smile on thee, and thou find<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">All to thy mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Think, Who did once to earth from heaven descend<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Thee to befriend;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So shalt thou dare forego, at His dear call,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Thy life, thine all."<br /></span>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>These lines were most applicable to us during the year 1856. It was such
+rest and peace when our Bishop returned from Calcutta and soothed all
+the griefs and heartburnings we had suffered the four months he was
+away. Then ensued the performance of his new episcopal duties. Mr. Gomes
+was ordained priest in March. Confirmations took place, of our elder
+school-children, who were all baptized when they first came to us; also
+many Chinese Christians too, who had long attended the Bible classes at
+the mission-house and stood firm to their baptismal vows. In April we
+had another baby girl; and soon after, the Bishop went to Labuan, to
+arrange about a church being built there. Unfortunately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> he caught fever
+at Labuan; which declared itself at Singapore on his return. We were
+both very ill, and glad of doctors' advice at Singapore; but Labuan
+fever returns again and again, though in a slighter form after a while,
+and was for years a constant trial to the Bishop's strength. When we
+returned to Sarawak in October, our party was increased. Mr. and Mrs.
+Crookshank had come out from England&mdash;she a bride, and quite a new
+element of youth and beauty for Sarawak. A lady friend and her child and
+nurse also came on a long visit to us, the air of Sarawak being
+considered quite a tonic compared to the sea-breeze at Singapore, which
+was at times visited by a hot wind from Java. Very pleasant days
+followed our return home. Mrs. Harvey and I, with our children, went for
+a month to "See-afar" Cottage on the hill of Serambo. I have already
+mentioned this little house, built by Sir James Brooke as a sanitarium
+after his attack of small-pox. The only objection to it was, that it was
+built in the region of clouds: had the hill been five hundred feet
+higher we should have had the clouds below us, as they are on Penang
+Hill. The path up the mountain&mdash;if path it can be called&mdash;is almost a
+staircase of tumbled rocks, and requires both strength and agility to
+climb. It was quite beyond me; but I was carried on a man's back,
+sitting on a bit of plank, with a strip of cloth fastened round my waist
+and across the man's forehead, my back to his back. The Dyaks are famous
+mountaineers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> their bare feet cling to the stones, or notched trunks of
+trees thrown from one rock to another. I never felt unsafe on my Dyak
+friend's back, and he used to laugh when I proposed his setting me down
+and taking a rest, and say, "You are not as heavy as a basket of durian
+fruit." These Dyaks have beautiful groves of fruit-trees, and make a
+good purse in the fruit season by bringing down durians, mangosteen and
+lansat fruit to sell at Kuching. They also carry all their harvest of
+paddy up the mountain to their rice-stores in the villages, so they are
+used to heavy weights.</p>
+
+<p>We took a stock of provisions up with us, fowls and ducks, a goat and
+her kid, etc., and all the bedding we wanted, for of course there was
+not much furniture in the cottage. Our first night was unfortunate. We
+had settled ourselves in the rooms, had our supper, and were about to go
+to bed, when the servants ran out of the cook-house, which was a
+stone's-throw from the cottage, crying out, "Fire!" and in a few minutes
+we saw it wrapped in flames. Of course a house built of sticks and
+leaves does not take long to burn down to the ground, but we were
+distressed to hear the bleatings of the little kid which could not be
+got out in time. The ducks, too, were still in the long basket coop in
+which they were carried up, and were literally roasted in their feathers
+before anybody remembered them. A large party of Dyaks were on the spot
+directly they saw the flames, and they did good service by throwing
+water on the roof of the cottage, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> watching lest the thatch should
+catch. In the morning they discovered the burnt ducks, and ate them up
+with much relish, for a Dyak likes the flavour of burnt feathers. The
+next day the cook-house was rebuilt. These native huts look so clean and
+fresh when first put up, the straw-coloured attap<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> walls and green
+leaf roofs are so agreeable to the eye. They quickly turn hay colour and
+then get discoloured by the wood smoke. Except that we were at times
+rather short of food, we enjoyed our mountain retreat very much. The
+bath was a remarkable feature&mdash;a natural stone basin, under the shadow
+of a great rock, fed by the clearest streamlet and sheltered from view
+by a heavy bit of curtain, was our bathing-place. We carried a little
+leaf bucket and our towels in our hands, and while we poured the fresh
+water over our heads we could now and then stop to look at the great
+expanse of plain and forest, with silver rivers winding amidst them, and
+blue smoke stealing up here and there to mark a Dyak village. There was,
+however, a particular rock on the spur of the mountain from whence we
+always watched the sun set; there was a much wider view from thence. The
+sea lay on the horizon, and the pointed mountain of Santubong stood on
+the plain, with other ranges of hills far away. I fear we did little
+else but watch the glories of earth and sky at that time, and look after
+our children, who could not be trusted alone a minute on those steep
+paths.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>Meanwhile the Bishop was paying a visit to Lundu in his new life-boat, a
+boat of about twenty-eight feet, with a little covered house in it, and
+water-tight compartments in the bow and stern to keep her afloat. She
+was well named, for even in this first voyage she saved the lives of her
+passengers. From the coast at Santubong you see blue hills far away to
+the west, which lie in the Lundu country. The sea runs very high, in the
+north-cast monsoon, between the mouths of these two rivers, the Sarawak
+and Lundu; and on this occasion the waves on their return from Lundu
+were fearful. Seven great waves like green hills advanced one after
+another. The Malay crew prayed aloud with terror. Stahl and the Bishop
+steered the boat and held their breaths. It looked like rushing into the
+jaws of death, but the life-boat mounted the big waves one after
+another, sometimes shuddering with the strain, but buoyant and stiff.
+The danger past, the crew praised Allah and the good boat; and they, as
+well as Stahl who had behaved so well at the time of danger, fell into a
+fit of ague from the nervous shock. We knew on the top of the hill that
+a fearful storm was raging, but we did not see the white boat flying
+like a bird over the seven great rollers, or there would have been no
+sleep for us that night. The crew never forgot it, nor the calm pluck of
+their steersman the Bishop. I must confess that an attack of fever was
+the result of all this exertion when he joined us on the hill.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>The rest of the year 1856 passed away quietly. We were all looking
+forward to an event which was to improve the English society of the
+place very much. The Rajah's nephew, Captain Brooke, was bringing out a
+bride; and her brother, Mr. Charles Grant, another. These four young
+people were expected in the early spring of 1857, and the Rajah was
+refurnishing his bungalow to receive these additions to his family. A
+new piano had arrived, and all sorts of pretty things, to brighten up
+the cool dark rooms of Government House. Mr. and Mrs. Crookshank were
+preparing a house for themselves also; and all their boxes, which had
+remained unopened while they lived with the Rajah, were moved up to
+their bungalow. Little did we think that all these treasures would be
+burnt before they were even unpacked!</p>
+
+<p>The Chinese gold-workers of Bau and Seniawan had long given more or less
+trouble to the Sarawak Government. They were governed by their own
+self-elected kunsi (magistrates), and recognized their fealty to Sarawak
+only by the payment of a small tax on the gold they washed from the
+soil. They sent the gold away to China, and habitually cheated as to the
+quantity obtained. They also smuggled opium from the Dutch settlement of
+Sambas, thus defrauding Government of revenue. Worse than all this, they
+introduced secret societies, or hui, among themselves, and threatened to
+rebel if any of their kunsi were punished for breaking the laws of the
+country. At Christmas, 1856, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> boasted they could demolish Kuching
+in one night, if they chose; and that a new Joss House they were
+building there should furnish them with a pretext to gather by hundreds
+to set the Joss in his temple, and possess themselves of the place and
+the Europeans who lived there. These uncomfortable rumours seemed to
+have some foundation when a new road was discovered which the Chinese
+had made between Bau and Seniawan, another settlement nearer to Kuching.
+Mr. Crookshank, who was in charge of the Government, sent word to Mr.
+Johnson, who immediately came from Sakarran with a fleet of Dyaks,
+delighted to have a chance of fighting the Chinese, and carrying plenty
+of heads back to their homes. At the same time a gun-boat was stationed
+on the river to prevent any communication between Bau and Kuching. Upon
+this the kunsi came very humbly and begged pardon, declared the whole
+story was a fabrication, and that they never intended mischief. We only
+half believed them, but the Dyaks were dismissed, and unfortunately the
+gun-boat no longer kept watch on the river. Our Christian Chinese
+teacher "Sing-Song," was of the Kay tribe, the same as the Bau people,
+and once a month he went there to teach his countrymen. There were a few
+Christians among them. One, a goldsmith, did his best to let us know
+that danger was impending, but the kunsi suspected him, and put him in
+prison; we were therefore quite unprepared for what took place. On the
+17th of February, three Chinese kunsi were flogged by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> order of the
+court at Kuching, for taking the law into their own hands, and seizing a
+runaway prisoner, as well as the captain of the boat in which she
+absconded, although he was not guilty of hiding her. This seems to have
+put the finishing touch to the factious state of feeling at Bau. The
+Rajah and the Bishop had determined to take a trip together on the 15th,
+in the life-boat, to Sadong, and from thence to Linga and Sakarran. The
+Rajah had been ailing for some time, and we hoped this little voyage
+would do him good. We prepared all the provisions for this trip: bread
+and rusks were made, salt meat was cooked, and everything was ready
+packed in the provision baskets (this was of great importance to us
+afterwards). That evening we all met out walking, on the only
+riding-road there was in those days. Rajah spoke to the school-children,
+and we all amused ourselves with the little Middletons, boys of four and
+five, strutting along with turbaned hats and long walking-sticks. It was
+a dull evening, and we all felt unaccountably gloomy. We fancied it was
+because Rajah was not well enough to come and dine with us, as he had
+purposed in the morning; but during dinner I remembered afterwards that
+the Bishop said, "If any sudden alarm were to take place to-night it
+would rouse him and make him all right."</p>
+
+<p>We certainly went to bed without expecting anything to happen, but,
+about twelve o'clock, we were roused by shouts and screams, and the
+firing of guns. We got up and looked out. The Rajah's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> bungalow was in
+flames across the river. On our side the Middletons' house was burning,
+and Mr. Crookshank's new house, a little way up the road, was soon after
+on fire. The most horrid noises filled the air, there was evidently
+fighting going on at the two forts at either end of the town by the
+river's side. We knew there were very few defenders at either of these
+two forts, and that they would soon be taken; for by this time we were
+sure it must be the Chinese miners who had fulfilled their threat to
+take the town. We thought, "When the forts are taken they will come to
+us." Presently the brothers, William and John Channon, who lived near
+us, came to our house, bringing their wives and children for shelter.
+They brought news that the fort near their houses was taken and burnt,
+and they dare not stay in their own cottages, as they were Government
+servants, and would be obnoxious to the rebels.</p>
+
+<p>We took our children out of bed and dressed them, and then we all went
+down to the school-house, from whence we could see the burning houses
+and hear what was going on in the town. A Chinaman came up from the
+bazaar, begging us not to go to them for shelter, for they had been
+warned by the kunsi not to harbour any English people, and they dared
+not take us in. Poor creatures, they were in terror for themselves, as
+they were not of the same tribe of Chinese as the Bau people. What
+should we do?</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="burning" id="burning"></a>
+<img src="images/burning.jpg" width="398" height="600" alt="houses burning" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">WE ALL WENT DOWN TO THE SCHOOL-HOUSE, FROM WHENCE WE
+COULD SEE THE BURNING HOUSES.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>Page</i> <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>We were so large a party, and had so many <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>children amongst us, that we
+did not venture to hide in the jungle: the night was quite dark and we
+might lose one another. Then the Bishop said, "We cannot make any
+resistance: we will hide away the guns we have in the house, and unite
+in prayer to God." So we all knelt round him while he commended us to
+the mercy of our Heavenly Father, and prayed for all our dear friends
+who were exposed to the fury of the Chinese. Then we sat and waited.
+Miss Woolley, who had only been three months in Sarawak, read aloud a
+psalm from time to time to comfort us; but the hours seemed very long.
+At five o'clock in the morning the kunsi, having possessed themselves of
+the Chinese town, sent us word that they did not mean to harm us&mdash;"the
+Bishop was a good man and cared for the Chinese," but he must go down to
+the hospital and attend to their wounded. Then came the welcome news
+that the Rajah had escaped, and Mr. Crookshank and Middleton&mdash;the three
+people whom the Chinese most desired to kill, for the one was chief
+constable and the other police magistrate, who carried out the Rajah's
+sentence on the kunsi. A price was set on their heads, but the Malays'
+love of their English Rajah made that only an idle threat. We were told
+that Mrs. Crookshank was dead, and the little Middletons, as well as Mr.
+Wellington, who lodged in their house, and Mr. Nicholetts, who was
+staying at the Rajah's house. Mrs. Crookshank, however, was not dead,
+but lying wounded in a ditch near the ashes of her house. When the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+Bishop knew this he demanded her of the kunsi. They said no, at first,
+for they were angry that her husband had escaped; but Bishop refused to
+attend to the wounded unless they gave her up, so at last they gave
+leave to have her carried to our house.</p>
+
+<p>It was about ten o'clock when she was brought in&mdash;a pitiful sight, her
+dress covered with blood, her hair matted with grass and dust, her
+fingers bleeding. It did not seem possible she could live after
+remaining all night in this dreadful state. She told us that she and her
+husband did not awake until the house was full of men. They had only
+time to jump up and run down their bath-room stairs, he catching up a
+spear for their defence. Opening the bath-room door it creaked, and a
+man came running round the house shouting, "Assie Moy," the name of the
+woman-prisoner they had seized. He struck down Mrs. Crookshank with a
+sword he had in his hand, and Mr. Crookshank attacked him with the
+spear. They struggled together till the Chinaman cut his right arm to
+the bone, and the spear fell from his hand; then, seeing his wife lying
+dead, as he thought, in the grass, he managed to get away to the edge of
+the jungle, and sitting down, faint with loss of blood, saw his house
+burn to the ground. As morning dawned he found his way to the Datu
+Bandar's house, where the Rajah had already arrived, and Middleton.
+Meanwhile the Chinese, chasing the fowls from the burning fowl-house,
+came upon Mrs. Crookshank lying on her face, and one of them, seizing
+her by her hair,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> desired her to follow him. She could not walk a step,
+so he carried her in his arms; but when she groaned with the pain, he
+laid her in a ditch near the road. Many Chinese came and stood by her:
+they covered her with their jackets, one held an umbrella over her head,
+another offered her some tobacco, but they would not let any of our
+people touch her until an order came from the kunsi. We had sent our
+eldest school-boy to reassure her, and he stood beside her until our
+servants could bring her away safely. As soon as the Bishop had dressed
+the wounded in the town, he came home for some breakfast. When I saw him
+I called out, for his pith hat was covered with blood. "It is only
+fowl's blood," said he, "don't be frightened: they killed a chicken over
+my head as a sign of friend ship." The Middletons' servants came to us
+early in the morning, and said that they did not know what had become of
+their mistress, but the two little boys were killed by the Chinese,
+their heads cut off, and their bodies thrown into the burning. Later on,
+we heard that Mrs. Middleton, after seeing Mr. Wellington killed in
+trying to defend her, had escaped into the bath-room and hidden herself
+in one of the big water-jars; but, the door being open, she had seen her
+children murdered, and then had got out of the jar and run into the
+jungle, where she concealed herself in a little pool of water, much
+hidden by overhanging boughs. There this poor mother remained for some
+hours, until a Chinaman from the town came to the spring, carrying a
+drawn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> sword in his hand. "Oh, sir, pray don't kill me!" she called out.
+"Oh no!" answered the man, "I am a friend of Mr. Peter" (her husband),
+"and will take care of you." So he took her to his house, and dressed
+her in Chinese clothes. It was almost a wonder to me that this poor
+young woman lived through that dreadful time. As the day wore on, Mr.
+Ruppell, the banker of the place, and a great friend of the Chinese,
+came and took up his abode with us. Then he, the Bishop, and Mr. Helms,
+the manager of the English Merchant Company, were ordered to meet the
+kunsi at the court-house; also the Datu Bandar, the chief Malay
+magistrate. There a very trying scene took place. The kunsi sat in the
+seats of the magistrates, smoking, their principal in the Rajah's own
+chair. They stated that they did not wish to make war with the English,
+or the Malays, only with the Rajah's government, and they desired those
+present to assist them in the government of the country. This they had
+drawn up in writing, and desired the English and Datu Bandar to sign.
+The Bishop pointed out to them that the best thing they could do would
+be to return to Bau and defend their town; that the Dyaks would
+certainly come in fleets of boats directly they heard of what had
+happened at Kuching, and they would as certainly be killed if they
+remained in the place. This was true enough, but they were afraid of the
+Malays attacking them on the water. The Chinese are bad boatmen. They
+could not therefore make up their minds to go, and much fierce
+discussion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> arose. The thieves and rogues of the place, being under no
+restraint, robbed all the houses, on this afternoon, whose inmates had
+taken refuge at the mission-house. The Christian Chinese, being afraid
+of their countrymen, rushed into our house, carrying all sorts of goods
+and chattels, and caused me much distress on Mrs. Crookshank's account,
+who was very sensitive to fresh alarms. However, we settled our Chinese
+friends in some of the lower rooms. The Channons and their babies were
+in the attics. Night came at last, and a dead silence fell upon the town
+and the crowded mission-house. Not even the usual sounds in the bazaar
+or on the river were heard; only an occasional gun broke the stillness
+of the night. Friends and foes were alike weary. We did not venture to
+undress, but lay down all ready for flight if necessary, with our hats
+and little bundles beside us. The Bishop and Mr. Ruppell watched all
+night in the porch. Friday morning the Chinese, continually urged by the
+Bishop, determined to return to Bau. Later on they heard a rumour that
+the Malays would attack them on the river; then they made the Datu
+Bandar sign a promise not to follow them. Still they felt no confidence
+that he would not, so they said they would take Mr. Helms with them as a
+hostage for the Datu's good faith. Poor Mr. Helms did not like this idea
+at all, and having a fast boat lying in the creek near his house, he
+slipped away early in the afternoon, down the river, and hid himself in
+the jungle. No one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> in Sarawak could imagine what had become of him.</p>
+
+<p>About midday the Bishop told me he wished me, Miss Woolley, and the
+children, including Alan Grant, to go to Singapore in a trading schooner
+which Mr. Ruppell had detained at the mouth of the river in case of
+emergency.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stahl and Miss Coomes were to remain and nurse Mrs. Crookshank, but
+it would be a great relief to him to think of us in safety. The Chinese
+kunsi also wished us to go, "that the people at Singapore might see that
+they did not desire our death." It seemed very hard to me to leave my
+husband in such danger, for that morning the kunsi had flourished swords
+in his face and threatened him, knowing very well that he wished to
+bring the Rajah back. Still I knew he could more easily provide for the
+safety of those left behind if we were already out of the way. So I
+packed up some clothes and provisions for the voyage. While I was doing
+this a Chinaman came from the <i>Good Luck</i> schooner to say I must only
+take one box for our party, as the schooner was very full of Chinese
+passengers, fleeing for fear of the kunsi. With this we had to be
+content. At three o'clock we went to the shop of Amoo, the Chinese owner
+of the <i>Good Luck</i>. There I found my husband writing to Mr. Johnson at
+Linga, to tell him what had happened. Then Datu Bandar came in to say
+that the kunsi had gone up the river, and had taken some of the fort
+guns<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> with them; that they were very crowded in the boats, and that he
+should follow after them with a Malay force at night. They did nothing,
+however, when the time came; for until the Malays had got their families
+safe out of the place they were not willing to fight. They were brave
+enough when the women and children were moved to Samarahan on Saturday.
+There were many Chinese women collected at Amoo's, belonging to the
+shopkeepers in the bazaar. The wife of the court scribe, whom I knew,
+told me in a whisper that she managed to get some bread to the Rajah and
+his party, and had told Mr. Crookshank that his wife was alive and with
+us. At last the life-boat was ready. Stahl went with us to steer, and
+said there were plenty of Chinese to row the boat. When we got down to
+it, we found it not only fully manned by Chinese, but full of their
+women, children, and boxes, so that we could scarcely find room to
+squeeze ourselves into the stern, and we were so heavily laden that we
+made very slow progress. It was no use protesting, however: we were only
+English folk, and the Chinese had it all their own way in those days.
+About eight o'clock we got down to the mouth of the Morotabas, where the
+schooner lay. Pitch dark and very wet it was, but it was a relief when
+all the Chinese passengers climbed up the schooner ladder, and the men
+hauled the boxes up one after another, last of all a very heavy one
+which it took six men to lift, full of dollars,&mdash;so no wonder we were
+overladen. Last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> of all I climbed into the <i>Good Luck</i>, leaving the
+children still in the boat with Stahl and Kimchack, one of our
+school-boys whose family were moving away in the schooner. I found the
+deck covered with Chinese, and when I said to the little Portuguese
+captain, "Where is the little cabin Mr. Ruppell promised me I should
+have?" he answered, "Oh, ma'am, pray go back to your boat. I have
+neither water nor fuel for the people who are already on board. The
+cabin is filled with the family and friends of the Chinese owner of the
+schooner, and I cannot give you even room to sit down anywhere." It was
+indeed true. My friend, the court scribe's wife, said, "Come and sit by
+me on the deck." "But the children, they cannot be exposed day and night
+on deck." "Oh well, there is no other place for them." So I jumped into
+the life-boat again, and reclaimed my treasures. "Rather," said Miss
+Woolley and I, "die on shore than in that horrid boat." Indeed we felt
+quite cheerful now we had the boat to ourselves; and Kimchack said he
+had already been two nights on board the <i>Good Luck</i> and had had no room
+to lie down. There we were, however, in the middle of the river, with no
+one to row the boat. Stahl could not move it by himself. At this moment
+a small boat pulled alongside, and Mr. Helms' face appeared in the
+darkness. How glad we were to see him! and he, faint and exhausted with
+wandering all day in the jungle, was glad of a glass of wine, which was
+soon got out of the provision basket. Then we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> opened a tin of soup, and
+fed our tired and hungry children, who behaved all through those
+terrible days as if it was a picnic excursion got up for their
+amusement. They enjoyed everything, and were no trouble at all, either
+Alan or Mab. Edith was a baby, and suffered very much from want of
+proper food&mdash;but that was later on. Mr. Helms and his crew rowed our
+boat into Jernang Creek, where there were some Malay houses. In one of
+these he and Alan went to sleep, but he advised us to remain in the boat
+until the morning. We laid Mab and Edith on one of the seats; Miss
+Woolley lay on the other; and I sat at the bottom of the boat to prevent
+the children from falling off. The mosquitoes were numerous on that mud
+bank, and I was very glad when the morning dawned. At six o'clock Mr.
+Helms came to say we could have an empty Malay house on shore for a few
+days, so we gladly mounted up the landing-place and found a kind and
+hospitable reception from our Malay friends. They had put up some mat
+partitions in a large room, that we might sleep in private, and
+presented us with a nice curry for breakfast. We then unpacked our box
+and dried the clothes in it, which were wet through from the overlading
+of the life-boat. About midday two Englishmen arrived from the Quop
+River, nearer to Kuching, where they had been with the Rajah. They only
+stayed a short time, but told us that the Kunsi Chinese had really gone
+to Bau, and that the Bishop was with the Rajah at Quop. Late at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> night I
+had a note from my husband, saying he thought we might return to
+Sarawak, for all was quiet, and he hoped the Rajah would come back early
+on Sunday morning. The next morning, therefore, we prepared to set off
+again in the life-boat, but first I went to pay a visit to Inchi Bouyang
+the Malay writer, who lived in one of the houses near, and who was too
+stout to venture out of his own house into a less strongly built one.
+This seems absurd enough, but the Malay houses were certainly very
+slight; they seemed to sway in the mud of the creek, and the floors of
+the rooms were made of very open strips of nibong palm, so that you had
+to walk turning your feet well out in order not to slip through the
+lantiles. I found many Malays gathered in the writer's house, all to
+entreat me not to go to Kuching, because it was "not a lucky day." "If
+the Malays fight the Chinese to-day," they said, "they will be beaten."
+"What reason have you for saying so?" "No reason exactly, but the day is
+unlucky; it is like Friday to the English, they never go to sea on that
+day." "Oh," said I, "that was long ago: they often go to sea on Friday
+now they know better, and no sensible person thinks anything of lucky or
+unlucky days." "Well, we have told you what we think. If you must go,
+some of us will go with you, and we shall tell the Tuan Padre it was not
+our fault that you would not wait until to-morrow." So Lulut, a servant
+of the Rajah's, and another Malay got into the boat with us, and we set
+off up the river.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Palm leaf.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/l-vines.jpg" width="500" height="93" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XII.<br />
+<small>CHINESE INSURRECTION (<i>Continued</i>).</small></h3>
+
+
+<p>As we proceeded up the river we agreed we would ask news of any boat we
+met. Presently we noticed smoke rising above the trees. "The Malays are
+burning the Chinese town," said the men; but as we drew nearer it was
+evidently the Malay town which was burning. At last we met a boat. "Yes;
+the Chinese had returned, and had set fire to the Malay town; they were
+also firing at the Sarawak Chinese in the bazaar." On Saturday the
+Bishop and the Channons and Stahl had unspiked two of the guns left in
+the fort, and had hoisted the Sarawak flag again on the flag-staff. The
+Bishop then went to the Rajah's war boat at the Quop, and told him that
+the Malays had sent away their women, and were ready to fight should the
+Chinese return; and he begged him to come to our house early the next
+morning, where breakfast should be ready for him, and take the command.
+But the Chinese heard of this, and returned in the morning,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> some by
+river, some by road. As soon as the Malays saw their boats rounding the
+corner near the Malay town, they attacked them bravely, drove them
+ashore, and though suffering much loss from their superior fire,
+captured ten of their boats, and secured them to a Malay prahu in the
+river. While this struggle was going on, a large party of Chinese, who
+walked from Seniawan, were ransacking the town. Enraged with the Bishop
+for trying to bring the Rajah back, they rushed into our house to find
+him; but he, having sent off all our belongings, English and native, ran
+down the back stairs while the Chinese rushed up into the porch in
+front, and escaped to the Chinese town, where shots were flying about in
+plenty, but did not hit him. He got into a little boat passing by, with
+two Malays in it, and they paddled him to the Rajah's war boat, then
+retreating down the river. When they reached the Quop he found a little
+boat, which brought him quickly to Jernang.</p>
+
+<p>We lay off the town in the life-boat, and saw one boat after another
+rowing fast towards us. In one, Mr. Koch, the missionary, with a number
+of school-boys; in another, Mrs. Crookshank, laid on a mattress, Mrs.
+Stahl, and Miss Coomes, and the school-girls; then the Channons'
+families and some Chinese; then the Sing-Song's family, and more boys.
+"Where is the Bishop?" I shouted. "In the Rajah's war boat. We had the
+greatest difficulty in getting boats enough for us; the Chinese were
+running up to the house when he sent us off, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> firing had already
+begun in the streets when Mrs. Crookshank was got into the boat."</p>
+
+<p>This was an anxious moment; but before long our servant James appeared
+with a message to me from my husband, to return to Jernang, and stay
+there until he appeared. Our Malay friends here left us, to join their
+families anchored in boats by the banks, and I filled the life-boat with
+the school-children to lighten the other boats. Then we pulled slowly
+back against the tide to Jernang. The little landing-place was crowded
+when we arrived, for the smaller boats had got there first. I had the
+greatest difficulty in persuading the Malays to give shelter to the
+Chinese Christians and children. I answered for their good behaviour;
+but all Chinese, whether rebels or no, were in sufficiently bad odour in
+those days. At last I got them part of a house to themselves. No sooner
+was all arranged than the Bishop arrived in his little boat; it was like
+receiving him from the dead.</p>
+
+<p>Presently appeared the Rajah's war boat, he standing at the stern. We
+all ran down to meet him and Mr. Crookshank, and take them to Bertha,
+who had been carried into a house. While we were all standing on the
+little wharf, built on tall piles into the water, the Malays cried out
+that it was giving way, and we must all go into the houses. The Bishop
+then decided what to do with his large party. Mr. Helms had a schooner
+close by, in which he was going to Sambas, to seek assistance from the
+Dutch, our nearest neighbours. He kindly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> offered to take Miss Woolley,
+Miss Coomes, and two of our eldest school-boys with him. The rest of us
+could go to Linga, where there was a fort, as a little pinnace belonging
+to Mr. Steele lay handy at the mouth of the river. The Chinese, however,
+implored to go with us; and indeed it would have been cruel to leave
+them a prey to the Malays, or the bad Chinese, or the Dyaks. When we
+were lodged in the pinnace, therefore, the Bishop went back to Jernang,
+and packed all our Chinese into the life-boat, which was attached by a
+rope to the pinnace; so we were all together. It was nearly dark when we
+weighed anchor, and left the mouth of the river. There was a tiny cabin,
+just large enough to hold Bertha on her mattress; a fowl-house, into
+which our native children crept; an open hold, where we women sat down
+on our bundles, with our children in our arms; and there was a place for
+cargo forward, where the men settled themselves. The Rajah in his war
+boat also proceeded to Linga, and we expected him to arrive long before
+our slow boat; he would meet Mr. Johnson, his nephew, there, and
+organize a force of Dyaks from the great rivers, Sakarran and Batang
+Lupar, to drive away the Chinese rebels. We never had any doubt of their
+doing this eventually, though we feared the remedy might be almost as
+bad as the disease, if the Dyaks proved unmanageable and quarrelled with
+one another. The night was very dark and wet, and the deck leaked upon
+us, so that we and our bags and bundles were soon wet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> through. But we
+neither heeded the rain nor felt the cold. We had eaten nothing since
+early morning, but were not hungry; and although for several nights we
+could scarcely be said to have slept, we were not sleepy. A deep
+thankfulness took possession of my soul; all our dear ones were spared
+to us. My children were in my arms, my husband paced the deck over my
+head. I seemed to have no cares, and to be able to trust to God for the
+future, who had been so merciful to us hitherto. I remember, too, when
+Mrs. Stahl opened the provision basket, and gave us each a slice of
+bread and meat, how very good it was, although we had not thought about
+wanting it. We lit a little fire, and made some hot tea, but soon had a
+message from the Rajah's boat to put out the fire lest we should be
+seen. The only thing that troubled me was a nasty faint smell, for which
+I could not account; but next morning we found a Chinaman's head in a
+basket close by my corner, which was reason enough! We had taken a fine
+young man on board to help pull the sweeps, a Dyak, and this ghastly
+possession was his. He said he was at Kuching, looking about for a
+<i>head</i>, and went into the court-house. Hearing some one in a little side
+room, he peeped in, and saw a Chinaman gazing at himself in a bit of
+looking-glass, which was stuck against the wall. He drew his sword, and
+in one moment, stepping close behind him, cut off his head: and having
+obtained this prize, was naturally desirous of getting away from the
+place; so he came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> off as boatman in one of the flying boats, bringing
+the head in a basket, which he stowed in the side of the boat. It
+entirely spoilt my hand-bag, which lay near it; I had to throw it away,
+and everything in it which could not be washed in hot water.</p>
+
+<p>Towards morning the sea made us all sick, added to the wet, and cold of
+dawn; yet, when the day cleared a little, and we got a fire on deck, and
+some hot tea and biscuits, and the children seemed none the worse for
+their bad night and the swarms of mosquitoes which had feasted upon
+them, we could not repine. In the evening we passed the island of
+Burong, at the mouth of the Batang Lupar River, and Mr. Crookshank tried
+to stimulate the men pulling the sweeps to reach a Sebuyan village
+farther on, before the tide left us and it grew dark. By dint of hard
+pulling we made the village, and its little fort, standing close beside
+the water and washed by its strong tide. A little boat came off from the
+fort, with some Malays, of whom we inquired for the Rajah, thinking his
+boat was far ahead of us, but they said they had seen nothing of him.
+Mr. Crookshank then begged them to bring a boat in which he could take
+Bertha up to Linga Fort that evening, instead of her remaining another
+night in the pinnace. We went on as long as the tide lasted, and then
+anchored in the Batang Lupar. Again we made a fire on deck, and after
+taking some food, settled ourselves for the night. At eleven o'clock the
+promised boat came for Bertha and Mr. Crookshank, and Mrs. Stahl went<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+with them as nurse; they thought nothing could be worse than spending
+another night on board the pinnace, but I fear the little boat journey
+was still more painful. When they reached Linga, they found only Malays
+in the fort, and the dwelling-house shut up, for Mr. Johnson was at
+Sakarran. They had to carry Mrs. Crookshank up a ladder into the fort,
+and lay her on a table; but happily Mr. Chambers arrived that night from
+Banting, and furnished a curtain as a screen, and pillows from his boat
+to make a more comfortable couch. As we were setting off again next
+morning, we met Mr. Johnson in a long boat, going straight off to
+Kuching. He was lying ill of fever at Sakarran, when his Malays roused
+him by saying, without preface&mdash;"The news is bad, Tuan: the Rajah is
+killed and Kuching in the hands of the rebel Chinese." Upon this he
+jumped up, called together the chiefs, and bidding them follow him with
+a strong force of Dyaks, he set off himself without calling at Linga by
+the way. When we told him that Rajah was alive and on his way to Linga,
+he turned back with us, and taking me, my ayah, and the children into
+his boat, soon landed us at his house. This was Tuesday, but we heard
+nothing of the Rajah until Friday. Mr. Johnson, after breakfasting with
+us at his house, went on to Kuching, and found that, after we lost sight
+of the Rajah's war boat, they had fallen in with the steamer belonging
+to the Borneo Company, the <i>Sir James Brooke</i>, just entering the river.
+Mr. Helms' schooner also came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> across her, so all the passengers in the
+schooner and the war boat had moved into the steamer, and they
+immediately proceeded up the river, preparing the guns on board to
+attack as soon as they reached the town. What must have been the
+feelings of the Chinese in the fort when they saw the smoke of the
+steamer curling above the trees, and then received one ten-pounder shot
+after another into their midst! They fired one round of grape shot at
+the steamer, and shouts of "Run!" rose on all sides. The steamer then
+proceeded up to the Malay town, where the Malays still held out against
+the Chinese; but as they were getting very short of ammunition, and
+their enemies were bringing some large guns to bear on their position,
+they greeted the steamer with shouts of welcome. The Chinese fled in
+every direction. Cut off from their boats, they ran into the jungle; and
+while many no doubt reached Bau in safety, many fell into the hands of
+the Dyaks, who, following their usual course of warfare, spread
+themselves through the jungle, and took the head of every man they met.
+The town was quite clear of the rebels in a few hours, and the <i>Sir
+James Brooke</i>, anchored in the river, furnished the base of operations
+which the Rajah required: from thence he could direct the Malay and Dyak
+forces, which were immediately at his disposal, to drive the rebels out
+of the country. The day before, the Chinese had filled our house and
+looted it completely, except the books in the library, for which they
+seem to have had some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> respect; but we had reason to believe that on
+Monday the house would have been burnt, for gunpowder and inflammable
+materials were found strewed about after they left. They took everything
+they could carry away, and destroyed the rest, cutting long slits in the
+gauze of the mosquito-rooms, and pouring all the chemicals and medicines
+of the dispensary over the contents of the drawers, clothes, and papers
+they did not wish for. They found a long table set out ready for
+breakfast, and had only to gather up the small plate, which, with a
+house full of people, was all in requisition. The church, too, was
+emptied of all its furniture, and the harmonium smashed; but the
+opportune arrival of the steamer prevented these buildings from sharing
+the fate of the other houses.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, we were settling ourselves with our large party in Mr.
+Johnson's house, which he kindly placed at our disposal. This house was
+surrounded by a latticed verandah, the ground immediately about it was
+cleared of jungle and drained by deep ditches. From the fort you looked
+over the wide stretch of water of the Batang Lupar, but it was a lonely
+and monotonous look-out. As the fort men were taken away to fight at
+Kuching, the gentlemen had to form themselves into watches day and
+night, with the few Malays who remained to guard the fort. Boats full of
+Dyaks continually arrived, to join the Rajah's force&mdash;Balows, Sarebas,
+and Sakarrans lay side by side on the river, all excited by the
+prospects of war, and frequently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> causing silly panics among the Malays
+of Linga, lest these warriors, from tribes so long enemies, should fall
+out with one another before they got to Kuching. There were, of course,
+no books or newspapers to read; our Bibles and Prayer-books alone were
+among our luggage. We women were the best off, for we got some
+unbleached calico from Sakarran, and cut out some under-clothing, of
+which we had but little; this gave us occupation. We also had every day
+to wash our linen and towels after bathing. The bath was a clear running
+stream, covered in near the house, very pretty and romantic, but the
+water was of a light brown colour, like toast and water, and had a
+slightly acid taste, very agreeable but not very wholesome. Probably the
+spring forced its way through dead leaves in the jungle; at any rate, it
+did not wash the clothes white. It was very difficult to procure food
+for us all. Rice and gourds made into a kind of curry stew was our daily
+meal; if a chicken was got it was devoted to the children and the sick.
+We were very anxious for some time on account of Mrs. Crookshank. Had
+she remained quiet at Kuching, her wounds would have healed quickly, for
+she was young and perfectly healthy; but all the moving into boats, and
+carrying up ladders and steps, had broken open the wounds, and it was a
+struggle of strength and youth against adverse circumstances. She was so
+patient and cheerful that we never heard a complaint, which was in her
+favour no doubt; still there were some days when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> her life was in great
+danger in that hot climate. Twice during the month we received a box
+from Kuching, sent by a native boat. Once it contained our mail&mdash;an
+immense pleasure; also some bread and biscuits, but they were wet with
+salt water, and mouldy besides. However, Mab and Alan could eat them. I
+used to look with thankful astonishment at those children, both so
+delicate generally, but who throve all the time we were without proper
+food or shelter. But baby Edith shrank and pined, and at last my husband
+said, "We shall lose this child if you stay here any longer: better go
+and live among the Dyaks, who have plenty of fowls."</p>
+
+<p>So Mr. Chambers kindly took us in at his house at Banting, where we had
+a most loving welcome, and saw something of the Dyak women and children.
+The men were mostly gone to the war, and great excitement prevailed
+among the tribe with the prospect of acquiring heads again, for the
+Sarawak Government had quite stopped that hunting in the country. Boats
+were continually arriving, gay with streamers, and noisy with gongs and
+drums beating, with heads of Chinese on board. One day we were invited
+to a feast in one of the long houses. I said, "I hope we shall see no
+heads," and was told I need not see any; so, taking Mab in my hand, I
+went with Mr. Chambers, and we climbed up into the long verandah room
+where all the work of the tribe goes on. This long house was surrounded
+with fruit-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>trees, and very comfortable. There were plenty of pigs under
+the house, and fowls perching in every direction. About thirty families
+lived in the house, the married people having each their little room,
+the girls a room to themselves, and the long room I spoke of being used
+for cooking, mat-making, paddy-beating, and all the usual occupations of
+their lives. We were seated on white mats, and welcomed by the chief
+people present. The feast was laid on a raised platform along the side
+of the room. There were a good many ornaments of the betel-nut palm,
+plaited into ingenious shapes, standing about the table, so that I did
+not at first remark anything else. As we English folks could not eat
+fowls roasted in their feathers, nor cakes fried in cocoa-nut oil, they
+brought us fine joints of bamboo filled with pulut rice, which turns to
+a jelly in cooking and is fragrant with the scent of the young cane. I
+was just going to eat this delicacy when my eyes fell upon three human
+heads standing on a large dish, freshly killed and slightly smoked, with
+food and sirih leaves in their mouths. Had I known them when alive I
+must have recognized them, for they looked quite natural. I looked with
+alarm at Mab, lest she should see them too; then we made our retreat as
+soon as possible. But I dared say nothing. These Dyaks had killed our
+enemies, and were only following their own customs by rejoicing over
+their dead victims. But the fact seemed to part them from us by
+centuries of feeling&mdash;our disgust, and their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> complacency. Some of them
+told us that afterwards, when they brought home some of the children
+belonging to the slain, and treated them very kindly, wishing to adopt
+them as their own, they were annoyed at the little ones standing looking
+up at their parents' heads hanging from the roof, and crying all day, as
+if it were strange they should do so! Yet the Dyaks are very fond of
+children, and extremely indulgent to them. Our school was recruited
+after the war by the children of Chinese, bought by Government from
+their captors. This was my first and last visit to a Dyak feast. I used
+to go and see the women in the early morning sometimes, and they
+constantly came up to the mission-house to see my children. Of course
+the war had an evil influence on them, increasing their interest in
+heads, and all the heathen ceremonies connected with their possession.</p>
+
+<p>We stayed about ten days at Banting, walking every afternoon to the
+little church through a long avenue of fruit-trees&mdash;great forest trees
+which threw a grateful shade over the path, charming for the children's
+walks. They could have chicken broth too for their dinners; and Edith
+revived, but it was a whole year after this before she grew any taller,
+so that when she began to run about, three months later, it looked a
+surprising feat for a baby who should be in long clothes, yet she was
+then sixteen months old. This life at Banting was a kind of dream, after
+all the hurry and anxiety we had gone through. At last we heard that we
+might go back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> to Kuching, the Chinese had all been driven out of the
+country, or killed. Our house was purified, and the dead bodies lying
+about in the jungle had been buried, so that the air was sweet again. We
+returned to Linga, and all embarked in a little schooner for home. It
+was not a much better boat than the one we had fled in, and we suffered
+two very trying days' voyage; but when we walked into the mission-house
+and found Miss Woolley to welcome us, and our house, though dismantled,
+uninjured, and most of the books in the library, we were very thankful.
+The Sunday after, we had a thanksgiving service in the church, in which
+all joined very heartily.</p>
+
+<p>I must return, however, to the history of the war, from the time the
+Rajah steamed up the river in the <i>Sir James Brooke</i>.</p>
+
+<p>At Bau there were supposed to be from three to four thousand Chinese
+rebels, who had lately been strengthened by many malcontents from the
+Dutch country. The Chinese held Bau, Seniawan, the government fort of
+Baleda, and a fort at Peninjauh opposite to Baleda. They boasted that
+they had rice and gunpowder enough to last out six months in these
+places; but they were gradually surrounded on all sides by Malays and
+Dyaks, so that they could get no fresh stores. On the 10th of March a
+body of Chinese came down the river to Leda Tanah (Tongue of Land) about
+halfway to Kuching. They built a breast-work by the river-side, dug a
+trench behind it, placed some brass guns in position,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> and then retired
+to eat their dinners in comfort behind their defences. There was a
+little house and garden belonging to the Rajah at Leda Tanah. The Datu
+Tumangong and Abang Boujong hearing of this, went up the river with a
+Malay force and attacked the breast-work in front. The Chinese fired one
+volley and ran. The Malays entered, sword in hand, but only killed two
+men; all the rest fled into the arms of the Dyaks, who lay in wait in
+the jungle behind, and took a hundred heads, some say two hundred, but
+stories do not lose in the telling. The Chinese begged hard for their
+lives, wrung their hands, wept, prayed the Dyaks to be friends with
+them; but Dyaks know nothing about prisoners. One of the principal kunsi
+was killed in this affair, and some say that Kamang, the leader of the
+attack on the 18th of February, lost his head to the Sakarran Dyaks.</p>
+
+<p>This success was matter of great rejoicing at Kuching. Two days
+afterwards they heard that Baleda Fort was deserted by the Chinese. Mr.
+Johnson went up and found it quite empty; Seniawan too, and soon after
+Bau also. All had fled towards the Dutch territory. A dreadful march
+they had, poor creatures; carrying their sacred stone Tai pekong with
+them. Nearly a thousand women and children delayed their progress. They
+were harassed all the way by parties of Malays, and Dyaks cutting off
+the stragglers. The party dwindled by degrees, until nearly all the
+kunsi were killed, either by the enemy or their incensed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> countrymen,
+who found themselves driven from their peaceful homes for the sins of
+these rebels. It is so painful to think of the many innocent who
+suffered with the guilty on this occasion, of the miseries they endured,
+and the relentlessness of their foes, that I cannot detail it. War
+naturally brines such evils in its train; even civilized warfare is not
+without its horrors and its injustice: but when revenge falls into the
+hands of savages these ills are multiplied. The Malays both hated and
+despised the Chinese. That <i>such</i> people should have taken their forts,
+burnt their dwellings, compelling them to seek safety for their families
+by flight, was so great an insult that their most violent passions were
+aroused, and only the blood of all the Kay tribe could wipe out the
+disgrace they had incurred. It was indeed wonderful that these Chinese
+should imagine for a moment that they could remain rulers in a country
+whose inhabitants regarded them as the natural hewers of wood and
+drawers of water to the community; but no doubt they were intoxicated by
+their unlooked-for success on the 18th of February, and a Chinaman seems
+destitute of any appreciation of people who are not Celestials! A
+remnant of these people got safely into the Dutch territory, where the
+authorities took what arms and ammunition they had, and, very properly,
+returned them to the Sarawak Government. They also offered to send a war
+steamer and soldiers if desired. So our misfortunes called out the
+goodwill of our neighbours. Soon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> after we returned home, H.M.S.
+<i>Spartan</i>, Captain Hoste, arrived to protect British interests in
+Sarawak. They stayed with us for a while, but the troubles were over,
+and the only difficulty was how to make any visitors comfortable or to
+feed them. We had to pass round a knife and fork at table for some days,
+and there were only a few spoons left to us. On the beds there were hard
+mattresses, but no pillows, sheets, or in fact any bed-furniture. Our
+guests being travellers and full of resources, slept on their pith hats
+for pillows, and used their pocket-knives. A good deal of fun was made
+of our privations, and indeed, as no beloved friend was missing, we
+could afford to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>We had all great reason to be thankful for the good behaviour of the
+Dyaks during the war. There were no intertribal quarrels, and Mr.
+Chambers told me that his Christians among the Balows were in the first
+boats which went off to succour the Rajah, when they knew nothing of the
+arrival of the steamer, and believed themselves to be facing a great
+danger, and fire-arms, which they do not like. This was not the only
+time that the Christians were among the bravest when all behaved well&mdash;a
+fact which recommended their religion to their countrymen, with whom
+courage is the first virtue. It was some years after this, however, that
+Dyak Christians learnt to fight without taking the heads of their
+enemies.</p>
+
+<p>When we left our house, our servants generally, except James a
+Portuguese, and my Bengalee<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> Ayah, fled from the place. But we had an
+old Hindoo Syce, who was much attached to us and to the creatures under
+his charge. He drove the two ponies we rode into the jungle, where they
+looked after themselves, and, living in his cottage next to the stable,
+did what he could for the cow and calves. When the rebels filled our
+house and appropriated our effects, they broke open the plate-chest, and
+melted the silver they found. Then Syce came forward and claimed a
+portion of the spoil They gave him a lump of silver with some alloy in
+it, the produce of some plated salvers, as his share. He pretended to
+help them, but this lump he hid in the earth near his cottage, and, on
+our return, triumphantly produced it as what he had saved for us from
+the wreck. Some years after, this old man was very ill with an abscess
+in his thigh, which he was sure would kill him. Bishop doctored and
+nursed him through it, but he had given him a good-sized bag of dollars,
+his savings, saying he wished Bishop to be his heir. When he got well
+and the money was returned to him, he spent it in paying a visit to his
+relations at Trichinopoli. I believe this faithful creature worshipped
+the bull of our herd, and it was a great trouble to him that the Chinese
+cruelly cut off the tail of the poor animal, thereby depriving him of
+the means of whisking off the flies which sting so vehemently in that
+climate.</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p>
+
+<img src="images/l-weeds.jpg" width="500" height="114" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII.<br />
+<small>EVENTS OF 1857.</small></h3>
+
+
+<p>When we were once more at home we found it would be better to go to
+Singapore, and from thence to Penang, for a little quiet. We were both
+ill, the Bishop seriously so. We wanted for everything, and the bazaar
+in Sarawak could not supply us: besides, ours was the only English
+dwelling-house left in the place, except the Borneo Company's premises.
+Captain Brooke and Mr. Grant with their brides were immediately
+expected, and must be housed at the mission while a bungalow was being
+built across the water. We left Miss Woolley to take care of the
+expected visitors, the children and I went to Singapore in the <i>Sir
+James Brooke</i> steamer, and Sir William Hoste gave a passage in H.M.S.
+<i>Spartan</i> to the Bishop and Alan Grant.</p>
+
+<p>I was glad of an opportunity to get my baby vaccinated, which could only
+happen at Singapore in those days. We were two months away, and the cool
+quiet of Penang Hill was a great <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>refreshment. The first news I heard
+there was that Miss Woolley was to be married to Mr. Chambers. This
+wedding took place immediately on our return home, the end of July. It
+was a great benefit to the Banting Dyaks, for Mrs. Chambers devoted
+herself to the women and young girls, and was a true friend to them. She
+taught them to sew, and instructed them in morals and religion. When I
+went to Banting some years afterwards, I found a set of modest young
+women who were much pleased with gifts of needles, thread, and thimbles;
+they also enjoyed a game of croquet after the lessons were done, and it
+was wonderful to see what smart taps of the mallet were fearlessly given
+under their bare feet; for of course the Dyaks do not wear shoes.</p>
+
+<p>About a month after our return to Sarawak, Captain Brooke's baby boy was
+born. No one can tell what a care and anxiety this event was, in a place
+where there was no doctor except the Bishop. The well-being of so
+important a person as the Rajah mudah's wife, and the birth of the heir
+of Sarawak, called forth much sympathy from everybody. Thank God, all
+went well; but we said it ought never to happen again&mdash;there should be a
+medical man whose sole duty it was to care for the bodies of the
+community, while the Bishop was free to minister to their spiritual
+wants. Soon after there was a public baptism of this boy Basil Brooke,
+and his cousin Blanche Grant, in the church, which was full of Malays as
+well as English to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>witness the ceremony. This was the day before the
+Rajah set off for England.</p>
+
+<p>There were many happy days during the next few months, for there were
+several English ladies in the place and we were all friends. In October
+the Bishop went to Labuan, and while he was away the cholera made its
+first appearance at Sarawak, among the Malays. The Rajah muda and I
+consulted together what physic should be made ready for those who would
+take it. A short time before, a little pamphlet had been sent to us
+about the virtues of camphor, and especially its value in cholera. We
+made a saturated solution of camphor in brandy, and gave a teaspoonful
+of it on moist sugar for a dose, adding three drops of Kayu Puteh oil,
+extracted from a Borneon wood and called cajeput oil in England, a very
+strong aromatic medicine. This mixture proved itself very useful. If the
+patients applied in good time it invariably gave relief to the cramp and
+pain in the stomach; if the disease had gone on to sickness it was more
+difficult to administer. Sometimes we followed it up with laudanum and
+castor oil.</p>
+
+<p>The Malays suffered very much from this epidemic. Constant funerals were
+to be seen on the river, and there was much praying at the mosque. Then
+the Chinese were attacked, but not so fatally. Two dead men were,
+however, found on our premises; they were strangers to us, but we
+supposed they came late at night to the mission for medicine, and, lying
+down in the stable or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>cow-house, died without reaching the house. It
+was an anxious time. I used to hang little bags of camphor round the
+children's necks, and was very careful of the diet for the household.
+Thank God, we had no case either in the school or the house.</p>
+
+<p>Seven years afterwards the cholera returned much more violently. An
+English gun-boat, lying off the town, lost several of her crew; and at
+last the Bishop advised them to go to sea and let the sea air blow
+through the ship, to carry off the infection. He went on board himself
+to see them off, and while they were going down the river two more men
+were seized with cholera, and died in half an hour.</p>
+
+<p>This time the cholera was very fatal among the Dyaks up some of the
+rivers. The poor creatures were so terrified that they left their
+houses, as in small-pox, and scarcely dared bury their dead. In one
+instance they paid a very strong man to carry the dead on his back to a
+steep hill, and throw them into the ravine at the bottom. The food
+enjoyed by the Dyaks, rotten fish and vegetables, no doubt inclined them
+to get cholera. The first time of its visitation was after a great fruit
+season when durian, that rich and luscious fruit, had been particularly
+abundant. A durian is somewhat larger than a cocoa-nut in its inner
+husk; it has a hard prickly rind, but inside lie the seeds, enclosed in
+a pulp which might be made of cream, garlic, sugar, and green almonds.
+It is very <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>heating to the blood, for when there are plenty of durians
+the people always suffer more from boils and skin disease than usual. We
+never permitted them to enter our house, for we could not bear the smell
+of them. But many English people liked them; and they were so much
+esteemed by the Dyaks, that when the fruit was ripe they encamped for
+the night under the trees. When a durian fell to the ground with a great
+thud, they all jumped up to look for it, as the fallen fruit belongs to
+the finder, and they loved it so that they willingly sacrificed their
+sleep for it. Woe be to the man, however, on whose head the fruit falls,
+for it is so hard and heavy it may kill him.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>In February three new missionaries came from England&mdash;Mr. Hacket, Mr.
+Glover, and Mr. Chalmers. The two last came straight to Sarawak on their
+arrival at Singapore, Mr. Hacket and his wife about a month afterwards.
+They were all from St. Augustine's College, Canterbury, thoroughly good
+people, and a great happiness to us. Mr. Chalmers was settled among the
+Land Dyaks at Peninjauh, afterwards at the Quop. Mr. Glover went to
+Banting, to work among the Balows. The Hackets stayed at Sarawak: indeed
+they all remained with us until Easter, when their ordination took
+place. The Easter services that year, 1858, were very delightful. All
+these missionaries were more or less musical, and Mr. Hacket adorned the
+church as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>it had never been decked before. Flowers and ferns, and
+lycopodium moss, were always to be had in abundance; and the polished
+wooden walls were brightened by some beautiful scroll texts, printed by
+a friend in England. We had full choral service on Easter Sunday, and
+the school-children sang their part beautifully; indeed, our new comers
+were astonished to find such good material for a choir in little native
+boys.</p>
+
+<p>I had been fully occupied with preparations for these missionaries while
+the bishop was at Labuan; some additions to the comfort of the house for
+the Hackets; a new cook-house and servants' rooms near, to build; and
+the church to reroof. The balean attaps were as good as ever, but the
+strips of wood on which they hung were attacked by white ants, and had
+to be renewed or the shingles would have fallen through. Such
+responsibilities fell to my share when the Bishop was away, and heavy
+cares they were when money was not abundant. The prospect of three new
+missionaries was, however, worth any trouble. They came to teach the
+Dyaks, who had so long waited for teachers, and we hoped they would
+settle themselves among them for many years. In this hope we were to be
+disappointed. Mr. Glover fell ill of dysentery at Banting, and before
+two years had passed away was obliged to remove to a cold climate. He
+went to Australia, and has been doing good work there ever since. Mr.
+Chalmers was a very valuable missionary, and his labours among <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>the Quop
+and Merdang Dyaks bore much fruit in after years; but he also fell ill
+from the climate, and the food which was attainable up country. In 1860,
+he also made up his mind to follow Mr. Glover to Australia. There are no
+doubt many difficulties for Englishmen living in Sarawak jungles. Some
+become acclimatized to them, others cannot bear the low diet, the
+loneliness, the apathy and indifference of the Dyaks. The Bishop was
+once accused, by a person who ought to have known better, that he was
+too apt to gather his clergy at Sarawak and keep them from their Dyak
+parishes: but it was a necessary part of the Bishop's work to keep a
+home where the missionaries could come for change and refreshment; where
+they could enjoy a more generous diet, and the society of English
+friends; where they could consult a medical man, and get some hints how
+to treat the maladies of the Dyaks&mdash;for they expected all the
+missionaries to know the art of healing, having had more or less
+experience of the Bishop's skill. Mr. Hacket was consumptive, but
+Sarawak is the best climate in the world for that disease: he got much
+stronger with us, and might have lived many years there, but he was too
+nervous for so unsettled a country. We were often subjected to panics
+for many months after the Chinese insurrection, and though we old
+inhabitants took it very easily, Mr. Hacket always thought his wife and
+child in danger. I remember, one day a Malay was being tried in the
+court-house, when he, by a sudden <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>spring, escaped from the police, and
+snatching a sword from a bystander, ran amuck through the bazaar,
+wounding two or three people he met. The hue and cry in the town fired
+the imaginations of the timid. People came running to the house for
+shelter, bringing their goods and chattels, and all sorts of tales&mdash;"The
+Chinese were coming from Sambas," and all sorts of nonsense. Then, Mrs.
+Hacket fainting on the sofa, and the servants all leaving their work to
+listen, and look out of the verandah, provoked us extremely: we
+administered sal volatile and a good scolding, and sent everybody off to
+their business again. But those scenes were very trying to the nerves.
+That a Malay should run amuck (amok, in Malay) with anger or jealousy,
+or a fit of madness arising from both these passions, was an occasional
+event all through our Sarawak life, but it was no more alarming in 1858
+than in former years. It was the breach in the general feeling of
+security under the Sarawak Government, which for a time magnified every
+little disturbance of the peace into a public danger.</p>
+
+<p>Our school was enriched this year by, first, seven new Chinese boys,
+then four more and four girls, the captives of the Lundu Dyaks, ransomed
+by Captain Brooke. Those children were, some of them, miserable objects,
+covered with sores from neglect. One boy had been set to carry red wood
+which blisters the skin, another was badly burnt. Mrs. Stahl took them
+in hand, dressed their wounds, nursed them, clothed them, and soon they
+looked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>quite nice, sitting on a bench at the end of the church with a
+monitor to take charge of them, for they were still unbaptized&mdash;they
+were old enough to be instructed first, except two of the little girls
+who were immediately received into the Church. About this time a little
+Dyak boy, Nigo by name, was paying a visit to the school, and was
+baptized in church, answering for himself. He was about six years old,
+and as he stood at the font his face was lit up with so sweet a smile it
+touched us all. Mab begged him to stay at Sarawak; but the Dyaks never
+part with their children, and in this case it was not necessary, for
+Nigo's father was a Christian. It was a great happiness to us that none
+of our boys were killed in the insurrection; three got away to Sambas,
+the rest came back to the school one by one, having all escaped the
+Dyaks. The Christian goldsmith, too, who was put in prison by the kunsi
+for trying to warn us of the attack on the 18th of February, got to
+Sambas safe, and afterwards returned to us at Sarawak.</p>
+
+<p>This summer a doctor came out to Sarawak with his family. I heard of
+their proposed arrival some months before, and wrote to Mrs. C&mdash;&mdash; to
+beg they would leave their elder children in England, and only bring the
+babies with them, for the little ones thrive well enough at Sarawak. I
+also gave a plain unvarnished account of the place. But Mr. C&mdash;&mdash;,
+having made up his mind to bring all his family out, put the letter in
+his pocket; and we were very sorry when they arrived, a party of nine,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>having lost one child at Singapore. They only stayed one month; the
+lady was so disgusted with the place&mdash;"no shops, no amusements, always
+hot weather, and food so dear!"&mdash;that she persuaded her husband to take
+advantage of some difference he had with the Government, and return in
+the same steamer by which they came out. I, however, gained by their
+departure, for they brought a sweet young girl with them as governess,
+and as she did not wish to return so soon, she remained with me, and
+became Mab's governess and friend. We liked her very much, and I cannot
+help mentioning an incident of her spirit and courage. One of our
+children being ill, I had taken her down to Santubong, where we had a
+seaside cottage; but as the house was full of clergy preparing for
+ordination, I left Miss McKee to do the housekeeping and take care of
+our guests for a few days. She slept at the top of the house, and little
+Edith in a cot beside her. It was late at night, and the moon shining
+into Miss McKee's room, when she woke and saw a Chinaman standing at the
+foot of her bed with a great knife in his hand. She felt under her
+pillow if the keys were safe, for the box of silver was put in her room
+while I was absent; then she jumped up, shouting "Thieves!" with all her
+might. The man ran and she after him, down a long passage, down the
+staircase, out of the house, by which time her cries had roused the
+gentlemen&mdash;the Bishop was nursing a sick man in fever, and was not in
+the house that night. They looked out of their doors, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>asking what was
+the matter? However, Miss McKee had by this time made up her mind that
+the thief was our own cook; she had seen enough of him by her courageous
+pursuit to be sure of it. No doubt he thought she would be fast asleep,
+and he should carry off the silver and the keys without discovery. Only
+a servant of the house would have known where they were kept. This young
+lady afterwards married Mr. Koch, one of the missionaries. He came from
+Ceylon, and eventually returned to his native country, where I hope they
+are still.</p>
+
+<p>Now we were again without a doctor, and in the autumn Mrs. Brooke
+expected her second confinement. This brings me to what we always called
+the sad, dark time at Sarawak. The weather was rainy beyond any former
+experience. We always had heavy rains in November, but this year they
+began in October, and the sky scarcely seemed to clear. In October, God
+gave us a little son, and in a usual way I should have been quite well
+at the end of three weeks, and across the water to see Mrs. Brooke many
+times before her confinement. But a long influenza cold kept me at home,
+and the weather being always wet, there was no prospect of getting over
+in a boat without a drenching, so only notes passed between us.</p>
+
+<p>On November 15th, Mrs. Brooke had another boy, and though there was some
+anxiety at the time, she seemed pretty well until the fourth day, when
+inflammation set in with puerperal fever, and at the end of ten days our
+much-loved friend was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>gone to her home in heaven, leaving her husband
+and children desolate. It seemed so impossible that so bright a creature
+should pass away from us, that to the last day we believed she would
+recover. That afternoon she called her husband and brothers and sisters
+to her bedside, and said, "I have tried hard to live for your sakes, but
+I cannot;" then she calmly and sweetly bade them good-bye, and no
+earthly cares touched her afterwards. Very sad hearts were left behind,
+but her example remained to us and called us upwards. Her short life had
+been continual self-sacrifice. She gave up her beautiful home in
+Scotland for love, and the prospect of doing good to Sarawak. On her
+arrival there the most rigid economy was practised, on account of the
+losses in the Chinese insurrection. A mat house, called "The Refuge,"
+neither airy nor comfortable, was her only home; but it was always
+bright with Annie's good taste and cheerful spirits. Then came the last
+sacrifice, her husband and children. These, too, she laid at her Lord's
+feet with a willing heart. Everybody went into mourning; for in so small
+a place it was quite a calamity to lose the head of our little society.
+But to the Bishop this event was a great trial. He had spent most of his
+time, day and night, striving to save this precious life. He was very
+fond of her; he ministered to her as her priest; from his hands she
+received the Blessed Sacrament a few hours before she died, and he heard
+her say with almost her last breath, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit;"
+but he had also to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>witness agony which he could not relieve, and no
+effort could prolong her life. It made him quite ill for some time, and
+all the happy holiday days passed away with Annie Brooke. Government
+House was never again, in our time, a bright and cheerful home: it
+returned to its bachelor ways; and business, not social pleasure,
+presided there. On Christmas Day, exactly a month after Mrs. Brooke died
+and was laid in the churchyard, we placed a bouquet of flowers from her
+garden on the altar, but there could be no festivities. The Chinese
+Christians had their feast, and the school-children; but we who had lost
+our companion and friend could not rejoice. It was sad enough to go over
+the water and see Annie's empty room, kept just as she had left it, and
+no sound in the house except the wails of the motherless baby, who we
+feared would soon follow his mother to the grave. Captain Brooke was
+obliged to go to England very soon after his wife's death; the Rajah was
+struck with paralysis, and it was at first doubtful whether he would
+recover. In the midst of all this sorrow I had the trouble of losing my
+faithful servant, Mrs. Stahl, who took all the care of the
+school-children off my hands. Her husband had found more lucrative work
+at Singapore, and sent for her to join him. It was a grief to both of
+us, and a great addition to my responsibilities. Mrs. William Channon,
+then a widow, was installed matron of the school, but she had neither
+knowledge nor experience. She did as well as she could, with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>continual
+supervision. The sick children now came to me to be doctored early every
+morning. I also had a large sewing-class of boys, and a tailor to teach
+us how to cut out and make their peculiar-shaped clothes: however, we
+soon learnt to do without the tailor. Mrs. Hacket taught the little ones
+to sew, and I had the elder ones from seven to ten every morning.
+Sometimes I gave a music lesson between whiles; sometimes I had to leave
+them for a while, first to see what the cook had brought from the bazaar
+for their day's food, and to give out the rice which was kept in my
+store-room; also the cocoa-nut oil, which trimmed the lamps of both
+house and school. Sometimes I read aloud to my boys, stories from
+history. They could understand English quite well.</p>
+
+<p>While our spirits were at their lowest ebb, and the rain still pouring
+with little intermission, we had a visit from H.M.S. <i>Esk</i>, Sir Robert
+J. McClure captain. He did his best to cheer us. How kind and bright he
+was I shall never forget, nor how he used to sit patiently under a tree
+in the rain to be photographed, simply to amuse us. There are certainly
+some people who have more of the wine of life than others, and who are a
+wonderful refreshment to their friends. It was during this year, 1858,
+that we built our seaside cottage at Santubong&mdash;Sandrock Cottage, as we
+called it, which sounds rather cockney; but as it stood on the sand,
+with great boulders of granite rock scattered about, it seemed the most
+appropriate name. Santubong <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>is the most beautiful of the two mouths of
+the Sarawak River, but not as safe as the Morotabas for ships to enter.
+The Bishop had a mission yacht this year; consequently he was away,
+visiting the mission stations. The next year he sailed the <i>Sarawak
+Cross</i> to Labuan. The voyage took only one week either way, whereas in
+other years he had to go to Singapore, more than four hundred miles off,
+in order to get to Labuan by P. and O. steamer, or any man-of-war
+chancing to go there. Months instead of weeks were consumed by this
+means.</p>
+
+<p>Our cottage took three weeks to build. We sent three men down with a
+thousand palm-leaf attaps for the outside walls and roof, and thirty
+mats to make inner walls. The men went into the jungle and felled wood
+for posts and rafters, then nibong palms were split into strips for the
+floors. The whole building was tied together with rattans, like all
+Malay houses. There were three rooms, twelve feet by fifteen each, and
+two little bath-rooms. A verandah ran along the whole length of the
+front, and this was planked to prevent little feet from slipping
+through. But the rooms were covered with thick mats, and the floor was
+so springy it danced as you moved. We put very little furniture into
+these rooms, and the inside walls were only eight feet high, so that
+though you could not see into the next room, you could hear all that
+went on in all three rooms. The cook-house and servants' room were
+separate.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>As early as the year 1848, the Rajah had a little Dyak house built on
+high poles, under the mountain of Santubong. It was an inconvenient
+little place, into which you climbed up a steep ladder&mdash;only one room, in
+fact, with a verandah; but we spent some happy days there, for the
+beauty of that shore made the house a secondary consideration. A small
+Malay village nestled in cocoa-nut palms at the foot of Santubong; in
+front lay a smooth stretch of sand, and a belt of casuarina-trees always
+whispering, without any apparent wind to move their slender spines. The
+deer in those days stole out of the jungle at night to eat the sea-foam
+which lay in flakes along the sand, and wild pigs could often be shot in
+a moonlight stroll under the trees. In the morning, we used to set off
+as soon as it was light to a fresh spring in the jungle, where we took
+our bath. Dawdling along the edge of the waves, then quite warm to our
+bare feet, with towels and leaf buckets in our hands, we reached the
+little stream, running under the shade of tall trees in which the
+wood-pigeons were cooing. How delicious and fresh that water was! and
+every sense was charmed at the same time, unless some stinging ants
+walked over our feet, which was not uncommon.</p>
+
+<p>Then we trudged home again, with the wet towels folded on our heads to
+shield us from the sun, who by that time was an enemy to be shunned.</p>
+
+<p>A little colony of Chinese were settled here in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>1852, but they never
+took to the place; the soil was perhaps not good enough for their
+gardens. In 1857 the Malays fell upon them and killed them all, because
+they were of the same tribe as the rebels, although they had nothing
+whatever to do with the insurrection. When we were building our cottage
+on the sands two Chinese skulls were dug up. We were all indignant at
+this wanton cruelty, but unable to resent it, except by the expression
+of our opinion, for the English were a mere handful of individuals in
+Sarawak.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes"</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> The Dyaks believe there is a special place in the other
+world, after death, for those who are killed by the fall of a durian.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/t-plant.jpg" width="150" height="118" alt="decorative triangle" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/l-radish.jpg" width="496" height="113" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV.<br />
+<small>THE MALAY PLOT.</small></h3>
+
+<p>Our cottage at Santubong was a source of much pleasure to many people.
+We often lent it to invalids, sometimes to newly married couples, who
+certainly had a good opportunity of studying each other's characters and
+tastes in that lonely solitude.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes we sent down all the children from the school, who wanted
+sea-air and a holiday. Indeed, when we were staying there, we always had
+relays of children to play on the sands and enjoy themselves. We had a
+place staked round with strong hurdles, where we could bathe in safety
+from sharks and alligators, who both infested the coast. I have often
+seen quantities of jelly-fish and octopus sticking on the outside of the
+hurdles: they sting dreadfully, so they were quite welcome to stay
+there.</p>
+
+<p>During one of our visits to Santubong I remember a timber-ship lying off
+the mouth of the river, to lade planks from a saw-mill which was on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>the
+other side. One day three sailors came ashore to fill a cask with fresh
+water; there was a spring among the rocks close to the water's edge. As
+they neared the shore, the three men jumped into the sea for a swim; but
+suddenly, one of them threw up his arms and disappeared. In vain his
+comrades searched for him, but the next day his body, partly devoured by
+a shark, was thrown upon the rocks. No doubt he was seized and dragged
+under water. His comrades were much distressed, for he was a favourite
+among the crew. Frank buried him, and helped the men to put a wooden
+cross on the grave.</p>
+
+<p>In the north-west monsoon we sometimes went to Buntal, a bay on the
+other side of the mountain of Santubong. No soul resided there, but it
+was the resort of great flocks of wild-fowl at that season. We rowed
+into the bay while it was still high tide, then left the boat; and our
+men made little huts of boughs some distance from the shore, where we
+could sit without being perceived. As the tide ebbed the birds
+arrived&mdash;tall storks, fishing eagles, gulls, curlew, plover, godwits,
+and many others we did not know. They flew in long lines, till they
+seemed to vanish and reappear, circling round and round, then swooping
+down upon the sand where the receding waves were leaving their supper. I
+never saw a prettier sight. The tall storks seemed to act like
+sentinels, watching while the others fed. At a note of alarm they all
+rose in the air, flew about screaming, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>then settled again on the
+sands in long lines, the smaller birds together, the larger ones in
+ascending rows. At last, alas! a gun fired into their midst caused death
+and dismay. A few fell dead, and the rest fled to some happier shore,
+where no destroying man could mar their happiness. And there are many
+such spots in Borneo where no human foot ever trod, and where trees,
+flowers, and insects flourish exceedingly; where the birds sing songs of
+praise which are only heard by their Maker, and where the wild animals
+of the forest live and die unmolested. There is always something
+delightful to me in this idea. We are apt to think that this earth is
+made for man, but, after many ages, there are still some parts of his
+domain unconquered, some fair lands where the axe, the fire, and the
+plough are still unknown.</p>
+
+<p>While we were at Santubong, in 1859, we were distressed to hear that Mr.
+Fox and Mr. Steele, two Government officers in charge of a fort at
+Kenowit, had been murdered by some Dyaks, whom they were judging in the
+court-house. We were very grieved for our friends, especially for Mr.
+Fox, who was for two years with us as catechist in the mission, and only
+left because he could not make up his mind to be ordained. However, he
+was most faithful in the performance of his duties at that lonely fort,
+and most blameless in his life; we could only regret the loss of so good
+a young man. We did not at that time connect this event with any general
+enmity to Englishmen among the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>natives, but only thought that
+particular tribe of Kenowits were not to be trusted.</p>
+
+<p>It was really a much more serious matter. Mr. Charles Johnson went up to
+Kenowit directly, taking the Bishop's yacht, the <i>Sarawak Cross</i>, as his
+floating fortress. He sent a thousand Dyaks to attack the fortified
+village of the Kenowits, who were engaged in the murders. These Dyaks
+were repulsed, but he led them on again himself with two hundred Sarawak
+Malays, good men and true. They took a brass gun overland to the
+village, and pounded them for a day; then the Malays and Dyaks attacked
+and fired the place, and took it.</p>
+
+<p>There were many killed, but it was their own fault; for, before
+attacking, a flag of truce had been hoisted, and all who would were
+invited to submit, and promised their lives, but only a few women and
+children availed themselves of it and were saved. Tanee the brave was
+killed, and Hadji Mahomet. It was found that these traitors had spread a
+report that all the English at Sarawak and at Labuan, as well as at
+Bunjermassin, had been killed, and this was so thoroughly believed that
+the Kenowits thought they had only to kill Mr. Fox and Mr. Steele, in
+order to possess themselves of the arms and goods in the fort with
+impunity. It was true that the Malays at Bunjermassin had risen upon the
+Europeans there, and killed twenty Dutch officials and their families;
+also four of the German missionaries living among the Dyaks, and a Mr.
+Mattley, with his wife and three children, who used <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>to live at Labuan.
+The Dutch took summary vengeance for this massacre, but in spite of that
+the Malays at Coti killed the Europeans who lived there; so that
+neighbouring countries showed a bad example to our people, and we were
+afraid that religious fanaticism might have something to do with the
+hatred to Christians, whether Dutch or English.</p>
+
+<p>In every country there are unfortunately some bad men, who are
+irreclaimable by kindness or severity. Such were the two who instigated
+a plot to murder all the English in the Sarawak territory, and take the
+Government to themselves. The oldest and most shameless of these men was
+the Datu Patinghi of Sarawak, and to tell his story I must go back to
+the early days of Sarawak. When Sir James Brooke first visited Mudah
+Hassim, the Malay Rajah, he found him endeavouring to put down a
+rebellion among his subjects. After a time Sir James Brooke helped him
+with the guns of his yacht and the services of his blue jackets. The
+enemy submitted, and then he begged their lives of Mudah Hassim. It was
+with very great difficulty this unprecedented favour was granted.</p>
+
+<p>Gapoor and his followers were pardoned, and when Sarawak was given over
+to Sir James Brooke by the Sultan of Bruni, it was naturally supposed
+that this man who owed his life to the English Rajah would remain his
+faithful friend and follower. He was made the chief datu, or magistrate,
+of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>whom there were three&mdash;the Datu Patinghi, the Tumangong, and the
+Bandhar. These Malay chiefs were members of the Council, and represented
+Home Department, War Office, and Treasury in the State. For some time
+all seemed to go well, but the Rajah soon found that the Datu Patinghi
+could not be restrained from oppressing the Dyaks under his charge,
+levying more than the proper tax, or obliging them to buy whatever he
+wished to sell, at exorbitant prices. His power over the Dyaks was
+therefore taken away, and a fixed income given him to preclude
+temptation. When the Rajah was in England, in 1851, this Datu intrigued
+with the Bruni Malays to upset the Government; he mounted yellow
+umbrellas, a sign of royalty, and arrogated power to himself which might
+have been mischievous had he been more popular with the natives. But he
+had many relations among the high Malays of the place, and it was a
+question whether they would resent his being publicly disgraced. Captain
+Brooke told them plainly that he must be exiled, but that it should be
+done in the most cautious way, and appearances should be saved. Datu
+Patinghi was therefore advised to go a pilgrimage to Mecca. Money and
+servants were supplied him, but he had no choice about it. We all hoped
+he would never return.</p>
+
+<p>About a year afterwards Sir James Brooke said to me, "Did you ever feel
+pleasure at hearing of the death of an old friend?" Before I could
+consider this knotty question, he added Gapoor had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>died of small-pox at
+Mecca. It was only a report, and proved untrue. Datu came back a hadji,
+but was desired to go and live at Malacca the rest of his days. In 1859
+he begged to be allowed to return to Sarawak, and, as it was hoped he
+could not be ungrateful for so much kindness and forbearance, he was
+permitted; but he was only biding his time. After his return to Sarawak
+he married his daughter to Seriff Bujang, the brother of Seriff
+Messahore, whose rascality and bad faith were on a par with his own.
+Bujang was a quiet creature enough, drawn into the wicked plots of his
+brother and father-in-law, but they were bad to the core. A Seriff is
+supposed to be a descendant of the Prophet Mahomet, at any rate he is an
+Arab, and Messahore was said to be invulnerable and sacred in his
+person. He was a fine, handsome creature, with insinuating manners, but
+there was nothing more to say in his favour. He was at the bottom of
+every disturbance in the country, but was cunning enough to keep himself
+in the background. Directly a plot miscarried, he came forward zealously
+to punish the wrong-doers.</p>
+
+<p>He instigated the murder of Mr. Fox and Mr. Steele; nay, it was intended
+to be a general massacre of all the English in Sarawak territory; but by
+a mistake of the Kenowits these two unfortunates were killed
+prematurely. The day had not arrived, and this led to the discovery of
+the plot. When Mr. C. Johnson went with an armed force to Kenowit,
+Seriff Messahore had already killed the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>fort men, who had only executed
+his own orders. For some time he, the guilty one, escaped detection. At
+last some Christian Dyaks of Lundu and Banting disclosed to their
+missionaries that Malays had visited them to say they had better turn
+Mahometans, for soon there would be no English left in the country.
+These stories being communicated by the Bishop to Mr. Johnson, he
+consulted the Malay members of the council and other trustworthy native
+friends, and it was evident they knew there was good reason for anxiety,
+as they advised all the English to wear firearms, even the ladies.</p>
+
+<p>At last the rumours of threats were traced to old Gapoor, the
+ex-Patinghi, and he was again banished the country by order of the
+council. Seriffs Messahore and Bujang, being connected with him by
+marriage, were also suspected. Messahore was warned that if he came to
+Kuching he would be treated as an enemy. Nevertheless he advanced up the
+river; his boat was greeted by a shower of balls, and he ignominiously
+fled. When the glamour was thus taken from him everybody was ready to
+divulge what they knew of the plot, and that a pension of six hundred
+rupees a year was promised to any one who would kill Mr. C. Johnson. The
+Rajah was in England, and known to be in bad health. Very few English
+men-of-war visited Sarawak at that time. Rumours were got up at Bruni
+that the Rajah was in disgrace with his own queen. This was the
+consequence of the commission of inquiry about piracy, which had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>taken
+place in 1858, by order of the English Parliament; for though the
+results of that commission thoroughly exculpated Sir James Brooke from
+any blame, there was never any <i>amende honourable</i> made for subjecting
+him to such an indignity. It was never understood by the natives as
+anything but a slur on the Rajah's character, and was a terrible injury
+to his prestige for a time. Indeed, it was the seed of the Malay plot;
+and if we had all been killed, our own English Government would have
+been the remote cause of our death. It is no doubt difficult for
+Englishmen to understand the feelings of Malays and Dyaks. We are
+accustomed in England to find fault with our rulers, and submit to them
+all the same. But in the East it is different: no breath of blame must
+touch the Rajah, nor can he be arraigned before any court, except the
+throne of God.</p>
+
+<p>Fatima, Seriff Bujang's wife, was an old friend of mine. She had always
+visited me from the time of our first arrival at Sarawak, and was then a
+very handsome girl, with a pale, clear complexion, and fine hair and
+eyes. We took a great interest in her marriage, and Seriff Bujang
+frequently came to our house. He was apparently fond of Mab, and liked
+to hear her tell fairy tales. Mab spoke Malay very well, and was always
+popular with the natives, to whom she would sing, dance, or relate
+Cinderella, the White Cat, or the Three Bears, etc. It was curious to
+see a grave-looking Malay sitting to listen to fairy stories; still more
+so when all the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>time he was party to a plot for the destruction of the
+household he visited. He was more weak than wicked; and two years after
+that he died. I had occasion to visit some Malays in his kampong after
+his death, and found poor Fatima bereft of all her ornaments and gay
+dresses, and working as a drudge in the house. Widows are little
+accounted of in Eastern households.</p>
+
+<p>To return to the events of October, 1859.</p>
+
+<p>A timber-ship, the <i>Planet</i>, was lying in the river, and Mr. Johnson
+requested that the women and children of the mission should be sent on
+board until the panic passed away, and the old Datu was got safely out
+of the place. The fort and Government House were manned and armed, and
+the rest of the Europeans sheltered there. The Hacket family went down
+at once, and in the evening we sent Miss McKee and the two youngest
+children with her; but Mab was ill of fever, and could not be moved. So
+the Bishop and I stayed with her, and ten Chinamen guarded our house.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Chalmers had come from Merdang with news that some of those Dyaks
+had joined the Datu Hadji, and also some bad Lundus, who had been
+punished for sedition four years before. We all sat up that night; but I
+was too much occupied with my sick child to be nervous about anything
+else. The night passed over without any rising of the disaffected, and
+the next day Gapoor consented to leave the country quietly, finding no
+chief Malays would stand by him, and to be taken in a Government
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>gunboat to a brig just leaving the river. Thus, through God's mercy and
+the loyalty of the people, no harm came of this plot, except that Mr.
+and Mrs. Hacket decided to leave the mission, not being strong enough to
+stand such alarms. They went to Malacca, where he became Government
+chaplain, and died there of consumption, after some years' service.</p>
+
+<p>The heat of Sarawak climate was so injurious to our child Mab, who had
+frequent attacks of fever, that as soon as the place was quiet again, we
+resolved to pay another visit to England. The Bishop's health was much
+shaken, and the doctors at Singapore ordered him home at once. But it
+was winter, and we were afraid of taking our children too quickly into
+the rigorous cold of England; therefore we took a passage in the
+<i>Bahiana</i>, a steamer which had brought out a telegraph cable to lay
+between Singapore and Batavia, and having accomplished her purpose, was
+returning empty to England. The Bishop went with us as far as Bombay,
+and then took P. and O. boat to England; whilst we called first at
+Mauritius, then at the Cape of Good Hope, staying some days at each
+place, and at the latter adding several passengers to our small party.
+We proceeded very happily until we were within a day's steam of the
+Island of St. Vincent, off the coast of Africa; then the great crank of
+the steam-engine snapped in two, and we had to sail. It took us ten days
+to beat up to the island, for a large screw <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>steamer was never intended
+to be propelled by sails.</p>
+
+<p>We began to have gloomy forebodings of the time which must elapse before
+we could reach England, sailing at this rate, when we saw, lying in the
+roads at St. Vincent, a very large West Indian steamer on her way home.
+It was difficult to communicate with this ship, because she lay in
+quarantine, yellow flag flying; and we did not know whether she had
+yellow fever on board or not. Our captain, however, called us all
+together, and said, "I hoped to have found some provisions in this
+island, to add to our stores; but I find there is nothing." The island
+seemed just a bare rock, with one solitary palm-tree growing by the
+office door, and not a blade of grass. It was difficult to imagine what
+provisions there could be, except the coal left by ships to supply
+passing steamers. "It will be necessary," added Captain Grenfell, "that
+some of you should go home in the <i>Magnolia</i>, West Indian steamer, for
+we have not food on board for all, and cannot expect to be less than
+another month reaching England under sail: therefore you must each of
+you decide to-night what you will do; and if you choose to go home in
+the <i>Magnolia</i>, I will pay your passage. But I ought to tell you that
+probably there are cases of yellow fever on board that ship; for it is
+the time of year when it is rife at the South American stations."</p>
+
+<p>Here was a problem to solve in the night! Should I take my children on
+board a ship where <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>there was probable infection, or should I subject my
+husband to harassing anxiety about us for a whole month? In the morning
+I decided to go home in the <i>Magnolia</i>; and I was rewarded when we
+climbed up into that great ship, with two hundred passengers on board,
+by finding that there was not a single case of yellow fever, or anything
+infectious. We had a delightful ten days' passage, stopping a few hours
+at Lisbon, but not allowed to land, and then straight to Southampton. My
+only regret was leaving Captain Grenfell, who had been so kind to the
+children all the way.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Bahiana</i> took just a month to get to England from St. Vincent.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/t-vase.jpg" width="150" height="116" alt="decorative triangle" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>PART III.</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/l-weeds.jpg" width="500" height="114" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XV.<br />
+<small>THE CHILDREN'S CHAPTER.</small></h3>
+
+
+<p>In 1861 we again returned to our Eastern home, leaving our three
+children behind, and taking only our baby girl for companion. What a
+difference it makes in India, to "leave the children behind!"&mdash;a common
+fate indeed for parents, but not the less to be deplored. We used to
+think and speak of Sarawak as home until 1861; but ever after, we spoke
+of going home to our children, for where the treasure is there must the
+heart be also. To do the work so that the time might pass quickly and
+peacefully, to live upon the mails from England, to carry on two lives
+as it were, one in the present, the other in the pictures our English
+letters presented&mdash;such at any rate was my fate, though my husband was
+too true a missionary to feel as I did.</p>
+
+<p>Most of our old Sarawak friends had either died or gone away when we
+returned in '61, but the mission grew more and more interesting as
+Christian Churches sprang up on the Dyak rivers. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>Four new missionaries
+came out soon after our arrival. Mr. and Mrs. Ab&egrave;, Mr. Zehnder, Mr.
+Mesney, and Mr. Crossland, the two latter from St. Augustine's College,
+Canterbury, from whence had formerly come those two good men, Mr.
+Chalmers and Mr. Glover. They had both gone to Australia on account of
+their health, but the teaching of Mr. Chalmers had left its mark among
+the land Dyaks of Murdang and the Quop, so that Mr. Ab&egrave;, who was
+afterwards placed on that station, reaped the harvest which had been
+sown with many prayers two years before. Mr. Mesney succeeded Mr. Glover
+at Banting, and its many branch missions; and Mr. Crossland went farther
+off, to the Dyaks, on the Undop, where he eventually built a church and
+gathered a little flock of Christians about him. Mr. Richardson came as
+catechist about the same time, and after staying a short time at Lundu,
+built himself a house among the Selaku Dyaks at Sedemac, in the country
+towards Sambas. He was much beloved by those simple people, who speak
+quite a different language to the Lundus. They exerted themselves to
+build their own church of substantial balean-wood, and their women
+learnt to pray as well as the men. "To learn to pray" is the Dyak
+description of a Christian. "What will you do," asked a missionary, "to
+bring those around you to Christ?" "I will teach them to pray," was the
+answer. And surely this is the great distinction between the Christian
+and the heathen&mdash;the one has communion with his Father in heaven, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>an
+all-powerful, wise, and loving Friend; the other may cherish some vague
+belief and worship of an unknown God, but has neither love nor trust to
+carry him above this world's troubles and trials.</p>
+
+<p>Another baby was added to our family in May, 1862, whose mother died at
+her birth. This little one stayed with us only seventeen months, and was
+a great happiness to me; then Sir James Brooke took her to England.
+However, it was a pleasant chapter as long as it lasted.</p>
+
+<p>Julia, one of our original school-girls, became very useful to me at
+this time. We had taken her home with us in '59, and sent her to a
+training-school for teachers in Dublin, so that she was quite competent
+on our return to take the management of the girls' school. We had eight
+girls in the house, and a few day-scholars from the town. Lessons used
+to go on in a room on the basement, where of course I was
+superintendent, and they learnt sewing in the afternoon. Julia was a
+very gentle mistress, and I was feeling very happy about my girls, when
+I found to my sorrow that Julia had an admirer, and I must make up my
+mind to part with my child who had lived with us since she was four
+years old. Such natural events must not be considered trials, but the
+difficulty of replacing her was insuperable. I was obliged at last to
+send my girls to Mrs. Ab&egrave;, at the Quop Station, for I was too often away
+in the mission-boat with the Bishop to keep them at the mission-house.
+This was not until 1865, however. Poor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>Mildred felt parting with "her
+girls," as she called them, very much, and often said, "Mamma, if Sarah
+and Fanny might come back we would never, never quarrel any more." Are
+not such pricks of conscience common to us all when our dear ones leave
+us? But the past never returns!</p>
+
+<p>In 1863, the Bishop built a charming little yawl for mission work. The
+<i>Fanny</i> was just suited, from her light draught of water, to cross the
+bars of the rivers, and she was a very good sea-boat too. Not only was
+she wanted to take the Bishop on his missionary, tours, but she brought
+the missionaries to Sarawak when, they came for ordinations, or the
+annual synod; also when they were sick, and required medical aid or
+change. Very few clergymen know much about the management of boats, and
+native crafts are very unsafe, so that until the Bishop had a yacht many
+accidents used to occur, not actually dangerous, for the natives swim
+like fishes, but drenchings and loss of goods from the upsetting of
+boats. In the north-east monsoon <i>Fanny</i> was thatched over and laid
+snugly up a creek, but all the south-west monsoon she was very useful;
+and no one wanted to travel about, if they could help it, during the wet
+tempestuous weather which prevailed from November to March.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop paid his annual visit to Labuan in any steamer which happened
+to be going. We had the great advantage of frequent visits from an
+English gunboat, for the admiral of the Chinese seas had orders from
+England to tell off one gun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>-boat for the two stations of Labuan and
+Sarawak. This arose from our being also blest with the presence of an
+English consul. But after he and his wife had remained two years at
+Sarawak, they were heartily tired of the dulness of their lives, and did
+their best to get removed to a more stirring station. However, the
+recognition of England gave confidence to native traders and security to
+the well disposed, so that there ensued a time of peace such as we had
+not experienced during our former sojourns in the country.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="school" id="school"></a>
+<img src="images/school.jpg" width="600" height="393" alt="group of school children" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 600px; margin-top: 0.75em;">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="names of school children">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc" style="width: 50px;">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdc" style="width: 100px;">Tommy.</td>
+<td class="tdc" style="width: 75px;">Fanny.</td>
+<td class="tdc" style="width: 75px;">Mary.</td>
+<td class="tdc" style="width: 75px;">Mab.</td>
+<td class="tdc" style="width: 70px;">Sarah.</td>
+<td class="tdc" style="width: 75px;">Nietfong.</td>
+<td class="tdc" style="width: 80px;">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="capright"><i>Page</i> <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>I think the history of our life during these years may be partly told by
+the letters I wrote to my children at home, or extracts from them; so
+that this may be called the children's chapter.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="sigblock"><small>Sunday before Easter, 1862.</small></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My darling Mab</span>,</p>
+
+<p>I am glad you are not here, for it is very, very hot, and you
+would probably have a bad headache. Julia is sitting in the
+verandah teaching Polly, Sarah, Fanny, and Phoebe the Easter
+hymn for next Sunday. Ayah is walking up and down with Mildred,
+and Louis Koch is running about, making her laugh. I must tell
+you how we spend the day. Papa gets up at five, and takes a
+ride on his pony. I make the tea at six, and cut bread and
+butter for Ayah and Julia, and Samchoon, one of the boys who
+has had fever and wants feeding up. The bell calls us to church
+at seven, but I don't go till the afternoon. The gardener
+brings <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>me a tray of flowers, and I make the nosegays for the
+day. Then I go downstairs and see the butter made. The boy
+brings in a great jar of milk, with which he mixes some warm
+water; into this he puts a long piece of bamboo, with cross
+pieces fixed in it like the spokes of a wheel. This he twirls
+round and round in the jar till the butter comes. Then he takes
+it out with his black hands, and I carry it off and wash and
+salt it. We only get five ounces now at a time, though there
+are six cows in milk; but the calves are such miserable little
+things they have to be helped first, and fed with rice-gruel
+also. The butter finished, I go up to the sewing-class, who are
+very busy making their Easter clothes, both boys and girls; and
+I help them with my sewing-machine until half-past ten, only
+running away twice&mdash;once to see what the school cook has
+brought for their breakfast, and then to order our own. Then we
+all bathe and breakfast, and Ayah goes away for two hours for
+her breakfast and midday nap; and I take care of Mildred, which
+is, I own, the hardest part of my day's work, for the little
+restless thing will never let me sit down, and is up to all
+sorts of mischief. At two o'clock Ayah comes and sings Mildred
+to sleep, with the same old tune of "Doo doo baby" which you
+used to sing to your dolls. I think in the next box I have from
+home you might send your old friends Sarah and Fanny a doll
+each, and dress them yourself. Our Malay Tuan Ku was here the
+other day and asked after you; he remembered your Malay fairy
+tales.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="hr1" />
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span><span class="smcap">My beloved Child</span>,</p>
+
+<p>Our letters were very welcome last Sunday, <i>Easter Sunday</i>,
+telling us good news of you all. Our church was very gay with
+flowers and moss ferns; and the font was filled with large pink
+water-lilies, whose beautiful round green leaves, a foot wide
+at least, looked quite lovely round the white shell font. All
+holy week and Easter Monday and Tuesday we had full service at
+seven o'clock in the morning, papa preaching a short sermon
+from the altar. It was delightfully cool at that hour, and
+began the day so pleasantly. I always love Easter, when all our
+dear ones seem to be gathered to us in Christ our Lord, whether
+those in Heaven or those far away&mdash;all one family, and Christ's
+children through God the Father's love and mercy. I have been
+very busy. The school-children had all new clothes for Easter.
+We worked diligently for three hours every morning. The jackets
+were made of the Irish gingham I brought from home. This week
+is holiday, and Julia and I have had a fine wash, and have
+clear-starched the Bishop's sleeves and ruffles&mdash;such a
+business! My hand aches to-day with lifting the heavy
+smoothing-iron, which is not iron, but a large brass box,
+hollow and filled with hot charcoal. We shall get more used to
+it in time. Mrs. Stahl used to do it. Now she is gone it is
+quite impossible to let the Kling Dobie touch papa's sleeves;
+they would soon be torn to ribbons. I gave the school a treat
+on Easter Tuesday. They had two soup-tureens full <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>of syllabub,
+plum cake, and pine-apple puffs. My cook stared when I said,
+"Make forty large pine-apple puffs." However, they were for his
+own countrymen&mdash;he is Chinese. I thought at first he understood
+English, for he always said "Yes" to my orders; but it was his
+one word. After the school-children had finished off with fruit
+and native cakes, they had, what they like best of all,
+quantities of crackers, which filled the house with the smell
+of gunpowder, and frightened baby Mildred out of her sleep.
+Good-bye.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="hr1" />
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="sigblock"><small>July, 1862.</small></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My precious Mab</span>,</p>
+
+<p>Thank you for your note, written on the 4th of May, which I
+received the other day. I always rejoice to think of you in the
+springtime, because, like other young things, you enjoy the
+opening buds, flowers, and sunshine after the long grave
+winter. But winter is a good friend, although he has a grave
+face; we should be all the better for a visit from him out
+here. My garden is now as full of flowers as it will hold; Mrs.
+Little brought me so many new ones from Singapore. I have a
+very gay nosegay every morning, and still, leave flowers to
+adorn the beds outside. We have turned out some of the
+fruit-trees to make more room for flowers. This morning I have
+sown a quantity of blue and purple convolvulus, which only
+display their beauties to those who rise early before the sun
+closes their blossoms; but we have <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>flowers which only open at
+night, the moon-flower, and night-blowing cereus, both white
+and fragrant. Dr. Little has been travelling about the country
+looking for new plants. He and Mr. Koch went to the top of the
+mountain of Po&egrave; near Lundu. It was so cold six thousand feet
+above the level of the sea, that they had to supply the natives
+who went with them with blankets. At the very top of the
+mountain they found a new orchid growing on the ground, a
+bright yellow flower, with streaks of magenta colour inside.
+Dr. Little picked some of the blossoms, and dug up one hundred
+roots, two of which he gave me; but they will not live in my
+garden, they want mountain air. He also gave me the dead
+flowers, and asked me to paint a picture of one from his
+description and the faded blossom. I did it as well as I could,
+but I fear it was not very good, and, after all, the flower was
+not nearly as pretty as a bunch of laburnum in England. They
+also found growing on the roots of a tree that strange fungus
+flower described by Sir Stamford Raffles in his book on Java
+and Sumatra&mdash;a yard wide across the petals, brilliantly
+coloured red, purple, yellow and white, and, in the hollow of
+the flower (nectarium), capable of holding twelve pints of
+water, the whole weighing from fifteen to twenty pounds; for it
+is a thick fleshy flower, not frail and delicate as one likes a
+flower to be. It is very curious and gorgeous, but as soon as
+it is fully expanded it begins to decay and smells putrid. Sir
+James Brooke once found a <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>specimen of this gigantic flower in
+the jungle, and sent it to me to look at; but it had lost all
+its beauty in the journey, and I held my nose as I looked at
+it. The Dyaks said, "It is an auton" (spirit), which is their
+explanation of anything they never saw before. The natives of
+Sumatra call it "The Devil's sirih-box."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> Are you as fond of
+frogs as you used to be? Last week, some people were dining
+with us. I had just helped the soup, and, letting my hand fall
+upon my lap, picked up one of your friends who had settled
+himself there. Not knowing at first what the cold clammy thing
+was, I jumped up, and everybody else jumped up too, to see what
+was the matter; for it might have been a snake, you know!
+Good-bye.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="hr1" />
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="sigblock"><small>December 1, 1862.</small></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dearest Mab</span>,</p>
+
+<p>Uncle told me of your walk with him to West Hyde Church, and
+how you made believe to get to Sarawak and see mamma walking in
+the verandah. You are much better off in the cold December air
+of England, than you would be in this sultry place, for all its
+green beauty and never-failing flowers. I had rather you
+carried the roses in your cheeks than have them in the garden
+all the year round. Last month papa went to visit the Quop
+Mission, where Mr. and Mrs. Abi and their little baby, and your
+old Ayah Fatima, live.<span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> To get there he goes down the Sarawak
+River and up the Quop River, then lands at a Malay village,
+from whence there is a walk of three or four miles, up and down
+pretty hills and across Dyak bridges, and over paths made of
+two bamboos tied together, with a muddy swamp on either side.
+Then you come to the mission-house which papa has built, and to
+Mr. Chalmers' old house, which at present serves as the church,
+and to some long Dyak houses. Papa baptized twenty-four men,
+women, and girls, and confirmed nineteen people who had been
+baptized by Mr. Chalmers. The old Pangara, one of the principal
+chiefs, was baptized, and three of his grown-up sons, and one
+little grandson whom the old man held in his arms. We had made
+white jackets for the baptized, but the old Pangara had not
+quite made up his mind, fearing the ridicule of the other
+elders of the tribe, till papa talked to him; so there was no
+jacket for him, and papa gave him a clean white shirt, round
+the skirt of which we tied his chawat, a very long waist-band
+which wraps round and round the body, and that was all! no
+trousers, and very funny he looked; but papa was too rejoiced
+at his becoming a Christian, to laugh at him. These people will
+all be Christians soon. They come to Mr. and Mrs. Abi, morning,
+noon, and night, to be taught, and there are two daily
+services; so the missionaries have plenty to do. Two of our old
+school-boys, now grown up, are catechists there, Semirum and
+Aloch. There is much love between the people and their
+<span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>teachers; they are so happy at the Quop they never want to
+come away. However, I have asked the Abis to come for a
+fortnight at Christmas, and bring their poor little baby to be
+fattened on cow's milk. There are no cows at the Quop.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="hr1" />
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="sigblock"><small>January, 1863.</small></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My beloved Children</span>,</p>
+
+<p>As I cannot have you with me this Christmas and new year, I
+must comfort myself as best I may by writing you an account of
+all we have been doing, and how we have tried to fancy
+ourselves in old England amidst the frost and snow,
+notwithstanding the bright sunshine and perpetual green of our
+Eastern home. When we woke before daylight on Christmas morning
+the school boys were singing under our windows, "When Joseph
+was a-walking he heard an angel sing," so we got up and looked
+out, wishing the children a happy Christmas. Then we dressed,
+for there was a great deal to do. Papa had many services in
+church, Chinese, English, and Dyak. I had the wreaths to make.
+The church had been decked with moss fern the day before, but
+the flowers must be added in the morning, or they would be
+faded. So Julia and I made a crown of French marigolds to hang
+on the cross over the altar, two large wreaths for either side,
+and one at the west end made entirely of the golden allamanda,
+in the buds of which you used to imprison fire-flies when you
+lived here. The font was <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>adorned all over, in preparation for
+the baptisms to take place in the morning service. At half-past
+eleven we all went to church, and after the Litany there were
+sixteen Dyaks from Murdang, six Chinamen, and six little
+children baptized. Mr. Koch read the service in Malay, and papa
+baptized. It was a beautiful sight. The children, four of my
+little girls, and two small boys from the school behaved very
+well, and looked pretty in their new clothes. But they all
+understood something of why they were sprinkled with the
+blessed water, for we had been teaching them for some time, and
+Limo told me on Christmas Eve, that "our Saviour came into this
+world a little child, to teach us to be good; and when He had
+blessed them in their baptism, they must take pains to do all
+He desired them." I thought this pretty well for a beginning.
+Ambat always repeats what Limo says, so I do not know how much
+is her own: she is Limo's sister. Ango and Llan, the other two
+girls, have been taught by Miss Rocke, who has given them to
+me; they know but little, but are gentle children. The school
+had a feast at five o'clock, beef curry (papa had an ox
+killed), salt pork, rice, and a huge plum-pudding. They had
+newly white-washed their dining-room the week before, and
+decked it with boughs, so that it looked very nice with six
+lanterns hanging from the roof. They played there while we were
+at dinner, and the Christian Chinese feasted at Sing Song's
+house. Julia had her little party in her school-room, and
+dinner from our table: <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>some of the grown-up schoolboys and
+Polly. We had Mr. and Mrs. Koch, Mr. and Mrs. Owen, Mr.
+Zehnder, and Mrs. Crookshank at our table. Papa counted that
+ninety-seven people were fed on the mission premises on
+Christmas Day. After dinner we had a bonfire in the hollow
+below our hill, between the house and the church. Quantities of
+dry bamboo had been collected there, which threw up columns of
+sparks, and lit up all the under leaves of the trees, making
+the dark sky and the young moon look so far far away. Then the
+boys began with crackers and rockets. Baby Agnes was not
+frightened, but poor Mildred could not sleep for terror. Every
+rocket made her call out "Bumah," and hide her face on my
+shoulder; however, she got used to it at last. Christmas is the
+time of year which belongs especially to children, because our
+Lord Jesus Christ then deigned to become a little child. We
+forget what happened to us when we were very young&mdash;even a
+mother does not know all the feelings, little troubles, ardent
+wishes and desires of her little ones&mdash;but it is impossible
+that our Saviour can ever forget. He knows exactly all that
+belongs to the daily life of a child, not only because He is
+God and knows everything, but because He was once a child
+Himself, and remembers all the joys and sorrows of His
+child-life in the cottage at Nazareth; and so children are very
+dear to Him&mdash;He listens to their prayers, accepts their
+praises, and watches over them always. Remember, my darling,
+that He is <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>your best friend; to Him you may tell all your
+little troubles and confess all your faults, for He is very
+pitiful and of tender mercy.</p>
+
+<p>I gave my school-girls a box of dominoes and a set of
+draughtsmen with a board for their Christmas present. They play
+very well. All the sewing-class boys, too, had each a
+present&mdash;either a knife, or belt, or box or basket to keep
+their treasures in, or a head-handkerchief; but the Sarawak
+bazaar does not furnish many desirable things, even for
+school-boys. H.M.S. <i>Renard</i> has arrived since I wrote thus
+far, and we have had the boat races, which always take place in
+January. Eleven of our school-boys won the boys' race, pulling
+against Inchi Boyangs' school, the Mahometan school, and some
+other boats. We dressed our boys in white and blue, and they
+pulled beautifully. Papa had taught them to pull all together,
+when they went to mission stations with him, and they are
+really good paddlers. They disdained the short course marked
+out for the boys, and pulled all the way out to the
+winning-post, a boat anchored near the wharf, round it, and
+back again, winning by two boats' lengths. They won five
+dollars, and papa added two more; they gave some of the money
+to their school-fellows, and celebrated their victory by
+singing all the evening so nicely, and hurrahing at the end of
+each song. They are good boys, and much happiness to us.
+Good-bye.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnote:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The real name is <i>Rafflesia Arnoldi</i>. See page 343, vol.
+i., "Raffles' Life and Journals."</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/l-mint.jpg" width="500" height="105" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI.<br />
+<small>ILLANUN PIRATES.</small></h3>
+
+
+<p>I have described in a former chapter the habits of the Dyak pirates of
+Sakarran and Sarebas, and how, after being punished by Sir James Brooke
+when they were caught at the entrance of their river, with captives and
+plunder in their boats, they were required to live at one with their
+neighbours, and to study the arts of peace. Happily for them, they had a
+wise and paternal Government to repress their vices, and, after a time,
+Christian missionaries to teach them the fear and love of God. But the
+Malay pirates who lived on the islands and coasts of North Borneo were
+governed by sultans who encouraged piracy, and insisted on sharing their
+spoils; moreover, they are Mahometans by religion, and that is not a
+faith which teaches mercy or respects life. To this day, therefore,
+these Illanuns remain pirates. They have larger prahus and carry heavier
+guns than the Dyaks, and nothing can exceed their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>cruelty. When we
+lived at Kuching there was scarcely a Malay family there who had not
+suffered from them, either by the loss of relations or property; for
+they are naturally a trading people.</p>
+
+<p>It is a common practice for a party of men to join together in hiring a
+boat in which to venture goods or gold-dust by trading on the coast, or
+even to Singapore three hundred and sixty miles away, These small and
+comparatively unarmed boats fell an easy prey to the pirate prahus, who
+went out in fleets.</p>
+
+<p>The Spaniards and the Dutch were every now and then roused to search the
+seas for these pests of the human race, but they were so cunning they
+generally evaded them. At last they had a signal lesson. In the year
+1862, Captain Brooke, then governing Sarawak in his uncle's absence,
+decided to go to Bintulu on the north-west coast of Borneo, a territory
+which had lately been ceded to the Rajah by the Sultan, and build a fort
+on the river, to check piracy and protect the peaceable inhabitants who
+were settling there on the promise of such protection. For this purpose
+he took the <i>Rainbow</i>, a small screw steamer of eighty-nine tons and
+thirty-five horse power; and the <i>Jolly Bachelor</i>, a Government
+gun-boat. The Bishop accompanied him, to see what missionary prospects
+there were in that distant spot, also because he was at that time
+anxious about Captain Brooke's health. Mr. Helms, the manager of the
+Borneo mercantile company, accompanied them as far as Muka, where <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>was
+an establishment to collect sago for exportation. On the second day
+after his arrival, a piratical fleet of Ilanuns, consisting of six
+large, and as many smaller vessels, appeared on the coast, and blockaded
+the town. For two days they remained off Muka, capturing there, and on
+the coast southwards, thirty-two persons.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Helms persuaded Hadji Mataim and a few natives to start in a fast
+boat and apprize Captain Brooke; and this boat, though chased by the
+pirates, got safe to Bintulu. Hadji Mataim got alongside the steamer
+early on Thursday morning, while it was still dark, and the Bishop,
+recognizing his voice, called him on board. He delivered a letter from
+Mr. Helms, asking for help. Steam was got up directly, the Chinese
+carpenters who were to build the fort were landed, and the guns which
+had been brought to protect it were put on board, as well as the fort
+men who were to man the fort, that they might strengthen the crew. With
+the first dawn of light the <i>Rainbow</i> steamed over the bar taking the
+<i>Jolly Bachelor</i> in tow, and steered for Muka.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile all preparation was made for fighting. Planks were hung over
+the railing to raise the sides of the poop where there were no bulwarks,
+and mattresses were laid inside to receive the shot and spears of the
+enemy; this doubtless saved the lives of several of the crew. There were
+eight Europeans on board, including the captain of the <i>Rainbow</i> and his
+mate, the engineer, Captain Brooke, Mr. Stuart Johnson, Mr. Hay, Mr.
+Walters, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>and the Bishop. As soon as there were any wounded, Mr. Walters
+assisted the Bishop in his work of mercy. The Bishop always carried a
+medicine chest and case of surgical instruments wherever he went; and,
+happily, a large sheet had been packed among his things this voyage,
+which was speedily torn up into bandages. Now all was ready, but it was
+not until Friday morning that they sighted what looked like three large
+palm drifts to seaward off Tanjong Kidorong, to the north-east of the
+British River. They proved to be three large prahus, with their masts
+struck, and bristling with men, who were rowing like the Maltese,
+standing, and pushing for shore, casting off their sampans<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> one by one
+to make better way. Hadji Mataim recognized the sampan which chased and
+fired at him when he slipped away from Muka. Brooke then asked one of
+the chief officers of the Sarawak Government, who was on board, and
+Pangeran Matussim of Muka, if they were perfectly sure that these prahus
+were Illanuns? "Not a shadow of doubt," they said. So they loaded their
+guns and prepared for action. The leading prahu was going almost as fast
+as the steamer herself, and though steam was put on, and every effort
+made to get between her and the Point, the prahu won the race, and got
+into shallow water where the steamer could not follow; then she opened
+fire on the steamer, which was returned with interest. This prahu had
+three long brass <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>swivel guns, and plenty of rifles and muskets. As she
+was beyond the reach of the steamer, Captain Brooke turned to the second
+prahu, which was now fast nearing the shore. His plan was to silence the
+brass guns by the fire of the rifles on board the steamer, and shake the
+rowers at their oars by a discharge of grape and round shot; then to put
+on all steam and run at them with the stem of the <i>Rainbow</i>. This was
+done with great coolness by Captain Hewat when Captain Brooke gave the
+order; the steamer struck the prahu amid-ships and went over her. Those
+on board called to the slaves, and all who would surrender, to hold on
+by the wreck until the boats could take them off; then they steamed away
+after the third prahu, which had already got into two-fathom water and
+was struck too far forward to sink. All the pirates in her jumped
+overboard and swam for shore, leaving their own wounded, the slaves, and
+captives, who were also bid to remain by their vessel till they were
+rescued.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the first prahu, seeing the fate of the others, ran ashore
+among the rocks inside Tanjong Kidorong; and all the crew, pirates, and
+slaves ran into the jungle. Had the captives known better they would not
+have run away. The <i>Jolly Bachelor</i> was left to look after these
+runaways, and then the captives of the other two prahus were helped on
+board the steamer. Several of the crew of the <i>Rainbow</i> recognized
+friends and acquaintances among the saved; and the joyous, thankful look
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>of the captives, as they came on board and found themselves among
+friends, was indeed a compensation for the awful destruction of the
+pirates. Many were wounded, either with shot or the fearful cuts of the
+Illanun swords of the pirates, who tried to murder their captives when
+they saw all was lost. The Bishop was dressing one man who was shot
+through the wrist, when he spoke to him in English, and after pouring
+out his gratitude for his wonderful escape, said he was a Singapore
+policeman, and was going to see his friends in Java when he was
+captured. There were also two Singapore women, and a child, and two
+British-born Bencoolen Malays, who were taken in their own trading boat
+going to Tringanau. The husband of the younger woman had been killed by
+the pirates, and she, like all women who fall into their hands, had
+suffered every outrage and insult which could be offered her. They were
+almost living skeletons. One was shot through the thigh, and after the
+Bishop had dressed her wound, Mr. Walters said quaintly, "Poor thing,
+she has not meat enough on her bones to bait a rat-trap." It is a wonder
+how the poor creatures lived at all, under the treatment to which they
+were subjected. When the Bishop asked some of the men whether their
+wounds hurt much, they answered, "Nothing hurts so much as the salt
+water the Illanuns gave us to drink. We never had fresh water; they
+mixed three parts of fresh with four of salt water: and all we had to
+eat was a handful of rice or raw sago twice a day." Very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> few of the
+pirates who were not wounded surrendered. They are marvellous swimmers:
+took their arms with them into the water, and fought the men in the
+boats who were trying to pick up the captives. The Bishop and Mr.
+Walters were fully occupied doctoring friends and foes, arresting
+hemorrhage, extracting balls, and closing frightful sword or chopper
+wounds. One man came on board with the top of his skull as cleanly
+lifted up by a Sooloo knife, as if a surgeon had desired to take a peep
+at the brain inside! It took considerable force to close it in the right
+place. This man had also two cuts in his back, yet the next morning he
+was discovered eating a large plate of rice, and he ultimately
+recovered. Another poor fellow could not be got up the ladder because he
+had a long-handled three-barbed spear sticking in his back: the Bishop
+had to go down and cut it out before he could be moved.</p>
+
+<p>While all this was going on, the captives told Captain Brooke that there
+were three more pirate vessels out at sea, waiting for those near shore
+to rejoin them; as soon, therefore, as the steamer had picked up as many
+captives as she could find, she steamed out to sea in search of them.
+After an hour, the look-out from the mast-head reported three vessels in
+sight. It was then a dead calm, and they were using their long sweeps,
+when they were seen from the deck, to arrange themselves side by side,
+with their bows towards the steamer; but, a breeze springing up, they
+hoisted sail, spread <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>themselves out broadside on, and opened fire on
+the <i>Rainbow</i> as soon as she was within range, so that there was no
+question as to whether these were pirate prahus or not. The same plan
+was followed as in the case of the other boats, and with more success,
+as there was no shore to escape to.</p>
+
+<p>The pirates had secured their captives below the decks of the prahus,
+but when the steamer struck them and opened their sides, they were
+liberated. But few of them were drowned, being all good swimmers; but
+some were killed by the pirates in their rage and despair, and some had
+been lashed to the vessel and could not therefore escape.</p>
+
+<p>One poor Chinaman came swimming along, holding up his long tail of hair
+lest he should be suspected to be a pirate; other men held up the ropes
+round their necks, to show they were captives. The deck of the steamer
+was soon covered with those who had been picked out of the water, men of
+every nation and race in the Archipelago, who had been captured during
+this cruise, which had lasted seven months. These vessels left
+Tawi-Tawi, an island to the south-west of Sooloo, in October. The Sultan
+of Sooloo is in league with the pirates, and receives part of the
+plunder and slaves. In the only boat boarded by Captain Brooke was found
+the Sultan's flag, which is only given to people of high rank; also the
+usual Illanun flag, six Dutch, and one Spanish flag, which no doubt
+belonged to vessels they had captured. The men who were saved gave
+details of the taking of two <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>large vessels&mdash;one a Singapore prahu
+trading to Tringanau; the other a Dutch tope, of one hundred and fifty
+tons, on the coast of Borneo to the south of Pontianak. There they fell
+in with five other Illanun boats, which had come down from the
+northward&mdash;they themselves were going up from the southward. The
+new-comers told them of a merchant vessel near at hand, and proposed
+they should join them in capturing her, which they did. She had a
+valuable cargo, worth ten thousand dollars. They killed everybody on
+board, plundered and burnt the vessel. Only the one Chinaman escaped who
+told this tale. The captives stated that this was the usual proceeding
+if resistance was made. When they spare their captives' lives, they beat
+them with a flat piece of bamboo over the elbows and knees, and the
+muscles of arms and legs, until they are unable to move; then a halter
+is put round their necks, and, when they are sufficiently tamed, they
+are put to the oars and made to row in gangs, with one of their own
+fellow-captives as overseer to keep them at work. If he does not do it
+effectually, he is krissed and thrown overboard. If these miserable
+creatures jump into the sea they spear them in the water. They row in
+relays, night and day; and to keep them awake, cayenne pepper is rubbed
+into their eyes or into cuts dealt them on their arms.</p>
+
+<p>The masts of these prahus are very small, so that they may not be seen
+at a distance. They go very fast. Those encountered by the <i>Rainbow</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>
+were seen off Datu on Monday night, and on Friday morning they were near
+Bintulu, a distance of two hundred and forty miles, although they had
+delayed nearly two days at Muka, picking up thirty people on the coast.
+Most of these were recaptured and returned to Muka. On reckoning up, it
+was found that one hundred and sixty-five people had been rescued, and
+perhaps one hundred and fifty or two hundred had got away from the
+vessels sunk on shore. In every pirate prahu were from forty to fifty
+Illanuns, and from sixty to seventy captives, many of whom were killed
+by the pirates when they found themselves beaten, among them two women.
+Nine women and six children were saved; seven of the women belonged to
+Muka or Oya. Of the Illanuns, thirty-two were taken alive; ten of these
+were boys. Some died afterwards of their wounds; some were taken to
+Kuching in irons, there tried, and some of them executed. They died the
+death of murderers; but Captain Brooke gave the boys to respectable
+people to bring up, hoping they might be reformed. We had one young
+fellow, about fourteen years old, when he had been cured of his wounds
+in the hospital. I kept him about me, and used to teach him; but he
+could not be tamed. He turned Mahometan, and left us to be employed at
+the fort; but there he stole money, and had to be sent elsewhere. The
+nature of an Illanun pirate seems almost unmixed evil, because they are
+taught to be cruel from their childhood.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>There were two circumstances in this affray with the Illanuns which
+called for thankfulness on the part of the victors. First, that they met
+the pirates in two detachments, which enabled them to attack them
+successfully, without the danger of their boarding the steamer, which,
+from their numbers, would have been fatal to the little party on board
+the <i>Rainbow</i>. Secondly, that their ammunition lasted through the two
+engagements. It was quite finished; only a little loose powder in a
+barrel, and a few broken cartridges, remained when the last prahus were
+taken. Had they fallen in with another fleet, they would have been at
+their mercy. Almost while I write these last words, we have received a
+letter from the present Rajah of Sarawak&mdash;Charles Johnson Brooke. He
+says, "I have heard this morning that one of our schooners has been
+captured by the Sooloo pirates, and the crew murdered." The last twenty
+years have not therefore altered the character of these people, and
+their extermination seems the only remedy for the misery they inflict on
+their fellow creatures.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Small boats.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/t-leaf.jpg" width="150" height="117" alt="decorative triangle" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/l-padi.jpg" width="500" height="113" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVII.<br />
+<small>A MALAY WEDDING.</small></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p><span class="smcap">My darling Mab,</span></p>
+
+<p>I am sitting in a darkened room, while Mildred is having her day sleep;
+and as I am thinking of you, I may as well begin a letter for next mail.
+Last week I went to a Malay wedding, the first I ever attended, although
+I have been here so many years. It amused me very much; so I shall try
+to describe it to you.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the morning the bridegroom's friends came to beg flowers from
+our garden. Then papa told them I would go to the wedding, and they
+said, "Be sure not to be later than twelve o'clock." Accordingly, Mr.
+and Mrs. Ricketts, the British Consul and his wife, Mr. Zehnder, and I
+set off in two boats, after eleven o'clock breakfast; but we need not
+have got there before two o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>Eastern people set little value on time. They would just as soon sit
+cross-legged on the floor smoking for three hours as for one. The bride
+is <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>the daughter of one of the first merchants in the place, Nakodah
+Sadum, and the bridegroom is the grandson of the old Datu Tumangong,
+whom you may remember. A handsome young man is Matussim, and
+enlightened, for a Malay. He made his betrothed a present of his
+photograph last year. Formerly Malays objected to having their portraits
+taken, fancying it a breach of the second commandment.</p>
+
+<p>The bride's father's house was gay with flags and streamers, and in
+front of it lay, by the river's brink, four small cannon, which had been
+busy, for days before and all that morning, saluting the occasion. We
+walked up into the house, which was full of guests. A long verandah,
+lined with hadjis and elders, all smoking and talking, led to the
+principal room, which, unlike any Malay house before built in Sarawak,
+had large Venetian-shuttered doors all round, and was therefore cool and
+airy. There was a little round table, and some armchairs covered with
+white mats for the expected guests, in the middle of the room. Sadum and
+his wife came forward and greeted us very cordially, and then we were
+told to sit down on the chairs. I looked about for the bride, and saw a
+crowd of women in one corner, and a boy holding a gilt umbrella over the
+young lady, who was being shaved. A woman with a razor was shearing her
+eyebrows into a delicate line, and all round her forehead trimming
+disorderly hairs. Four women, seated on their heels in front of her,
+were fidgeting over her <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>face; she, impassive as a log in their hands. A
+vast deal of singing and drumming went on all the time, a row of
+musicians keeping it up all round the room. The girl was washed; then
+her hair, magnificent black hair down to her heels, knotted in two great
+bows on either side of her head. Over these, gold ornaments like wings
+were fixed, and a little tower of gold bells above them. Then the women
+painted a black band round her forehead, and added a silver edge to it,
+also painted. Her eyebrows were likewise touched up, and her skin rubbed
+all over with yellow powder. Poor child! she was a curious figure by the
+time it was all finished, and her skin must have felt painfully stiff.
+She was then attired in very handsome silk robes, ornamented with solid
+gold, and the attendants carried her to a raised dais or bed-place at
+one end of the room. There she sat, not daring to lift her eyes until
+the bridegroom's arrival.</p>
+
+<p>The divan was gorgeous with silk curtains and cushions embroidered with
+gold thread and embossed with tinsel ornaments, the work of the bride
+herself. The seat for the bridegroom was somewhat higher and larger than
+the bride's. At last the bridegroom approached in a large barge, which
+held about two hundred people. A small boat preceded it with three guns,
+which kept up a deafening noise as he drew near. He was carried up the
+steps, and the house door was shut to in his face, according to the
+Malay custom. Then he begged admittance very humbly, and after paying a
+fee of <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>five dollars, was admitted. His followers rush in first&mdash;such a
+clatter! Greetings, welcomes, jokes, and laughter, make a Babel of
+noise; everybody speaking at once. Then a cloth was laid down for the
+bridegroom to pass over, and he was pulled with apparent reluctance into
+the room, panting and shutting his eyes as if exhausted. His head was
+wreathed with Indian jessamine. He was naked to the waist, except a gold
+scarf over one shoulder; otherwise he had plenty of gold and red silk
+about him. He was pulled up to the bride, turning his head away as if he
+was ashamed to look at her, and dropped a red silk handkerchief over her
+face for a moment. Then he sat down on the divan, and all the old women
+of both houses sprinkled the couple with yellow rice, and rubbed their
+foreheads with some charm, which looked like a bit of stone and a
+nutmeg-grater, and wished them all kinds of luck&mdash;but especially that
+they might be the parents of <i>sons</i> only. After the young people had
+endured this long enough, the curtains were let down round the dais, and
+only two or three old women kept going in and out. We found they were
+taking off all the finery, and dressing the bride and bridegroom in
+their usual clothes; for while we were drinking coffee and eating Malay
+cakes at the little table, they came out from the curtains, looking
+quite pleasant and natural. So we shook hands, made our congratulations,
+and bade them adieu. We got home at four o'clock, very hot and tired,
+and papa laughed <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>at us for going; but I was glad I did for once in a
+way.</p>
+
+<p>A wedding is a very serious expense to Malays of any rank. The
+bridegroom has to make settlements on the bride, and the bride's father
+has to keep open house for weeks, besides fees to the hadjis, and
+gunpowder <i>ad libitum</i>. The religious part of the ceremony is enacted
+some days before the marriage. One day papa was calling at a Malay
+house, where a wedding was about to take place, and found the bridegroom
+learning a passage in the Koran, in Arabic, which he could not
+translate, but which it was necessary he should repeat. A hadji was
+standing by, driving the words into his head. The hadji could not
+translate it either; but the Koran may only be read in Arabic, lest it
+should be desecrated. Sometimes papa would read a chapter to any Malay
+who desired to understand the meaning of his sacred book; but they were
+generally content with learning it as a charm, or certain parts of it.</p>
+
+<p>The Rajah often made a present of an ox for a great man's wedding. This
+was a great help, for many dishes of curry could be made out of so much
+meat. When we wished for some meat at Christmas and Easter, we sent for
+the Mahometan butcher to kill the animal. He turned its head towards
+Mecca, repeated prayers over him, and then cut his throat in such a way
+that no drop of blood was left in the flesh; for the Malays hold to the
+Jewish law in that as well as many other <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>particulars. Then the people
+would buy whatever beef we did not want ourselves; but not otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>This is a long letter, but as I am on the subject of weddings, I may as
+well tell you about a Chinese wedding we had the other day at our house.
+The bridegroom was Akiat, a carpenter, about six feet two inches high.
+He was dressed in whity-brown silk, which made him look like a tall
+spectre; and the bride was Quey Ginn, a fat, dumpy little girl of
+sixteen, the Chinese deacon's daughter, and one of my scholars. She did
+not choose her old husband of fifty years, but her parents arranged it,
+and Akiat paid one hundred dollars for his wife. I went to see her the
+day before the wedding, and she showed me all her clothes and ornaments;
+but I thought she did not look as if she cared for them. So I whispered,
+"Are you happy, child?" "No, not at all," burst out Quey Ginn. "I don't
+want to be married and leave my parents." Whereupon I could not help
+taking her in my arms and comforting her, telling her to be a good wife,
+and she would soon learn to be content. She has been to visit me since
+her marriage, and I am amused to see that she is quite a little woman,
+instead of the shy girl she used to be; and, whereas as a girl she was
+never allowed to be seen in the streets, or even to go to church, she
+now does exactly as she likes, and, I am happy to say, comes regularly
+to church. These people were all sincere Christians. Akiat was the
+Chinese churchwarden, and, as papa <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>esteemed them very highly, he
+allowed the breakfast to take place at our house.</p>
+
+<p>I had a cake made for the occasion, which Quey Ginn cut up with much
+pleasure. The ring in it fell to Mr. Zehnder's share, which amused him
+also. Good-bye. </p></div>
+
+<p>It was this year, 1865, that Mr. Waterhouse, the chaplain of Singapore,
+came to visit us. The doctors often sent us a patient or friend to be
+under the Bishop's care, and for rest and change; the latter was the
+cause of Mr. Waterhouse's visit, and six weeks of jungle life did him
+good, while his society and sympathy were a great pleasure to us, the
+Bishop especially. The Bishop took him to visit the different mission
+stations, and he often spoke to me with satisfaction of the "real
+mission work" he witnessed at Banting, Lundu, and the Quop. At each of
+these stations he found a consecrated church and a community of
+Christian people; whilst the missionaries set over them, not only
+instructed and ministered to the tribe among whom they lived, but
+journeyed to outlying places, founding branch missions and setting
+catechists to work under them. I find in one of my letters, when Mr.
+Waterhouse returned from Banting, he said, "I cannot but admire the
+patience with which Mr. Chambers talks all day, morning, noon, and
+night, to every party of Dyaks, who march into the house whenever they
+like, making it quite their home: it is what very few people could do
+day after <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>day." This is the trial of Dyak teaching. You cannot appoint
+specific hours for instruction. People come when they can, sometimes
+long distances. They can never be denied, except you are actually at
+meals, and then they sit down and wait till the eating is over. Here is
+a programme of a day at Banting:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>By seven in the morning Mr. Chambers goes to one or another Dyak house
+to teach. These houses contain many families under one roof. The people
+understand now that teaching is the sole object of Mr. Chambers' visit,
+so, when he enters, all who are at leisure gather round him. He returns
+home to eleven o'clock breakfast. After breakfast his school of boys
+occupies him for the afternoon; but every party of Dyaks who come in
+must be listened to, and, if they are willing, instructed, taught a
+prayer, a hymn, a parable, or some Scripture lesson. This goes on till
+five o'clock, when the bell calls them to daily prayers, and they all
+walk together down the beautiful jungle avenue to the pretty church. A
+short service, in which the Dyaks respond heartily, and a catechizing
+follows, during which they are allowed to ask questions of their
+teacher. Then an hour's rest before dinner. But immediately after dinner
+more Dyaks, sometimes a whole house, <i>i.e.</i> forty or fifty persons, come
+in, and have coffee, and pictures, and a lecture. All this does not
+happen every day, but most days during what we call the working season,
+from March till October, and no doubt so much talking and so <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>little
+leisure is very fatiguing. But then comes the harvest, and afterwards
+the wet monsoon, and the schools fall off, and the Dyaks no longer come
+from a distance to be taught. It is sufficiently dull and lonely then in
+the jungle stations. The sea runs too high for boats to bring mails, or
+books, or provisions; the rain falls heavily, and with little
+intermission, and food becomes scarce. Mrs. Chambers told me that the
+prayer for daily bread, which seems to us to relate to the daily needs
+of our souls for the bread and water of life, bore a literal meaning to
+them in the north-east monsoon, when the day's food was by no means
+certain. Rice they had, it is true; but English people get nearly
+starved upon rice alone, without fish, meat, or bread. It was therefore
+with sincere thankfulness that they welcomed a chicken, however skinny,
+in that season.</p>
+
+<p>After the Banting expedition, the Bishop took Mr. Waterhouse to Lundu,
+and Mr. Hawkins, a missionary lately come out, went with them. They
+arrived on a Saturday. On Sunday there was a great gathering of
+Christian Dyaks: fifty-two people were confirmed, eighty received the
+Holy Communion, so that they were more than three hours in church, the
+Bishop preaching to them in Malay. On Monday Mr. Waterhouse and Mr.
+Hawkins paid a visit to a beautiful waterfall, about two miles from the
+town; and on Tuesday all the party, Mr. Gomez included, went in boats
+forty miles up the river Lundu, with three hundred Dyaks, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>to tuba fish.
+The Bishop had paid the Dyaks to collect tuba the week before. It is a
+plant found in the jungle, the root of which washed in water makes a
+milky-looking poison. It does not make the fish unwholesome to eat, only
+intoxicates them for the time, so that they rise floundering about on
+the surface of the water, but it destroys human life, and is the poison
+chosen by Dyaks who commit suicide, though I do not believe that this
+crime is common among them.</p>
+
+<p>When the party had ascended the river far enough, the Dyaks built a hut
+for the English to sleep in. They made a floor of logs of wood, spread
+over with the bark of trees, which, beaten down hard, made a capital
+mattress on which to lay their mats and pillows. The kajangs (leaf mats)
+off the boat made some shelter from the weather, although it takes a
+good deal to keep Borneo rain out! The Dyaks were much too busy to go to
+sleep at all: they drove stakes all across the river to secure their
+fish, then they beat out the tuba in the bottom of their boats. It took
+all night, by the light of torches, to do this; and a wild sight it was,
+in the midst of the solemn old jungle. Very early in the morning, when
+the tide was at its lowest ebb, they put the tuba into the river; the
+flood coming up, and bringing plenty of fish, encountered this
+intoxicating milk, and carried over the stakes a whole shoal of dead and
+tipsy fish. Then the Dyaks, darting about in little boats, speared the
+big fishes, and caught the small ones in landing-nets.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>Hundreds of fish were caught, and the Dyaks had a grand feast; also,
+they salted quantities, in their nasty way&mdash;pounding the fish up,
+letting it turn sour, and then packing it into bamboos with salt, as a
+relish to eat with their rice. Certainly it has a strong flavour! They
+all camped two nights in the jungle, then returned to Lundu, and reached
+Sarawak in the yacht <i>Fanny</i>, after an absence of ten days. We had a
+visit from H.M.S. <i>Scout</i> about this time, and one day sat down sixteen
+to dinner in the mission-house, some of the officers having come up to
+spend the day. It is difficult to improvise a dinner in a country where
+no joints of meat are to be had, unless you kill an ox for the purpose.
+Sheep there are none. A capon or goose, or a sucking pig, are the only
+big dishes, and not always to be had. However, we did very well, and our
+visitors were delighted with Sarawak, and with the schoolboys' singing;
+for I had them up to sing glees and rounds, and "Rule Britannia," after
+dinner. Captain Corbett was so pleased with the little fellows that he
+invited them all to see the ship the next morning. Accordingly our
+largest boat took the choir down very early to Morotabas, where the
+<i>Scout</i> lay, and Captain Corbett took them all over it himself, even
+down to the screw chamber. The boys had never seen so large a man-of-war
+before (1600 tons), so they were delighted. Some Dyaks who went with
+them were much terrified lest they should be carried off to sea, for the
+captain ordered "up anchor," that the boys <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>might see how it was done,
+and then sent them off the last minute. They came home in high glee.
+Only those who live at the ends of the earth can tell what a pleasure
+and refreshment is a little visit from her Majesty's ships from time to
+time. The whiff of English air they bring with them, and the hearty
+English enthusiasm which has not had time to evaporate, is most
+reviving.</p>
+
+<p>Many Chinese Christians returned to China this summer. I hope they
+carried the good seed of the word of life with them. They are only birds
+of passage at Sarawak: when they grow rich they prefer to spend their
+money in their native country. Our Chinese deacon took his family for a
+visit to their Chinese relations. Even the married daughter went with
+them; and a few days afterwards, Akiat, her husband, came to tell me
+that he was so wretched without his wife, that he should go to Singapore
+for the few months of her absence, to while away the time, and he meant
+to have a nice new house ready for her on her return.</p>
+
+<p>Voon Yen Knoon deserved a holiday, certainly, for he worked hard among
+his countrymen, besides teaching every day in the school. Three evenings
+every week were devoted to the instruction of the Chinese, at the
+mission-house. Two distinct languages were spoken by the different
+tribes of Chinese who had settled at Sarawak. They could not be taught
+together. The people of the Kay tribe came on one evening, the Hokien
+another, each having their own interpreter. On the third <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>evening the
+interpreters were instructed in the lessons for the following week. On
+these nights our long dining-room was full of Chinamen, and a large tray
+of tiny cups of tea was carried in, and consumed before the teaching
+began.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/t-sun.jpg" width="150" height="115" alt="decorative triangle" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/l-sunflo.jpg" width="500" height="112" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVIII.<br />
+<small>LAST YEARS AT SARAWAK.</small></h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Chalmers' Merdang Dyaks once said to him, "See how many races of
+people there are: Dyaks, Malays, Klings, Chinese, English. They have all
+different religions: this is proper, for God has given to each the
+religion suited to them."</p>
+
+<p>I remembered this ingenious remark when I was reading Mr. Helms's
+interesting book, just published, "Pioneering in the Far East." He says:
+"Like most barbarous and savage nations, the Dyak identifies his gods
+and spirits with the great phenomena of nature, and assigns them abodes
+on the lofty mountains. Though, in his opinion, all spirits are not
+equally malignant, all are more or less to be dreaded. The silent
+surroundings of prim&aelig;val forests in which the Dyak spends most of his
+time, the mountains, the gloomy caves, often looming mysteriously
+through cloud and mist, predispose him to identify them with
+supernatural influences, which in his imagination take the form of
+monsters <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>and genii. With no better guide than the untutored imagination
+of a mind which in religious matters is a blank, who shall wonder that
+this is so? I have myself often felt the influences of such
+surroundings, when dark clouds deepened the forest gloom, and the
+approaching storm set the trees whispering: if, at such a moment, the
+shaggy red-haired and goblin form of the orang-outang, with which some
+of the Dyaks identify their genii, should appear among the branches, it
+requires little imagination to people the mystic gloom with unearthly
+beings."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Helms is quite right&mdash;the religion which springs from circumstance
+and surrounding nature is always one of fear; evil is so close to the
+heart of man that the very elements and mysteries of nature seem his
+enemies, so long as he is ignorant of the love of God. The great
+creating Spirit, whose existence is acknowledged by all Dyaks, inspires
+them with neither love nor trust; it is only malign spirits who are
+active, who concern themselves with his affairs, and threaten his
+happiness and prosperity, and who must therefore be propitiated. What a
+different aspect his native woods must present to the Christian Dyak,
+who can look around without fear, and believe that his Heavenly Father
+made all these things! You would imagine that Christianity would be
+welcomed as a deliverance from such superstition; but here the apathy of
+long habit raises a barrier. The Dyak who professed to think his dismal
+religion was given <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>him by God, was probably too intellectually idle to
+think at all. "What you say is most likely true, but we have received
+our belief from our forefathers, and it is good enough for us," is the
+common remark of the Land Dyak. This listlessness was perhaps originally
+caused by oppression and misery, a hard life and cruel masters. In the
+days we knew these people they had a sad and patient expression in their
+faces, as if they could not forget the time when they were ground down
+by Malay extortion, and despoiled by stronger, more warlike tribes. The
+present generation may have more spirit, more independence, and the
+blessings of peace and liberty may leave their minds more open to the
+light of truth. It is, however, interesting to note how different races
+of men develop different religious beliefs, and how these Dyaks
+intuitively perceive spirit through matter, and are governed, however
+blindly and ignorantly, by the powers of the unseen world.</p>
+
+<p>The orang-outang, or wild man, in not very commonly met in the jungle. I
+have seen the trees alive with monkeys, but never met an orang-outang at
+liberty. The Dyaks may well be afraid of them if it is true, as they
+say, that if one of these monsters attacks a man, he picks his flesh off
+his bones like a cook plucking a chicken. They are immensely powerful,
+but once caged are gentle enough. Their one desire in confinement is
+clothing, why I cannot tell; large-sized monkeys always wrapped
+themselves in any bit of cloth they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>could find, partly in imitation of
+their keepers, and perhaps also because they are very chilly creatures,
+and, deprived of their usual violent gymnastics, suffered from cold. A
+Chinaman had a female orang in his shop while we were at Sarawak, who
+took a violent liking to the Bishop, and always expected to be noticed
+when he passed the shop. Then she would kiss and fondle his hand; but if
+he forgot to speak to "Jemima," she went into a passion, screamed, and
+dashed about her cage.</p>
+
+<p>I never allowed any kind of monkey to be kept at the mission-house. We
+had too many children on the premises, and they are jealous and
+uncertain in their behaviour to children. Indeed I always regretted
+their being either shot or caged&mdash;they enjoy life so intensely in the
+jungle, and are so amusing, swinging themselves from the branches of
+tall trees, leaping, flying almost, in pursuit of one another for mere
+fun, that it was sad to put them in prison, where they never lived long,
+and where they only exhibited a ludicrous and humiliating parody on the
+habits of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>There was a race of monkeys at Sarawak called by the natives "Unkah,"
+from the noise they made, but which we called Noseys, for they had long
+noses which fell over their mouths, so that the large males had to lift
+their noses with one hand, while they put food into their mouths with
+the other. When we first lived in the country, and were anxious to send
+specimens of every new and curious thing to England, my husband shot one
+of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>these large monkeys for the sake of his skin, but he was so
+distressed at the look the beast gave him when he felt himself hit, he
+was so like his own uncle in England, who had rather a red face and long
+nose, that he resolved never again to shoot a monkey. This ape was
+clothed in long brown fur, while his legs were encased in much shorter
+hair of a tan colour, which gave the idea of leather breeches. I once
+saw a monkey's nest in a high tree. The tree was very bare of leaf or
+the nest might have escaped notice. It was formed of big sticks laid in
+a strong fork of the branches; and whether it was lined with anything
+softer could not be seen from below, but the sticks stuck out, covering
+a large space, which had no appearance of comfort or snugness.</p>
+
+<p>The one monkey I liked, and that at a distance, was the wa-wa, whose
+voice was very sweet and melodious, like the soft bubbling of water; but
+it was a very melancholy animal, and never seemed to possess the fun and
+trickishness of the more common sorts of ape. They are all delicate and
+difficult to rear, and invariably die of over-eating, or rather eating
+what is unwholesome for them, if they have a chance. It seems as if, in
+approaching the form of man, they lost the instinct of the brute. It was
+a great addition to the pleasures of life in Sarawak that there were no
+wild beasts to be feared in the jungles. When we were once staying at
+Malacca, and, for the sake of a natural hot spring, inhabited a little
+bungalow in the country, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>we were always liable to encounter a tiger in
+our walks; on Penang Hill, also, there was a large tiger staying in the
+woods. During one of our visits, we tracked his footsteps in a cave on
+the hill; and he carried off a calf from a gentleman's cow-house near
+us&mdash;at another time a pony from a neighbour's stable. Tigers do not,
+however, live at Penang: they occasionally swim over the strait from
+Johore, opposite the island, if driven by hunger. The natives made deep
+pits to catch them, with bamboo spears at the bottom to transfix them
+when they fall in. On one occasion a French Roman Catholic missionary
+fell into one of these tiger-pits, and remained there, starved and
+wounded, for three days before he was discovered. He was a very good
+man, and gave a wonderful account of his happiness, his visions of
+heavenly bliss while dying in that slow torture, for he was too far gone
+to be restored. He died rejoicing that he had known what it was to
+suffer with Christ.</p>
+
+<p>The last two years of our life at Sarawak, the Bishop's health failed
+and caused me much anxiety. The long jungle walks, which were so
+necessary in getting about from one mission to another, became more and
+more difficult to him. Often he had to stop and lie down under a tree
+till the palpitation of his heart abated; repeated attacks of Labuan
+fever affected his liver; and our friends often warned us that we ought
+to go home to save his life. The interest of the different missions
+increased so much at this time, that it seemed hard <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>to give up a post
+in which many trials and disappointments had been lived through, just as
+success seemed about to reward the years of patient labour. The peace
+and harmony of the mission was greatly promoted, the last three years of
+our stay, by an annual meeting of the clergy with their bishop. They
+came from their different rivers to spend a week at the mission-house,
+and for certain hours of each day met in the church to discuss
+missionary operations, Church discipline, religious terms, translations,
+etc. It was very desirable there should be no diversity of opinion in
+these matters, but that the different missions should have the same
+plans, uses, and customs. And these meetings, besides the importance of
+the subjects discussed, knit the missionaries to one another and all to
+the Bishop, promoting also that <i>esprit de corps</i> which strengthens any
+institution, be it school, college, or Church in a heathen country.</p>
+
+<p>A curious adventure happened to the Bishop in 1865. It was the rainy
+season, and the roads were saturated with water and full of holes,
+especially a new bit of road towards Pedungan, where sleepers of wood
+had been laid down, to steady what would otherwise have been a bog; but
+holes here and there could not be avoided. The Bishop always took a ride
+early in the morning, before seven o'clock service in church. That
+morning I had asked him to go to a house down that road, to inquire
+about a servant. He came home late, and covered with mud all down one
+side. "Papa has fallen," said <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>little Mildred, playing in the garden. At
+her voice her father seemed to wake up out of a deep sleep, and
+gradually he became conscious of a severe bruise on his face and pain in
+his head; but he could give no account of the matter, which was,
+however, explained by a Malay in the course of the day. This man was
+walking on the road to Pedungan, when he met the Bishop returning home.
+He saw the horse put his foot into a deep hole and come down, the Bishop
+also. He did not, however, at once fall off, not until the horse in his
+efforts to rise had inflicted a blow with his head on his rider's face.
+The Malay helped the horse up, which was not hurt, and the Bishop on his
+back; and seeing he was much stunned, he followed them for some way lest
+the Bishop should need assistance: but when they reached the town and
+seemed all right, he went back. All this time, however, the Bishop was
+perfectly unconscious; the horse carried him as he chose, over a ditch,
+up a steep bank, under low-hanging trees, and quite safely until he
+stopped at our own door. A headache and some stiffness were the only
+results of what might have been a fatal accident. We were very thankful
+to God for having sent His angel to guard steps as unconscious and
+heedless as any little child's could have been. No memory of what had
+happened ever came back to the Bishop.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr1" />
+
+<p>In 1866 the <i>Rifleman</i>, her Majesty's surveying ship, gave us a passage
+to Labuan, where the Bishop <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>wanted to hold a confirmation. This ship
+was going to Manilla, and from thence to Hong Kong, before she returned
+to Singapore, and, through the kindness of Captain Reed, we accompanied
+her. At Labuan I caught the fever of the country, but it did not come
+out for ten days, by which time we were at Manilla. We anchored off
+Manilla on Christmas-day evening: it had been a very wet day, but
+cleared up at night, and we sat on deck watching the lights on shore,
+and listening to the constant chimes of the numerous church bells,
+whilst the sailors sang songs and did their best to amuse us. It seemed
+so strange to be in a Christian country again.</p>
+
+<p>They have some customs at Manilla which I could not help admiring. When
+the Vesper bell rings at six o'clock, all business and pleasure is
+suspended for a few minutes, and all the world, man, woman, and child,
+say a prayer. The coachmen on the carriages stop their horses, the
+pedestrians stand still, friends engaging in animated conversation are
+suddenly silent. The setting sun is a signal for the heart to rise to
+God; it is a public recognition of His protecting care, and an act of
+thanksgiving. When it is over, the children ask their parents' blessing
+for the night. This was told me by a native of Manilla, an educated
+gentleman, who gave his children every advantage of learning and travel.
+The Vesper custom I saw for myself every time I took an evening drive.
+We witnessed a very gorgeous procession on the feast of the Epiphany.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>
+All the city functionaries, the military, the priests, bands of music,
+and a masquerade of the three kings on horseback, surrounded by troops
+of children beautifully dressed in white and scattering flowers, passed
+through the streets to a church, into which they all poured, the three
+horses riding in too, to attend high mass. I saw but little of Manilla,
+being ill nearly all the time. It is a place shaken to pieces by
+earthquakes. When we were there the great square, where the Government
+offices once stood, was a heap of ruins, and the treasury was too poor
+even to clear them away. The bridges were all broken in the middle, and
+patched up somehow; and all the rooms in the houses were crooked, the
+timbers of the walls being joined loosely together to admit of the
+frequent trembling, heaving, and subsidence of the ground, without their
+cracking. I believe the country all round was lovely, but I only took
+one drive when I was convalescent, and then we steamed away to Hong
+Kong. I shall say nothing about Hong Kong, for all the world knows what
+a beautiful place it is in winter&mdash;how bright and sparkling the blue
+sea, how clean and trim the streets, and how stately the buildings; also
+what a dream of loveliness is the one drive out of the town to the Happy
+Valley, where many an Englishman lies buried in the cemetery. I had a
+second bout of fever at Hong Kong. Happily for us, we found kind
+relatives both at Manilla and Hong Kong, who nursed me, and who were
+very good to us. We found it very cold there after stewing for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>six
+years in Borneo, and the Bishop caught a chill which made him ill all
+the rest of the way home. Had we thought when we left Sarawak in '66
+that we should never return there, it would have been a great trial to
+bid adieu to our old home, but we had no such intention. We were only
+taking Mildred to England, and seeking a necessary change for the
+Bishop's failing health. The knowledge that he would not be able to
+resume his work in the East dawned upon us by degrees. It was a great
+disappointment, but we were thankful that an English vicarage was found
+for us, where we could make a home for our children, and where the
+duties and pleasures of an English parish remained to us. It is,
+however, very pleasant, on a foggy day in November or February, to
+return in fancy to that land of sunshine and flowers; to imagine one's
+self again sitting in the porch of the mission-house, gazing at the
+mountain of Matang, lit up with sunset glories of purple and gold. Then,
+when the last gleam of colour has faded, to find the Chinaman lighting
+the lamps in the verandah, and little dusky faces peeping out, to know
+if you will sing with them "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," or the hymn
+about the "Purple-headed mountain and river running by," which must have
+surely been written for Sarawak children.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/l-radish.jpg" width="496" height="113" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIX.<br />
+<small>THE ISLAND OF BORNEO.</small></h3>
+
+
+<p>Borneo is so little known that a short account of it may be interesting.
+If any one will examine a map of Borneo they will see that it is a large
+island, in shape something like a box with the lid open. The interior of
+the square part of it presents almost a blank on the map, for the coasts
+only are known to the civilized world. Its greatest length is eight
+hundred miles, and its greatest breadth six hundred and twenty-five
+miles. Ranges of mountains through the centre of the island provide the
+sources of many fine rivers which are the highways of the country.</p>
+
+<p>The Dutch claim the south and south-west of the island. They have
+settlements at Sambas, at Pontianak, and at Banjermassin; and forts on
+the rivers, inhabited by Dutch residents, or Malay chiefs in their pay:
+but they have never won the hearts of the aborigines, for the Dutch
+maxim is always to get as much money as possible out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> native
+subjects, consequently they are every now and then obliged to send
+European troops to enforce the obedience of the Chinese and Dyaks to
+their rule. On the west of Borneo lies the little kingdom of Sarawak,
+about three hundred miles of coast line from Cape Datu to Point
+Kiderong.</p>
+
+<p>The Sultan of Bruni, who was the nominal ruler of all the north-west of
+Borneo, gave up this province to Sir James Brooke in 1841, "to him and
+his heirs for ever," on condition a small sum of money was paid him
+annually. The province consisted originally of "about sixty miles of
+coast, from Cape Datu to the entrance of the Samarahan River, with an
+average breadth of fifty miles inland;"<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> but from time to time the
+Sultan entreated Sir James Brooke to take the rule of one river after
+another beyond this province towards Borneo Proper, for, owing to his
+own weakness, and the rapacity of his nobles who governed in his name,
+no revenue came to him from those rivers, nor could he protect native
+trade, or secure the lives of his subjects from the extortions and
+covetousness of their Malay chiefs. So Sarawak grew, and peace, and
+justice, and free trade flourished where before there were only poverty
+and oppression. The country is traversed by fine rivers. The Rejang,
+four fathoms deep two hundred miles from the mouth, the Batang Lupar,
+and the Sarawak are the largest, and the great highways of the country;
+along the banks of which are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>cultivated clearings and Dyak villages,
+but beyond these extend dense jungle which even clothes the sides of the
+mountains. Besides the before-mentioned rivers are many smaller ones
+which are still noble streams&mdash;the Sarebas, Samarahan, Sadong, Lundu,
+etc. It is indeed a well-watered country, and only requires the industry
+of man to develop its riches.</p>
+
+<p>There are great mountain ranges to the north-west and through the
+interior of the island, and the natives speak of lakes of vast extent,
+with Dyak villages on their shores. But this is only tradition. There is
+a lake commonly reported only two days' journey from the foot of Kini
+Balu, a high mountain on the north-west, but no Englishman has yet trod
+its shores. The difficulties of exploring such dense jungles and
+mountain precipices as bar the way across Borneo are almost insuperable.
+I quote from Mr. Hornaday's recent lecture at Rochester. He says, "Owing
+to the peculiar and almost impassable nature of the country, Borneo has
+never been crossed by the white man. Travelling over some of the
+mountains seems to be an absolute impossibility. Many of them consist
+almost wholly of huge blocks of basalt, soft, moist, and too slippery to
+walk upon. I would rather attempt to cross the continent of Africa than
+the island of Borneo. The explorer must carry with him provisions enough
+to last both going and returning. The jungle affords nothing fit for
+human sustenance, and there are no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>inhabitants to supply the explorer
+with food. Fame awaits the man who will thoroughly explore the interior
+of the island."<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p>
+
+<p>Sir Spencer St. John, who has had more experience of Borneo jungles than
+any other Englishman hitherto, says, "As I have now made many journeys
+in Borneo, and seen much of forest walking, I can speak of it with
+something like certainty. I have ever found, in recording progress, that
+we can seldom allow more than a mile an hour under ordinary
+circumstances. Sometimes, when extremely difficult or winding, we do not
+make half a mile an hour. On certain occasions, when very hard pressed,
+I have seen the men manage a mile and a half; but, with all our
+exertions, I have never yet recorded more than ten miles' progress in a
+day, through thick pathless forests, and that was after ten hours of
+hard work. It requires great experience not to judge distance by the
+fatigue we feel."<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p>
+
+<p>It seems that the Sultan of Bruni has found out that the best way he can
+govern his subjects and gain a revenue without trouble, is by ceding
+parts of his territory to others. He has given over the whole of the
+north of the island to an English company, on condition they pay twelve
+thousand five hundred dollars for it annually. This country, embracing
+an area of twenty thousand square <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>miles, has fine harbours on its
+coasts very suitable for a commercial settlement. The great mountain of
+Kini Balu, nearly fourteen thousand feet high, with its range of lesser
+mountains, stands on the north-west, and between it and the sea lies a
+very fertile country, thus described some years ago by Sir Spencer St.
+John, in his "Forests of the Far East": "We rode over towards Pandusan
+in search of plants. From the summit of the first low hill we had a
+beautiful view of the lovely plain of Tampusak, extending from the sea
+far into the interior. Groves of cocoanuts were interspersed among the
+rice-grounds which extended, intermixed with grassy fields, to the
+sea-shore, bounded by a long line of Casuarina trees. Little hamlets lie
+scattered in all directions, some distinctly visible, other nearly
+hidden by the rich green foliage of fruit-trees. The prospect was
+bounded on the west by low sandstone hills, whose red colour
+occasionally showing through the lately burnt grass, afforded a varied
+tint in the otherwise verdant landscape. In the south Kini Balu and its
+attendant ranges were hidden by clouds."</p>
+
+<p>Here is another description after a day's journey towards the mountain:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"While reclining under the shade of cocoanut palms, we had a beautiful
+view of the country beyond. The river Tampusak flowed past us, bubbling
+and breaking over its uneven bed, here shallower and therefore broader
+than usual. To the left the country was open almost to the base<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> of the
+great mountain, to the right the land was more hilly, and Saduk Saduk
+showed itself as a high peak, but dwarfed by the neighbourhood of Kini
+Balu, whose rocky precipices looked a deep purple colour. The summit was
+beautifully clear. The people in this part of the country are called
+Idaan. They seem industrious and good agriculturists, even using a rough
+plough, and cultivating the whole valley; a rich black soil produces
+good crops of rice, and Killadis, an arum root used for food. They also
+grow tobacco."</p>
+
+<p>These people live too far from Bruni to be robbed by the Sultan and his
+nobles. The Lanuns who inhabit the north coasts are very warlike, and
+have always been pirates within the memory of man. They will not be easy
+subjects to deal with, nor will the Sooloos on the east coast, but if
+they can be reclaimed they may become an enterprising and fine people,
+like the Sarebas pirates of Sarawak.</p>
+
+<p>I hope the Company will have patience with the natives of this vast
+territory. They will probably <i>not work for wages</i>. Chinese labour must
+be depended upon, and as they are the most industrious people on the
+face of the earth, and will do anything for money, they are always
+available. But they require a firm government, and great care must be
+taken that they do not infringe on the rights of the natives or there
+will be quarrels and bloodshed. Tradition says that there was once a
+Chinese kingdom at the north of Borneo, whose chiefs married into the
+families of the principal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> Dyak chiefs; but it is the misfortune of the
+Chinese character to be both boastful and cowardly, and when they had
+irritated the Malays by their big words, they stood no chance of
+prevailing against them in war. If their enemies did not run away after
+the first attack and discharge of firearms, they were pretty sure to
+show them an example by doing so themselves. I speak of the Chinese
+fifty years ago; since they have had wars with Europeans they have
+learnt better to stand to their arms. But they were gradually
+exterminated by the Malays in these petty wars, and now all that remains
+of them is a trace of Celestial physiognomy in their Dyak descendants,
+and the knowledge of agriculture which they still retain.</p>
+
+<p>The Bruni Government protects no one. It is wonderful that any Chinese
+should still trade at a place where riches, however moderate, are sure
+to excite the cupidity of the Malay nobles, and to be transferred, under
+some pretext or another, to their own pockets. I rejoice to think that
+English rule and justice is now to be offered to the inhabitants of the
+North of Borneo. They expect an Englishman to be just and generous,
+brave and firm, and they ground this expectation on their knowledge and
+experience of Labuan and Sarawak, and the lessons which her Majesty's
+ships of war have from time to time impressed on the corrupt and
+faithless Bruni people. I trust this experience will never be reversed
+by unworthy agents or settlers. The climate is too tropical for
+colonization,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> no families of emigrants can be reared in such heat.
+There are, no doubt, more decided seasons in the north of the island
+than in the centre: it is hotter at one part of the year, and colder at
+another, than in the lands bordering on the equator, which are the rain
+nurseries of the world. A less fierce heat, but rain almost every day in
+the year, was our lot at Sarawak; and though it was very healthy for
+English men and women, it was not so good for crops: pepper and coffee
+prefer a drier climate.</p>
+
+<p>There will be one difficulty in the North Borneo settlement which will
+require wise handling. I mean the slaves which are the possession of
+every petty chief and every Malay family in the country. All pirates
+bring home fresh slaves from every expedition. This can be put an end to
+at once. But it will be as impolitic as impossible to put a sudden end
+to the state of slavery in which so large a proportion of the
+inhabitants will be found. In this respect I hope the North Borneo
+Company will take a leaf out of Sarawak experience. Sir James Brooke, as
+long ago as 1841, appealed to the English Government "to assist him to
+put down piracy and the slave trade, which," he said, "are openly
+carried on within a short distance of three European settlements, on a
+scale and system revolting to humanity."</p>
+
+<p>The exertions of Sir James Brooke and his nephews, aided occasionally by
+her Majesty's ships, have indeed nearly put a stop to piracy, and
+therefore to the kidnapping of slaves. Still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> the descendants of Dyak
+slaves remain the property of their masters. Besides these, there are
+slave debtors, whole families who have sold themselves to pay the
+accumulations arising from taxes or impositions of the Malays which they
+had no hope of repaying. Usury, which was the fountain of this evil, has
+been forbidden at Sarawak, and many are the slave debtors whom the
+Rajah's purse has freed.</p>
+
+<p>"Slavery in the East," says Mr. Low,<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> "has always been of a more mild
+and gentle character than that which in the West so disgusted the
+intelligent natives of Europe. The slaves in Borneo are generally Dyaks
+and their descendants, who have been captured by the rulers of the
+country to swell the number of their personal attendants. Their duties
+consist in helping their master, who always works with them, in his
+house or boat building operations, accompanying him in his trading
+expeditions, assisting in the navigation of his boats, etc. Their
+masters generally allot them wives from amongst their female domestics,
+and many of them acquire the affection and confidence of their
+superiors. The price of a slave in Sarawak is from thirty to sixty
+dollars, but as the trade is being as quickly repressed as possible,
+without too much shocking the prejudices of the inhabitants, they have
+of late become very scarce, and difficult to be bought. The price of a
+girl varies from thirty to one hundred dollars, but at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>Sarawak they are
+even more difficult than men to obtain." Thus wrote Mr. Low in the year
+1848. By this time, 1882, slavery is almost nominal at Sarawak. I read,
+in a <i>Sarawak Gazette</i>, six months ago, that Rajah Brooke had proposed
+to his Supreme Council, which consists of four Malays and two
+Englishmen, that slavery should be by law abolished in Sarawak
+territory. He had proposed this, he said, six months previously, and the
+Malay councillors present assented heartily as far as themselves and the
+people of Kuching were concerned, but they thought it would be desirable
+to give six months' notice to the outlying rivers and coasts, where the
+people were not as advanced in civilization as those at the capital. Now
+the six months had passed away, were they prepared to assent to the law?
+They again expressed their cordial approval of the abolition of slavery,
+but recommended three months more delay before it was enforced on the
+out-stations. In the same <i>Gazette</i> I noticed a letter from the Resident
+at Bintulu, one of the farthest stations from Kuching, in which he
+speaks of a Malay noble, warmly attached to the Sarawak Government, who
+claimed all the inhabitants of a large district as his slaves. It was
+merely a nominal claim, as they did no work for him, but he said they
+belonged to him. Still, when he was assured by Mr. De Crespigny<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> that
+such a claim would not be allowed by the Rajah, he submitted without
+complaint. We may hope <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>that such will be the universal acceptance of
+the new law, but it is easy to see that forty years of past repression
+and discountenance, and the strong influence of English opinion on the
+subject of slavery, has effected what would doubtless have caused strong
+opposition and estrangement if attempted hastily.</p>
+
+<p>I have just received a <i>Sarawak Gazette</i>, dated July 1st, which contains
+an account of a further cession of territory from the Sultan of Bruni to
+Rajah Brooke of Sarawak.</p>
+
+<p>This is the passage:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"On Saturday, the 10th June, his Highness the Sultan signified
+his willingness to cede to the Rajah of Sarawak, and his heirs,
+all the country and rivers that lie between Points Kadurong and
+Barram, including about three miles of coast on the east side
+of Barram Point. Negotiations about the sum to be paid for this
+hundred miles of coast continued for three days, when the deed
+of cession was finally sealed and delivered. This deed of
+cession, sealed with the respective seals of his Highness the
+Sultan of Bruni and the Rajah of Sarawak, was read out in full
+court on the 10th June. After which his Highness the Rajah
+addressed a few words to the people, telling them that he
+intended going to the river Barram towards the end of this
+moon, for the purpose of choosing a site whereon to erect a
+fort, and establishing a government there, to be a nucleus of
+trade. He added that all those who wished to trade there might
+now do so without fear."<span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> </p></div>
+
+<p>This is an important addition to the country of Sarawak.</p>
+
+<p>The time may indeed not be far distant when the country of Bruni, now
+wedged in between Sarawak and the territory of British North Borneo, may
+disappear altogether, and with it the misrule and oppression of that
+corrupt Eastern court. Then English people will be responsible for the
+whole of the north and north-west of the island of Borneo, and a new era
+of peace and happiness will dawn upon its inhabitants.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Letter of Sir J. Brooke to J. Gardner, Esq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Mr. Hornaday's lecture before the Young Men's Christian
+Association.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> St. John's Limbong Journal.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> "Sarawak, its Inhabitants and Productions," by Hugh Low.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> The Resident.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><b>THE END.</b></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><small>PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES</small></p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/l-birds.jpg" width="500" height="134" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>PUBLICATIONS<br />
+OF THE<br />
+Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.</h2>
+
+<p class="book"><b>All True. Nos. 1 to 6.</b> In one volume, demy 16mo, with numerous
+Illustrations, <i>cloth boards</i>, 2<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>A Missionary Brotherhood in the Far West; or, The Story of Nashotah.</b>
+Fcap. 8vo, <i>covers</i>, 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>A Suffolk Boy in East Africa.</b> 18mo, with Illustrations, <i>cloth boards</i>,
+9<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>A Thousand Years; or, The Missionary Centres of the Middle Ages.</b> By the
+Rev. <span class="smcap">John Wyse</span>. Crown 8vo, with Four Illustrations, <i>cloth boards</i>, 2<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>A Trial of Faith; or, Adventures in a Mission Station in Labrador.</b> 18mo,
+<i>paper cover</i>, 2<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Christian Missions before the Reformation.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">F. F. Walrond</span>,
+M.A. Post 8vo, with Four Illustrations on toned paper, <i>cloth boards</i>,
+2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Distant Brethren of Low Degree; or, Missionary Gleanings in Southern
+Africa.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">John Widdicombe</span>, of the South Becoanaland Mission.
+18mo, <i>paper cover</i>, 4<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Klatsassan, and other Reminiscences of Missionary Life in British
+Columbia.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">R. C. Lundin Brown</span>, M.A. Post 8vo, with Map, and
+Three Illustrations on toned paper, <i>cloth boards</i>, 2<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Mission Work among the Indian Tribes in the Forest of Guiana.</b> By the
+Rev. <span class="smcap">W. H. Brett</span>, B.D. With Map and several Illustrations, crown 8vo,
+<i>cloth boards</i>, 3<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Mrs. Poynter's Missionary Box. A Tale.</b> With an Illustration. 18mo,
+<i>paper cover</i>, 3<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Patteson, Bishop; Sketches of the Life of.</b> Crown 8vo, with Twenty-eight
+Illustrations and Woodcuts, <i>cloth boards</i>, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Promadeni.</b> A Biographical Sketch connected with the Indian Mission among
+Women. By <span class="smcap">Eugenia Von Mizlaff</span>. 18mo, with Three Illustrations, <i>cloth
+boards</i>, 1<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Stranger than Fiction.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">T. J. Halcombe</span>, M.A. Post 8vo, with
+Eight Illustrations, <i>cloth boards</i>, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Tales for Mission Rooms.</b> By a <span class="smcap">Lady Superintendent</span>. With Illustrations.
+18mo, <i>cloth boards</i>, 2<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Tales of Mission Work in Verse.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">F. W. Mant</span>, B.A. With
+several Illustrations. Fcap. 8vo, <i>paper cover</i>, 4<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Ten Years of Mission Life in British Guiana:</b> Being a Memoir of the Rev.
+Thomas Youd. By the Rev. <span class="smcap">W. T. Veness</span>. With Map. Fcap. 8vo, <i>limp
+cloth</i>, 1<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>The Missionary Church of England.</b> A Course of Six Sermons preached on
+the Afternoons of the Six Sundays after Easter, 1877, at St. James's,
+Westminster. Post 8vo, <i>cloth boards</i>, 1<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Under His Banner.</b> Papers on the Missionary Work of Modern Times. By the
+Rev. <span class="smcap">H. W. Tucker</span>, Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the
+Gospel in Foreign Parts. (<i>Seventh Thousand</i>.) Crown 8vo, with Map,
+<i>cloth boards</i>, 5<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>THE HOME LIBRARY.</b><br />
+<i>Crown 8vo, cloth boards, 3s. 6d. each.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 book"><b>Black and White. Mission Stories.</b> By <span class="smcap">H. Forde</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Charlemagne.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">E. L. Cutts</span>, B.A. With Map.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Church in Roman Gaul (The).</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">R. Travers Smith</span>, B.D. With Map.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Constantine the Great: The Union of the Church and State.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">E.
+L. Cutts</span>, B.A.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Great English Churchmen; or, Famous Names in English Church History and
+Literature.</b> By <span class="smcap">W. H. Davenport Adams</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>John Hus.</b> The Commencement of Resistance to Papal Authority on the part
+of the Inferior Clergy. By the Rev. <span class="smcap">A. H. Wratislaw</span>, M.A.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Jud&aelig;a and her Rulers, from Nebuchadnezzar to Vespasian.</b> By <span class="smcap">M. Bramston</span>.
+With Map.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Military Religious Orders of the Middle Ages; the Hospitallers, the
+Templars, the Teutonic Knights, and others.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">F. C. Woodhouse</span>,
+M.A.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Mitslav; or, The Conversion of Pomerania.</b> By the Right Rev. <span class="smcap">Robert
+Milman</span>, D.D. With Map.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Narcissus: a Tale of Early Christian Times.</b> By the Rev. Canon <span class="smcap">Boyd
+Carpenter</span>, M.A.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Sketches of the Women of Christendom.</b> Dedicated to the Women of India.
+By the author of "The Chronicles of the Sch&ouml;nberg-Cotta Family."</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>The Churchman's Life of Wesley.</b> By <span class="smcap">R. Denny Urlin</span>, Esq.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>The House of God the Home of Man.</b> By the Rev. Canon <span class="smcap">Jelf</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>The Inner Life, as Revealed in the Correspondence of Celebrated
+Christians.</b> Edited by the late Rev. <span class="smcap">T. Erskine</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>The Life of the Soul in the World: its Nature, Needs, Dangers, Sorrows,
+Aids, and Joys.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">F. C. Woodhouse</span>, M.A.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>The North-African Church.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Julius Lloyd</span>, M.A. With Map.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Thoughts and Characters.</b> Being Selections from the Writing of the author
+of "The Chronicles of the Sch&ouml;nberg-Cotta Family."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>THE FATHERS FOR ENGLISH READERS.</b><br />
+<i>Fcap. 8vo, cloth boards, 2s. each.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 book"><b>Leo the Great.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Charles Gore</span>, M.A.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Gregory the Great.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">J. Barmby</span>, B.D.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Saint Ambrose: his Life, Times, and Teaching.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Robinson
+Thornton</span>, D.D.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Saint Augustine.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">E. L. Cutts</span>, B.A.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Saint Basil the Great.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Richard T. Smith</span>, B.D.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Saint Hilary of Poitiers and Saint Martin of Tours.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Gibson
+Cazenove</span>, D.D.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Saint Jerome.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">E. L. Cutts</span>, B.A.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Saint John of Damascus.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">J. H. Lupton</span>, M.A.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>The Apostolic Fathers.</b> By the Rev. Canon <span class="smcap">Holland.</span></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>The Defenders of the Faith; or, The Christian Apologists of the Second
+and Third Centuries.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">F. Watson</span>, M.A.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>The Venerable Bede.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">G. F. Browne</span>.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>CONVERSION OF THE WEST.</b><br />
+<i>Fcap. 8vo, cloth boards, 2s. each.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 book"><b>The Celts.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">G. F. Maclear</span>, D.D. With Two Maps.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>The English.</b> By the above Author. With Two Maps.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>The Northmen.</b> By the above Author. With Map.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>The Slavs.</b> By the above Author. With Map.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>The Continental Teutons.</b> By the Very Rev. <span class="smcap">Charles Merivale</span>, D.D.,
+D.C.L., Dean of Ely. With Map.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS.</b><br />
+<i>Fcap. 8vo, cloth boards, 2s. 6d. each.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 book"><b>Buddhism: being a Sketch, of the Life and Teachings of Gautama the
+Buddha.</b> By <span class="smcap">T. W. Rhys Davids</span>. With Map.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Buddhism in China.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">S. Beal</span>. With Map.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Confucianism and Taouism.</b> By <span class="smcap">Robert K. Douglas</span>, of the British Museum.
+With Map.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Hinduism.</b> By Professor <span class="smcap">Monier Williams</span>. With Map</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Islam and its Founder.</b> By <span class="smcap">J. W. H. Stobart</span>. With Map.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>The Cor&acirc;n: its Composition and Teaching, and the Testimony it bears to
+the Holy Scriptures.</b> By Sir <span class="smcap">William Muir</span>, K.C.S.I., LL.D.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>ANCIENT HISTORY FROM THE MONUMENTS.</b><br />
+<i>Fcap. 8vo, cloth boards, 2s. each.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 book"><b>Sinai: from the Fourth Egyptian Dynasty to the Present Day.</b> By <span class="smcap">Henry S.
+Palmer</span>, Major R.E., F.R.A.S. With Map.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Babylonia (The History of).</b> By the late <span class="smcap">George Smith</span>, Esq. Edited by the
+Rev. <span class="smcap">A. H. Sayce</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Greek Cities and Islands of Asia Minor.</b> By <span class="smcap">W. S. W. Vaux</span>, M.A., F.R.S.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Assyria, from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Nineveh.</b> By the late
+<span class="smcap">George Smith</span>, Esq.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Egypt, from the Earliest Times to B.C. 300.</b> By <span class="smcap">S. Birch</span>, LL.D., etc.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Persia, from the Earliest Period to the Arab Conquest.</b> By <span class="smcap">W. S. W. Vaux</span>,
+M.A., F.R.S.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>THE HEATHEN WORLD AND ST. PAUL.</b><br />
+<i>Fcap. 8vo, with Map, cloth boards, 2s. each.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>St. Paul in Greece.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">G. S. Davies</span>, M.A., Charterhouse,
+Godalming.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>St. Paul in Damascus and Arabia.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">George Rawlinson</span>, M.A.,
+Canon of Canterbury.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>St. Paul at Rome.</b> By the Very Rev. <span class="smcap">Charles Merivale</span>, D. D., D.C.L., Dean
+of Ely.</p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>St. Paul in Asia Minor and at the Syrian Antioch.</b> By the Very Rev. <span class="smcap">E. H.
+Plumptre</span>, D.D.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>DIOCESAN HISTORIES.</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2 book"><b>Canterbury.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">R. C. Jenkins</span>. With Map. Fcap. 8vo, <i>cloth
+boards</i>, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Chichester.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">W. R. W. Stephens</span>. With Map and Plan. Fcap. 8vo,
+<i>cloth boards</i>, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Durham.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">J. L. Low</span>. With Map and Plan. Fcap. 8vo, <i>cloth
+boards</i>, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Lichfield.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">W. Beresford</span>. With Map. Fcap. 8vo. <i>cloth
+boards</i>, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Oxford.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">E. Marshall</span>. With Map. Fcap. 8vo. <i>cloth boards</i>,
+2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Peterborough.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">G. A. Poole</span>, M.A. With Map. Fcap. 8vo, <i>cloth
+boards</i>, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Salisbury.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">W. H. Jones</span>. With Map and Plan. Fcap. 8vo, <i>cloth
+boards</i>, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>Worcester.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">I. Gregory Smith</span> and the Rev. <span class="smcap">Phipps Onslow</span>. With
+Map. Fcap. 8vo, <i>cloth boards</i>, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="book"><b>York.</b> By the Rev. <span class="smcap">George Ornsby</span>, M.A. With Map. Fcap. 8vo, <i>cloth
+boards</i>, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">London:</span><br />
+NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C.;<br />
+<span class="smcap">43, Queen Victoria Street, E.C.; 26, St. George's Place, S.W.<br />
+Brighton: 135, North Street.</span></p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/l-owl.jpg" width="500" height="105" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><span class="smcap">Publications</span><br />
+<small>OF THE</small><br />
+Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.</h2>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>HISTORY OF INDIA.</b></p>
+
+<p>From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. By Captain <span class="smcap">L. J. Trotter</span>,
+Author of "Sequel to Thornton's History of India." With eight full-page
+Woodcuts on toned paper, and numerous smaller Woodcuts. Post 8vo. Cloth
+boards, 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>STUDIES AMONG THE PAINTERS.</b></p>
+
+<p>By <span class="smcap">J. B. Atkinson</span>, Esq. With seventeen full-page Illustrations. Small
+Post 4to. Cloth boards, 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>BEAUTY IN COMMON THINGS.</b></p>
+
+<p>Illustrated by twelve Drawings from Nature, by Mrs. <span class="smcap">J. W. Whymper</span>;
+Printed in Colours, by <span class="smcap">William Dickes</span>. With descriptive Letterpress, by
+the Author of "Life in the Walls," "Robin the Bold," &amp;c. Demy 4to. Cloth
+boards, 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>SCENES IN THE EAST.</b></p>
+
+<p>Consisting of twelve Coloured Photographic Views of Places mentioned in
+the Bible, beautifully executed, with Descriptive Letterpress. By the
+Rev. <span class="smcap">Canon Tristram</span>, Author of "Bible Places," "The Land of Israel," &amp;c.
+4to. Cloth, bevelled boards, gilt edges, 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>SINAI AND JERUSALEM; OR, SCENES FROM BIBLE LANDS.</b></p>
+
+<p>Consisting of Coloured Photographic Views of Places mentioned in the
+Bible, including a Panoramic View of Jerusalem with Descriptive
+Letterpress. By the Rev. <span class="smcap">F. W. Holland</span>, M.A., Honorary Secretary to the
+Palestine Exploration Fund. Demy 4to. Cloth, bevelled boards, gilt
+edges, 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>BIBLE PLACES; OR, THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY LAND.</b></p>
+
+<p>A succinct account of all the Places, Rivers, and Mountains of the Land
+of Israel mentioned in the Bible, so far as they have been identified;
+together with their modern names and historical references. By the Rev.
+<span class="smcap">Canon Tristram</span>. With Map. A new and revised edition. Crown 8vo. Cloth
+boards, 4<i>s.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>THE LAND OF ISRAEL.</b></p>
+
+<p>A Journal of Travel in Palestine, undertaken with special reference to
+its Physical Character. By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Canon Tristram</span>. Fourth edition,
+revised. With Maps and numerous Illustrations. Large post 8vo. Cloth
+boards, 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>NARRATIVE OF A MODERN PILGRIMAGE THROUGH PALESTINE ON HORSEBACK, AND
+WITH TENTS.</b></p>
+
+<p>By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Alfred Charles Smith</span>, M.A., Rector of Yatesbury, Wilts,
+Author of "The Attractions of the Nile," &amp;c. Numerous Illustrations and
+four Coloured Plates. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5<i>s.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BIBLE.</b></p>
+
+<p>By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Canon Tristram</span>, Author of "Bible Places," &amp;c. With numerous
+Woodcuts. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>A HISTORY OF THE JEWISH NATION.</b></p>
+
+<p>From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. By the late <span class="smcap">E. H. Palmer</span>,
+Esq., M.A., Fellow of St. John's College, Author of "The Desert of the
+Exodus," &amp;c. With Map of Palestine and numerous Illustrations. Crown
+8vo. Cloth boards, 4<i>s.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>BRITISH BIRDS IN THEIR HAUNTS.</b></p>
+
+<p>Being a Popular Account of the Birds which have been observed in the
+British Isles; their Haunts and Habits; their systematic, common, and
+provincial Names; together with a Synopsis of Genera; and a brief
+Summary of Specific characters. By the late Rev. <span class="smcap">C. A. Johns</span>, B.A.,
+F.L.S. Post 8vo. Cloth boards, 10<i>s.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>THE CYCLE OF LIFE.</b></p>
+
+<p>A Book of Poems for Young and Old, Town and Country. Printed on toned
+paper. Illustrated with eighteen Woodcuts. Fcap. 4to. Handsomely bound
+in cloth, gilt edges, bevelled boards, 5<i>s.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>THE ART TEACHING OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.</b></p>
+
+<p>With an Index of Subjects, Historical and Emblematic. By the Rev. <span class="smcap">R. St.
+John Tyrwhitt</span>. 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>AFRICA, SEEN THROUGH ITS EXPLORERS.</b></p>
+
+<p>By <span class="smcap">Charles H. Eden</span>, Esq. With Map and several Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+Satteen cloth boards, 5<i>s.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>AFRICA UNVEILED.</b></p>
+
+<p>By the Rev. <span class="smcap">H. Rowley</span>. With Map, and eight full-page Illustrations on
+toned paper. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5<i>s.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>AUSTRALIA'S HEROES:</b></p>
+
+<p>Being a slight Sketch of the most prominent amongst the band of gallant
+men who devoted their lives and energies to the cause of Science, and
+the development of the Fifth Continent. By <span class="smcap">C. H. Eden</span>, Esq., Author of
+"Fortunes of the Fletchers," &amp;c. With Map. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5<i>s.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>SOME HEROES OF TRAVEL; OR, CHAPTERS FROM THE HISTORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL
+DISCOVERY &amp; ENTERPRISE.</b></p>
+
+<p>Compiled and re-written by <span class="smcap">W. H. Davenport Adams</span>, Author of "Great
+English Churchmen," &amp;c. With Map. Crown 8vo. Satteen cloth boards, 5<i>s.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>CHRISTIANS UNDER THE CRESCENT IN ASIA.</b></p>
+
+<p>By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Edward L. Cutts</span>, B.A., Author of "Turning Points of Church
+History," &amp;c. With numerous Illustrations. Post 8vo. Cloth boards, 5<i>s.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>THE FIFTH CONTINENT, WITH THE ADJACENT ISLANDS.</b></p>
+
+<p>Being an Account of Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea, with
+Statistical Information to the latest date. By <span class="smcap">C. H. Eden</span>, Author of
+"Australia's Heroes," &amp;c. With Map. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5<i>s.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>FROZEN ASIA: A SKETCH OF MODERN SIBERIA.</b></p>
+
+<p>By <span class="smcap">Charles H. Eden</span>, Esq., Author of "Australia's Heroes," &amp;c. With Map.
+Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5<i>s.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>HEROES OF THE ARCTIC AND THEIR ADVENTURES.</b></p>
+
+<p>By <span class="smcap">Frederick Whymper</span>, Esq., Author of "Travels in Alaska," &amp;c. With Map,
+eight full-page and numerous small Woodcuts. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards,
+3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>CHINA.</b></p>
+
+<p>By Professor <span class="smcap">Robert K. Douglas</span>, of the British Museum. With Map, and
+Eight full-page Illustrations on toned paper, and several Vignettes.
+Post 8vo. Cloth boards, 5<i>s.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2"><b>RUSSIA: PAST AND PRESENT.</b></p>
+
+<p>Adapted from the German of Lankenau and Oelnitz. By Mrs. <span class="smcap">Chester</span>. With
+Map, and Three full-page Woodcuts and Vignettes. Post 8vo. Cloth boards,
+5<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/l-deco.jpg" width="300" height="49" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center" style="margin-top: -1em;"><b><big>Depositories:</big></b></p>
+
+
+<p class="center" >
+NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS;<br />
+<span class="smcap">43, Queen Victoria Street, E.C.; 26, St. George's Place, S.W.;<br />
+and 135, North Street, Brighton</span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="tnote">
+
+<p>Inconsistencies in the hyphenation of words preserved. (cocoanut/s,
+cocoa-nut/s; firearms, fire-arms; gunboat, gun-boats; schoolboys,
+school-boys; schoolroom, school-room)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 32, duplicated word "the" removed. (the coasts and the seas)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 42, inserted period after "Mr". (that in 1867 Mr. Chambers)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 63, closing double quote inserted at end of what appears to be the
+end of a quoted passage.(carried them away over their shoulders.")</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 95, duplicated period removed at sentence end. (by jet ornaments and
+bugle trimmings.)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 111, "examition" changed to "examination". (After the examination,)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 118, added period at sentence end. (agreeable and uniformly kind.)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 138, period changed to comma. (If you must go, some of us will go
+with you)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 162, unusual construction retained. (a new cook-house and servants'
+rooms near, to build;)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 243, closing double quote added at end of title of a book. (in his
+"Forests of the Far East":)</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak, by 
+Harriette McDougall
+
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak, by Harriette McDougall
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak
+
+Author: Harriette McDougall
+
+Release Date: December 19, 2008 [EBook #27568]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES OF OUR LIFE AT SARAWAK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by a Project Gutenberg volunteer working with
+digital material generously made available by the Internet
+Archive
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Cover]
+
+[Illustration: HAPPILY HE HAD A STOUT WALKING-STICK, AND AT ONCE FELLED
+THE REPTILE.
+
+_Frontispiece._ _Page_ 26.]
+
+
+
+
+  SKETCHES
+  OF
+  OUR LIFE AT SARAWAK
+
+
+  BY
+  HARRIETTE McDOUGALL.
+
+
+  _WITH MAP._
+
+
+  PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE.
+
+
+  LONDON:
+  SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
+  NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C.;
+  43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.;
+  26, ST. GEORGE'S PLACE, HYDE PARK CORNER, S.W.
+  BRIGHTON: 135, NORTH STREET.
+  NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG AND CO.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  PART I.
+
+  CHAPTER                                    PAGE
+
+      I.  INTRODUCTORY                          7
+
+     II.  THE COURT-HOUSE                      13
+
+    III.  COLLEGE HILL                         21
+
+     IV.  PIRATES                              32
+
+      V.  THE CHURCH AND THE SCHOOL            45
+
+     VI.  THE GIRLS                            58
+
+    VII.  THE LUNDUS                           68
+
+   VIII.  A BOAT JOURNEY                       82
+
+     IX.  CONTINUATION OF THE TRIP TO REJANG   92
+
+
+  PART II.
+
+      X.  RETURN TO SARAWAK                   105
+
+     XI.  CHINESE INSURRECTION                120
+
+    XII.  CHINESE INSURRECTION (_Continued_)  139
+
+   XIII.  EVENTS OF 1857                      157
+
+    XIV.  THE MALAY PLOT                      174
+
+
+  PART III.
+
+     XV.  THE CHILDREN'S CHAPTER              189
+
+    XVI.  ILLANUN PIRATES                     204
+
+   XVII.  A MALAY WEDDING                     215
+
+  XVIII.  LAST YEARS AT SARAWAK               228
+
+    XIX.  THE ISLAND OF BORNEO                239
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+[Map: BORNEO]
+
+
+
+
+SKETCHES OF OUR LIFE AT SARAWAK.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+Nearly thirty years ago I published a little book of "Letters from
+Sarawak, addressed to a Child." This book is now out of print, and, on
+looking it over with a view to republication, I think it will be better
+to extend the story over the twenty years that Sarawak was our home,
+which will give some idea of the gradual progress of the mission.
+
+This progress was often unavoidably impeded by the struggles of the
+infant State; for war drowns the voice of the missionary, and though the
+Sarawak Government always discouraged the Dyak practice of taking the
+heads of their enemies, still it could not at once be checked, and every
+expedition against lawless tribes, however righteous in its object,
+excited the old superstitions of those wild people. When their warriors
+returned from an expedition, the women of the tribe met them with dance
+and song, receiving the heads they brought with ancient
+ceremonies--"fondling the heads," as it was called; and for months
+afterwards keeping up, by frequent feasts, in which these heads were the
+chief attraction, the heathen customs which it was the object of the
+missionary to discourage.
+
+I dare say, when we first settled at Sarawak, we thought that twenty
+years would plant Christian communities, and build Christian churches
+all over the country: but it is as well that we cannot overlook the
+future; and perhaps, considering the many difficulties which arose from
+time to time, from the missionaries themselves, and the unsettled
+country in which they laboured, we ought not to expect more results than
+have appeared. At any rate we have much to be thankful for, and as every
+year makes Sarawak a more important State, consolidates its Government,
+and extends civilization to its subjects, we may look for more success
+for the missionaries, who can now point to the peace and prosperity of
+the people, and say, "This is the fruit of Christianity and Christian
+rulers."
+
+In giving a short account of our life in Borneo, I shall avoid alike all
+political questions, or, as much as possible, individual histories among
+the English community. It is already so long ago since we lived in that
+lovely place, that events, trials, joys, and the usual vicissitudes of
+life, are wrapt in that mellowing haze of the past, which, while it dims
+the vividness of feeling, throws a robe of charity over all, and perhaps
+causes actors and actions to assume a more true proportion to one
+another than when we walked amongst them. I have, however, not depended
+on memory alone for the records of twenty years, but have journals and
+letters to refer to, which my friends in England have been good enough
+to keep for me. Some parts of "Letters from Sarawak" I shall incorporate
+into the present little book, for as it treats of the first six years we
+lived there, and was written at that time, it is sure to be tolerably
+correct.
+
+In those days, from 1847 to 1853, Sir James Brooke was very popular in
+England. The story of his first occupation of Sarawak, published in his
+journals, and the cruizes of her Majesty's ships in those eastern
+seas--the _Dido_ and the _Samarang_--were read with avidity, and
+furnished the English public with a romance which had all the charm of
+novelty. However difficult and inconvenient it might be for the English
+Government to recognize a native State under an English rajah, who was
+at the same time a subject of the Queen of Great Britain, this question
+had not then arisen; and all classes, high and low, could applaud a
+brave and noble man, who had stepped out of the beaten track to spend
+his fortune and expose his life in the cause of savages. There were many
+fluctuations of sympathy and opinion in after years towards Sir James
+Brooke; but, through evil report and good report, through difficulty and
+danger, Sarawak has still advanced, and is as worthy of the interest of
+the best and wisest of mankind as it was in 1847. At this time, indeed,
+it seems to me to furnish a lesson in the management of native races
+which might be useful in our own colonies. English governors always set
+out with good intentions towards the natives of savage countries, but
+how is it that war almost always follows their occupation? Surely it is
+because the settlers go there, not in the interest of the native race,
+but their own, and the two interests are sure to clash in the long-run.
+
+It requires great patience and forbearance to educate natives up to a
+rule of justice and righteous laws; but that it may be done, and carry
+the co-operation of the people themselves, is evident at Sarawak, where
+the Malays and Dyaks are associated in the Government, and have always
+stood by their English rajah, even when it was necessary to punish or
+exile some of their own chiefs. I am aware that an English colony cannot
+be governed in this way; nevertheless, the spectacle of wild natives,
+rising by the influence of a few good Englishmen from lawless misrule to
+a settled government, where vice is punished without partiality, is very
+beautiful to philanthropists, and makes one think better of human nature
+and its capabilities. I wish I could portray the hilly and thorny road
+by which this has been attained! It would, methinks, create a new
+interest in Sarawak, if the past and the present could be fairly set
+before the discerning world; we should again hear of missionaries
+longing to help in the improvement of people who have shown themselves
+so open to good influences. I have said that I would not touch upon
+politics, but Church and State are so naturally bound together in the
+task of civilization, that it is difficult to relate the history of the
+mission without mentioning the Government. Of course they do not stand
+in the same relation to one another in a Mahometan country, where the
+English Church is but a tolerated sect, as they do in a Christian land;
+still the Christian Church strengthens the Christian ruler, and he in
+his turn protects the Church by good government, although he may not
+favour it except by individual preference. For my own part, I have
+always thought it an advantage to our Dyak Christians that no favour was
+shown them on account of their faith; at any rate, it was for no worldly
+interest that they became Christians.
+
+Although our life in Sarawak extended over a period of twenty years, it
+might naturally be divided into three parts--of six, five, and six years
+respectively, the intervals being spent in visits to England. These
+visits, although absolutely necessary, were a drawback to the mission
+work. When the head of a family is absent, the responsibility is apt to
+fall upon the younger members, and is sometimes too much for them.
+However, they always did their best, and always welcomed us home most
+warmly. It was a joyful sight, on our return, to find the missionaries
+and school-children waiting for us at the wharf below our houses, the
+children's dear little faces glad with smiles, and a warm welcome for
+any baby we brought home. The second time, it was our daughter Mab; and
+in 1862, our last baby, Mildred,--Mab, Edith, and Herbert being left in
+England, for no English child can thrive in that unchangeable climate
+after it is six years old.
+
+The first chapters of this little book will describe the first six years
+of our stay at Sarawak; but, in speaking of subjects of interest, I
+shall not stop short at the end of those years, but carry on the subject
+to the end of our Sarawak experience. It is perhaps necessary to say
+this to prevent confusion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE COURT-HOUSE.
+
+
+While Sir James Brooke was in England, in 1847, he asked his friends to
+help him in his efforts to civilize the Dyaks, by sending a mission to
+live at Sarawak.
+
+Lord Ellesmere, Admiral Sir H. Keppel, Admiral C. D. Bethune, Canon Ryle
+Wood, and the Rev. C. Brereton, formed themselves into a committee, with
+the Rev. I. F. Stocks for their honorary secretary, and soon collected
+funds for the purpose. The Rev. F. McDougall was chosen as the head of
+the mission, and with him were associated the Rev. S. Montgomery and the
+Rev. W. Wright; but Mr. Montgomery died very suddenly, of fever caught
+when ministering to the poor of his parish, before the time came for us
+to embark, so the party was reduced to two clergymen and their wives,
+two babies and two nurses. We sailed from London in the barque _Mary
+Louisa_, four hundred tons, the end of December; Mr. Parr, a nephew of
+Mrs. Wright's, being also one of the passengers. I had all my life loved
+the sea, and longed to take such a voyage as should carry us out of
+sight of land, and give us all the experiences which wait on those "who
+go down to the sea in ships;" but I little thought how we should all
+long for land before we saw it again.
+
+The barque was a poor sailer; we thought it a good run if she made eight
+knots an hour, so no wonder we did not reach Singapore till May 23,
+1848. It was a long monotonous voyage, but we were well occupied, and I
+do not remember ever finding it dull. The sea was all I ever fancied by
+way of a companion, and, like all one's best friends, made me happy or
+unhappy, but was never stupid. Then we had to learn Malay and its Arabic
+characters, with the help of Marsden's grammar and dictionary, and the
+Bible translated into that language by the Dutch. We lived by rule,
+apportioning the hours to certain duties, and every one knows how fast
+time passes under those conditions. The two clergymen busied themselves
+with teaching the sailors, and several of them presented themselves at
+Holy Communion in consequence, the last Sunday before we landed. The
+most trying time we passed was on the coast of Java, becalmed under a
+broiling sun, the very sea dead and slimy with all sorts of creatures
+creeping over it. As for ourselves, we were gasping with thirst, for we
+had already been on short rations of water for six weeks, one of the
+tanks having leaked out. One quart of water a day for each adult, and
+none for the babies, so of course they had the lion's share of their
+parents' allowance. Our one cup of tea in the evening was looked forward
+to for hours; and what a wonderful colour it was, after all!--but that
+was the iron of the tank.
+
+On the 23rd of May we landed at Singapore, and had to wait there for
+four weeks before the schooner _Julia_, then running between that place
+and Sarawak, came to fetch us. We reached Sarawak June 29th, entering
+the Morotabas mouth of the river, which is twenty-four miles from the
+town of Kuching, whither we were bound. The sail up the river, our first
+sight of the country and the people, was indeed exciting, and filled us
+with delight. The river winds continually, and every new reach had its
+interest: a village of palm-leaf houses built close to the water, women
+and children standing on the steps with their long bamboo jars, or
+peeping out of the slits of windows at the schooner; boats of all sizes
+near the houses, fishing-nets hanging up to dry, wicked alligators lying
+basking on the mud; trees of many varieties--the nibong palm which
+furnishes the posts of the houses, the nipa which makes their mat walls,
+and close by the water the light and graceful mangroves, which at night
+are all alive and glittering with fire-flies. On the boughs of some
+larger trees hanging over the stream parties of monkeys might be seen
+eating the fruits, chattering, jumping, flying almost, from bough to
+bough. We afterwards made nearer acquaintance with these droll
+creatures.
+
+At last we reached the Fort, a long white building manned by Malays, and
+with cannon showing at the port-holes. The _Julia_ was not challenged,
+however, but gladly welcomed, as she carried not only the missionaries
+but the mail, and stores for the bazaar; for at that time there were not
+many native trading-vessels--the fear of pirates was great, and there
+was good reason to fear!
+
+The town of Kuching consisted in those days of a Chinese bazaar and a
+Kling bazaar, both very small, and where it was scarcely possible to
+find anything an English man or woman could buy. Beyond was the court of
+justice, the mosques, and a few native houses. Higher up the river lay
+the Malay town, divided into Kampongs, or clusters of houses belonging
+to the different chiefs or principal merchants of the place. Opposite
+the bazaar, on the other side of the river, stood the rajah's bungalow,
+as well as two or three others belonging to Europeans, embosomed in
+trees, cocoa-nuts and betel-nut palms, and other fruit-trees. Behind the
+rajah's house rose the beautiful mountain of Santubong, wooded to its
+summit nearly 3000 feet, with a rock cropping out here and there. At
+this bungalow we landed, and were hospitably entertained for a few days
+until the upper part of the court-house could be made ready for our
+party.
+
+Shall I ever forget my first impressions of the rajah's bungalow? A
+peculiar scent pervaded it. You looked about for the cause till your
+eyes fell on two saucers, one filled with green blossoms, the other
+with deep golden ones, much the same shape--the kenanga and the
+chimpaka, flowering trees, which grew near the house. Their flowers were
+picked every day for the rooms, as the rajah loved the scent, and so did
+the Malays. The ladies steeped the blossoms in cocoa-nut oil and
+anointed themselves, placing them also in their long black hair, with
+wreaths of jessamine flowers threaded on a string. These perfumes were
+rather overpowering at first, but I learnt to like them after I had been
+some time in Sarawak. The large, bare, cool rooms were very refreshing
+after the little cabins of the _Julia_. And then the library! a treasure
+indeed in the jungle; books on all sorts of subjects, bound in enticing
+covers, always inviting you to bodily repose and mental activity or
+amusement, as you might prefer. This library, so dear to us all because
+we were all allowed to share it, was burnt in 1857 by the Chinese
+rebels. It took two days to burn. I watched it from our library over the
+water, and saw the mass of books glowing dull red like a furnace, long
+after the flames had consumed the wooden house. It made one's heart ache
+to see it. An old gentleman of our English society watched it too, and I
+wondered why his head shook continually as he sat with his eyes fixed on
+those sad ruins; but I found afterwards that the sight, and doubtless
+its cause, had palsied him from that day. But I must not linger too long
+in the rajah's bungalow, though the white pigeons seem to call to me
+from the verandahs; we must take boat again (for there are no bridges
+over the Sarawak river), and cross to the court-house.
+
+This square wooden house, with latticed verandahs like a big cage, was
+built by a German missionary, who purposed having a school on the ground
+floor and living in the upper story; but as soon as he had built his
+house he was recalled to Germany, and the only trace of him that
+remained was a box full of torn Bibles and tracts, which, I am sorry to
+say, had been used as waste paper in the bazaar for tying up parcels
+since he left, but as the tracts were not in any language the people
+could understand they were scarcely to blame. Rajah turned the house
+into a court of justice, and we settled ourselves in the upper rooms,
+which were divided from one another by mat walls. The river flowed under
+this house at spring tides, and then nests of ants would swarm into it:
+the rapidity with which these little creatures would carry all their
+eggs up the posts and settle the whole family under a box in your
+bedroom was marvellous; but as they were not pleasant companions there,
+a kettle of hot water had to put an end to the colony.
+
+These little black ants did not sting, but there was a large red ant,
+half an inch long, who was most pugnacious; he stood up on his hind legs
+and fought you with amazing courage, and his jaws were formidable. We
+made our first acquaintance with white ants while we lived in the
+court-house. On unpacking a box of books, which had been our solace
+during the voyage, we found them almost glued together by the secretion
+of these creatures. The box had been standing on the ground floor of the
+hotel. The white ants had eaten through and through the books, and
+picked all the surface off the bindings; they were disgusting to look at
+and to smell. Some years afterwards, one of our missionaries had a box
+of clothes sent her from Singapore. It was necessary clothing, for she
+had lost her effects, like the rest of us, during the Chinese rebellion.
+I warned Miss Coomes that she must unpack the box directly, on account
+of the white ants; but she put it off till the next day, and at night
+these wretches ate through the bottom of the box, and munched up the new
+linen and stockings. We soon learnt to guard against their attacks by
+using no wood except balean, or iron-wood, which is too hard for them to
+bite. English oak seemed like a slice of cake to white ants.
+
+No sooner were we settled at the court-house, than we had visits from
+all the principal Malays, and also some Dyaks who happened to be at
+Sarawak. My husband opened a dispensary in a little room behind the
+store-room, and had plenty of patients. I used to hear continual talking
+and laughing going on there, and by this means Mr. McDougall learnt to
+talk the Malay language, which he only knew from books when he first
+arrived. The pure Malay of books is very different from the colloquial
+_patois_ of Kuching. To my sorrow, I learnt this some time after, when I
+was trying to prepare two women for baptism: they listened to me for
+some time, and then one said to the other, "She talks like a book,"
+which I fear meant that they only half understood me.
+
+Soon after this we took four little half-caste children to bring up.
+They were running about in the bazaar, and their native mothers were
+willing to part with them; so Mary, Julia, Peter, and Tommy were housed
+in a cottage close by, under the care of a Portuguese Christian woman,
+the wife of our cook. Every day I used to spend some hours with them,
+that we might become friends. The eldest of these children was only six
+years old, Tommy, the youngest, but two and a half; so they wanted a
+nurse. They were baptized on Advent Sunday, 1848, and were the beginning
+of our native school.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+COLLEGE HILL.
+
+
+We stayed at the court-house a whole year, while our house on the hill
+was being prepared. The hill, and the ground beyond it, about forty
+acres in all, was given to the mission by Sir James Brooke. It was then
+some way out of the town, but as the Chinese population increased, the
+town grew quite to the foot of the hill--College Hill, as it was then
+called--and a blacksmith's quarter even invaded the mission land. At
+first, in order to cultivate the property, nutmegs and spice-trees were
+planted, but the soil was not good enough for them; when their roots
+pierced through the pit of earth in which they were planted, and reached
+the stiff clay of the hill, they died off. It was necessary to do
+something to keep the land clear of the coarse lalang grass, which grew
+wherever the jungle was cut down. So after a while a herd of cattle was
+collected, and they improved the poverty of the land, at the same time
+furnishing milk and a little butter. I say a _little_, because even
+when seven cows were in milk, as they only gave two quarts a day each,
+and there were always plenty of children in and out of the mission to
+consume it, but little was left for butter-making. Cocoa-nut trees were
+planted in the low ground, and some few grew up; but wild pigs were
+great enemies to them, for they liked to eat the cabbage out of the
+heart of the young tree, which of course killed it. In that seething
+warmth of Sarawak you could almost see plants grow. If you scattered
+seeds in the ground, they sprouted above it on the third day. I planted
+some of those little coral-looking seeds which are to be found in every
+box of Indian shells, the seed of the satin-wood, and they grew up into
+beautiful forest trees in twelve years' time. We used to make long
+strings of these coral seeds, and use them in Christmas decorations.
+
+By degrees we had a very bright garden about the house. The Gardenia,
+with its strongly scented blossom and evergreen leaves, made a capital
+hedge. Great bushes of the Hybiscus, scarlet and buff, glowed in the
+sun--they were called shoe-flowers, for they were used instead of
+blacking to polish our shoes. The pink one-hundred-leaved rose grew
+freely, and blossomed all the year round. Shrubs of the golden
+Allamander were a great temptation to the cows, if they strayed
+into the garden. The Plumbago was one of the few pale-blue flowers
+which liked that blazing heat. Then we had a great variety of
+creepers--jessamine of many sorts, the scarlet Ipomea, the blue
+Clitorea, and passion-flowers, from the huge Grenadilla with its
+excellent fruit, to the little white one set in a calyx of moss. The
+Moon-flower, a large white convolvulus, tight-shut all day, unfolded
+itself at six o'clock, and looked lovely in the flower-vases in the
+evening. The Jessamine and Pergolaria odorotissima climbed up the
+porch, and in the forks of the trees opposite I had air-plants
+fastened, which flowered every three months, and looked like a flight
+of white butterflies on the wing. The great mountain of Matang stood in
+the distance, and when the sun sank behind it, which it always did in
+that invariable latitude about six o'clock, I sat in the porch to watch
+the glory of earth and sky. How dear a mountain becomes to you, is only
+known to those who live in hilly countries. One gets to think of it as
+a friend. It seems to carry a protest against the little frets of life,
+and, by its strength and invariableness, to be a visible image of Him
+who is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." But I am running on
+too fast with the garden before the house is built.
+
+The hill was first cleared of jungle, and flattened at the top, then the
+foundation was dug, and great sleepers were laid ready for the upright
+posts. A wooden house is joiner's work, and rather resembles a great
+bedstead. All the wood is first squared and cut, which takes a long
+time, because the balean-wood is extremely hard, and consumes a great
+deal of labour; but once ready, the house rises from the earth like
+magic, for every beam and post fits into its place.
+
+We had brought a great box of carpenter's tools with us from England,
+among them valuable moulding-planes; we wished the carpenters to learn,
+in building the house, how to make the arches and ornamental mouldings
+for the church.
+
+Happily for us, when the _Mary Louisa_ was wrecked in the straits on her
+way home, the crew were all saved, and the ship-carpenter came over to
+Sarawak to see if my husband would employ him. As he was a capital
+joiner, he was set over a gang of workmen at once. All the plans for the
+house and church were made by Frank (my husband), and I was set to draw
+patterns of the doors and windows, the verandah railings, and the porch.
+Stahl was an intelligent German workman, and soon learnt Malay enough to
+direct the men. The Malays levelled the hill and dug the foundations;
+the Chinese were employed as carpenters, but they, too, could speak
+Malay. I remember making great friends with one of them, Johnny Jangot,
+John of the Beard, so called on account of a few long hairs at the tip
+of his chin, for the Chinese are a beardless race. Johnny used to eat
+his breakfast in the court-house to save himself trouble. What a set-out
+it was! Rice, of course; then three or four little basins with different
+messes--duck, fish, chicken, and plenty of soy-sauce; more basins with
+vegetables, all eaten with the help of chop-sticks; and a teapot snugly
+covered with a cosy. I asked one day to taste the tea, and Johnny
+poured me out a tiny cup of hot, sweet, spirits and water! Samchoo is a
+spirit made from rice, and very strong, as our poor English sailors used
+to find to their cost when her Majesty's ships paid us a visit. The
+Chinese said that the English drank the samchoo cold and raw, and
+therefore it poisoned them, whereas they always qualified it with hot
+water. It did not taste strong, which made it all the more pernicious.
+Johnny drank real tea all day long, and smoked a good deal of
+tobacco--it seemed to me he did very little else; but he was not a bad
+workman, though of course it was not such a day's work as an Englishman
+can do.
+
+In the East you must accept the customs of the country, and be content
+with the people: they are not given to change. Stahl made some
+wheel-barrows for the men to use instead of little baskets in which they
+carried earth, and which held nothing. But it was no use; they laughed
+at the wheel-barrows, and said "Eh yaw!" but went on with the baskets.
+
+Every evening we used to walk up the hill to see how the building was
+getting on, all the children with us; then, as we sat on the timber, I
+used to draw the letters of the alphabet on the white sand, and the
+little ones learnt them. We went home through a piece of ground we
+called our garden. In it grew plenty of pine-apples and sugar-cane, and
+the gardener always supplied us with pieces of the latter to eat--very
+refreshing and nice, but the juice ran all over your hands. As for
+pine-apples, we soon got tired of them; but they made good tarts, and,
+mixed with plantains and lime-juice, a very pleasant and useful jam.
+
+In clearing the hill our workmen disturbed the haunts of many snakes. We
+were a good deal visited by cobras for some years. The natives said that
+the Adam and Eve of all the cobras lived in a cave under our hill.
+
+One day we were having asphalte laid down in the printing-room, to keep
+away white ants. The room had been emptied to do this, and Stahl went in
+to inspect the work after the men had gone to their breakfast at eleven
+o'clock. He saw a large cobra at the end of the room, and hit it with a
+stick he had in his hand; but the stick broke in two, and the cobra
+reared itself up with inflated hood. Another minute must have seen Stahl
+a prey to the monster; but the Bishop, passing by, heard him exclaim
+when the stick broke, and going quickly in saw Stahl standing, white,
+fascinated, and motionless, before the cobra. Happily he had a stout
+walking-stick, and at once felled the reptile; but he took a good deal
+of killing. It was ten feet long.
+
+This was Adam.
+
+Eve was killed under the verandah of the house almost a year afterwards.
+She was eight feet long.
+
+One night the Bishop had been reading the Rev. F. Robertson's sermon
+about St. Paul and the viper. It was late, and being rather sleepy he
+carried the book in one hand and a candle in the other into his
+dressing-room, and was just going to set the candle down, when his eye
+fell on a cobra, coiled up on the chair on which he was about to seat
+himself. No stick was at hand, but he smote the snake with the book.
+Struck in the right place, they are not difficult to kill. So "St. Paul
+and the Viper" put an end to the cobra. That the bite of this snake is
+not, however, certain death we had a curious instance.
+
+One of our servants, a very strict Mahometan, believed himself charmed
+against poisonous reptiles, and used to bring me centipedes and
+scorpions in his hands, saying they never hurt him. He left our service
+and was employed by the Borneo Company, about half a mile from our
+house. One day, while cutting rattans in a shed, a cobra bit his thumb.
+He thought nothing of it, but, putting away his work as usual, went
+home, cooked his rice and ate his supper. By this time, however, his arm
+began to swell and his head to swim. Instead of going to the doctor, who
+then lived close by, he must needs go to the Bishop to cure him; so just
+as we were sitting down to dinner, about seven o'clock, he reeled into
+the house. The Bishop cauterized the wound, although it seemed too late
+to be any use; he was getting cold and faint. However, by dint of being
+walked up and down between two men, and having two whole bottles of
+brandy administered to him, a glass at a time, besides sal volatile,
+chloroform, and every stimulant we had, he got through the night. The
+Bishop sat up with him all night, and I could hear him, when at last I
+went to bed, calling out at intervals, "Oh, Allah! Oh, Lord Bishop!"--so
+terrible was the pain he suffered in his arm. His wife, who was my
+baby's ayah, appeared in the morning. "Come," said she, "make no more
+noise, keeping everybody awake, but take up your bed (mat) and let us go
+home." He meekly obeyed; but, poor man, he had abscesses under his arm,
+and fell into weak health afterwards; so it is evidently unwise to
+despise a cobra.
+
+There were many other snakes besides cobras, some poisonous, but most of
+them harmless.
+
+The Marquis Doria and Signor Becarri, two distinguished naturalists, who
+lived for some months at Sarawak, collecting bird-skins, insects, and
+plants, told me that the natives often represented a snake to be
+poisonous which was not so. However, we had the mata hari, sun-snake,
+black and coral colour, and a metallic green flat-headed creature,
+Fortrex trigonocephalus, which were venomous enough. I once had a little
+flower-snake for a pet. It was beautifully marked with green and lilac,
+and used to catch flies climbing about the room; but one day it mounted
+to the top of a high door, the wind blew the door to, and my pretty
+snake was thrown to the ground and broke its back.
+
+The boa-constrictor--sawar, as the Malays called it--lived in the jungle
+and rice-swamps. Sometimes it attained an enormous size. An Englishman
+told me that he and some Malays were exploring the jungle to find traces
+of antimony ore, and came to an opening in the wood, across which they
+saw the body of a sawar as thick as his own--he was not very
+stout--moving along; but they never saw either the head or tail of that
+snake, for, after watching its progress for a long time, they were
+seized with a panic at its enormous length, and fled.
+
+A Malay whom we knew very well, Abong Hassan by name, and a mighty
+hunter, told us that once, when he was seeking deer in the forest,
+towards evening he sat down to rest, and cook his rice, on what he
+thought was a great fallen tree. While thus occupied, he felt his seat
+moving from under him, and, starting up, found he had been making use of
+a huge sawar lying inert and distended with food. He killed it, and
+found a full-grown deer in its stomach. These snakes must live to a
+great age, and grow always, to attain such a size.
+
+Some people kept a small boa in their house to kill rats, but we found
+they were equally fond of chickens, and therefore not desirable inmates;
+for at Sarawak chickens were the principal animal food to be had, and it
+was necessary to keep a stock of them.
+
+After some years we built up the lower story of the mission-house with
+bricks, to make it more substantial and cooler. The ground floor was at
+first wholly occupied with the school, the dormitory on one side, the
+matron's and girls' room on the other, and a large schoolroom through
+the centre of the house. A similar room over it was our dining-room, and
+was used for divine service until the church was finished. The library
+and our bedroom were over the boys' dormitory, and bedrooms for
+missionaries on the other side. There were also three rooms in the roof,
+which made good bedrooms, but were too hot for use in the daytime. The
+roof was covered with shingles of balean-wood, which only grows harder
+and darker coloured from rain and use. They were blown off sometimes in
+the storms to which we were subject, but were otherwise more lasting
+than any other kind of roofing. We used to call this house Noah's Ark,
+from the variety of its occupants. A bell hung in the porch roof, and
+rung at different hours to call the workmen and regulate the school. The
+people in the town got so used to it that, when we discontinued it for a
+time, they sent a petition that it might begin again, for without it
+they never knew what o'clock it was. When the school outgrew this house
+we built another for the boys, their master, and the matron, close by;
+but I always kept the girls with us until Julia married, when they were
+sent to the Quop, in charge of the missionary's wife there.
+
+Long before we left the court-house, Mr. and Mrs. Wright decided to give
+up the Sarawak mission, and went to Singapore, where Mr. Wright became
+master to the Raffles Institution for the education of boys. We were
+therefore quite alone until February, 1851, when the Bishop of Calcutta
+paid us a visit to consecrate the church, and brought with him Mr. Fox
+from Bishop's College, to be catechist, with a view to his future
+ordination. Very soon after him came the Rev. Walter Chambers from
+England, and about the same time Mr. Nicholls also arrived from Bishop's
+College; but, as he only wished to stay for two years in the country, he
+had scarcely time to learn the language before he returned to Calcutta.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+PIRATES.
+
+
+When we first lived at Sarawak, the coasts and the seas from Singapore
+to China were infested with pirates. "It is in the Malay's nature," says
+a Dutch writer, "to rove the seas in his prahu, as it is in the Arab to
+wander with his steed on the sands of the desert." Before the English
+and Dutch Governments exerted themselves to put down piracy in the
+Eastern seas, there were communities of these Malays settled in various
+parts of the coast of Borneo, who made it the business of their lives to
+rob and destroy all the vessels they could meet with, either killing the
+crews or reducing them to slavery. For this purpose they went out in
+fleets of from ten to thirty war-boats or prahus. These boats were about
+ninety feet long; they carried a large gun in the bow and three or four
+lelahs, small brass guns, in each broadside, besides twenty or thirty
+muskets. Each prahu was rowed by sixty or eighty oars in two tiers, and
+carried from eighty to a hundred men. Over the rowers, and extending
+the whole length of the vessel, was a light flat roof, made of split
+bamboo, and covered with mats. This protected the ammunition and
+provisions from rain, and served as a platform on which they mounted to
+fight, from which they fired their muskets and hurled their spears.
+These formidable boats skulked about in the sheltered bays of the coast,
+at the season of the year when they knew that merchant-vessels would be
+passing with rich cargoes for the ports of Singapore, Penang, or to and
+from China. A scout-boat, with but few men in it, which would not excite
+suspicion, went out to spy for sails. They did not generally attack
+large or armed ships, although many a good-sized Dutch or English craft,
+which had been becalmed or enticed by them into dangerous or shallow
+water, was overpowered by their numbers. But it was usually the small
+unarmed vessels they fell upon, with fearful yells, binding those they
+did not kill, and burning the vessel after robbing it, to avoid
+detection. While the south-west monsoon lasted, the pirates lurked about
+in uninhabited creeks and bays until the trading season was over. But
+when the north-east monsoon set in, they returned to their settlements,
+often rich in booty, and with blood on their hands, only to rejoice over
+the past, and prepare for next year's expedition. There are still some
+nests of pirates in the north of Borneo, although of late the Spaniards
+have done much to exterminate them. But when Sir James Brooke first
+visited Sarawak, the nobles there, and their sultan at Bruni, used to
+permit, nay, encourage, piratical raids against their own subjects at a
+little distance, provided they shared in the profits of the expedition,
+thus impoverishing the country they ruled, and putting a stop to all
+native trade--a short-sighted and wicked policy. It took a good many
+years of stern resistance on Sir James Brooke's part before the Bruni
+nobles could be cured of their connivance of pirates, whether Malay or
+Dyak.
+
+The Dyaks of Sarebas and Sakarran, a brave and noble people, were taught
+piracy by the Malays who dwelt among them. These Dyaks were always
+head-hunters, and used to pull the oars in the Malay prahus for the sake
+of the heads of the slain, which they alone cared for. But, in course of
+time, the Dyaks became expert seamen. They built boats which they called
+bangkongs, and went out with the Malays, devastating the coast and
+killing Malays, Chinese, Dyaks, whoever they met with. The Dyak bangkong
+draws very little water, and is both lighter and faster than the Malay
+prahu; it is a hundred feet long, and nine or ten broad. Sixty or eighty
+men with paddles make her skim through the water as swiftly as a London
+race-boat. She moves without noise, and surprises her victims with
+showers of spears at dead of night; neither can any vessel, except a
+steamer, catch a Dyak bangkong, if the crew deem it necessary to fly.
+These boats can be easily taken to pieces; for the planks, which extend
+the whole length of the boat, are not fastened with nails, but lashed
+together with rattans, and calked with bark, which swells when wet; so
+that, if they wish to hide their retreat into the jungle, they can
+quickly unlace their boats, carry them on their shoulders into the
+woods, and put them together again when they want them. When we first
+lived at Sarawak no merchant-boat dared go out of the river alone and
+unarmed. We were constantly shocked with dreadful accounts of villages
+on the coast, or boats at the entrance, being surprised, and men, women,
+and children barbarously murdered by these wretches. I remember once a
+boat being found with only three fingers of a man in it, and a bloody
+mark at the side, where the heads of those in the boat had been cut off.
+Sometimes the pirates would wait until they knew the men of a village
+were away at their paddy farms, then they would fall suddenly upon the
+defenceless old men, women, and children, kill some, make slaves of the
+young ones, and rob the houses.
+
+Sometimes, having destroyed a village and its inhabitants, they would
+dress themselves in the clothes of the slain, and, proceeding to another
+place, would call out to the women, "The Sarebas are coming, but, if you
+bring down your valuables to us, we will defend you and your property."
+And many fell into the snare, and were carried off. If they attacked a
+house when the men were at home, it was by night. They pulled stealthily
+up the river in their boats, and landing under cover of their shields,
+crept under the long house where many families lived together. These
+houses stand on high poles. The pirates then set fire to dry wood and a
+quantity of chillies which they carried with them for the purpose. This
+made a suffocating smoke, which hindered the inmates from coming out to
+defend themselves. Then they cut down the posts of the house, which
+fell, with all it contained, into their ruthless hands.
+
+In the year 1849, the atrocities of the piratical Dyaks were so
+frequent, that the rajah applied to the English Admiral in the straits
+for some men-of-war to assist him in destroying them. Remonstrances and
+threats had been tried again and again. The pirates would always promise
+good behaviour for the future to avert a present danger; but they never
+kept these promises when an opportunity offered for breaking them with
+impunity. In consequence of Sir James Brooke's application, H.M.S.
+_Albatross_, commanded by Captain Farquhar; H.M.'s sloop _Royalist_,
+commander, Lieutenant Everest; and H.E.I.C.'s steamer _Nemesis_,
+commander, Captain Wallage, were sent by Admiral Collyer to Sarawak.
+Then the rajah had all his war-boats got ready to join the English
+force. There was the _Lion King_, the _Royal Eagle_, the _Tiger_, the
+_Big Snake_, the _Little Snake_, the _Frog_, the _Alligator_, and many
+others belonging to the Datus, who, on occasions like these, are bound
+to call on their servants, and a certain number of able-bodied men
+living in their kampongs, to man and fight in their boats. This is their
+service to the Government. The rajah supplies the whole force with rice
+for the expedition, and a certain number of muskets. The English ships
+were left, the _Albatross_ at Sarawak, and the _Royalist_ to guard the
+entrance of the Batang Lupar River, into which the Sakarran and Sarebas
+Rivers _debouche_; but their boats, and nearly all the officers,
+accompanied the fleet, and the steamer _Nemesis_ went also. On the 24th
+of July they left us, as many as eighteen Malay prahus, manned by from
+twenty to seventy men in each, and decorated with flags and streamers
+innumerable, of the brightest colours,--the Sarawak flag, a red and
+black cross on a yellow ground, always at the stern. For the _Tiger_ I
+made a flag, as it was Mr. Brereton's boat, with a tiger's head painted
+on it, looking wonderfully ferocious. It was an exciting time, with
+gongs and drums, Malay yells and English hurrahs; and our fervent
+prayers for their safety and success accompanied them that night, as
+they dropped down the river in gay procession. They were afterwards
+joined by bangkongs of friendly Dyaks, three hundred men from Lundu,
+eight hundred from Linga, some from Samarahan, Sadong, and various
+places which had suffered from the pirates, and were anxious to assist
+in giving them a lesson. We heard nothing of the fleet until the 2nd of
+August, when I received a little note from the rajah, written in pencil,
+on a scrap of paper, on the night of the 31st of July, and giving an
+account of how they fell in with a great balla (war fleet) of Sarebas
+and Sakarran pirates, consisting of one hundred and fifty bangkongs,
+returning to their homes with plunder and captives in their boats. The
+pirates found all the entrances of the river occupied by their enemies,
+the English, Malay, and Dyak forces being placed in three detachments,
+and the _Nemesis_ all ready to help whenever the attack began. The _Lion
+King_ sent up a rocket when she espied the pirate fleet, to apprise the
+rest. Then there was a dead silence, broken only by three strokes of a
+gong, which called the pirates to a council of war. A few minutes
+afterwards a fearful yell gave notice of their advance, and the fleet
+approached in two divisions. But when they sighted the steamer they
+became aware of the odds against them, and again called a council by
+beat of gong. After another pause, a second yell of defiance showed they
+had decided on giving battle. Then, in the dead of the night, ensued a
+fearful scene. The pirates fought bravely, but could not withstand the
+superior forces of their enemies. Their boats were upset by the paddles
+of the steamer; they were hemmed in on every side, and five hundred men
+were killed, sword in hand; while two thousand five hundred escaped to
+the jungle. The boats were broken to pieces, or deserted on the beach by
+their crews; and the morning light showed a sad spectacle of ruin and
+defeat. Upwards of eighty prahus and bangkongs were captured, many from
+sixty to eighty feet long, with nine or ten feet beam.
+
+The English officers on that night offered prizes to all who should
+bring in captives alive: but the pirates would take no quarter; in the
+water they still fought without surrender, for they could not understand
+a mercy they never accorded to their enemies. Consequently the prisoners
+were very few, and the darkness of the night favoured escape.
+
+The peninsula to which they fled could easily have been so surrounded by
+the Dyak and Malay forces that not one man of that pirate fleet could
+have left it alive. This blockade the Malays entreated the rajah to
+make; but he refused, saying that he hoped they had already received a
+sufficient lesson, and would return to their homes humbled and
+corrected. He therefore ordered his fleet to proceed up the river, and
+the pirates went back to Sarebas and Sakarran. This severe punishment
+cured the Dyaks of those rivers once and for all of piracy, and was the
+greatest blessing which could have been conferred on those fine tribes.
+They allowed forts to be built on their rivers, and submitted to English
+residents, who ruled them with the counsel of their own chiefs. In 1857,
+when the Chinese rebelled and burnt the town of Kuching, these Dyaks
+sent their warriors to assist the Sarawak Government; in doing so they
+joined other tribes whose hereditary enemies they had been for many
+generations. Some of us felt anxious when we saw the fleet of Sakarrans
+and Balows lying side by side at the Linga Fort; but they all kept
+their good faith, and in fighting a common enemy became friends for
+evermore.
+
+In 1852 Sir James Brooke placed Mr. Brereton in a fort at Sakarran,
+built at the entrance of the river. He threw himself heartily into the
+work of improving the people, and gained a good influence over many. One
+of the most important chiefs, Gassim, attached himself to him, and even
+gave up the practice of head-taking to please him.
+
+There were certain paddy farms in the country which by ancient custom
+could only be cultivated by heroes who had taken many heads. One of
+Gassim's people, however, who had never taken a single head, presumed to
+clear and plant some of this ground; whereupon the other chiefs
+complained, and one sent a message to Gassim, that if he did not put a
+stop to this breach of law, he would fight him. Gassim answered that he
+was ready to fight with swords if necessary, but first he begged a
+conference with all the other chiefs to discuss the matter. To this they
+agreed, and by the force of his eloquence and the justice of his cause,
+Gassim proved to them that the old custom was bad and ought to be
+repealed. About that time Brereton brought Gassim and a number of his
+people to visit Kuching, and the chief breakfasted with us. When all the
+school-children came in to prayers--for the church was not yet
+finished--and Gassim heard them repeat the responses and say the Lord's
+Prayer, he was delighted, and said that he and his people would also
+like to be Christians.
+
+We used to like the Sakarrans much better than their neighbours, the
+Sarebas, in those days. They were fine, tall, handsome men, with
+straight noses and pleasant manners. The Sarebas were coarser-looking
+people, who disfigured themselves by wearing brass rings all along the
+lobes of their ears: the one at the bottom was as large as a
+curtain-ring in circumference, though of slender make; it lay on the
+chest, and by its weight dragged a great hole in the ear. These rings
+were inserted when the children were quite young, and pulled their
+little faces out of shape, giving an uncomfortable expression. Sarawak
+Malays always said, "A Sakarran Dyak may be trusted, but a Sarebas is
+deceitful." It is a curious fact, however, that the Sakarrans, with all
+their fair words and sleek prepossessing looks, did not embrace the
+gospel as the Sarebas did. The Rev. Walter Chambers lived at Sakarran
+for some time, but gathered no converts. He then settled himself among
+the Balows of the Batang Lupar and Linga, and when there was a community
+of Christians from these rivers, at Banting, where Mr. Chambers had
+built his church and house, a Sarebas chief, Buda by name, the son of a
+notorious old pirate, happened to meet some of these Christian Dyaks,
+and came himself to be taught. He brought his wife, sister, and child.
+They walked upwards of eighty miles, partly through the mud of the
+sea-shore, carrying their mats and cooking-pots with them, and
+established themselves in the mission-house, where they were kindly
+welcomed, and stayed six weeks, during which time they were so diligent
+that they learnt to read and made some progress in writing. This was in
+the rainy season, when all farming operations are in abeyance. The next
+year they returned at the same time, but, meanwhile, they had not been
+idle, but had taught all they knew to their countrymen. Shortly
+afterwards Buda was made a catechist, and he excited so much interest,
+that in 1867 Mr. Chambers baptized one hundred and eighty of these
+people, who were once the most dangerous enemies of the English and the
+most notorious pirates of Borneo. Then Buda proceeded to the village of
+Seruai, and Mr. Chambers had soon to visit there, for the people were so
+earnest they would scarcely let him sleep, nor seemed to require any
+sleep themselves, but day and night learnt the hymns and catechism,
+which they must know by heart to be baptized. Nearly two hundred were
+baptized on the Kryan River. A catechist had been placed there, called
+Belabut. He married Buda's sister, who walked to Banting for
+instruction. She had much influence over the women of the tribe, and Mr.
+Chambers said it was delightful to hear her read "her beloved gospel"
+with the correct pronunciation of an English lady.
+
+The Christians of the Kryan did not keep the good news to themselves,
+but proceeded to teach the next village of Sinambo. In these villages
+there are now school-chapels, built by the Dyaks themselves. In 1873,
+Mr. Chambers, who was then bishop, wrote: "These Sea Dyaks have made the
+greatest advances in civilization and Christianity. Looking back even
+five years, there is a great difference. They have abandoned
+superstitious habits." "They no longer listen to the voices of birds to
+tell them when to sow their seeds, undertake a journey, or build a
+house; they never consult a manang[1] in sickness or difficulty; above
+all, they set no store by the blackened skulls which used to hang from
+their roofs, but which they have either buried or given away to any
+people from a distance who cared for them, assuring them at the same
+time that they 'were no use.'"
+
+    [Footnote 1: Heathen doctor.]
+
+Thus we see what a just punishment and a fostering Government, added to
+the sweet influences of Christianity, have done for these people; but it
+took years of patience and faith to effect so great a change.
+
+After the pirate fight of 1849, the evil disposed and turbulent, both of
+the Sakarrans and Sarebas, found a leader in Rentab, a Sarebas chief. He
+braved the Government for years. In 1852 his war-boats appeared above
+the Sakarran Fort, and the two young Englishmen there, Mr. Brereton and
+Mr. Lee, too confident in their strength, attacked the boats with a
+small force. In this engagement Mr. Lee was killed, and Mr. Brereton
+escaped with difficulty. Several expeditions were taken into the
+interior against Rentab; but he was so clever, that even when Captain
+Brooke battered his stronghold to pieces by having guns dragged up the
+steep hill on which his fort was built, Rentab managed to escape, and
+was never taken. His followers, however, fell away from him by degrees,
+and there are now no pirates in those rivers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE CHURCH AND THE SCHOOL.
+
+
+As soon as we removed to College Hill, the building of the church began.
+On the 28th August, 1850, a few days after the return of the expedition
+against the pirates, the summit of a rising ground about two hundred
+yards from the house having been cleared and levelled, a large shed was
+built over the ground, which the sailors of H.M.S. _Albatross_, and our
+workmen, adorned with gay flags and green boughs.
+
+A little procession left our house, the rajah walking first, dressed in
+full uniform as Governor of Labuan, and Suboo, the Malay executioner,
+holding a large yellow satin umbrella over his head, as is the custom on
+all state occasions, for yellow is the royal colour in Borneo; then my
+husband, in surplice and hood, the English residents, naval officers,
+and, last, a crowd of Malays and Chinese followed, to witness the
+ceremony of laying the first great block of wood in the foundation of
+St. Thomas's Church. After prayers had been read, the rajah lowered the
+great sleeper into its place, and we all returned home. From that day
+the church began to rise out of the earth with the same seeming magic as
+the house had done. It was entirely built of wood--all the beams,
+rafters, and posts of the hard balean-wood, and the roof covered with
+balean shingles, like the house. The planking was a cedar-coloured wood,
+and all the arches and mouldings were finished like cabinet-work, so
+that it was both handsome and durable. The ornamental pillars were first
+made of polished nibong palms; but in a few years these had to be cut
+away, as they were full of white ants, and hard wood substituted. The
+building of this little church was most interesting to us. When my
+husband was at Singapore for a short time in 1849, he had the pulpit,
+reading-desk, a carved wooden eagle, and the chairs made there; also a
+coloured glass east window was contrived, with the Sarawak flag for a
+centre light. This pleased the Malays; indeed, they admired the house
+and church immensely, and always assured us that they knew we could not
+have built either, unless inspired by good antoos (spirits).
+
+The baptismal font was a huge clam-shell, large enough to dip an infant
+in, if desired; and this natural font was adopted in all the churches
+afterwards built at Dyak stations--at Lundu, at Banting, Quop River.
+
+The church bell was a difficult matter. Nothing larger than a ship bell
+could be found in the straits. At last, a Javanese at Sarawak said he
+could cast a bell large enough if he had the metal; so Frank bought a
+hundredweight of broken gongs--there is a great deal of silver in gong
+metal--and with these the bell was cast. Then an inscription had to be
+put round the rim--"Gloria in excelsis Deo," in large letters; and the
+date, Sir James Brooke's name on one side, and F. T. McDougall on the
+other. It was a great success, and was safe in the little belfry before
+the church was consecrated, in February, 1851. I do not know whether
+this bell is now cracked, but it has worked very hard from that day--two
+services every week-day, and four on Sunday, to say nothing of extra
+occasions. Before long, we found a gilder who could adorn the reredos.
+There were seven compartments at the east end: in the centre one was a
+gilt cross, and in the others, the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, in
+English, Malay, and Chinese. The gilder was a Chinese catechumen, and
+was very anxious to do it well; but he knew nothing of English letters,
+so each letter had to be cut in paper, and he traced it on the wooden
+panel. It was necessary to watch him narrowly, or he put the letters
+upside down! Such are the difficulties of making churches in the jungle.
+All this took some time to complete. I had a very severe illness in
+November, 1850; and when, about Christmas, I was able to sit in the
+verandah, the progress of the church was my great amusement, for it was
+quite near enough to watch from the house.
+
+In August, 1850, a great influx of Chinese came to Sarawak. There was a
+war at Sambas, the principal Dutch settlement in Borneo, between the
+Chinese, who were friendly to the Dutch, and who were living at
+Pernankat, and the Montrado Chinese, who, with the Dyaks of the country,
+rebelled against the Dutch. The Montrados beat the Pernankat Chinese,
+and they fled from the place, carrying with them their wives and
+children, and as much property as they could cram into their boats. The
+boats were overladen, and many of them perished at sea, but some reached
+Tangong Datu. On the 26th of August, four hundred of these poor
+creatures arrived at Sarawak, saying there were three thousand more
+starving on the sands at Datu, who would follow as fast as they could;
+and, in course of time, most of them did find their way up the river,
+although those in charge of the Government (the rajah was at Labuan)
+tried to persuade them to make a town for themselves at Santubong (one
+of the mouths of the river). A few of them did settle at Santubong, but
+every day brought boats full of Chinamen into the place. The rajah fed
+these poor people for months with rice, and gave them tools that they
+might clear the ground and make gardens in the jungle. At first, before
+they could build themselves houses, the whole place seemed upset by
+them. Many lived in their boats on the river; every shed and workshop in
+the town was full. One night Frank walked into the church, to see no one
+was stealing planks from the unfinished building. All was quiet, but by
+a stray moonbeam he perceived that one end of the church, already
+boarded, was full of mosquito curtains, and they as full of sleeping
+Chinamen. Such a thing could not be allowed--nails knocked into the
+polished walls to tie up the curtains, tobacco perfuming the place, to
+say nothing of sparks to light the pipes, and a considerable allowance
+of bugs which Chinese people always carry about with them. Frank jumped
+straight into the middle of the muslin curtains, with a shout; and
+amidst a hubbub of tongues, "yaw-yaw" and laughter, bundled them all out
+into the workmen's shed close by, where they might sleep in peace. It
+occurred to my husband that some of these Chinese would be glad to have
+their children brought up with the seven little orphans we had already,
+so he went to Aboo, the Chinese magistrate, and offered to take ten
+children into our house to be brought up as Christians, baptized, and
+educated for ten years. The Chinese value education, and were very glad
+to give them to us. I shall never forget sitting in the porch one
+morning to receive my new family. Neither parents nor children could
+speak Malay. They walked up the stairs, bringing a little boy or girl,
+nodded and smiled and put the child's hand into mine, as much as to say,
+"There, take it." One of our Chinese servants then explained to them
+what we could do for the child, and that it must remain with us until
+grown up. That day we took Salion, Sunfoon, Chinzu, Queyfat, Assin,
+Umque, Achin, boys; Achong, Moukmoy, Poingzu, girls. The English nurse
+we had brought with us to Sarawak had married Stahl, the carpenter, of
+whom I spoke before, and Mrs. Stahl became the matron of the school when
+we moved to College Hill, and had these ten Chinese children as well as
+the orphans to care for. We were very busy sewing for them, with a
+Chinese tailor to help. Blue jackets and trousers for week-days, and
+black trousers and white jackets for Sundays, had to be made at once.
+The girls wore trousers as well as the boys, only wider, and their
+jackets reached to the knee.
+
+At the end of a week they were all clean and neat. Their heads were
+shaved every Saturday, and their long tails freshly plaited up with
+skeins of black or red strong silk, made on purpose. At first a barber
+came to do this, but soon the elder boys learnt to do it, and it was a
+regular Saturday business. These ten children soon learnt to speak
+Malay. Then we took five more, and after that one or two as
+circumstances threw them in our way. The school at last numbered
+forty-five, but there was not room in the mission-house for so many; we
+did not get beyond thirty the first year of the school.
+
+I scarcely think thirty English children could have been so easily
+reduced to order as these little Chinese. School must have been paradise
+to them after the hardships they had undergone, and that perhaps made it
+easier to please them; besides, the Chinese readily submit to rule and
+method. The day was laid out for them. They rose at half-past five when
+the day dawned; after a bath in a pond in the grounds, they had a slice
+of rice-pudding with treacle on it, and then went to church for morning
+prayers. By seven o'clock they were all at lessons in the big room--such
+a buzzing and curious singsong of Chinese words--until nine, when the
+breakfast took place; rice, of course, and a sort of curry of
+vegetables, also a great dish of fish, either salt or fresh; a little
+tea for the elder children, no milk or sugar, and water for the rest.
+They soon learnt to sing their grace before and after meals.
+
+The same kind of meal was repeated at five o'clock, but on Sunday they
+had pork curried instead of fish, and on festivals chickens. I taught
+these children to sing from the first. The Chinese are not musical
+generally, and some of them found the sounds of _do_, _re_, _mi_, very
+difficult to master, but we had very nice singing in church in time; and
+when a schoolmaster came who knew plenty of songs, glees, and rounds,
+the children learnt them quickly, and were often sent for to sing to the
+rajah and other guests when they came to dinner.
+
+It used to startle strangers to hear "The Hardy Norseman," "The Cuckoo,"
+and such-like songs from the lips of little Chinese boys. Every Saturday
+evening they came to the house to practise the hymns and chants for
+Sunday; I had an harmonium in the dining-room. On these occasions they
+all had a cup of tea and slice of cake, and used to look at the picture
+newspapers which had come from England the last mail. They were very
+intelligent boys. It was necessary they should learn Malay and English
+as well as Chinese, and of course arithmetic, geography, and the usual
+rudiments of learning. I have often watched the Chinese writing-lesson:
+it seemed the most difficult branch of their education--one complicated
+character, something like a five-barred gate, representing a variety of
+sounds as well as meanings; but our little fellows learnt it all. They
+had a Chinese master as well as an English, and they soon spoke English
+as well as we could desire. My husband took the greatest interest in
+this school. When the children first came he taught them games and made
+them playthings, and they were always about him. Whenever we went
+anywhere by boat a crew of boys was added to the rowers. They soon
+learnt to use their paddles well, and at the public boat-races, on New
+Year's Day, pulled their own boat in the race and sometimes won it. When
+my husband became Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak, he always took some of
+the schoolboys with him in his visits to the different stations. They
+helped the church services by their singing, and had their especial
+chums among the Dyak Christian boys in the different tribes. So many
+boys passed through the school during the twenty years we took an
+interest in it, that I cannot even remember all of them. Some are now
+catechists among the Dyak tribes; many entered the service of the
+Government or the Merchant Company as clerks; some went to Singapore and
+found employment there. I know of only one who has as yet been
+ordained, but perhaps that time has scarcely yet arrived in Sarawak. It
+is difficult for Malays or Dyaks to look up to a Chinaman sufficiently
+to make him their minister: they are less clever than the Chinese, but
+look down upon them nevertheless--the Malays, because the Chinese are
+the workers, and they the gentlemen; the Dyaks, I suppose, because they
+gave them such a thrashing in 1857. One good consequence of the Chinese
+school was, that it attracted the attention of the parents towards
+Christianity, and they presented themselves as catechumens. There were
+many difficulties with the languages, for the Chinese at Sarawak were
+not all of the same tribe, and could not understand one another.
+However, after a while a Chinese professor arrived at Sarawak, bringing
+his wife and family with him. In those days the women were forbidden to
+emigrate with their husbands, but Sing Sing put his wife into a large
+chest with air-holes at the top, and brought her safely from China. The
+Bishop employed this man, who was well educated, to make translations,
+and to interpret what he said to the Chinese, so there were soon Bible
+classes at our house every Wednesday evening. Sing Sing became an
+inquirer himself while translating the gospel to others. He was soon
+able to hold cottage lectures in the town, and after some years the
+Bishop had the happiness to ordain him as minister to his people. There
+was a large congregation of Chinese at the Sunday services before we
+left, and it was a good proof of the sincerity of these converts, that
+while all their heathen countrymen worked at their trades on Sunday as
+well as other days, our Christians spent their Sunday in worship and
+rest, which no doubt was an advantage to their health as well as their
+growth in grace.
+
+At Christmas they always shared in our feasting. We killed an ox, and
+all the Christians had beef for their dinner, as well as all the queer
+things they delight in.
+
+In January, 1851, the Church of St. Thomas at Kuching was consecrated by
+Bishop Wilson, of Calcutta. On the afternoon of the 18th, I was
+returning from church, and mounting the flight of steps which led to the
+porch of the house, I saw a large steamer turn the corner of the
+Pedungen Reach and anchor above the fort. It was the _Semiramis_
+bringing the Bishop, Archdeacon Pratt and Mrs. Pratt, the Rev. H. Moule
+from Singapore, Dr. Beale, the Bishop's physician, and Mr. Fox from
+Bishop's College. This party, escorted by Frank, who rushed home to
+dress himself in black (his usual attire being grey flannels and a white
+muslin cassock), very soon marched into the house, exclaiming with
+pleasure at the wreaths of white jessamine growing over the stairs, and
+the fresh air of the hill. We had so lately settled in the house that it
+was not half furnished, but we gave up our rooms to our guests and
+stowed ourselves in an empty corner. I remember the satisfaction with
+which Mrs. Stahl produced the remains of the Christmas plum-pudding,
+and the comfort it was to have a joint of venison in the house. Dinner
+was soon on the table, and immediately afterwards the Bishop read
+prayers and retired to his room. We all went into the library, where we
+had tea and talk. It was very refreshing to have an English lady to
+speak to, and Mrs. Pratt was so tall and fair that everybody admired
+her, especially the Malays, who used to say that it was sufficient
+pleasure to look at her throat only.
+
+The natives used to flock into the house every evening to see the Tuan
+Padre besar (the great priest), and all the new-comers. At half-past
+five a.m. the Bishop's bell used to ring for his servants to dress him,
+and bring his tea. The whole house was astir then. The Indian servants
+of the party slept in the verandahs, and seemed to me to talk all night.
+
+The next day was Sunday, but the church was not cleared out for
+consecration, and most of the fittings had come from Singapore in the
+_Semiramis_, and could not be got out on Saturday night. So morning and
+evening prayers were as usual in the dining-room, and what with the
+officers of the _Semiramis_, the English of the place, the school and
+our home party, the room was very full. The children sang with all their
+might, and were much interested with the visitors. The Bishop and
+Archdeacon Pratt preached morning and afternoon. On Wednesday the church
+was ready. Mrs. Stahl and I were up before dawn, covering hassocks with
+Turkey red cotton. The church was tiled, but platforms of wood, covered
+with mats, which were a present from Mr. and Mrs. Stahl, were placed on
+the tiles, and the chairs just arrived by _Semiramis_ stood on them. We
+afterwards had to clear the platforms away--they became full of white
+ants; but they looked very well at first.
+
+When all was ready, Captain Brooke and all the principal English
+inhabitants met the Bishop at the church door, and presented a petition
+that he would consecrate the building. He then entered, and walked up
+and down the church repeating psalms, etc. Then came morning service;
+afterwards, the Bishop preached, and as he was very energetic and struck
+the desk with his hand, our gentle Datu Bandar thought he was angry, and
+slipped quickly out of church. There was a confirmation of a Chinese
+teacher and my little maid Susan after the celebration of Holy
+Communion, and then, after three hours and a half service, we returned
+home. The next morning, early, the Bishop consecrated the burial-ground.
+He was carried round it in a chair, for he was unable to walk much; and
+though he was a hale old man of seventy-two, his many years' residence
+at Calcutta had, I imagine, spoilt his walking powers.
+
+He was very kind and friendly to us all, and admired the church very
+much. His visit was a boon to the mission. It impressed the native mind
+with the importance Christians attach to their churches and to public
+worship. When our church bell called us to prayers twice every day, the
+Mahometans revived the daily muezzin at the mosque; and the sight of the
+public practice of religion amongst us quickened the Malays in the
+performance of their own religious rites, and from that time there were
+many more pilgrims to Mecca from Sarawak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE GIRLS.
+
+
+Having said so much about the schoolboys, it would be unfair not to
+mention the girls. Mary, Julia, and Phoebe, the half-caste children,
+grew up beside us, and so did Polly, who was a Dyak baby brought to me
+after the pirate expedition of 1849. Her mother fled, and dropped her
+baby in the long grass, where it was found by an English sailor, who
+carried it to the boats and gave it to one of the women captives to
+bring to me--a poor little, skinny thing, with long yellow hair, like a
+fairy changeling. I got a wet nurse for her and fed her with baby food,
+but she got thinner and more elfish-looking. One day her nurse was
+standing by while the other children were eating their dinner, and Polly
+stretched out her arms to the rice and salt fish, and began to cry.
+"Oh," said I, "perhaps she can eat;" and from that day the little one
+ate her rice and discarded the nurse, growing fat and merry like the
+rest.
+
+Polly had a great talent for languages. Of course she learnt English and
+Malay at once, hearing both languages from her earliest years. But how
+she learnt Chinese as well used to surprise me. In 1866 I took Polly to
+Hongkong. She was then nurse to our youngest child. The lady of the
+house where we were staying accosted Polly in the pigeon English of the
+place--a jargon mysterious to unaccustomed ears. It must be allowed that
+Polly was not unlike a Chinese in appearance. She stared at the lady,
+and then at me, upon hearing directions she could not understand. I
+laughed. "Speak to Polly in English," I said, "and she will understand
+what you mean." "Impossible," answered Mrs. M----; "my servants tell me
+she must be Chinese, for she can talk in two dialects."
+
+Polly married a Christian Chinaman afterwards, so her taste lay in that
+direction. When I last heard of her, she was teaching in the day-schools
+at Sarawak.
+
+Mary married the schoolmaster, Mr. Owen. We brought Julia home with us
+in 1869, and put her into a training-school for teachers in Dublin,
+where she was much beloved. When we returned to Sarawak, in 1861, she
+became the schoolmistress to the girls I then had in the house, and
+others who came as day-scholars. She was a thoroughly good girl, and a
+great comfort to me, but of course she married, a young man employed as
+mate in the _Rainbow_, a Government vessel running between Sarawak and
+Singapore. Some years afterwards Forrest died, and Julia married again,
+an older man very well off. I have no doubt she is bringing up her
+family in the fear of God, but I have not heard of her lately. I had
+many trials with the girls, more than I like to recount. All the first
+little family of Chinese girls we received in 1850 belonged to the tribe
+who rebelled in 1857, and their relations carried them off when we were
+driven from the mission-house. They were taken to Bau where their
+relations lived, but what became of them in the terrible flight to the
+Dutch country, when many were killed, and still more died of the
+privations of the jungle, we never could hear.
+
+Sarah and Fanny came to us in 1856. They were little orphans, half
+Chinese, half Dyak, whom, with two more girls and four boys, the
+Government had redeemed from slavery and gave to the mission. Some of
+these children stayed at Lundu with Mr. Gomez and his family; some came
+to me--Sarah, Fanny, and Betsy, a baby whom I gave out to nurse. Poor
+little Sarah had a very scarred face from a burn, but she was a bright,
+clever child. Fanny was better-looking, but more heavy and less
+impressible. These two girls married native catechists in course of
+time. I trust they are doing some good among their own people.
+
+In the year 1862 some little captives fell into the hands of Captain
+Brooke, then ruling at Sarawak. They came from Sarebas, and one of them
+had been wounded by a spear, though he was only a tiny boy of four
+years old. Captain Brooke wrote to me to know if I would take this
+family of children into the school--two girls, Limo and Ambat, and two
+boys, Esau and Nigo. If I could not take them, he said, they must be
+sent back to their own country immediately, as there was a boat
+departing the next day. The Bishop was away from Sarawak, so I had to
+decide; nor would there have been any doubt in my mind about it, but
+Esau the eldest boy was covered with kurap, from head to foot. This is a
+skin disease to which Dyaks are subject, and which suggests the leprosy
+of the Old Testament, for the outer skin peels off in flakes, and gives
+almost a "white as snow" appearance to the surface. I doubted whether I
+ought to take a pupil so afflicted, for it is decidedly catching. I
+found that Ambat and Nigo had both patches of it here and there from
+contact with Esau, whereas Limo, who was older, more clothed, and who
+slept apart, was quite free.
+
+Still, the alternative was nothing less than sending these four children
+to their heathen relations, and to a place at that time beyond the reach
+of Christ's gospel--a terrible idea which could not be entertained for a
+moment. So at last I sent for them, resolving to keep them in our house,
+and not allow them to go down to the school until the Bishop returned.
+Shortly afterwards a Chinese doctor came to the Bishop, and said, "If
+you will give me fifteen dollars I will cure that boy of kurap. I have a
+wonderful medicine for it, made at the Natunas Islands." So he had the
+money on condition of the cure. The medicine was an ointment as black as
+pitch--indeed, I believe there was a good portion of tar in it. With
+this the doctor smeared Esau all over. He was to wear no clothes, and
+not to be washed or touched. I used to see him, poor child, skipping
+about exactly like the little black imps depicted in _Punch_.
+
+The ointment did not hurt him, but every third day the doctor came and
+washed it all off with hot water: this was rather a painful operation,
+but it was worth while undergoing some discomfort, for at the end of a
+month the disease had vanished, and "his skin came again like the flesh
+of a child." Esau grew up to be a good man and catechist to his own
+countrymen, so it was well I ventured to keep him at Sarawak. The other
+children soon got well when separated from him. Kurap arises, I believe,
+from poor food and exposure to weather. A Dyak wears no clothes except a
+long sash wound round him and the ends hanging down before and behind;
+and when we consider the hot sun and frequent rains which beat upon him,
+for he lives mostly out of doors, it is no wonder his skin suffers. Limo
+and Ambat were clever children. In a letter, written about a year after
+they came to us, I find this passage: "I have only four girls who can
+read English and understand it. My two little Dyaks, Limo and Ambat, are
+very fond of learning English hymns, and say them in such a plaintive,
+touching voice, pronouncing each syllable so clearly, but they don't
+understand it until it has been explained to them in Malay. Limo's
+brother and uncle came this week from Sarebas--two fine, tall men, with
+only chawats[2] and earrings by way of clothes. Limo was delighted; she
+would have gone away with them in their great boat if I had allowed her.
+No doubt they told her how much they would do for her at Sarebas.
+However, I drew a little picture of the women setting her to draw large
+bamboos full of water, and to beat out the paddy with a long pole--very
+hard work, and always done by the young girls,--a more truthful and less
+delightful view of things; so Limo said she would stay with me until she
+was grown up. I gave her a pair of trousers for each of the men, a
+present generally much esteemed. But these two were very wild folk; they
+laughed very much at the trousers, and carried them away over their
+shoulders."
+
+    [Footnote 2: A chawat is a long strip of cotton or bark cloth
+    wound round the body.]
+
+I must not forget to tell the story of my dear child Nietfong, although
+it is a very sad one. She was the daughter of the Chinese baker who
+lived in the lane which led from our garden to the town. I used to
+befriend her mother, a delicate little woman, very roughly treated by
+her husband. She twice ran to me for shelter when her husband beat her,
+and though of course I always had to give her up to him when he came
+begging for her the next day, he knew what I thought of him, and had a
+sort of respect for me in consequence. This poor woman died young, and
+left one little girl about four years old. Nietfong used to come up to
+day-school when she was old enough, and in 1858, when I was so happy as
+to have an English governess for my Mab, I took the little Chinese girl
+to live with us and join Mab in her lessons. She was quite a little
+lady, so gentle, teachable, and well mannered. In 1860 we took our
+children to England: Mab was six years old, and could not with any
+safety remain longer in a hot climate. Little Nietfong went home, for
+her father would not allow her to go to the school in my absence. We
+returned in 1861, leaving three children in England, and brought a baby
+girl out with us. As I walked up the lane to the mission-house, Nietfong
+stood watching for me at the gate. "Take me home with you; oh, I am so
+glad you are come back!" So I took her home, and Nietfong told me that
+her father had married again, and that her step-mother was unkind to
+her, and beat her when she said the prayers I had taught her night and
+morning; "but," said the child, "I always prayed, nevertheless." She
+lived with us till she was about thirteen, perhaps not so much; then her
+father came to the Bishop and said he had sold Nietfong for a good sum
+of money to a man in China, and must send her there to stay with her
+grandmother.
+
+In vain I entreated Acheck not to be so wicked. "Tell me how much you
+would get for your daughter," I said, "and we will give you the money."
+He laughed, and said I could not afford it, mentioning a large sum, but
+I do not remember what it was; so I had to break the sad news to
+Nietfong. We wept and prayed together that she might remain steadfast in
+her Christian faith. As she then knew English very well, I gave her an
+English Prayer-book, which she promised to use. Soon after, Acheck
+himself took her to China; and when he came back, he would only say, "Oh
+yes, of course she is happy--she is married and well off." I have always
+felt sure that this dear girl was kept by God's grace from sin and evil,
+for I believe she truly loved and desired to serve God. There was
+something especially pure about her. Nietfong was never wilfully
+naughty; she was one of those blameless ones who seem untouched by the
+evil around them. We shall not know the sequel of her history until by
+God's mercy we meet her in the heavenly home.
+
+As I have spoken about the Dyak kurap, I may as well here mention the
+real leprosy of the East, which was a terrible but not frequent scourge
+among the Chinese. The Rajah had a small house built out of the town for
+any men who were so afflicted, and they were fed by Government. The
+Bishop or his chaplain used to go and teach these poor creatures, but
+there were not more than three or four of them at a time. We knew one
+Chinese woman who had leprosy. She became a Christian, and liked to have
+a cottage lecture at her house. I often went to see her. Her toes
+gradually dropped off, and her fingers. I never heard her complain. One
+day I went to see her and found her very ill, constantly sick. She said
+she had been poisoned; and it seemed probable, for no medicine gave her
+any relief, and in a few hours she died. The natives have such a horror
+of leprosy that they do not like to touch the body of any one who has
+died of it, so the Bishop and Owen, the schoolmaster, laid poor Acheen
+in her coffin; and this charitable act they performed for any
+unfortunate who died of this terrible disease.
+
+Acheen had adopted a little boy, Sifok by name. She must have been very
+kind to the child, for he seemed wild with grief when she died, and was
+very anxious that whoever had poisoned his mother, as he called her,
+should be punished. But the case was not clear, and no one was punished.
+We took Sifok into the school, and I taught him to play the harmonium,
+which at last he accomplished very fairly.
+
+Amongst our schoolboys was one particularly steady and religious. Tung
+Fa was so good a Malay and Chinese scholar that he could interpret at
+the Chinese Bible class, and also the sermon at the Chinese service at
+church on Sunday. I think he knew his Bible almost by heart. He was
+never very strong in health; then his feet began to swell, and leprosy
+declared itself. For a long time he was carried to and from the church
+in a chair, but at last he was so diseased that he was removed from the
+school-house, and a little hut was built for him close to us. The boys
+brought him his food, and of course he had anything he fancied from our
+kitchen. I think the servants were very kind to him, and he exhibited a
+beautiful example of patience and resignation until the disease affected
+his brain; even then he was quite gentle, only he was always begging to
+be baptized over again that he might die free from sin. This mistake
+arose entirely from his illness. We were quite thankful when one morning
+he was found dead in his bed. What a blissful waking, after so much
+suffering!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE LUNDUS.
+
+
+The beginning of the year 1851 brought us much sorrow. After my illness
+in November, 1850, we were persuaded by Sir James Brooke to accompany
+him to Penang Hill, where the Government bungalow had been placed at his
+disposal; consequently, after Christmas, we sailed in H.M.S. _Amazon_,
+through the kindness of Captain Troubridge, for Singapore, taking our
+child Harry with us. We had to wait some weeks at Singapore for the
+Rajah, and soon after our arrival our little boy died of diptheria,
+leaving us childless, for we had already lost two infants at Sarawak.
+This grief threw a veil of sadness over the remaining years of our first
+sojourn in the East. Perhaps it urged us to a deeper interest in the
+native people than we might have felt had there been any little ones of
+our own to care for; but those six years "the flowers all died along our
+way," one infant after another being laid in God's acre.
+
+We stayed six weeks amid the lovely scenery and in the cooler air of
+Penang Hill, and returned to Sarawak in May, Admiral Austin giving us a
+passage in H.M.S. _Fury_. The admiral gave me his cabin to sleep in, all
+the gentlemen sleeping in the cuddy. I woke in the night, hearing a
+rushing sound in the air, then, patter, patter, all over the bed. I
+jumped up, and called Frank to bring a light and see what was the
+matter. "Oh," said a voice from the cuddy, "better not: it is only
+cockroaches, and if you saw them you would not go to sleep again." This
+swarm of cockroaches came out several times before daylight. The next
+night I put up a mosquito-net to protect my face and hands from these
+disgusting creatures. When a steamer has been nearly three years in
+these hot latitudes it becomes horribly full of rats and cockroaches. My
+husband, taking a trip in H.M.S. _Contest_, in 1858, woke one morning
+unable to open one eye. Presently he felt a sharp prick, and found a
+large cockroach sitting on his eyelid and biting the corner of his eye.
+They also bite all round the nails of your fingers and toes, unless they
+are closely covered. It must be said that insects are a great discomfort
+at Sarawak. Mosquitoes, and sand-flies, and stinging flies which turn
+your hands into the likeness of boxing-gloves, infest the banks of the
+rivers, and the sea-shore. Flying bugs sometimes scent the air
+unpleasantly, and there are hornets in the woods whose sting is
+dangerous. When we look back upon the happy days we spent in that
+lovely country, these drawbacks are forgotten; the past is always
+beautiful, and shadows, even of sorrow and sickness, only enhance the
+interest of the picture. Sin alone, in ourselves and those about us, can
+make the past hateful, and the great charm of the future is that it is
+untouched by sin. Happy, then, are those who are able to look back on
+the past with smiles of thankfulness, while they stretch out their arms
+hopefully to the future.
+
+Sarawak looked very peaceful on our return; and now began the interest
+of the Dyak missions. From our first arrival at Kuching my husband had
+taken every opportunity of visiting the Dyak tribes, and sometimes a
+chief would come to the town with a number of his people, to pay their
+rice tax, or purchase clothes, tobacco, gongs, gunpowder, whatever the
+bazaar possessed which they valued. They brought with them beeswax,
+damar, honey, or rattans to exchange for those things. On these
+occasions the whole party came up to the mission-house to hear the
+harmonium, see the magic-lantern, and beg presents. At first they would
+ask for arrack, but finding nothing but claret to be had with us, soon
+left off that request. Plates and cups were always valued, and they used
+to say we had _so many_ more than we could possibly want in the pantry,
+that of course we would give them some. To their honour be it said, they
+never stole one, and were invariably refused, for we had not any more
+than we wanted. The Dyaks hung their plates in loops of rattan very
+ingeniously against the walls of their houses; but a plantain-leaf
+folded up is more often used by them in lieu of plates, and they could
+not have a better substitute. I never enjoyed a meal so much as some
+cold rice and sardines eaten off a plantain-leaf in the jungle at Lundu,
+after a long walk to the waterfall. The servant with the provision
+basket had lost his way, and as we sat hungry under the great trees at
+the foot of the fall, a Dyak friend produced a box of sardines and a
+parcel of cold rice, and divided it amongst us. When at last the basket
+of cold chickens arrived we handed them over to the Dyaks, feeling quite
+superior to such civilized food.
+
+The Lundu Dyak chief was a great friend and admirer of Sir James Brooke
+from his first arrival in the country. He and his tribe were the
+determined enemies of the pirates, and with the Balows of the Batang
+Lupar braved the Sarebas and Sakarrans, even when they were most
+powerful. At the pirate fight of 1849 the Lundu chief lost two of his
+sons: they were killed by an ambush set by Lingi the Sarebas chief. Only
+one son, Callon, remained, and he was not his father's favourite. Poor
+old Orang Kaya! it was a terrible trial, and nearly brought him to his
+grave. Some time afterwards, he and Callon were at Sarawak to pay their
+tax. Lingi, who had then submitted to the Rajah, had been in Sarawak for
+some days, professedly to trade, but really to see if he could not take
+Sir James Brooke's head. This was prevented by the watchfulness of the
+Malays, who, suspecting Lingi, never let him get near the Rajah when
+they sat talking after dinner, as was the custom in those days. So Lingi
+went away foiled, and the day they dropped down the river the Lundus
+heard of it. Revenge seemed ready at hand: they had a fast boat, were a
+large party, and brave to a man. They entreated the Rajah to let them
+follow Lingi and take his head--never again would they take a head, only
+Lingi's, the Rajah's enemy and their own. Of course they were refused,
+and it must have been a terrible strain on their affection and fealty to
+the Rajah, not in this instance to follow the traditions of their
+ancestors, and gratify their personal revenge by killing a traitor. But
+they obeyed, and Lingi got safely back to Sarebas, little knowing how
+narrowly he escaped. The old Lundu chief was a Christian before he died.
+He always professed a desire to be of the same religion and brother to
+the white man, but when, after due instruction, his son and grandson
+came to Kuching to be baptized, he was not well enough to accompany
+them, Mr. Gomes promised to baptize him on their return; but when that
+event took place Orang Kaya was dead, gone where, no doubt, the will was
+taken for the deed, as he was a Christian at heart. Mr. Gomes was from
+Bishop's College, Calcutta. Soon after he came to us, in 1852, he went
+to Lundu and remained there until 1867, when his children requiring more
+education than he could give them at a Dyak station, he went to
+Singapore, and accepted the post of missionary priest there.
+
+Mr. Grant was Government resident at Lundu, and the ruler and missionary
+devoted themselves to the improvement of the people. In 1855, when we
+returned to our home after our first visit to England, we received a
+delightful visit from Mr. Gomes and twelve Dyaks, whom he brought to be
+baptized at St. Thomas's Church. Callon's son Langi, and half a dozen
+other boys, lived with Mr. Gomes, and ran after him all day--nice little
+fellows, who fraternized with our boys at the school-house. There were
+also five men, the chief of whom was Bulan (Moon), one of the manangs,
+or witch-doctors, of the tribe. These manangs, being as it were the
+priests of Dyak superstitions, and getting their living by pretended
+cures, interpretations of omens and the voices of birds, were of course
+the natural enemies of truth and enlightenment. Bulan, however, had
+tried to be an honest manang, and finding it impossible had turned with
+all his heart to Christianity. His brother Bugai, also a Christian, was
+a very intelligent person, and became catechist at Lundu.
+
+There was also a very rich old man, Simoulin by name, who was baptized
+at this time. His wife had opposed his conversion with all her might;
+indeed, she declared she would leave him and carry half the property
+with her. Simoulin said quietly, "If she will she must: she is only a
+woman, and her judgment in the matter is not likely to be good."
+Christianity had strong opponents in the women of all the Dyak tribes.
+They held important parts in all the feasts, incantations, and
+superstitions, which could not be called religion, but were based on the
+dread of evil spirits and a desire to propitiate them. The women
+encouraged head-taking by preferring to marry the man who had some of
+those ghastly tokens of his prowess. When Sir James Brooke forbad
+head-taking among the tribes in his dominions, it was the women who
+would row their lovers out of the rivers in their boats, and set them
+down on the sea-coast to find the head of a stranger. When heads were
+brought in, it was the women who took possession of them, decked them
+with flowers, put food into their mouths, sang to them, mocked them, and
+instituted feasts in honour of the slayers. The young Dyak woman works
+hard; she helps in all the labours of sowing, planting out, weeding, and
+reaping the paddy. She beats out the rice in a wooden trough, with a
+long pole, or pestle. She grows the cotton for clothing, dyes and weaves
+it. She carries heavy burdens, and paddles her boat on the river. All
+these are her duties, and in performing them she quickly loses her
+smooth skin, bright eyes, and slender figure. It is only the young girls
+who can boast of any beauty, but the old women are very important
+personages at a seed-time or harvest festival. They dress themselves in
+long garments embroidered with tiny white shells, representing lizards
+and crocodiles. With long wands in their hands, they dance, singing wild
+incantations. They have already prepared the food for the
+feast--chickens roasted in their feathers; cakes of rice, spun like
+vermicelli and fried in cocoa-nut oil; curries, and salads of bitter and
+acid leaves; sticks of small bamboo filled with pulut rice and boiled,
+when it turns to a jelly and is agreeably flavoured with the young
+bamboo. It is the women also who serve out the tuak, a spirit prepared
+from rice and spiced with various ingredients, tobacco being one. The
+men must drink at these feasts; they are very temperate generally, but
+on this occasion they are rather proud of being drunk and boasting the
+next day of a bad headache! The women urge them to drink, but do not
+join in the orgies, and disappear when the intoxicating stage begins. I
+trust that this description belongs only to the past; at any rate, we
+know that in those places where the missionaries have long taught, their
+people follow a more excellent way of rejoicing in the joy of harvest,
+and, after their thanksgiving service in church, pour out their
+offerings of rice before the altar to maintain the services, and
+minister to the sick and needy.
+
+[Illustration: A DYAK GIRL.
+
+_Page_ 74.]
+
+For many years, however, the women were opposed to a religion which
+cleared away the superstitious customs which were the delight of their
+lives, their chief amusement and dissipation, and a means of influencing
+the men. It was not until the year 1864 that Mr. Gomes asked us to visit
+Lundu and welcome a little party of women, the first converts to the
+faith which their fathers and husbands had long professed. This is a
+long digression from the history of the Lundus' visit to Kuching in
+1855, which was at the time a great event. I find the following passage
+in my journal: "Every evening, before late dinner, the Lundus go up to
+Mr. Gomes's room to say their prayers, and sing, or rather chant, their
+hymns. There is something very affecting in this little service--the
+Dyak voices singing of Christ's second coming with His holy angels, and
+rejoicing that He came once before for their salvation; then praying for
+holy, gentle hearts to receive Him. I always feel on these occasions as
+if I heard these precious truths afresh when they are spoken in a tongue
+till lately ignorant of them. Indeed, there can scarcely be a more
+joyful excitement than such passages in the life of a missionary; they
+are worth any sacrifice. After English morning service, Mr. Gomes has
+prayers in church for his Dyaks. He then instructs them in the baptismal
+service. This makes five daily services in church, two English, two
+Chinese, and one Dyak. We clothed all the candidates in a new suit of
+cotton garments with a bright-coloured handkerchief for their heads. It
+would be considered very irreverent for Easterns to uncover their heads
+in church. I taught the school-children to sing 'Veni, Creator Spiritus'
+at this baptism, while the clergy were arranging the candidates and
+sponsors round the font. The font was wreathed with flowers by my
+children. There was quite a full church, for the Chinese Christians all
+came to see the Dyaks baptized, and all the English of the place were
+present. Mr. Gomes baptized, and my husband signed them with the cross.
+They all spoke up bravely in answering to their vows: may God give them
+grace to keep them."
+
+This baptism took place on Whit Sunday. On Thursday of that week, Mr.
+Gomes, his Dyaks, and Frank, went off to Linga for a week to visit Mr.
+Chambers, and Mr. Horsburgh at Banting, that the converts of both tribes
+might become friends. The Balows and Lundus had always been united in
+their efforts against the pirate tribes, and in their fealty to the
+Rajah's Government. On this account they had a right to the services of
+the first missionaries who came from England to teach Dyaks. The visit
+to Banting had another object besides the mutual friendship of the
+converts. A controversy had arisen in the mission about the right word
+to be used in translations for _Jesus_. Isa is the name the Malays use,
+and the Dutch translations of the Bible employ this name; but there
+happened to be a bad Malay man owning the name of Isa, well known to the
+Balows, and Mr. Chambers feared some confusion would arise in the minds
+of converts in applying the same name to our Lord. It was therefore
+necessary to have a meeting of the clergy to decide this and many other
+religious terms to be used in hymns, catechisms, and in general
+teaching, that there might be unity in the mission: it would not do to
+have any divisions in the camp on such a subject. There are fifty miles
+of sea to cross from the Sarawak River to the Batang Lupar, then a long
+pull from the fort at Linga up to Banting. The journey took three nights
+and two days.
+
+The mission-house at Banting is most romantically placed on the crest of
+a hill overhanging the river about three hundred feet, and stands in a
+grove of beautiful fruit-trees. The view from it is enchanting. The
+river branches at the foot of the hill, and each branch seems to vie
+with the other in the tortuousness of its course through the bright
+green paddy-fields. About a mile off rises Mount Lesong[3] with a
+graceful slope, about three thousand feet, and then terminates abruptly
+in a rugged top. The four clergymen who met at Banting looked almost as
+wild as their people--wide shady hats, long staffs, long beards, not a
+shirt among the party, and but one pair of shoes, belonging to my
+husband, who never could walk barefooted. They spent several days
+together, and had much consultation about religious terms. The most
+intelligent of the Dyak Christians were present, as it was necessary,
+not only to choose words they could understand, but such as they could
+easily pronounce. On Trinity Sunday there were several services in the
+large room of the house, for the church was not yet built. The Lingas
+sang their hymns with great energy to one of their own wild strains, but
+when they heard the Lundus' melodious chant they were ashamed to sing
+after them, and begged them to teach them. The Dyaks love music and
+verse. Mr. Gomes and Mr. Chambers wrote them hymns, and the Creed in
+verse, which they readily commit to memory and understand better than
+prose. Pictures are also used in their instruction: a parable or miracle
+is read, then a picture of it produced and explained, the Dyaks
+repeating each sentence after the teacher, to keep their attention.
+
+    [Footnote 3: _Lesong_, mortar, being mortar-shaped.]
+
+The baptized alone join in the Litany and Holy Communion. The afternoon
+was spent in visiting the sick and giving medicine. Several women came
+to the house for instruction, and seemed to take great interest in Mr.
+Chambers, teaching; but it was not until Mr. Chambers was married that
+any women were baptized. At breakfast the next morning came an old
+chief, called Tongkat Langit--the Staff of Heaven. His son Lingire was
+one of the most pleasing converts, and Tongkat was wavering--had not
+leisure at present! The necessity of forswearing the practise of
+head-taking deters the old men from becoming Christians: they fear to
+lose influence with their tribe. The little party then fixed upon the
+spot where the church should be built, a permanent bilian chancel to
+which a nave could be added when the additional room was required.
+Twenty-five pounds from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
+was all the money then in hand to begin with; but very soon more was
+collected, and when I visited Banting in 1857 there was a lovely little
+church standing on the hill overlooking the village, and surrounded by
+beautiful trees. The walk to it from the mission-house was just like a
+gentleman's park, the green sward and groups of trees with lovely peeps
+of hill and valleys and winding streams between. Again in 1864 we went
+to Banting, that the Bishop might consecrate the church. The nave was
+then built. Every stick in the church was bilian. The white ants walked
+in as soon as the workmen left. In one night they carried their covered
+ways all over the inside of the roof, the walls, the beams, and rafters;
+and finding nothing they could bite, they walked out again, leaving
+their traces plainly marked. Since then a coloured-glass window,
+representing our Lord's Resurrection, has been added at the east end of
+the church; and, what is better far, the church is full of Dyak
+Christians every Sunday, and from this living Church many branches have
+been planted, so that the Banting Mission now includes seven stations,
+where there are school-churches built by the natives themselves, and
+many hundreds of Christian worshippers.
+
+In 1854, six years having passed away since a little band of Sir James
+Brooke's friends founded the Borneo Church Mission, the funds of the
+Society came to an end; and the mission would have collapsed also, had
+not the venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
+Parts consented to become responsible for it. As the missionaries and
+catechists increased in number, and fresh stations were added to the
+church, they opened their arms wider to receive them, until they set
+apart L3000 a year for Borneo. Under their fostering care the mission
+flourished, as it could not have done under the management of any
+private society.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+A BOAT JOURNEY.
+
+
+Throughout the year 1852 and part of '53 my husband was much tried with
+rheumatism in his knee, which made him quite lame, though he would
+hobble to church on crutches, and to hospital to look after his poor
+patients. Meanwhile he taught the young missionaries something of the
+art of healing, dressing wounds and broken bones, and physicking the
+ailments to which natives are most subject--fever, dysentery, etc. It
+was quite necessary they should know something of these subjects before
+they could be any use in the jungle. The first question the Dyaks asked,
+if told a new missionary was coming, would always be, "Is he clever at
+physic?" Medicines and simple remedies were always furnished to every
+mission-station, and the Rajah supplied all the stores that were needed
+for Kuching or elsewhere. We had taken a good stock with us at first,
+and all sorts of surgical instruments, but the Government kept it
+replenished.
+
+The hospital was set up when the great influx of Chinese brought numbers
+of sick people to the place. A long shed was built, and twenty beds
+immediately filled; but the next day, one of the patients having died,
+all the others who could move ran away. They have so great a horror of a
+dead body that they never suffered any one to die in their houses if
+they could help it, but built a little shed for the sick man, and
+visited him twice a day with food and opium while life lasted. A
+separate room was therefore added for the dead. This hospital furnished
+good instruction to the missionaries. It was also their duty to teach
+the sick every day, and the result was that several Chinese were
+baptized on their recovery. This shed was afterwards exchanged for a
+long room above the fort, which was both more airy and substantial. A
+dispensary was attached to it.
+
+When Mr. Chambers came from England and was able to undertake the duties
+at Kuching, my husband accompanied Captain Brooke and some of the
+Government officers in a tour up the Batang Lupar and Rejang Rivers. He
+was very lame at the time, but had no walking to do, only now and then
+to get out of his large boat and scramble up into a Dyak house. How he
+managed it under the circumstances I never could imagine, for the
+staircase from the water to a high Dyak house is only the trunk of a
+tree with a few notches in it, and, at low tide, a case of slippery mud;
+this, placed at a steep angle, without any rail, is not easy climbing
+for any one, but a stiff knee made it still more difficult.
+
+The object of the expedition was to make peace between certain Dyak
+tribes who had long been enemies, and to build a fort on the Rejang
+River, similar to Mr. Brereton's fort at Sakarran, and for the same
+purpose. An Englishman named Steele was to occupy the fort with some
+Malays. Captain Brooke took the _Jolly Bachelor_ gunboat, and Frank
+moved into it to cross the sea from the mouth of the Sarawak to the
+Linga River, for the waves were high and wetted the smaller boats. When
+they reached the Linga River, he was sitting one Sunday night on the
+boom of the _Jolly_, enjoying the moonlight, and watching the swift rush
+of the tide, which is very rapid in that river. Suddenly, the piece of
+wood he was trusting to broke, and he was precipitated over the stern.
+Had he fallen into the water he must have been dragged under the vessel
+by the tide and drowned, but, through God's mercy, the ship's boat
+(_Dingy_), which only a few minutes before was the whole length of its
+painter away from the _Jolly_, swept up to it from the swing of the
+vessel, and, as he fell, he caught hold of the boat and pulled himself
+into it, escaping with only a bruise, when a watery bed, or the jaws of
+an alligator or shark, might have received him. A shark had been
+swimming round the gun-boat during Divine service that day, and an
+alligator had taken a man only the day before from a boat close by. My
+dear husband's comment on this narrow escape is, "Praise the Lord, O my
+soul, and forget not all His benefits; who redeemeth thy life from
+destruction, and crowneth thee with mercy and lovingkindness."
+
+The fleet waited for some days in the Linga River, while the Balow Dyaks
+fetched the jars which they were to exchange with the Sakarrans as a
+pledge of peace. These jars, of which every Dyak tribe possessed some,
+are of unknown antiquity. There is nothing very particular in their
+appearance. They are brown in colour, have handles at the sides, and
+sometimes figures of dragons on them. They vary in value, but though the
+Chinese have tried to imitate them, hoping to sell them to the Dyaks,
+they have never deceived them: they detect a difference where no
+European or Chinese eye can, and at once pronounce the Chinese jars of
+no value. Yet they will not sell their own rusas or tajows for any
+money, and they fancy that some of them have the property of keeping
+water always sweet. If a Dyak tribe offends the law, Government fines
+them so many jars, which are brought to Kuching and kept, or returned on
+their good behaviour. This reminds me of the story of a little Dyak boy
+who was taken prisoner in 1849. His father was killed, and the boy,
+about eight years old, was brought to the Rajah. For some days the child
+seemed quite happy, then he begged to speak to "Tuan Rajah," and told
+him confidentially that he knew a place in the jungle where some
+valuable tajows were secreted, and if he would land him with some
+Malays or the bank of the river, he would point out the place. The Rajah
+believed the child, and the jars were found, and taken on board the
+boat. Then the little boy went again to the Rajah, and bursting into
+tears, said, "I have given you the riches of my tribe; in return give me
+my liberty. Set me down in the jungle path, give me some food, and in
+two days I shall reach my home and my mother." So the child was laden
+with all he took a fancy to--a china cup, a glass tumbler, and a gay
+sarong (waist-cloth), and as much food as he could carry--and we heard
+afterwards that he rejoined his friends in safety.
+
+I must now return to my husband's journal. He says: "While at breakfast
+this morning, one of the men told us he had seen the people with tails,
+of whom we have often heard.[4] They live fifteen days up a river, in
+the interior of the Bruni country. It is a large river, but in some
+places runs through caverns, where they can only pass on small rafts. He
+was sent there by Pangeran Mumeim to get goats, as these tailed gentry
+keep a great many of them. He says their tails are as long as the two
+joints of the middle finger, fleshy and stiff. They must be very
+inconvenient, for they are obliged to sit on logs of wood made on
+purpose, or to make a hole in the earth, to accommodate their tails
+before they can sit down. These people do not eat rice, but sago made
+into cakes and baked in a pot. In their country, he said, was a great
+stone fort, with nine large iron guns, of which the people can give no
+account, not knowing when or by whom it was built.
+
+    [Footnote 4: This legend, though commonly reported, has never
+    been proved.]
+
+"After dinner, when the men sit round me and smoke my cigars, they soon
+enter into conversation. We spoke a good deal to-day on the subject of
+religion, the difference between Christianity and Mahometanism, and,
+above all, the absurdity of their repeating the Koran, like so many
+parrots, without understanding one word of what they say; and the
+irreverence of addressing God in words they do not understand, so that
+their hearts can take no part in their prayers. They agreed that it
+would be better to learn God's law, instead of trusting merely to their
+hadjis, who are often as ignorant as themselves. A respectable old Bruni
+man, speaking of different races of men of various colours, said he had
+visited a tribe of white people, who lived on a high hill in the
+interior of the country; they were very white, and the women beautiful,
+with light hair. The men dress like Dyaks, but the women wear a long
+black robe, tight at the waist, and puffed out on the shoulders. The
+tradition of their origin, he said, was as follows: A long, long time
+ago, an old man who lived on this mountain lost himself in the jungle at
+its foot, and at night, being tired, and afraid of snakes and the evil
+spirits of the wood, he climbed into a tree and fell asleep. He was woke
+by a noise of ravishing music, the sweetest gongs and chanangs mingling
+with voices over his head. The music came nearer and nearer to the
+place where he was, until he heard the sweet voices under the tree, and,
+looking down, beheld a large clear fountain opened, and seven beautiful
+females bathing. They were all of different sizes, like the fingers on a
+man's hand, and they sung as they sported in the water. The old man
+watched them for some time, and thought how much he should like one of
+them as a wife for his only son; but as he was afraid of descending
+among them, he made a noose with a long piece of rattan, lowered it
+gently, and slipping it over one of them, drew her up into the tree. She
+cried out, and they all disappeared with a whirring noise. The girl he
+caught was very young, and she cried sadly because she had no clothes
+on; so he rolled her in a chawat (long sash), and immediately heard the
+gongs at his own house, which he had thought was a long way off. He took
+the child home, and she was brought up by his wife, until she was old
+enough to marry their son. She was very good and sweet-tempered, and
+everybody loved her. In course of time she had a son, as white as
+herself. One day her husband was in a violent rage and beat her. She
+implored him not to make her cry, or she should be taken away from him
+and her child. But he did not heed, and at last pulled her jacket off to
+beat her. Immediately another jacket was dropped with a great noise from
+the sky, upon the house. She put it on, and vanished upwards, leaving
+her son, who was the ancestor of the present tribe."
+
+Who would have thought of a Dyak Undine?
+
+While the Malay was telling this story, the boat was waiting in a
+sheltered nook of the Sakarran River for the bore to pass, before the
+crew dare venture up to the fort. The bore is a great wave, twelve feet
+high, which rushes up with the tide, and is succeeded by two smaller
+waves. It is very dangerous to boats; but happily the natives know where
+to hide while it sweeps past.
+
+When they reached Sakarran Fort it took several days to hear all the
+claims the Lingas and Sakarrans had against each other. Six years
+before, the Rajah had persuaded them to make peace, but they had broken
+it the same day, and laid the blame upon one another. At last matters
+were arranged, and a platform being made under a wide-spreading
+banyan-tree, the chiefs sat round; and Captain Brooke made them a
+speech, describing the evils of piracy and war, and the determination of
+the Rajah that his subjects should live at peace with one another.
+
+"He then presented each chief with a jar, a spear, and a Sarawak flag,
+and desired them to use the flag in their boats for the purposes of
+trade. Nothing could be more picturesque than the scene. The surface of
+the water was dotted over with the long serpent-like bangkongs, gaily
+painted and adorned with flags and streamers of many colours, which
+looked all the brighter against the solemn jungle background. Then
+Gassim and Gila Brani (madly brave), on the part of the Sakarrans, and
+Tongkat Langit (Staff of Heaven), the Linga chief, joined hands; and
+each tribe killed a pig with great ceremony, and inspected the entrails
+to see if the peace was good. Then they feasted and rejoiced together.
+This ended, they proceeded up the Rejang River in the boats, and paddled
+for four days, from twenty-five to thirty miles a day, until they came
+to the Kenowit, on the banks of which the fort was to be built."
+
+The Rejang is a glorious river. It is not visited by a bore, and eighty
+miles from the sea it is half a mile broad, and deep to the banks. The
+flowers and fruits which grow there are a continual surprise and
+pleasure--but how shall I describe the flowers of those great
+woods?--not only up the Rejang, but everywhere in the old jungle. They
+seldom grow on the ground, though you may sometimes come upon a huge bed
+of ground orchids, but mostly climb up the trees, and hang in festoons
+from the branches. One plant, the Ixora, for instance, propagating
+itself undisturbed, will become a garden itself, trailing its red or
+orange blossoms from bough to bough till the forest glows with colour.
+
+The Rhododendron, growing in the forks of the great branches, takes
+possession of the tall trees, making them blush all over with delicate
+pinks and lilacs, or deepest rose clusters. Then the orchideous plants
+fix themselves in the branches, and send out long sprays of blossom of
+many colours and sweetest perfume. Here the voice of the Burong boya
+(crocodile-bird) may be heard, singing like an English thrush. He shakes
+his wings as he sings, and the Malays say that from time immemorial he
+has owed a large sum of money to the crocodile, who comes every year to
+ask payment; then the bird, perched on a high bough out of reach of the
+monster, sings, "How can I pay? I have nothing but my feathers, nothing
+but my feathers!" So the crocodile goes away till next year. There are
+not many singing birds in Borneo besides this thrush. The soft voices of
+many doves and pigeons may always be heard, and often the curious
+creaking noise made by the wings of rhinoceros hornbills as they fly
+past. More musical is the voice of the Wawa monkey, a bubbling like
+water running out of a narrow-necked bottle, always to be heard at early
+dawn, and the sweetest of alarums. A dead stillness reigns in the jungle
+by day, but at sunset every leaf almost becomes instinct with life. You
+might almost fancy yourself beset by Gideon's army, when all the lamps
+in the pitchers rattled and broke, and every man blew his trumpet into
+your ear. It is an astounding noise certainly, and difficult to believe
+that so many pipes and rattles, whirring machines and trumpets, belong
+to good-sized beetles or flies, singing their evening song to the
+setting sun. As the light dies away all becomes still again, unless any
+marshy ground shelters frogs. But to hear all this you must go to the
+old jungle, where the tall trees stand near together and shut out the
+light of day, and almost the air, for there is a painful sense of
+suffocation in the dense wood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CONTINUATION OF THE TRIP TO REJANG.
+
+
+After two days' paddling from the mouth of the Rejang, the boats arrived
+at Sibou, where there is a manufactory for nepa salt. The nepa palm
+grows down to the edge of the banks, which are washed by a salt tide,
+and furnishes the Dyak with many necessaries.
+
+The leaves make the thatch to cover the roofs of the houses, or shelter
+over their boats. Neatly fastened together with split rattans, they form
+the walls of the house. From the juice of the tree they make a fermented
+drink something like sweet beer, also brown sugar. The young shoots are
+eaten in curries and salads. The fruit is salted or pickled. When they
+have got all these good things out of it, they burn the stem of the palm
+with some of the leaves, and wash the burnt ashes in water. This water
+is then boiled until it is evaporated, and some black salt remains at
+the bottom of the pot. It tastes bitter as well as salt; but the Dyaks
+prefer it to common salt, and if you ask why, they say, "It is a fat
+salt." I must now return to my husband's journal. "Arrived at Kenowit. A
+tribe of Milanows have been induced to settle here lately by the Rajah.
+Within the last few weeks they have built two long and substantial
+houses, raised thirty feet from the ground on trunks of trees, some two
+feet in diameter. There are in all sixty doors, or families. The tribe
+furnishes three hundred fighting men, and numbers from fifteen hundred
+to two thousand.
+
+"The bachelors, as with the Dyaks, have a separate dwelling.
+
+"Tanee's tribe, who are returning to Sibou on the Rajah's promise to
+build a fort at Kenowit, are of the same tribe, and number about three
+hundred men. They speak the Milanow language, and have the same customs
+of burial. The men and some of the women are tattooed in the most
+grotesque patterns. When you look at them closely the invention
+displayed is truly remarkable; but at a distance they give a dingy,
+dusky appearance to the men, as if they were daubed with an inky sponge.
+Nature having denied them beards, they tattoo curly locks along their
+faces, always bordered by a vandyke fringe, which must task their utmost
+ingenuity. Tanee, who has followed us with some of his warriors, is the
+very exquisite of a Kenowit. He is made like a Hercules, and is proud of
+showing his strength and agility. He piques himself upon having the
+best sword, of fine Kayan make and native metal, and the strongest arm
+in his tribe. He sits most of the day sharpening one or another of these
+swords, feeling and looking along its edge to see that the weapon is in
+perfect order: then, to prove it, he seeks for a suitable block of wood,
+as thick as his arm, severs it at a blow, gives a yell, and with a grin
+of delight returns the weapon to its sheath. His jacket is of scarlet
+satin; his long hair is confined by a gold-embroidered handkerchief; his
+chawat is of fine white cloth, very long, and richly embroidered--the
+ends hang down to his knees, he wears behind an apron of panther's skin,
+trimmed with red cloth and alligator's teeth, and other charms; this
+hangs from his loins to his knees, and always affords him a dry seat.
+Tanee's boat is long, made out of one tree, like our river canoes, but
+much lighter and faster. His cabin is a raised platform in the centre of
+the boat, covered with a mat, and hung all round with weapons and
+trophies of war--Kyan fighting-coats of bear and buffalo hides, having
+head-pieces adorned with beads or shells, shields and spears all gaily
+decked with Argus' feathers, or human hair dyed red.
+
+"On Sunday we moved from the boats into Palabun's house, and settled
+ourselves in part of the verandah. After breakfast I doctored the sick,
+and then we had the morning service, much to the surprise of the
+natives, who, however, did not disturb us. They sit round us all day,
+hearing and asking us questions.... Meanwhile the seven hundred men who
+came in the flotilla of twenty boats, were busy building the fort. First
+they pulled down a temporary fort already set up by the Kenowits, and
+then cut wood to erect a substantial building. Four guns were mounted on
+the parapet, and there was a house inside for the Malay commandant, and
+a powder magazine. All the chiefs near Kenowit were assembled when the
+fort was finished, and had the same kind of address made them as at
+Sakarran, praising the benefits of peaceful trade instead of the
+miseries of wasteful war. They all listened with respect. That same
+afternoon, dismal howlings issued from Palabun's house. His brother, who
+had left him two years ago with a party of fourteen, to visit a friendly
+tribe at a distance, had been treacherously murdered. He and his party
+had been kindly received by their friends, and they had all gone out
+together on the war-path to seek heads. It is supposed that when they
+met no one, the hosts had turned on their visitors and taken their
+heads, rather than return home without any. Palabun vowed vengeance, and
+the whole tribe go into mourning for three months." (Bishop's Journal.)
+
+A Dyak mourning is not a becoming black costume, made "cheerful," as the
+dressmakers say, by jet ornaments and bugle trimmings. It consists in
+the abandonment of all ornament and their usual clothing, and the
+substitution of a kind of a brown cloth made of the inside bark of
+trees, which must be as rough and uncomfortable as it is ugly. These
+people, being Milanows, have peculiar burial customs. They lay the dead
+in a boat, with all his property and belongings, and send it out to sea;
+for they imagine that in some way a man's possessions may be of use to
+him in another world, if no one claims them on earth.
+
+"In this case there was no corpse to bury. The clothes were so disposed
+on the bier as to represent a figure, and laid beside it were handsome
+gold cloths and ornaments, gold buttons, krises,[5] and breastplates,
+and weapons of Javanese manufacture, representing some hundreds of
+dollars. There were also gongs and two brass guns. Of course the fate of
+such boat-loads, sent adrift in a tidal river, is generally to be
+capsized and lost in the water. But if Malays encounter them they do not
+hesitate to appropriate the effects. Palabun knew this, so he did not
+send his brother's boat away until our fleet had departed." (Bishop's
+Journal.)
+
+    [Footnote 5: A kris is a Malay dagger.]
+
+I remember our once meeting one of these boats. It had been caught by
+branches from the bank, and swayed idly to and fro in the stream. We
+could only see a heap of coloured clothes inside it, but there was a
+weird, ghastly look about the boat which made us shudder. An unburied
+corpse, left to the winds and waves, without a prayer or a blessing! how
+could it be otherwise? Even if we could delude ourselves into fancying
+the Dyaks happy during their lives without Christianity, there can be no
+doubt of their being miserable when death comes. They all believe dimly
+in a future state, but their dread of spirits is so great that they can
+have no ideas of happiness unconnected with their bodies. "Having no
+hope, and without God in the world," describes the mental state of a
+heathen Dyak. In 1856, we were living for a few weeks on a hill called
+Peninjauh, some miles from Kuching, where the Rajah had built a cottage
+as a sanitarium after illness. The cool freshness of the mountain air,
+and the glorious view from See-afar Cottage, were indeed conducive to
+health. On the hillsides lived several villages of Land Dyaks, and I had
+a woman as nurse to my baby who belonged to one of these villages. The
+cholera was in the country at that time, and three men had died of the
+Sebumban Dyaks. Every night the most mournful wailing arose above the
+trees--a sad sound indeed, rising and falling on the wind as the friends
+of the dead walked all through the jungle paths near their homes, now
+near to our cottage, now far off. One night I found my little ayah
+seated in the nursery when she ought to have been in the cook-house
+getting her supper. "What is the matter, Nina? Are you ill, that you are
+eating no supper?" "No, I am not ill, but I dare not go to the
+cook-house to-night." "Why?" "I fear to meet the spirits who are abroad
+to-night in the jungle." "The spirits of the dead men?" "No, the spirits
+who come to fetch them." After three days the bodies of these Dyaks were
+burnt, for this was the custom of the Sebumbans. The dead man is laid
+on a pile of wood, and they all sit round watching. Nina said, that when
+the fire has burnt some time the dead man sits up for a moment,
+whereupon they all burst into renewed waitings of sorrow and farewell. I
+am told that the heat swelling the sinews of the dead body may cause
+this curious phenomenon; but could there be a more mournful, hopeless
+story of death?
+
+It is a relief to return to the party on the Rejang River. They were
+much entertained one day with a war-dance between two warriors, which
+was a graphic pantomime of their customs. "The two men appeared fully
+armed, and were supposed to be each alone on the war-path, looking out
+for a head. They moved to the beat of native drums, and seemed to be
+going through all the motions of looking out for an enemy, pulling out
+the ranjows (sharp pieces of cane stuck in the earth, point upwards, to
+lame an enemy). At length they descried one another, danced defiance,
+and, flourishing swords and shields, commenced the attack. The
+nimbleness with which they parried every stroke of the sword, and
+covered their bodies with their shields, was remarkable. In real combat,
+to strike the shield is certain death, because the sword sticks in the
+wood and cannot be withdrawn in time to prevent the other man from using
+his sword. After a time, one of the combatants fell wounded, and covered
+his body with his shield. The other danced round him triumphantly, and
+with one blow pretended to cut off his head; then, head in hand, he
+capered with the wildest gestures, expressive of the very ecstasy of
+savage delight But, on looking at his trophy closely, he recognized the
+features of a friend, and, smitten with remorse, he replaced the head
+with much solicitude. Then, moving with a slow, measured tread, he wept,
+and with many sighs of grief adjusted the head with much care, caught
+rain in his shield and poured it over the body; then rubbed and shook
+the limbs, which by degrees became alive by his mesmeric-like passings
+and chafings from the feet upwards. Each limb as it revived beat time to
+the music, first faintly, then with more vigour, till it came to the
+head; and when that nodded satisfactorily, and the whole body of his
+friend was in motion, he gave him a few extra shakes, lifted him on his
+legs, and the scene concluded by their dancing merrily together."
+(Bishop's Journal.)
+
+Captain Brooke and my husband were a month away on this expedition. They
+would have liked to pay a visit to Kum Nepa, a Kyan chief, who lived
+much farther up the river,--six days in a fast Kyan boat, said the
+Dyaks, ten days in the boats our friends had with them. But Kum Nepa had
+just lost two children from small-pox, and, according to their custom,
+he and all his tribe had left their houses and taken to the jungle. The
+Dyaks dread small-pox to such a degree that, when it appears, they
+neglect all their usual occupation. The seed is left unsown, the paddy
+unreaped; they leave the sick to die untended, and support themselves
+in the jungle upon wild fruits and roots, until the scourge has passed
+away.
+
+From the time we lived at Sarawak a continual effort was made to
+introduce vaccination. It was difficult to get lymph in good order at so
+distant a place; the sea voyage often rendered it useless. The other
+difficulty was made by the Malays, who inoculated for small-pox; and, as
+they charged the Dyaks a rupee a head for inoculating them, made it
+answer pecuniarily. Some who were adepts in the art went about the
+country inoculating until they caused quite an epidemic of small-pox.
+Now, I believe, the Dyaks have learnt from experience the superior
+advantages of vaccination, and, by a late _Sarawak Gazette_, I gather
+that it is one of the duties of a Resident among the tribes up country
+to vaccinate his people as well as to judge them wisely.
+
+When the guns were mounted at the fort, and a garrison of seventy men,
+under Abong Duraup, settled there to guard it, the fleet left the Rejang
+to return to Sarawak. Captain Brooke had persuaded Palabun to give up
+his ideas of retaliation for his brother's death, on condition that the
+Kapuas people who killed him should give satisfaction. The last
+afternoon was devoted to doctoring the sick and giving them a stock of
+remedies. One poor man had nearly recovered his eyesight during the week
+he had been under treatment. So the Sarawak flag was hoisted at the fort
+and saluted, and after some good advice and renewed promises from the
+Sakarrans and Kenowits, the boats pulled away to the _Jolly Bachelor_,
+which had been left at the Serikei River; and a few days afterwards we
+heard gongs and boat music on the river, and my servant Quangho running
+into my room called out, "Our Tuan is coming," so we all went down to
+the stone wharf and welcomed them home. The lameness which had so long
+hindered my husband from moving about, did not yield to any remedies we
+applied, and at last we went to Singapore for medical advice. The
+doctors there sent their patient to China for a cold season, and he
+spent six weeks at Hongkong with the Bishop of Victoria, and at Canton
+with other friends, to the advantage of his knee. Afterwards we went
+together to Malacca, where there was a hot spring bubbling up in a
+field. Into this spring we put a large tub; and there, in the early
+morning, Frank used to sit, with no neighbours but the snipe feeding in
+the field, and, as he had his gun by his side, he occasionally shot some
+game for breakfast.
+
+In 1853 we went home. My health was very much broken, and my husband was
+called to England by the necessary transfer of the mission from the
+Borneo Mission Society, whose funds came to an end, to the venerable
+Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, who kindly adopted us. We
+arrived at Southampton one grey November day. I wondered to see the sky
+so near the earth, and the trees almost like shrubs in height compared
+to our Eastern forests. But it was sweet to hear the children speaking
+English in the streets, and their fair rosy faces were refreshing
+indeed. I never thought our school-children plain when we were at
+Sarawak, but the contrast was certainly very great when we looked about
+us in England.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+RETURN TO SARAWAK.
+
+
+In 1854, after eighteen months' stay in England, during which time my
+husband worked as deputation for the Society for the Propagation of the
+Gospel, we returned to Sarawak, _via_ Calcutta, in one of Green's
+sailing vessels, for we were too large a party to afford the overland
+route.
+
+Besides ourselves and our baby, we had two young ladies who wished to
+try and teach the Malay women in their homes, and to help with the
+day-scholars at the mission-house. Only one of these ladies reached
+Sarawak; the other left us at Calcutta, and married there eventually.
+The Rev. J. Grayling and Mr. Owen, a schoolmaster, also went with us,
+and a young friend who was put under my charge, and lived with us for
+some years on account of his health.
+
+For nurse I had an old Malay woman who had taken some children to
+England from Singapore, and wanted to return. She was a capital sailor,
+and always able to carry Mab about however rough the sea was. Nothing
+could exceed her devotion to the child, but she had contracted a bad
+habit of always sharing the sailor's grog by day, and requiring a
+tumbler of hot gin and water before she went to bed. This was a great
+trouble to me, but I never saw her tipsy till we were staying at the
+Bishop's palace at Calcutta. Ayah, having been in the bazaar buying
+presents for her children, was brought back lying senseless in a
+palanquin. The Bishop, who was in the hall when the bearers set the
+palanquin down, exclaimed, "Oh! that woman has cholera! take her away."
+
+However, she was kindly cared for by the servants, and appeared the next
+day without any shame, bringing "a toy for missy." All my lecture was
+quite thrown away--she "had only taken a glass of grog in the bazaar,
+and they had put bang into it, so of course it made her insensible; but
+it was no fault of hers." This curious old woman was a Mahometan,
+therefore her tipsiness was inexcusable. She practised the habit of
+alms-giving, however, not only with her own money but mine. She used to
+say I did nothing in that way for the salvation of my soul, and, as she
+loved me, she must do it for me. I remember seeing a beggar-woman with
+twin babies, who used to sit in the streets of Kensington with Mab's
+bonnets on the babies' heads. Ayah gave them for my sake. Indeed, she
+was notorious in Kensington, because she could not resist treating boys
+to ginger-beer, and I sometimes had the mortification of seeing Ayah
+with a small crowd at her heels, and my baby kissing her little hands to
+them as Ayah desired her.
+
+We only spent a week in Calcutta. The object of our going there was that
+the Bishop, in conjunction with Bishop Dealtry of Madras, and Bishop
+Smith of Victoria, should consecrate my husband Bishop of Labuan; but
+the Bishops had not reached Calcutta, and their arrival was uncertain.
+We were anxious to get to Sarawak, and could not wait for them; so it
+was decided that Frank should return by himself in the autumn, and we
+should proceed as quickly as we could. Sad news reached us from Kuching.
+Our dear friend Willie Brereton, who had done so much for the Sakarran
+Dyaks, was dead of dysentery. There was no medical man when my husband
+was away.
+
+Our Rajah had been very dangerously ill of small-pox, and had only a
+Malay doctor, who was devoted but ignorant. Happily Mr. Horsburgh, with
+medical books to aid him, came to the rescue in time, but the return of
+the physician of soul and body was much desired. I see, by my journal,
+that after a weary passage of twenty-four days in a sailing vessel from
+Singapore, we reached Sarawak on the 25th of April. Mr. Horsburgh came
+to fetch us from the mouth of the river in the Siam boat, a long boat
+with a house in it, which the Rajah brought with him from Siam after his
+embassy to that country. Mr. Horsburgh told us that all the chief
+Government officers were away, looking for Lanun pirates on the coast;
+but we had plenty of kind greetings from the Christian Chinese, who came
+about us in the bazaar, and all the school-children came running down
+the hill with Mrs. Stahl, who almost screamed for joy at our return. The
+house looked nicer than ever, for the trees had grown up about it, and I
+felt most vividly that this was our chosen home, endeared to us by many
+sorrows, but the place where we had received much blessing from God, and
+where our work lay, and perhaps some day its reward, in the Church
+gathered from the heathen into Christ's fold. We were not long alone;
+the next day Mr. Chambers arrived from Banting with a party of seven
+baptized Dyaks.
+
+We had brought all sorts of beautiful things from England for the
+Church. A carpet to lay before the altar, a new altar-cloth, also
+painted shields for the roof. Our friends in England had furnished us
+with a box of clothes for the Dyaks, cotton trousers and jackets, and
+gay handkerchiefs for their heads. We always dressed the Christians for
+baptism--it was a sign of the new life they professed at the font; but
+we did not expect them to wear clothes generally, except their own
+chawats, nor was it to be desired until they knew how to wash them. We
+had also brought a beautiful magic lantern with a dissolving-view
+apparatus for our people's amusement and instruction, for some of the
+slides were painted by Miss Rigaud to illustrate the life of our Lord,
+and there were many astronomical slides also. All these treasures
+brought us numerous visitors. The Chinese Christians were all invited to
+a feast at our house, after which the magic lantern was exhibited, and
+we were glad to find that our school-children could explain all the
+Scripture slides quite correctly.
+
+Mr. Horsburgh accompanied Mr. Chambers to Banting that day, to assist
+him in his work for the Balow Dyaks; and soon after, Mr. Gomes arrived
+from Lundu with a large party of men and boys; but I have already
+described their visit. My dear husband went off to Calcutta again in
+September, and was consecrated Bishop of Labuan on St. Luke's Day,
+October 18, 1855. Sir James Brooke added Sarawak to his diocese and
+title on his return; indeed, the small island of Labuan, no larger than
+the Isle of Wight, was only the English title to a bishopric which was
+then almost entirely a missionary one. The Straits Settlements,
+including Singapore, Penang, and Malacca, were then under the Government
+of India, and Labuan was the only spot of land under the immediate
+control of the Colonial Office. The Bishop of Calcutta would, from the
+first, have been glad to part with so distant a portion of his then
+unwieldy diocese, but it could not at that time be effected. As soon as
+the Straits Settlements were passed over to the Queen's Government, the
+Bishop of Labuan became virtually the Bishop of the Straits, and, even
+long before that, performed all episcopal functions in those
+settlements; but the title has only lately been altered.
+
+As I was not present at my husband's consecration, I cannot do better
+than transcribe good Bishop Wilson's letter to the venerable society
+(S.P.G.), describing the ceremony.
+
+    Calcutta, Bishop's Palace, October 22, 1855.
+
+    Thank God, the consecration took place with complete success on
+    Thursday, October 18th, St. Luke's Day. The Bishop elect arrived
+    some days before, the Bishop of Victoria on the 16th, and Bishop
+    Dealtry (of Madras) on the 17th. The crowded cathedral marked
+    the interest which was excited. We sent out two hundred printed
+    invitations to gentry, besides requesting the clergy to attend
+    in their robes. There were more than eight hundred jammed into
+    the cathedral, and hundreds could not gain admittance. The
+    clergy were thirty. After morning prayer the assistant bishops
+    conducted the elect Bishop to the vestry, where, having attired
+    himself in his rochet, he was presented to me when seated near
+    the Communion table. Her Majesty's mandate was then read, and
+    the commission of his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury. The
+    several oaths were next duly administered by the registrar of
+    the diocese. The Litany was devoutly read by the Bishop of
+    Madras, and afterwards the examination of the candidate took
+    place. I should have said that the sermon followed the Nicene
+    Creed. It was by the Bishop of Madras, the text being taken from
+    2 Tim. i. 6, 7:--
+
+        "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the
+        gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.
+        For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power,
+        and of love, and of a sound mind."
+
+    The Bishop has consented at my request to print the discourse,
+    which I shall have the pleasure of sending copies of for the
+    Archbishop and yourself, I was gratified at observing that the
+    text is taken from the solemn words used at the very act itself
+    of consecration. After the examination, the Bishop returned to
+    the vestry to put on the rest of the episcopal dress; and as the
+    vestry in the cathedral is at the west end of the building, he
+    had to pass down the one hundred and twenty feet conducting to
+    it, with the eyes and hearts of the congregation fixed upon him
+    with wonder and pleasure. On his return, the "Veni, Creator
+    Spiritus" was sung, each alternate line being answered by the
+    Bishops and clergy, with the accompaniment of our fine organ.
+    After the appointed prayers, which are directed to follow this
+    hymn, the imposition of hands took place, and the words of the
+    consecration pronounced by myself as presiding metropolitan. The
+    Bible was next placed in his hands, with the admirable
+    exhortation prescribed--an exhortation which I think
+    incomparable and almost inspired, as indeed the whole service
+    is. The collection at the offertory was made for the Sarawak
+    Mission, and above five hundred C. rupees collected. The whole
+    service concluded with the Holy Communion of the body and blood
+    of Christ.
+
+    The new Bishop preached at St. Thomas's Church on Sunday, the
+    21st, for his mission; and a single gentleman contributed one
+    thousand C. rupees. He will preach at the cathedral on the 28th,
+    when something more will be gathered. The Bishop of Madras has
+    presented the four hundred rupees of his voyage expenses, from
+    Madras to Calcutta and back, to the same blessed cause. I have
+    had three breakfast parties (for I don't give dinners) to meet
+    the Bishop, of about forty each, on the day after the
+    consecration, and on Saturday, and this morning, and the
+    addresses made by Bishops Dealtry and Smith were most warmly
+    received. Thus has this great occasion passed off--the first
+    consecration, I believe, that has ever taken place out of
+    England since the glorious Reformation, and perhaps the first
+    missionary Bishop sent out by our Church; unless the Bishop of
+    Mauritius may be considered as having preceded him.
+
+    It was, indeed, a singular event that four Protestant Bishops
+    should meet in the heart of heathen India, amidst one hundred
+    and fifty millions of idolaters and worshippers of the false
+    Prophet.
+
+    God be praised for this completion of episcopal functions in
+    India!
+
+    DANIEL CALCUTTA.
+
+I must add to this graphic letter a note which the venerable Bishop
+wrote to my husband, November 6th of the same year.
+
+    Tennasarim, Bishop's Cabin.
+
+    MY BELOVED REV. BISHOP OF LABUAN,
+
+    Whether to write to you by the pilot or not I can hardly tell.
+    However, I am so anxious for your beginning well at Singapore
+    and Sarawak, and so responsible also from having consecrated you
+    to the Lord, that I must write. I have taken the liberty with
+    you which Mr. Cecil took with me in 1801, to caution you, now
+    you are a chief pastor and a father in God, against excessive
+    hilarity of spirits. There is a mild gravity, with occasional
+    tokens of delight and pleasure, becoming your sacred character,
+    not noisy mirth.
+
+    I met with a letter of a minister, now with God, to a brother
+    minister, who was about to take his duty for a time, which I
+    think will give you pleasure. "Take heed to _thyself_; your own
+    soul is your first and greatest concern. You know that a sound
+    body alone can work with power; much more a healthy soul. Keep a
+    clear conscience through the blood of the Lamb. Keep up close
+    communion with God. Study likeness to Him in all things. Read
+    the Bible for your own growth first, then for your people.
+    Expound much; it is through the truth that souls are to be
+    sanctified, not through essays upon the truth. You will not find
+    many companions; be the more with God. Be of good courage,
+    there remaineth much land to be possessed. Be not dismayed, for
+    Christ shall be with you to deliver you. I am often sore cast
+    down; but the Eternal God is my refuge. Now farewell; the Lord
+    make you a faithful steward." If we do not meet again in the
+    flesh, may we meet, never to part, before the throne of the
+    Great Redeemer!
+
+    I am your affectionate
+
+    D. CALCUTTA.
+
+After my husband's consecration, he undertook a confirmation tour for
+Bishop Wilson, at the mission stations around Calcutta. He also
+consecrated a church at Midnapore in South Bengal. In December, after
+four month's absence, he returned to Sarawak.
+
+Our party in the mission-house during his absence consisted of a
+chaplain, a missionary lady learning Malay and teaching the girls'
+school, our young friend Mr. Grant, myself, and baby Mab. The days ran
+along a smooth groove, although we had all plenty to do. Up early in the
+morning, then a walk, and service in church at seven. After prayers some
+hours' teaching and learning before midday bath and breakfast. The
+afternoon was a more lazy time, though the hum of school went on
+continuously, while we did our sewing and reading in the coolest corners
+we could find. The new school-house, in which all the boys, the Stahls,
+and Mr. Owen, the schoolmaster, lived, was near enough to the
+mission-house for us to know the hour of the day by the lesson going on
+at the time; for all the younger boys repeated their multiplication
+tables in a loud voice together (in Malay), also their Chinese reading;
+then came the singing, rounds and part-songs, the most popular lesson of
+all. At four o'clock the school broke up. The children amused themselves
+as English boys do. There was a season for marbles, for hop-scotch, for
+tops, and for kites. Above all, do Chinese children love kites, and are
+most ingenious in making them. They cut thin paper into the shapes of
+birds, fish, or butterflies, and stretch it over thin slips of the spine
+of the cocoa-nut leaf, then they ornament it with bits of red or blue
+paper, and fasten it together with a pinch of boiled rice. The string is
+the most expensive part, and two pennyworth lasts many kites, for they
+are very frail affairs, and in that land of trees do not long escape
+being caught, though they fly beautifully. Miss J---- had a cockatoo
+which amused her and the little girls during sewing-class. He was a
+beautiful bird with a rosy crest, but extremely mischievous. To sharpen
+his beak he notched all the Venetian shutters in the verandahs; and if
+he spied a looking-glass, flew at it in a rage and broke it: fortunately
+there were no large mirrors in the house. These birds look very pretty
+perching in the trees, and this one became tame enough to be trusted out
+of doors, but they are bad inmates.
+
+We had also a chicken-yard for Alan's amusement, and great were our
+difficulties in preserving the nests from rats, who ate the eggs. If we
+placed the nests on a high shelf, these creatures managed to shove the
+eggs out of the nests so that they fell broken on the floor all ready
+for their supper. At last we circumvented them by slinging the nests by
+long rattans from the roof.
+
+At five o'clock another short service took place in church. In the
+evening we read aloud to one another, while the rest sewed or drew.
+
+This tranquil, even monotonous life was very much to my taste in my
+husband's absence, but after a few weeks it was disturbed by sad trials.
+First, the chaplain had a sunstroke, and fell out with the climate, the
+place, and some members of our little society; so he went to Singapore,
+and from thence to England. When we were recovering from this blow, and
+had again settled down into our usual ways, a worse trial befell me.
+
+One morning Miss J---- did not appear at early breakfast, and little
+Mary, who waited upon her in her room, said she was sound asleep and did
+not wake when she opened the shutters. I thought nothing of it at first,
+for Miss J---- sometimes sat up late at night; but an hour afterwards, I
+went into her room and looked at her. Her breathing was so laboured I
+thought she was in a fit; and first I tried to put leeches on her
+temples, but they would not bite, and we resolved to carry her into the
+fresh breeze in the verandah, for the air of the room seemed laden with
+something close and stifling. When I threw back the covering of the bed,
+I perceived that the veins of both arms had been cut, and a few drops
+of blood stained her night-dress; also there was a small empty bottle in
+the bed with "Laudanum" on its label. The terrible truth was
+evident--she had taken poison and tried to bleed herself to death!
+Probably the action of the laudanum prevented any flow of blood, yet the
+few drops may have relieved the brain. The horror of this discovery
+nearly deprived me of my senses; but there was no time for
+lamentation--she was not dead, thank God, and all our efforts must be
+used to restore her to life. We were very ignorant, but we did all we
+could think of. There was no doctor to apply to, only the chemist who
+served the dispensary. He gave medicine which was certainly very strong,
+and we put mustard plasters on her legs. By the evening she was sensible
+enough to take some food, but for a week there was serious illness, and
+it was a long time before I could ask my poor friend why she had done
+this thing. She had left me a letter to read in the event of her death,
+but of course I never read it. We were very much together, but I had not
+thought her unhappy; indeed the only reason she ever gave me for so
+hating her life was, that she could not learn Malay, and did not think
+she should be any use as a missionary. This despondency was known to me,
+but I had no idea it cut so deep. Miss J---- had a great deal of quiet
+fun--she often amused us by her clever and somewhat caustic remarks. But
+Sarawak was too monotonous a life for her. When, some weeks afterwards,
+she had quite regained the balance of her mind, she went to Singapore,
+and became a very useful member of society for many years before she
+died. I never felt that I could judge her, for I had so much more to
+occupy my mind and interest my heart than my companion. There was baby
+in the first place, and the responsibilities of the school and mission
+naturally fell to my share. No doubt it requires an even temperament to
+live contentedly without society, and with only such excitement as daily
+duties and the beauties of nature afford. Yet these are full of infinite
+happiness, and we were not without friends, although we had no company:
+the little party at Government House, as it was then called, were very
+agreeable and uniformly kind. It is, however, a common mistake to
+imagine that the life of a missionary is an exciting one. On the
+contrary, its trial lies in its monotony. The uneventful day, mapped out
+into hours of teaching and study, sleep, exercise, and religious duties;
+the constant society of natives whose minds are like those of children,
+and who do not sympathize with your English ideas; the sameness of the
+climate, which even precludes discourse about the weather,--all this,
+added to the distance from relations and friends at home, combined with
+the enervating effects of a hot climate, causes heaviness of spirits and
+despondency to single men and women. Married people have not the same
+excuse; for besides duty and nature, they have "one friend who loves
+them best," and that ought to be enough for the most exacting
+temperament. I say nothing about the comforts of religion--they are the
+portion of all, married or single; still some spirits become so
+sensitive in solitude that they are not able to take the cheerful side,
+even of their relation to their Heavenly Father, and these are generally
+the most reserved to their companions. I am glad to find that
+missionaries are now seldom sent alone to any station, and women are
+more often associated in sisterhoods for mission work under our colonial
+Bishops, so that they have the society and sympathy of English ladies
+after the toils of the day. I felt much discouraged after Miss J----
+left me, and afraid of urging any one to follow in her place; but at
+last a cousin of my husband's came out to us, and as she enjoyed the
+climate, and delighted in the place and people, declaring that she had
+never been more happy in her life than with us, I consoled myself that
+it was not all the fault of Sarawak and the mission-house that poor Miss
+J---- could not live there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHINESE INSURRECTION.
+
+    "Mortal! if life smile on thee, and thou find
+          All to thy mind,
+    Think, Who did once to earth from heaven descend
+          Thee to befriend;
+    So shalt thou dare forego, at His dear call,
+          Thy life, thine all."
+
+
+These lines were most applicable to us during the year 1856. It was such
+rest and peace when our Bishop returned from Calcutta and soothed all
+the griefs and heartburnings we had suffered the four months he was
+away. Then ensued the performance of his new episcopal duties. Mr. Gomes
+was ordained priest in March. Confirmations took place, of our elder
+school-children, who were all baptized when they first came to us; also
+many Chinese Christians too, who had long attended the Bible classes at
+the mission-house and stood firm to their baptismal vows. In April we
+had another baby girl; and soon after, the Bishop went to Labuan, to
+arrange about a church being built there. Unfortunately he caught fever
+at Labuan; which declared itself at Singapore on his return. We were
+both very ill, and glad of doctors' advice at Singapore; but Labuan
+fever returns again and again, though in a slighter form after a while,
+and was for years a constant trial to the Bishop's strength. When we
+returned to Sarawak in October, our party was increased. Mr. and Mrs.
+Crookshank had come out from England--she a bride, and quite a new
+element of youth and beauty for Sarawak. A lady friend and her child and
+nurse also came on a long visit to us, the air of Sarawak being
+considered quite a tonic compared to the sea-breeze at Singapore, which
+was at times visited by a hot wind from Java. Very pleasant days
+followed our return home. Mrs. Harvey and I, with our children, went for
+a month to "See-afar" Cottage on the hill of Serambo. I have already
+mentioned this little house, built by Sir James Brooke as a sanitarium
+after his attack of small-pox. The only objection to it was, that it was
+built in the region of clouds: had the hill been five hundred feet
+higher we should have had the clouds below us, as they are on Penang
+Hill. The path up the mountain--if path it can be called--is almost a
+staircase of tumbled rocks, and requires both strength and agility to
+climb. It was quite beyond me; but I was carried on a man's back,
+sitting on a bit of plank, with a strip of cloth fastened round my waist
+and across the man's forehead, my back to his back. The Dyaks are famous
+mountaineers, their bare feet cling to the stones, or notched trunks of
+trees thrown from one rock to another. I never felt unsafe on my Dyak
+friend's back, and he used to laugh when I proposed his setting me down
+and taking a rest, and say, "You are not as heavy as a basket of durian
+fruit." These Dyaks have beautiful groves of fruit-trees, and make a
+good purse in the fruit season by bringing down durians, mangosteen and
+lansat fruit to sell at Kuching. They also carry all their harvest of
+paddy up the mountain to their rice-stores in the villages, so they are
+used to heavy weights.
+
+We took a stock of provisions up with us, fowls and ducks, a goat and
+her kid, etc., and all the bedding we wanted, for of course there was
+not much furniture in the cottage. Our first night was unfortunate. We
+had settled ourselves in the rooms, had our supper, and were about to go
+to bed, when the servants ran out of the cook-house, which was a
+stone's-throw from the cottage, crying out, "Fire!" and in a few minutes
+we saw it wrapped in flames. Of course a house built of sticks and
+leaves does not take long to burn down to the ground, but we were
+distressed to hear the bleatings of the little kid which could not be
+got out in time. The ducks, too, were still in the long basket coop in
+which they were carried up, and were literally roasted in their feathers
+before anybody remembered them. A large party of Dyaks were on the spot
+directly they saw the flames, and they did good service by throwing
+water on the roof of the cottage, and watching lest the thatch should
+catch. In the morning they discovered the burnt ducks, and ate them up
+with much relish, for a Dyak likes the flavour of burnt feathers. The
+next day the cook-house was rebuilt. These native huts look so clean and
+fresh when first put up, the straw-coloured attap[6] walls and green
+leaf roofs are so agreeable to the eye. They quickly turn hay colour and
+then get discoloured by the wood smoke. Except that we were at times
+rather short of food, we enjoyed our mountain retreat very much. The
+bath was a remarkable feature--a natural stone basin, under the shadow
+of a great rock, fed by the clearest streamlet and sheltered from view
+by a heavy bit of curtain, was our bathing-place. We carried a little
+leaf bucket and our towels in our hands, and while we poured the fresh
+water over our heads we could now and then stop to look at the great
+expanse of plain and forest, with silver rivers winding amidst them, and
+blue smoke stealing up here and there to mark a Dyak village. There was,
+however, a particular rock on the spur of the mountain from whence we
+always watched the sun set; there was a much wider view from thence. The
+sea lay on the horizon, and the pointed mountain of Santubong stood on
+the plain, with other ranges of hills far away. I fear we did little
+else but watch the glories of earth and sky at that time, and look after
+our children, who could not be trusted alone a minute on those steep
+paths.
+
+    [Footnote 6: Palm leaf.]
+
+Meanwhile the Bishop was paying a visit to Lundu in his new life-boat, a
+boat of about twenty-eight feet, with a little covered house in it, and
+water-tight compartments in the bow and stern to keep her afloat. She
+was well named, for even in this first voyage she saved the lives of her
+passengers. From the coast at Santubong you see blue hills far away to
+the west, which lie in the Lundu country. The sea runs very high, in the
+north-cast monsoon, between the mouths of these two rivers, the Sarawak
+and Lundu; and on this occasion the waves on their return from Lundu
+were fearful. Seven great waves like green hills advanced one after
+another. The Malay crew prayed aloud with terror. Stahl and the Bishop
+steered the boat and held their breaths. It looked like rushing into the
+jaws of death, but the life-boat mounted the big waves one after
+another, sometimes shuddering with the strain, but buoyant and stiff.
+The danger past, the crew praised Allah and the good boat; and they, as
+well as Stahl who had behaved so well at the time of danger, fell into a
+fit of ague from the nervous shock. We knew on the top of the hill that
+a fearful storm was raging, but we did not see the white boat flying
+like a bird over the seven great rollers, or there would have been no
+sleep for us that night. The crew never forgot it, nor the calm pluck of
+their steersman the Bishop. I must confess that an attack of fever was
+the result of all this exertion when he joined us on the hill.
+
+The rest of the year 1856 passed away quietly. We were all looking
+forward to an event which was to improve the English society of the
+place very much. The Rajah's nephew, Captain Brooke, was bringing out a
+bride; and her brother, Mr. Charles Grant, another. These four young
+people were expected in the early spring of 1857, and the Rajah was
+refurnishing his bungalow to receive these additions to his family. A
+new piano had arrived, and all sorts of pretty things, to brighten up
+the cool dark rooms of Government House. Mr. and Mrs. Crookshank were
+preparing a house for themselves also; and all their boxes, which had
+remained unopened while they lived with the Rajah, were moved up to
+their bungalow. Little did we think that all these treasures would be
+burnt before they were even unpacked!
+
+The Chinese gold-workers of Bau and Seniawan had long given more or less
+trouble to the Sarawak Government. They were governed by their own
+self-elected kunsi (magistrates), and recognized their fealty to Sarawak
+only by the payment of a small tax on the gold they washed from the
+soil. They sent the gold away to China, and habitually cheated as to the
+quantity obtained. They also smuggled opium from the Dutch settlement of
+Sambas, thus defrauding Government of revenue. Worse than all this, they
+introduced secret societies, or hui, among themselves, and threatened to
+rebel if any of their kunsi were punished for breaking the laws of the
+country. At Christmas, 1856, they boasted they could demolish Kuching
+in one night, if they chose; and that a new Joss House they were
+building there should furnish them with a pretext to gather by hundreds
+to set the Joss in his temple, and possess themselves of the place and
+the Europeans who lived there. These uncomfortable rumours seemed to
+have some foundation when a new road was discovered which the Chinese
+had made between Bau and Seniawan, another settlement nearer to Kuching.
+Mr. Crookshank, who was in charge of the Government, sent word to Mr.
+Johnson, who immediately came from Sakarran with a fleet of Dyaks,
+delighted to have a chance of fighting the Chinese, and carrying plenty
+of heads back to their homes. At the same time a gun-boat was stationed
+on the river to prevent any communication between Bau and Kuching. Upon
+this the kunsi came very humbly and begged pardon, declared the whole
+story was a fabrication, and that they never intended mischief. We only
+half believed them, but the Dyaks were dismissed, and unfortunately the
+gun-boat no longer kept watch on the river. Our Christian Chinese
+teacher "Sing-Song," was of the Kay tribe, the same as the Bau people,
+and once a month he went there to teach his countrymen. There were a few
+Christians among them. One, a goldsmith, did his best to let us know
+that danger was impending, but the kunsi suspected him, and put him in
+prison; we were therefore quite unprepared for what took place. On the
+17th of February, three Chinese kunsi were flogged by order of the
+court at Kuching, for taking the law into their own hands, and seizing a
+runaway prisoner, as well as the captain of the boat in which she
+absconded, although he was not guilty of hiding her. This seems to have
+put the finishing touch to the factious state of feeling at Bau. The
+Rajah and the Bishop had determined to take a trip together on the 15th,
+in the life-boat, to Sadong, and from thence to Linga and Sakarran. The
+Rajah had been ailing for some time, and we hoped this little voyage
+would do him good. We prepared all the provisions for this trip: bread
+and rusks were made, salt meat was cooked, and everything was ready
+packed in the provision baskets (this was of great importance to us
+afterwards). That evening we all met out walking, on the only
+riding-road there was in those days. Rajah spoke to the school-children,
+and we all amused ourselves with the little Middletons, boys of four and
+five, strutting along with turbaned hats and long walking-sticks. It was
+a dull evening, and we all felt unaccountably gloomy. We fancied it was
+because Rajah was not well enough to come and dine with us, as he had
+purposed in the morning; but during dinner I remembered afterwards that
+the Bishop said, "If any sudden alarm were to take place to-night it
+would rouse him and make him all right."
+
+We certainly went to bed without expecting anything to happen, but,
+about twelve o'clock, we were roused by shouts and screams, and the
+firing of guns. We got up and looked out. The Rajah's bungalow was in
+flames across the river. On our side the Middletons' house was burning,
+and Mr. Crookshank's new house, a little way up the road, was soon after
+on fire. The most horrid noises filled the air, there was evidently
+fighting going on at the two forts at either end of the town by the
+river's side. We knew there were very few defenders at either of these
+two forts, and that they would soon be taken; for by this time we were
+sure it must be the Chinese miners who had fulfilled their threat to
+take the town. We thought, "When the forts are taken they will come to
+us." Presently the brothers, William and John Channon, who lived near
+us, came to our house, bringing their wives and children for shelter.
+They brought news that the fort near their houses was taken and burnt,
+and they dare not stay in their own cottages, as they were Government
+servants, and would be obnoxious to the rebels.
+
+We took our children out of bed and dressed them, and then we all went
+down to the school-house, from whence we could see the burning houses
+and hear what was going on in the town. A Chinaman came up from the
+bazaar, begging us not to go to them for shelter, for they had been
+warned by the kunsi not to harbour any English people, and they dared
+not take us in. Poor creatures, they were in terror for themselves, as
+they were not of the same tribe of Chinese as the Bau people. What
+should we do?
+
+[Illustration: WE ALL WENT DOWN TO THE SCHOOL-HOUSE, FROM WHENCE WE
+COULD SEE THE BURNING HOUSES.
+
+_Page_ 128.]
+
+We were so large a party, and had so many children amongst us, that we
+did not venture to hide in the jungle: the night was quite dark and we
+might lose one another. Then the Bishop said, "We cannot make any
+resistance: we will hide away the guns we have in the house, and unite
+in prayer to God." So we all knelt round him while he commended us to
+the mercy of our Heavenly Father, and prayed for all our dear friends
+who were exposed to the fury of the Chinese. Then we sat and waited.
+Miss Woolley, who had only been three months in Sarawak, read aloud a
+psalm from time to time to comfort us; but the hours seemed very long.
+At five o'clock in the morning the kunsi, having possessed themselves of
+the Chinese town, sent us word that they did not mean to harm us--"the
+Bishop was a good man and cared for the Chinese," but he must go down to
+the hospital and attend to their wounded. Then came the welcome news
+that the Rajah had escaped, and Mr. Crookshank and Middleton--the three
+people whom the Chinese most desired to kill, for the one was chief
+constable and the other police magistrate, who carried out the Rajah's
+sentence on the kunsi. A price was set on their heads, but the Malays'
+love of their English Rajah made that only an idle threat. We were told
+that Mrs. Crookshank was dead, and the little Middletons, as well as Mr.
+Wellington, who lodged in their house, and Mr. Nicholetts, who was
+staying at the Rajah's house. Mrs. Crookshank, however, was not dead,
+but lying wounded in a ditch near the ashes of her house. When the
+Bishop knew this he demanded her of the kunsi. They said no, at first,
+for they were angry that her husband had escaped; but Bishop refused to
+attend to the wounded unless they gave her up, so at last they gave
+leave to have her carried to our house.
+
+It was about ten o'clock when she was brought in--a pitiful sight, her
+dress covered with blood, her hair matted with grass and dust, her
+fingers bleeding. It did not seem possible she could live after
+remaining all night in this dreadful state. She told us that she and her
+husband did not awake until the house was full of men. They had only
+time to jump up and run down their bath-room stairs, he catching up a
+spear for their defence. Opening the bath-room door it creaked, and a
+man came running round the house shouting, "Assie Moy," the name of the
+woman-prisoner they had seized. He struck down Mrs. Crookshank with a
+sword he had in his hand, and Mr. Crookshank attacked him with the
+spear. They struggled together till the Chinaman cut his right arm to
+the bone, and the spear fell from his hand; then, seeing his wife lying
+dead, as he thought, in the grass, he managed to get away to the edge of
+the jungle, and sitting down, faint with loss of blood, saw his house
+burn to the ground. As morning dawned he found his way to the Datu
+Bandar's house, where the Rajah had already arrived, and Middleton.
+Meanwhile the Chinese, chasing the fowls from the burning fowl-house,
+came upon Mrs. Crookshank lying on her face, and one of them, seizing
+her by her hair, desired her to follow him. She could not walk a step,
+so he carried her in his arms; but when she groaned with the pain, he
+laid her in a ditch near the road. Many Chinese came and stood by her:
+they covered her with their jackets, one held an umbrella over her head,
+another offered her some tobacco, but they would not let any of our
+people touch her until an order came from the kunsi. We had sent our
+eldest school-boy to reassure her, and he stood beside her until our
+servants could bring her away safely. As soon as the Bishop had dressed
+the wounded in the town, he came home for some breakfast. When I saw him
+I called out, for his pith hat was covered with blood. "It is only
+fowl's blood," said he, "don't be frightened: they killed a chicken over
+my head as a sign of friend ship." The Middletons' servants came to us
+early in the morning, and said that they did not know what had become of
+their mistress, but the two little boys were killed by the Chinese,
+their heads cut off, and their bodies thrown into the burning. Later on,
+we heard that Mrs. Middleton, after seeing Mr. Wellington killed in
+trying to defend her, had escaped into the bath-room and hidden herself
+in one of the big water-jars; but, the door being open, she had seen her
+children murdered, and then had got out of the jar and run into the
+jungle, where she concealed herself in a little pool of water, much
+hidden by overhanging boughs. There this poor mother remained for some
+hours, until a Chinaman from the town came to the spring, carrying a
+drawn sword in his hand. "Oh, sir, pray don't kill me!" she called out.
+"Oh no!" answered the man, "I am a friend of Mr. Peter" (her husband),
+"and will take care of you." So he took her to his house, and dressed
+her in Chinese clothes. It was almost a wonder to me that this poor
+young woman lived through that dreadful time. As the day wore on, Mr.
+Ruppell, the banker of the place, and a great friend of the Chinese,
+came and took up his abode with us. Then he, the Bishop, and Mr. Helms,
+the manager of the English Merchant Company, were ordered to meet the
+kunsi at the court-house; also the Datu Bandar, the chief Malay
+magistrate. There a very trying scene took place. The kunsi sat in the
+seats of the magistrates, smoking, their principal in the Rajah's own
+chair. They stated that they did not wish to make war with the English,
+or the Malays, only with the Rajah's government, and they desired those
+present to assist them in the government of the country. This they had
+drawn up in writing, and desired the English and Datu Bandar to sign.
+The Bishop pointed out to them that the best thing they could do would
+be to return to Bau and defend their town; that the Dyaks would
+certainly come in fleets of boats directly they heard of what had
+happened at Kuching, and they would as certainly be killed if they
+remained in the place. This was true enough, but they were afraid of the
+Malays attacking them on the water. The Chinese are bad boatmen. They
+could not therefore make up their minds to go, and much fierce
+discussion arose. The thieves and rogues of the place, being under no
+restraint, robbed all the houses, on this afternoon, whose inmates had
+taken refuge at the mission-house. The Christian Chinese, being afraid
+of their countrymen, rushed into our house, carrying all sorts of goods
+and chattels, and caused me much distress on Mrs. Crookshank's account,
+who was very sensitive to fresh alarms. However, we settled our Chinese
+friends in some of the lower rooms. The Channons and their babies were
+in the attics. Night came at last, and a dead silence fell upon the town
+and the crowded mission-house. Not even the usual sounds in the bazaar
+or on the river were heard; only an occasional gun broke the stillness
+of the night. Friends and foes were alike weary. We did not venture to
+undress, but lay down all ready for flight if necessary, with our hats
+and little bundles beside us. The Bishop and Mr. Ruppell watched all
+night in the porch. Friday morning the Chinese, continually urged by the
+Bishop, determined to return to Bau. Later on they heard a rumour that
+the Malays would attack them on the river; then they made the Datu
+Bandar sign a promise not to follow them. Still they felt no confidence
+that he would not, so they said they would take Mr. Helms with them as a
+hostage for the Datu's good faith. Poor Mr. Helms did not like this idea
+at all, and having a fast boat lying in the creek near his house, he
+slipped away early in the afternoon, down the river, and hid himself in
+the jungle. No one in Sarawak could imagine what had become of him.
+
+About midday the Bishop told me he wished me, Miss Woolley, and the
+children, including Alan Grant, to go to Singapore in a trading schooner
+which Mr. Ruppell had detained at the mouth of the river in case of
+emergency.
+
+Mrs. Stahl and Miss Coomes were to remain and nurse Mrs. Crookshank, but
+it would be a great relief to him to think of us in safety. The Chinese
+kunsi also wished us to go, "that the people at Singapore might see that
+they did not desire our death." It seemed very hard to me to leave my
+husband in such danger, for that morning the kunsi had flourished swords
+in his face and threatened him, knowing very well that he wished to
+bring the Rajah back. Still I knew he could more easily provide for the
+safety of those left behind if we were already out of the way. So I
+packed up some clothes and provisions for the voyage. While I was doing
+this a Chinaman came from the _Good Luck_ schooner to say I must only
+take one box for our party, as the schooner was very full of Chinese
+passengers, fleeing for fear of the kunsi. With this we had to be
+content. At three o'clock we went to the shop of Amoo, the Chinese owner
+of the _Good Luck_. There I found my husband writing to Mr. Johnson at
+Linga, to tell him what had happened. Then Datu Bandar came in to say
+that the kunsi had gone up the river, and had taken some of the fort
+guns with them; that they were very crowded in the boats, and that he
+should follow after them with a Malay force at night. They did nothing,
+however, when the time came; for until the Malays had got their families
+safe out of the place they were not willing to fight. They were brave
+enough when the women and children were moved to Samarahan on Saturday.
+There were many Chinese women collected at Amoo's, belonging to the
+shopkeepers in the bazaar. The wife of the court scribe, whom I knew,
+told me in a whisper that she managed to get some bread to the Rajah and
+his party, and had told Mr. Crookshank that his wife was alive and with
+us. At last the life-boat was ready. Stahl went with us to steer, and
+said there were plenty of Chinese to row the boat. When we got down to
+it, we found it not only fully manned by Chinese, but full of their
+women, children, and boxes, so that we could scarcely find room to
+squeeze ourselves into the stern, and we were so heavily laden that we
+made very slow progress. It was no use protesting, however: we were only
+English folk, and the Chinese had it all their own way in those days.
+About eight o'clock we got down to the mouth of the Morotabas, where the
+schooner lay. Pitch dark and very wet it was, but it was a relief when
+all the Chinese passengers climbed up the schooner ladder, and the men
+hauled the boxes up one after another, last of all a very heavy one
+which it took six men to lift, full of dollars,--so no wonder we were
+overladen. Last of all I climbed into the _Good Luck_, leaving the
+children still in the boat with Stahl and Kimchack, one of our
+school-boys whose family were moving away in the schooner. I found the
+deck covered with Chinese, and when I said to the little Portuguese
+captain, "Where is the little cabin Mr. Ruppell promised me I should
+have?" he answered, "Oh, ma'am, pray go back to your boat. I have
+neither water nor fuel for the people who are already on board. The
+cabin is filled with the family and friends of the Chinese owner of the
+schooner, and I cannot give you even room to sit down anywhere." It was
+indeed true. My friend, the court scribe's wife, said, "Come and sit by
+me on the deck." "But the children, they cannot be exposed day and night
+on deck." "Oh well, there is no other place for them." So I jumped into
+the life-boat again, and reclaimed my treasures. "Rather," said Miss
+Woolley and I, "die on shore than in that horrid boat." Indeed we felt
+quite cheerful now we had the boat to ourselves; and Kimchack said he
+had already been two nights on board the _Good Luck_ and had had no room
+to lie down. There we were, however, in the middle of the river, with no
+one to row the boat. Stahl could not move it by himself. At this moment
+a small boat pulled alongside, and Mr. Helms' face appeared in the
+darkness. How glad we were to see him! and he, faint and exhausted with
+wandering all day in the jungle, was glad of a glass of wine, which was
+soon got out of the provision basket. Then we opened a tin of soup, and
+fed our tired and hungry children, who behaved all through those
+terrible days as if it was a picnic excursion got up for their
+amusement. They enjoyed everything, and were no trouble at all, either
+Alan or Mab. Edith was a baby, and suffered very much from want of
+proper food--but that was later on. Mr. Helms and his crew rowed our
+boat into Jernang Creek, where there were some Malay houses. In one of
+these he and Alan went to sleep, but he advised us to remain in the boat
+until the morning. We laid Mab and Edith on one of the seats; Miss
+Woolley lay on the other; and I sat at the bottom of the boat to prevent
+the children from falling off. The mosquitoes were numerous on that mud
+bank, and I was very glad when the morning dawned. At six o'clock Mr.
+Helms came to say we could have an empty Malay house on shore for a few
+days, so we gladly mounted up the landing-place and found a kind and
+hospitable reception from our Malay friends. They had put up some mat
+partitions in a large room, that we might sleep in private, and
+presented us with a nice curry for breakfast. We then unpacked our box
+and dried the clothes in it, which were wet through from the overlading
+of the life-boat. About midday two Englishmen arrived from the Quop
+River, nearer to Kuching, where they had been with the Rajah. They only
+stayed a short time, but told us that the Kunsi Chinese had really gone
+to Bau, and that the Bishop was with the Rajah at Quop. Late at night I
+had a note from my husband, saying he thought we might return to
+Sarawak, for all was quiet, and he hoped the Rajah would come back early
+on Sunday morning. The next morning, therefore, we prepared to set off
+again in the life-boat, but first I went to pay a visit to Inchi Bouyang
+the Malay writer, who lived in one of the houses near, and who was too
+stout to venture out of his own house into a less strongly built one.
+This seems absurd enough, but the Malay houses were certainly very
+slight; they seemed to sway in the mud of the creek, and the floors of
+the rooms were made of very open strips of nibong palm, so that you had
+to walk turning your feet well out in order not to slip through the
+lantiles. I found many Malays gathered in the writer's house, all to
+entreat me not to go to Kuching, because it was "not a lucky day." "If
+the Malays fight the Chinese to-day," they said, "they will be beaten."
+"What reason have you for saying so?" "No reason exactly, but the day is
+unlucky; it is like Friday to the English, they never go to sea on that
+day." "Oh," said I, "that was long ago: they often go to sea on Friday
+now they know better, and no sensible person thinks anything of lucky or
+unlucky days." "Well, we have told you what we think. If you must go,
+some of us will go with you, and we shall tell the Tuan Padre it was not
+our fault that you would not wait until to-morrow." So Lulut, a servant
+of the Rajah's, and another Malay got into the boat with us, and we set
+off up the river.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHINESE INSURRECTION (_Continued_).
+
+
+As we proceeded up the river we agreed we would ask news of any boat we
+met. Presently we noticed smoke rising above the trees. "The Malays are
+burning the Chinese town," said the men; but as we drew nearer it was
+evidently the Malay town which was burning. At last we met a boat. "Yes;
+the Chinese had returned, and had set fire to the Malay town; they were
+also firing at the Sarawak Chinese in the bazaar." On Saturday the
+Bishop and the Channons and Stahl had unspiked two of the guns left in
+the fort, and had hoisted the Sarawak flag again on the flag-staff. The
+Bishop then went to the Rajah's war boat at the Quop, and told him that
+the Malays had sent away their women, and were ready to fight should the
+Chinese return; and he begged him to come to our house early the next
+morning, where breakfast should be ready for him, and take the command.
+But the Chinese heard of this, and returned in the morning, some by
+river, some by road. As soon as the Malays saw their boats rounding the
+corner near the Malay town, they attacked them bravely, drove them
+ashore, and though suffering much loss from their superior fire,
+captured ten of their boats, and secured them to a Malay prahu in the
+river. While this struggle was going on, a large party of Chinese, who
+walked from Seniawan, were ransacking the town. Enraged with the Bishop
+for trying to bring the Rajah back, they rushed into our house to find
+him; but he, having sent off all our belongings, English and native, ran
+down the back stairs while the Chinese rushed up into the porch in
+front, and escaped to the Chinese town, where shots were flying about in
+plenty, but did not hit him. He got into a little boat passing by, with
+two Malays in it, and they paddled him to the Rajah's war boat, then
+retreating down the river. When they reached the Quop he found a little
+boat, which brought him quickly to Jernang.
+
+We lay off the town in the life-boat, and saw one boat after another
+rowing fast towards us. In one, Mr. Koch, the missionary, with a number
+of school-boys; in another, Mrs. Crookshank, laid on a mattress, Mrs.
+Stahl, and Miss Coomes, and the school-girls; then the Channons'
+families and some Chinese; then the Sing-Song's family, and more boys.
+"Where is the Bishop?" I shouted. "In the Rajah's war boat. We had the
+greatest difficulty in getting boats enough for us; the Chinese were
+running up to the house when he sent us off, and firing had already
+begun in the streets when Mrs. Crookshank was got into the boat."
+
+This was an anxious moment; but before long our servant James appeared
+with a message to me from my husband, to return to Jernang, and stay
+there until he appeared. Our Malay friends here left us, to join their
+families anchored in boats by the banks, and I filled the life-boat with
+the school-children to lighten the other boats. Then we pulled slowly
+back against the tide to Jernang. The little landing-place was crowded
+when we arrived, for the smaller boats had got there first. I had the
+greatest difficulty in persuading the Malays to give shelter to the
+Chinese Christians and children. I answered for their good behaviour;
+but all Chinese, whether rebels or no, were in sufficiently bad odour in
+those days. At last I got them part of a house to themselves. No sooner
+was all arranged than the Bishop arrived in his little boat; it was like
+receiving him from the dead.
+
+Presently appeared the Rajah's war boat, he standing at the stern. We
+all ran down to meet him and Mr. Crookshank, and take them to Bertha,
+who had been carried into a house. While we were all standing on the
+little wharf, built on tall piles into the water, the Malays cried out
+that it was giving way, and we must all go into the houses. The Bishop
+then decided what to do with his large party. Mr. Helms had a schooner
+close by, in which he was going to Sambas, to seek assistance from the
+Dutch, our nearest neighbours. He kindly offered to take Miss Woolley,
+Miss Coomes, and two of our eldest school-boys with him. The rest of us
+could go to Linga, where there was a fort, as a little pinnace belonging
+to Mr. Steele lay handy at the mouth of the river. The Chinese, however,
+implored to go with us; and indeed it would have been cruel to leave
+them a prey to the Malays, or the bad Chinese, or the Dyaks. When we
+were lodged in the pinnace, therefore, the Bishop went back to Jernang,
+and packed all our Chinese into the life-boat, which was attached by a
+rope to the pinnace; so we were all together. It was nearly dark when we
+weighed anchor, and left the mouth of the river. There was a tiny cabin,
+just large enough to hold Bertha on her mattress; a fowl-house, into
+which our native children crept; an open hold, where we women sat down
+on our bundles, with our children in our arms; and there was a place for
+cargo forward, where the men settled themselves. The Rajah in his war
+boat also proceeded to Linga, and we expected him to arrive long before
+our slow boat; he would meet Mr. Johnson, his nephew, there, and
+organize a force of Dyaks from the great rivers, Sakarran and Batang
+Lupar, to drive away the Chinese rebels. We never had any doubt of their
+doing this eventually, though we feared the remedy might be almost as
+bad as the disease, if the Dyaks proved unmanageable and quarrelled with
+one another. The night was very dark and wet, and the deck leaked upon
+us, so that we and our bags and bundles were soon wet through. But we
+neither heeded the rain nor felt the cold. We had eaten nothing since
+early morning, but were not hungry; and although for several nights we
+could scarcely be said to have slept, we were not sleepy. A deep
+thankfulness took possession of my soul; all our dear ones were spared
+to us. My children were in my arms, my husband paced the deck over my
+head. I seemed to have no cares, and to be able to trust to God for the
+future, who had been so merciful to us hitherto. I remember, too, when
+Mrs. Stahl opened the provision basket, and gave us each a slice of
+bread and meat, how very good it was, although we had not thought about
+wanting it. We lit a little fire, and made some hot tea, but soon had a
+message from the Rajah's boat to put out the fire lest we should be
+seen. The only thing that troubled me was a nasty faint smell, for which
+I could not account; but next morning we found a Chinaman's head in a
+basket close by my corner, which was reason enough! We had taken a fine
+young man on board to help pull the sweeps, a Dyak, and this ghastly
+possession was his. He said he was at Kuching, looking about for a
+_head_, and went into the court-house. Hearing some one in a little side
+room, he peeped in, and saw a Chinaman gazing at himself in a bit of
+looking-glass, which was stuck against the wall. He drew his sword, and
+in one moment, stepping close behind him, cut off his head: and having
+obtained this prize, was naturally desirous of getting away from the
+place; so he came off as boatman in one of the flying boats, bringing
+the head in a basket, which he stowed in the side of the boat. It
+entirely spoilt my hand-bag, which lay near it; I had to throw it away,
+and everything in it which could not be washed in hot water.
+
+Towards morning the sea made us all sick, added to the wet, and cold of
+dawn; yet, when the day cleared a little, and we got a fire on deck, and
+some hot tea and biscuits, and the children seemed none the worse for
+their bad night and the swarms of mosquitoes which had feasted upon
+them, we could not repine. In the evening we passed the island of
+Burong, at the mouth of the Batang Lupar River, and Mr. Crookshank tried
+to stimulate the men pulling the sweeps to reach a Sebuyan village
+farther on, before the tide left us and it grew dark. By dint of hard
+pulling we made the village, and its little fort, standing close beside
+the water and washed by its strong tide. A little boat came off from the
+fort, with some Malays, of whom we inquired for the Rajah, thinking his
+boat was far ahead of us, but they said they had seen nothing of him.
+Mr. Crookshank then begged them to bring a boat in which he could take
+Bertha up to Linga Fort that evening, instead of her remaining another
+night in the pinnace. We went on as long as the tide lasted, and then
+anchored in the Batang Lupar. Again we made a fire on deck, and after
+taking some food, settled ourselves for the night. At eleven o'clock the
+promised boat came for Bertha and Mr. Crookshank, and Mrs. Stahl went
+with them as nurse; they thought nothing could be worse than spending
+another night on board the pinnace, but I fear the little boat journey
+was still more painful. When they reached Linga, they found only Malays
+in the fort, and the dwelling-house shut up, for Mr. Johnson was at
+Sakarran. They had to carry Mrs. Crookshank up a ladder into the fort,
+and lay her on a table; but happily Mr. Chambers arrived that night from
+Banting, and furnished a curtain as a screen, and pillows from his boat
+to make a more comfortable couch. As we were setting off again next
+morning, we met Mr. Johnson in a long boat, going straight off to
+Kuching. He was lying ill of fever at Sakarran, when his Malays roused
+him by saying, without preface--"The news is bad, Tuan: the Rajah is
+killed and Kuching in the hands of the rebel Chinese." Upon this he
+jumped up, called together the chiefs, and bidding them follow him with
+a strong force of Dyaks, he set off himself without calling at Linga by
+the way. When we told him that Rajah was alive and on his way to Linga,
+he turned back with us, and taking me, my ayah, and the children into
+his boat, soon landed us at his house. This was Tuesday, but we heard
+nothing of the Rajah until Friday. Mr. Johnson, after breakfasting with
+us at his house, went on to Kuching, and found that, after we lost sight
+of the Rajah's war boat, they had fallen in with the steamer belonging
+to the Borneo Company, the _Sir James Brooke_, just entering the river.
+Mr. Helms' schooner also came across her, so all the passengers in the
+schooner and the war boat had moved into the steamer, and they
+immediately proceeded up the river, preparing the guns on board to
+attack as soon as they reached the town. What must have been the
+feelings of the Chinese in the fort when they saw the smoke of the
+steamer curling above the trees, and then received one ten-pounder shot
+after another into their midst! They fired one round of grape shot at
+the steamer, and shouts of "Run!" rose on all sides. The steamer then
+proceeded up to the Malay town, where the Malays still held out against
+the Chinese; but as they were getting very short of ammunition, and
+their enemies were bringing some large guns to bear on their position,
+they greeted the steamer with shouts of welcome. The Chinese fled in
+every direction. Cut off from their boats, they ran into the jungle; and
+while many no doubt reached Bau in safety, many fell into the hands of
+the Dyaks, who, following their usual course of warfare, spread
+themselves through the jungle, and took the head of every man they met.
+The town was quite clear of the rebels in a few hours, and the _Sir
+James Brooke_, anchored in the river, furnished the base of operations
+which the Rajah required: from thence he could direct the Malay and Dyak
+forces, which were immediately at his disposal, to drive the rebels out
+of the country. The day before, the Chinese had filled our house and
+looted it completely, except the books in the library, for which they
+seem to have had some respect; but we had reason to believe that on
+Monday the house would have been burnt, for gunpowder and inflammable
+materials were found strewed about after they left. They took everything
+they could carry away, and destroyed the rest, cutting long slits in the
+gauze of the mosquito-rooms, and pouring all the chemicals and medicines
+of the dispensary over the contents of the drawers, clothes, and papers
+they did not wish for. They found a long table set out ready for
+breakfast, and had only to gather up the small plate, which, with a
+house full of people, was all in requisition. The church, too, was
+emptied of all its furniture, and the harmonium smashed; but the
+opportune arrival of the steamer prevented these buildings from sharing
+the fate of the other houses.
+
+Meanwhile, we were settling ourselves with our large party in Mr.
+Johnson's house, which he kindly placed at our disposal. This house was
+surrounded by a latticed verandah, the ground immediately about it was
+cleared of jungle and drained by deep ditches. From the fort you looked
+over the wide stretch of water of the Batang Lupar, but it was a lonely
+and monotonous look-out. As the fort men were taken away to fight at
+Kuching, the gentlemen had to form themselves into watches day and
+night, with the few Malays who remained to guard the fort. Boats full of
+Dyaks continually arrived, to join the Rajah's force--Balows, Sarebas,
+and Sakarrans lay side by side on the river, all excited by the
+prospects of war, and frequently causing silly panics among the Malays
+of Linga, lest these warriors, from tribes so long enemies, should fall
+out with one another before they got to Kuching. There were, of course,
+no books or newspapers to read; our Bibles and Prayer-books alone were
+among our luggage. We women were the best off, for we got some
+unbleached calico from Sakarran, and cut out some under-clothing, of
+which we had but little; this gave us occupation. We also had every day
+to wash our linen and towels after bathing. The bath was a clear running
+stream, covered in near the house, very pretty and romantic, but the
+water was of a light brown colour, like toast and water, and had a
+slightly acid taste, very agreeable but not very wholesome. Probably the
+spring forced its way through dead leaves in the jungle; at any rate, it
+did not wash the clothes white. It was very difficult to procure food
+for us all. Rice and gourds made into a kind of curry stew was our daily
+meal; if a chicken was got it was devoted to the children and the sick.
+We were very anxious for some time on account of Mrs. Crookshank. Had
+she remained quiet at Kuching, her wounds would have healed quickly, for
+she was young and perfectly healthy; but all the moving into boats, and
+carrying up ladders and steps, had broken open the wounds, and it was a
+struggle of strength and youth against adverse circumstances. She was so
+patient and cheerful that we never heard a complaint, which was in her
+favour no doubt; still there were some days when her life was in great
+danger in that hot climate. Twice during the month we received a box
+from Kuching, sent by a native boat. Once it contained our mail--an
+immense pleasure; also some bread and biscuits, but they were wet with
+salt water, and mouldy besides. However, Mab and Alan could eat them. I
+used to look with thankful astonishment at those children, both so
+delicate generally, but who throve all the time we were without proper
+food or shelter. But baby Edith shrank and pined, and at last my husband
+said, "We shall lose this child if you stay here any longer: better go
+and live among the Dyaks, who have plenty of fowls."
+
+So Mr. Chambers kindly took us in at his house at Banting, where we had
+a most loving welcome, and saw something of the Dyak women and children.
+The men were mostly gone to the war, and great excitement prevailed
+among the tribe with the prospect of acquiring heads again, for the
+Sarawak Government had quite stopped that hunting in the country. Boats
+were continually arriving, gay with streamers, and noisy with gongs and
+drums beating, with heads of Chinese on board. One day we were invited
+to a feast in one of the long houses. I said, "I hope we shall see no
+heads," and was told I need not see any; so, taking Mab in my hand, I
+went with Mr. Chambers, and we climbed up into the long verandah room
+where all the work of the tribe goes on. This long house was surrounded
+with fruit-trees, and very comfortable. There were plenty of pigs under
+the house, and fowls perching in every direction. About thirty families
+lived in the house, the married people having each their little room,
+the girls a room to themselves, and the long room I spoke of being used
+for cooking, mat-making, paddy-beating, and all the usual occupations of
+their lives. We were seated on white mats, and welcomed by the chief
+people present. The feast was laid on a raised platform along the side
+of the room. There were a good many ornaments of the betel-nut palm,
+plaited into ingenious shapes, standing about the table, so that I did
+not at first remark anything else. As we English folks could not eat
+fowls roasted in their feathers, nor cakes fried in cocoa-nut oil, they
+brought us fine joints of bamboo filled with pulut rice, which turns to
+a jelly in cooking and is fragrant with the scent of the young cane. I
+was just going to eat this delicacy when my eyes fell upon three human
+heads standing on a large dish, freshly killed and slightly smoked, with
+food and sirih leaves in their mouths. Had I known them when alive I
+must have recognized them, for they looked quite natural. I looked with
+alarm at Mab, lest she should see them too; then we made our retreat as
+soon as possible. But I dared say nothing. These Dyaks had killed our
+enemies, and were only following their own customs by rejoicing over
+their dead victims. But the fact seemed to part them from us by
+centuries of feeling--our disgust, and their complacency. Some of them
+told us that afterwards, when they brought home some of the children
+belonging to the slain, and treated them very kindly, wishing to adopt
+them as their own, they were annoyed at the little ones standing looking
+up at their parents' heads hanging from the roof, and crying all day, as
+if it were strange they should do so! Yet the Dyaks are very fond of
+children, and extremely indulgent to them. Our school was recruited
+after the war by the children of Chinese, bought by Government from
+their captors. This was my first and last visit to a Dyak feast. I used
+to go and see the women in the early morning sometimes, and they
+constantly came up to the mission-house to see my children. Of course
+the war had an evil influence on them, increasing their interest in
+heads, and all the heathen ceremonies connected with their possession.
+
+We stayed about ten days at Banting, walking every afternoon to the
+little church through a long avenue of fruit-trees--great forest trees
+which threw a grateful shade over the path, charming for the children's
+walks. They could have chicken broth too for their dinners; and Edith
+revived, but it was a whole year after this before she grew any taller,
+so that when she began to run about, three months later, it looked a
+surprising feat for a baby who should be in long clothes, yet she was
+then sixteen months old. This life at Banting was a kind of dream, after
+all the hurry and anxiety we had gone through. At last we heard that we
+might go back to Kuching, the Chinese had all been driven out of the
+country, or killed. Our house was purified, and the dead bodies lying
+about in the jungle had been buried, so that the air was sweet again. We
+returned to Linga, and all embarked in a little schooner for home. It
+was not a much better boat than the one we had fled in, and we suffered
+two very trying days' voyage; but when we walked into the mission-house
+and found Miss Woolley to welcome us, and our house, though dismantled,
+uninjured, and most of the books in the library, we were very thankful.
+The Sunday after, we had a thanksgiving service in the church, in which
+all joined very heartily.
+
+I must return, however, to the history of the war, from the time the
+Rajah steamed up the river in the _Sir James Brooke_.
+
+At Bau there were supposed to be from three to four thousand Chinese
+rebels, who had lately been strengthened by many malcontents from the
+Dutch country. The Chinese held Bau, Seniawan, the government fort of
+Baleda, and a fort at Peninjauh opposite to Baleda. They boasted that
+they had rice and gunpowder enough to last out six months in these
+places; but they were gradually surrounded on all sides by Malays and
+Dyaks, so that they could get no fresh stores. On the 10th of March a
+body of Chinese came down the river to Leda Tanah (Tongue of Land) about
+halfway to Kuching. They built a breast-work by the river-side, dug a
+trench behind it, placed some brass guns in position, and then retired
+to eat their dinners in comfort behind their defences. There was a
+little house and garden belonging to the Rajah at Leda Tanah. The Datu
+Tumangong and Abang Boujong hearing of this, went up the river with a
+Malay force and attacked the breast-work in front. The Chinese fired one
+volley and ran. The Malays entered, sword in hand, but only killed two
+men; all the rest fled into the arms of the Dyaks, who lay in wait in
+the jungle behind, and took a hundred heads, some say two hundred, but
+stories do not lose in the telling. The Chinese begged hard for their
+lives, wrung their hands, wept, prayed the Dyaks to be friends with
+them; but Dyaks know nothing about prisoners. One of the principal kunsi
+was killed in this affair, and some say that Kamang, the leader of the
+attack on the 18th of February, lost his head to the Sakarran Dyaks.
+
+This success was matter of great rejoicing at Kuching. Two days
+afterwards they heard that Baleda Fort was deserted by the Chinese. Mr.
+Johnson went up and found it quite empty; Seniawan too, and soon after
+Bau also. All had fled towards the Dutch territory. A dreadful march
+they had, poor creatures; carrying their sacred stone Tai pekong with
+them. Nearly a thousand women and children delayed their progress. They
+were harassed all the way by parties of Malays, and Dyaks cutting off
+the stragglers. The party dwindled by degrees, until nearly all the
+kunsi were killed, either by the enemy or their incensed countrymen,
+who found themselves driven from their peaceful homes for the sins of
+these rebels. It is so painful to think of the many innocent who
+suffered with the guilty on this occasion, of the miseries they endured,
+and the relentlessness of their foes, that I cannot detail it. War
+naturally brines such evils in its train; even civilized warfare is not
+without its horrors and its injustice: but when revenge falls into the
+hands of savages these ills are multiplied. The Malays both hated and
+despised the Chinese. That _such_ people should have taken their forts,
+burnt their dwellings, compelling them to seek safety for their families
+by flight, was so great an insult that their most violent passions were
+aroused, and only the blood of all the Kay tribe could wipe out the
+disgrace they had incurred. It was indeed wonderful that these Chinese
+should imagine for a moment that they could remain rulers in a country
+whose inhabitants regarded them as the natural hewers of wood and
+drawers of water to the community; but no doubt they were intoxicated by
+their unlooked-for success on the 18th of February, and a Chinaman seems
+destitute of any appreciation of people who are not Celestials! A
+remnant of these people got safely into the Dutch territory, where the
+authorities took what arms and ammunition they had, and, very properly,
+returned them to the Sarawak Government. They also offered to send a war
+steamer and soldiers if desired. So our misfortunes called out the
+goodwill of our neighbours. Soon after we returned home, H.M.S.
+_Spartan_, Captain Hoste, arrived to protect British interests in
+Sarawak. They stayed with us for a while, but the troubles were over,
+and the only difficulty was how to make any visitors comfortable or to
+feed them. We had to pass round a knife and fork at table for some days,
+and there were only a few spoons left to us. On the beds there were hard
+mattresses, but no pillows, sheets, or in fact any bed-furniture. Our
+guests being travellers and full of resources, slept on their pith hats
+for pillows, and used their pocket-knives. A good deal of fun was made
+of our privations, and indeed, as no beloved friend was missing, we
+could afford to laugh.
+
+We had all great reason to be thankful for the good behaviour of the
+Dyaks during the war. There were no intertribal quarrels, and Mr.
+Chambers told me that his Christians among the Balows were in the first
+boats which went off to succour the Rajah, when they knew nothing of the
+arrival of the steamer, and believed themselves to be facing a great
+danger, and fire-arms, which they do not like. This was not the only
+time that the Christians were among the bravest when all behaved well--a
+fact which recommended their religion to their countrymen, with whom
+courage is the first virtue. It was some years after this, however, that
+Dyak Christians learnt to fight without taking the heads of their
+enemies.
+
+When we left our house, our servants generally, except James a
+Portuguese, and my Bengalee Ayah, fled from the place. But we had an
+old Hindoo Syce, who was much attached to us and to the creatures under
+his charge. He drove the two ponies we rode into the jungle, where they
+looked after themselves, and, living in his cottage next to the stable,
+did what he could for the cow and calves. When the rebels filled our
+house and appropriated our effects, they broke open the plate-chest, and
+melted the silver they found. Then Syce came forward and claimed a
+portion of the spoil They gave him a lump of silver with some alloy in
+it, the produce of some plated salvers, as his share. He pretended to
+help them, but this lump he hid in the earth near his cottage, and, on
+our return, triumphantly produced it as what he had saved for us from
+the wreck. Some years after, this old man was very ill with an abscess
+in his thigh, which he was sure would kill him. Bishop doctored and
+nursed him through it, but he had given him a good-sized bag of dollars,
+his savings, saying he wished Bishop to be his heir. When he got well
+and the money was returned to him, he spent it in paying a visit to his
+relations at Trichinopoli. I believe this faithful creature worshipped
+the bull of our herd, and it was a great trouble to him that the Chinese
+cruelly cut off the tail of the poor animal, thereby depriving him of
+the means of whisking off the flies which sting so vehemently in that
+climate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+EVENTS OF 1857.
+
+
+When we were once more at home we found it would be better to go to
+Singapore, and from thence to Penang, for a little quiet. We were both
+ill, the Bishop seriously so. We wanted for everything, and the bazaar
+in Sarawak could not supply us: besides, ours was the only English
+dwelling-house left in the place, except the Borneo Company's premises.
+Captain Brooke and Mr. Grant with their brides were immediately
+expected, and must be housed at the mission while a bungalow was being
+built across the water. We left Miss Woolley to take care of the
+expected visitors, the children and I went to Singapore in the _Sir
+James Brooke_ steamer, and Sir William Hoste gave a passage in H.M.S.
+_Spartan_ to the Bishop and Alan Grant.
+
+I was glad of an opportunity to get my baby vaccinated, which could only
+happen at Singapore in those days. We were two months away, and the cool
+quiet of Penang Hill was a great refreshment. The first news I heard
+there was that Miss Woolley was to be married to Mr. Chambers. This
+wedding took place immediately on our return home, the end of July. It
+was a great benefit to the Banting Dyaks, for Mrs. Chambers devoted
+herself to the women and young girls, and was a true friend to them. She
+taught them to sew, and instructed them in morals and religion. When I
+went to Banting some years afterwards, I found a set of modest young
+women who were much pleased with gifts of needles, thread, and thimbles;
+they also enjoyed a game of croquet after the lessons were done, and it
+was wonderful to see what smart taps of the mallet were fearlessly given
+under their bare feet; for of course the Dyaks do not wear shoes.
+
+About a month after our return to Sarawak, Captain Brooke's baby boy was
+born. No one can tell what a care and anxiety this event was, in a place
+where there was no doctor except the Bishop. The well-being of so
+important a person as the Rajah mudah's wife, and the birth of the heir
+of Sarawak, called forth much sympathy from everybody. Thank God, all
+went well; but we said it ought never to happen again--there should be a
+medical man whose sole duty it was to care for the bodies of the
+community, while the Bishop was free to minister to their spiritual
+wants. Soon after there was a public baptism of this boy Basil Brooke,
+and his cousin Blanche Grant, in the church, which was full of Malays as
+well as English to witness the ceremony. This was the day before the
+Rajah set off for England.
+
+There were many happy days during the next few months, for there were
+several English ladies in the place and we were all friends. In October
+the Bishop went to Labuan, and while he was away the cholera made its
+first appearance at Sarawak, among the Malays. The Rajah muda and I
+consulted together what physic should be made ready for those who would
+take it. A short time before, a little pamphlet had been sent to us
+about the virtues of camphor, and especially its value in cholera. We
+made a saturated solution of camphor in brandy, and gave a teaspoonful
+of it on moist sugar for a dose, adding three drops of Kayu Puteh oil,
+extracted from a Borneon wood and called cajeput oil in England, a very
+strong aromatic medicine. This mixture proved itself very useful. If the
+patients applied in good time it invariably gave relief to the cramp and
+pain in the stomach; if the disease had gone on to sickness it was more
+difficult to administer. Sometimes we followed it up with laudanum and
+castor oil.
+
+The Malays suffered very much from this epidemic. Constant funerals were
+to be seen on the river, and there was much praying at the mosque. Then
+the Chinese were attacked, but not so fatally. Two dead men were,
+however, found on our premises; they were strangers to us, but we
+supposed they came late at night to the mission for medicine, and, lying
+down in the stable or cow-house, died without reaching the house. It
+was an anxious time. I used to hang little bags of camphor round the
+children's necks, and was very careful of the diet for the household.
+Thank God, we had no case either in the school or the house.
+
+Seven years afterwards the cholera returned much more violently. An
+English gun-boat, lying off the town, lost several of her crew; and at
+last the Bishop advised them to go to sea and let the sea air blow
+through the ship, to carry off the infection. He went on board himself
+to see them off, and while they were going down the river two more men
+were seized with cholera, and died in half an hour.
+
+This time the cholera was very fatal among the Dyaks up some of the
+rivers. The poor creatures were so terrified that they left their
+houses, as in small-pox, and scarcely dared bury their dead. In one
+instance they paid a very strong man to carry the dead on his back to a
+steep hill, and throw them into the ravine at the bottom. The food
+enjoyed by the Dyaks, rotten fish and vegetables, no doubt inclined them
+to get cholera. The first time of its visitation was after a great fruit
+season when durian, that rich and luscious fruit, had been particularly
+abundant. A durian is somewhat larger than a cocoa-nut in its inner
+husk; it has a hard prickly rind, but inside lie the seeds, enclosed in
+a pulp which might be made of cream, garlic, sugar, and green almonds.
+It is very heating to the blood, for when there are plenty of durians
+the people always suffer more from boils and skin disease than usual. We
+never permitted them to enter our house, for we could not bear the smell
+of them. But many English people liked them; and they were so much
+esteemed by the Dyaks, that when the fruit was ripe they encamped for
+the night under the trees. When a durian fell to the ground with a great
+thud, they all jumped up to look for it, as the fallen fruit belongs to
+the finder, and they loved it so that they willingly sacrificed their
+sleep for it. Woe be to the man, however, on whose head the fruit falls,
+for it is so hard and heavy it may kill him.[7]
+
+    [Footnote 7: The Dyaks believe there is a special place in the
+    other world, after death, for those who are killed by the fall
+    of a durian.]
+
+In February three new missionaries came from England--Mr. Hacket, Mr.
+Glover, and Mr. Chalmers. The two last came straight to Sarawak on their
+arrival at Singapore, Mr. Hacket and his wife about a month afterwards.
+They were all from St. Augustine's College, Canterbury, thoroughly good
+people, and a great happiness to us. Mr. Chalmers was settled among the
+Land Dyaks at Peninjauh, afterwards at the Quop. Mr. Glover went to
+Banting, to work among the Balows. The Hackets stayed at Sarawak: indeed
+they all remained with us until Easter, when their ordination took
+place. The Easter services that year, 1858, were very delightful. All
+these missionaries were more or less musical, and Mr. Hacket adorned the
+church as it had never been decked before. Flowers and ferns, and
+lycopodium moss, were always to be had in abundance; and the polished
+wooden walls were brightened by some beautiful scroll texts, printed by
+a friend in England. We had full choral service on Easter Sunday, and
+the school-children sang their part beautifully; indeed, our new comers
+were astonished to find such good material for a choir in little native
+boys.
+
+I had been fully occupied with preparations for these missionaries while
+the bishop was at Labuan; some additions to the comfort of the house for
+the Hackets; a new cook-house and servants' rooms near, to build; and
+the church to reroof. The balean attaps were as good as ever, but the
+strips of wood on which they hung were attacked by white ants, and had
+to be renewed or the shingles would have fallen through. Such
+responsibilities fell to my share when the Bishop was away, and heavy
+cares they were when money was not abundant. The prospect of three new
+missionaries was, however, worth any trouble. They came to teach the
+Dyaks, who had so long waited for teachers, and we hoped they would
+settle themselves among them for many years. In this hope we were to be
+disappointed. Mr. Glover fell ill of dysentery at Banting, and before
+two years had passed away was obliged to remove to a cold climate. He
+went to Australia, and has been doing good work there ever since. Mr.
+Chalmers was a very valuable missionary, and his labours among the Quop
+and Merdang Dyaks bore much fruit in after years; but he also fell ill
+from the climate, and the food which was attainable up country. In 1860,
+he also made up his mind to follow Mr. Glover to Australia. There are no
+doubt many difficulties for Englishmen living in Sarawak jungles. Some
+become acclimatized to them, others cannot bear the low diet, the
+loneliness, the apathy and indifference of the Dyaks. The Bishop was
+once accused, by a person who ought to have known better, that he was
+too apt to gather his clergy at Sarawak and keep them from their Dyak
+parishes: but it was a necessary part of the Bishop's work to keep a
+home where the missionaries could come for change and refreshment; where
+they could enjoy a more generous diet, and the society of English
+friends; where they could consult a medical man, and get some hints how
+to treat the maladies of the Dyaks--for they expected all the
+missionaries to know the art of healing, having had more or less
+experience of the Bishop's skill. Mr. Hacket was consumptive, but
+Sarawak is the best climate in the world for that disease: he got much
+stronger with us, and might have lived many years there, but he was too
+nervous for so unsettled a country. We were often subjected to panics
+for many months after the Chinese insurrection, and though we old
+inhabitants took it very easily, Mr. Hacket always thought his wife and
+child in danger. I remember, one day a Malay was being tried in the
+court-house, when he, by a sudden spring, escaped from the police, and
+snatching a sword from a bystander, ran amuck through the bazaar,
+wounding two or three people he met. The hue and cry in the town fired
+the imaginations of the timid. People came running to the house for
+shelter, bringing their goods and chattels, and all sorts of tales--"The
+Chinese were coming from Sambas," and all sorts of nonsense. Then, Mrs.
+Hacket fainting on the sofa, and the servants all leaving their work to
+listen, and look out of the verandah, provoked us extremely: we
+administered sal volatile and a good scolding, and sent everybody off to
+their business again. But those scenes were very trying to the nerves.
+That a Malay should run amuck (amok, in Malay) with anger or jealousy,
+or a fit of madness arising from both these passions, was an occasional
+event all through our Sarawak life, but it was no more alarming in 1858
+than in former years. It was the breach in the general feeling of
+security under the Sarawak Government, which for a time magnified every
+little disturbance of the peace into a public danger.
+
+Our school was enriched this year by, first, seven new Chinese boys,
+then four more and four girls, the captives of the Lundu Dyaks, ransomed
+by Captain Brooke. Those children were, some of them, miserable objects,
+covered with sores from neglect. One boy had been set to carry red wood
+which blisters the skin, another was badly burnt. Mrs. Stahl took them
+in hand, dressed their wounds, nursed them, clothed them, and soon they
+looked quite nice, sitting on a bench at the end of the church with a
+monitor to take charge of them, for they were still unbaptized--they
+were old enough to be instructed first, except two of the little girls
+who were immediately received into the Church. About this time a little
+Dyak boy, Nigo by name, was paying a visit to the school, and was
+baptized in church, answering for himself. He was about six years old,
+and as he stood at the font his face was lit up with so sweet a smile it
+touched us all. Mab begged him to stay at Sarawak; but the Dyaks never
+part with their children, and in this case it was not necessary, for
+Nigo's father was a Christian. It was a great happiness to us that none
+of our boys were killed in the insurrection; three got away to Sambas,
+the rest came back to the school one by one, having all escaped the
+Dyaks. The Christian goldsmith, too, who was put in prison by the kunsi
+for trying to warn us of the attack on the 18th of February, got to
+Sambas safe, and afterwards returned to us at Sarawak.
+
+This summer a doctor came out to Sarawak with his family. I heard of
+their proposed arrival some months before, and wrote to Mrs. C---- to
+beg they would leave their elder children in England, and only bring the
+babies with them, for the little ones thrive well enough at Sarawak. I
+also gave a plain unvarnished account of the place. But Mr. C----,
+having made up his mind to bring all his family out, put the letter in
+his pocket; and we were very sorry when they arrived, a party of nine,
+having lost one child at Singapore. They only stayed one month; the
+lady was so disgusted with the place--"no shops, no amusements, always
+hot weather, and food so dear!"--that she persuaded her husband to take
+advantage of some difference he had with the Government, and return in
+the same steamer by which they came out. I, however, gained by their
+departure, for they brought a sweet young girl with them as governess,
+and as she did not wish to return so soon, she remained with me, and
+became Mab's governess and friend. We liked her very much, and I cannot
+help mentioning an incident of her spirit and courage. One of our
+children being ill, I had taken her down to Santubong, where we had a
+seaside cottage; but as the house was full of clergy preparing for
+ordination, I left Miss McKee to do the housekeeping and take care of
+our guests for a few days. She slept at the top of the house, and little
+Edith in a cot beside her. It was late at night, and the moon shining
+into Miss McKee's room, when she woke and saw a Chinaman standing at the
+foot of her bed with a great knife in his hand. She felt under her
+pillow if the keys were safe, for the box of silver was put in her room
+while I was absent; then she jumped up, shouting "Thieves!" with all her
+might. The man ran and she after him, down a long passage, down the
+staircase, out of the house, by which time her cries had roused the
+gentlemen--the Bishop was nursing a sick man in fever, and was not in
+the house that night. They looked out of their doors, asking what was
+the matter? However, Miss McKee had by this time made up her mind that
+the thief was our own cook; she had seen enough of him by her courageous
+pursuit to be sure of it. No doubt he thought she would be fast asleep,
+and he should carry off the silver and the keys without discovery. Only
+a servant of the house would have known where they were kept. This young
+lady afterwards married Mr. Koch, one of the missionaries. He came from
+Ceylon, and eventually returned to his native country, where I hope they
+are still.
+
+Now we were again without a doctor, and in the autumn Mrs. Brooke
+expected her second confinement. This brings me to what we always called
+the sad, dark time at Sarawak. The weather was rainy beyond any former
+experience. We always had heavy rains in November, but this year they
+began in October, and the sky scarcely seemed to clear. In October, God
+gave us a little son, and in a usual way I should have been quite well
+at the end of three weeks, and across the water to see Mrs. Brooke many
+times before her confinement. But a long influenza cold kept me at home,
+and the weather being always wet, there was no prospect of getting over
+in a boat without a drenching, so only notes passed between us.
+
+On November 15th, Mrs. Brooke had another boy, and though there was some
+anxiety at the time, she seemed pretty well until the fourth day, when
+inflammation set in with puerperal fever, and at the end of ten days our
+much-loved friend was gone to her home in heaven, leaving her husband
+and children desolate. It seemed so impossible that so bright a creature
+should pass away from us, that to the last day we believed she would
+recover. That afternoon she called her husband and brothers and sisters
+to her bedside, and said, "I have tried hard to live for your sakes, but
+I cannot;" then she calmly and sweetly bade them good-bye, and no
+earthly cares touched her afterwards. Very sad hearts were left behind,
+but her example remained to us and called us upwards. Her short life had
+been continual self-sacrifice. She gave up her beautiful home in
+Scotland for love, and the prospect of doing good to Sarawak. On her
+arrival there the most rigid economy was practised, on account of the
+losses in the Chinese insurrection. A mat house, called "The Refuge,"
+neither airy nor comfortable, was her only home; but it was always
+bright with Annie's good taste and cheerful spirits. Then came the last
+sacrifice, her husband and children. These, too, she laid at her Lord's
+feet with a willing heart. Everybody went into mourning; for in so small
+a place it was quite a calamity to lose the head of our little society.
+But to the Bishop this event was a great trial. He had spent most of his
+time, day and night, striving to save this precious life. He was very
+fond of her; he ministered to her as her priest; from his hands she
+received the Blessed Sacrament a few hours before she died, and he heard
+her say with almost her last breath, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit;"
+but he had also to witness agony which he could not relieve, and no
+effort could prolong her life. It made him quite ill for some time, and
+all the happy holiday days passed away with Annie Brooke. Government
+House was never again, in our time, a bright and cheerful home: it
+returned to its bachelor ways; and business, not social pleasure,
+presided there. On Christmas Day, exactly a month after Mrs. Brooke died
+and was laid in the churchyard, we placed a bouquet of flowers from her
+garden on the altar, but there could be no festivities. The Chinese
+Christians had their feast, and the school-children; but we who had lost
+our companion and friend could not rejoice. It was sad enough to go over
+the water and see Annie's empty room, kept just as she had left it, and
+no sound in the house except the wails of the motherless baby, who we
+feared would soon follow his mother to the grave. Captain Brooke was
+obliged to go to England very soon after his wife's death; the Rajah was
+struck with paralysis, and it was at first doubtful whether he would
+recover. In the midst of all this sorrow I had the trouble of losing my
+faithful servant, Mrs. Stahl, who took all the care of the
+school-children off my hands. Her husband had found more lucrative work
+at Singapore, and sent for her to join him. It was a grief to both of
+us, and a great addition to my responsibilities. Mrs. William Channon,
+then a widow, was installed matron of the school, but she had neither
+knowledge nor experience. She did as well as she could, with continual
+supervision. The sick children now came to me to be doctored early every
+morning. I also had a large sewing-class of boys, and a tailor to teach
+us how to cut out and make their peculiar-shaped clothes: however, we
+soon learnt to do without the tailor. Mrs. Hacket taught the little ones
+to sew, and I had the elder ones from seven to ten every morning.
+Sometimes I gave a music lesson between whiles; sometimes I had to leave
+them for a while, first to see what the cook had brought from the bazaar
+for their day's food, and to give out the rice which was kept in my
+store-room; also the cocoa-nut oil, which trimmed the lamps of both
+house and school. Sometimes I read aloud to my boys, stories from
+history. They could understand English quite well.
+
+While our spirits were at their lowest ebb, and the rain still pouring
+with little intermission, we had a visit from H.M.S. _Esk_, Sir Robert
+J. McClure captain. He did his best to cheer us. How kind and bright he
+was I shall never forget, nor how he used to sit patiently under a tree
+in the rain to be photographed, simply to amuse us. There are certainly
+some people who have more of the wine of life than others, and who are a
+wonderful refreshment to their friends. It was during this year, 1858,
+that we built our seaside cottage at Santubong--Sandrock Cottage, as we
+called it, which sounds rather cockney; but as it stood on the sand,
+with great boulders of granite rock scattered about, it seemed the most
+appropriate name. Santubong is the most beautiful of the two mouths of
+the Sarawak River, but not as safe as the Morotabas for ships to enter.
+The Bishop had a mission yacht this year; consequently he was away,
+visiting the mission stations. The next year he sailed the _Sarawak
+Cross_ to Labuan. The voyage took only one week either way, whereas in
+other years he had to go to Singapore, more than four hundred miles off,
+in order to get to Labuan by P. and O. steamer, or any man-of-war
+chancing to go there. Months instead of weeks were consumed by this
+means.
+
+Our cottage took three weeks to build. We sent three men down with a
+thousand palm-leaf attaps for the outside walls and roof, and thirty
+mats to make inner walls. The men went into the jungle and felled wood
+for posts and rafters, then nibong palms were split into strips for the
+floors. The whole building was tied together with rattans, like all
+Malay houses. There were three rooms, twelve feet by fifteen each, and
+two little bath-rooms. A verandah ran along the whole length of the
+front, and this was planked to prevent little feet from slipping
+through. But the rooms were covered with thick mats, and the floor was
+so springy it danced as you moved. We put very little furniture into
+these rooms, and the inside walls were only eight feet high, so that
+though you could not see into the next room, you could hear all that
+went on in all three rooms. The cook-house and servants' room were
+separate.
+
+As early as the year 1848, the Rajah had a little Dyak house built on
+high poles, under the mountain of Santubong. It was an inconvenient
+little place, into which you climbed up a steep ladder--only one room,
+in fact, with a verandah; but we spent some happy days there, for the
+beauty of that shore made the house a secondary consideration. A small
+Malay village nestled in cocoa-nut palms at the foot of Santubong; in
+front lay a smooth stretch of sand, and a belt of casuarina-trees always
+whispering, without any apparent wind to move their slender spines. The
+deer in those days stole out of the jungle at night to eat the sea-foam
+which lay in flakes along the sand, and wild pigs could often be shot in
+a moonlight stroll under the trees. In the morning, we used to set off
+as soon as it was light to a fresh spring in the jungle, where we took
+our bath. Dawdling along the edge of the waves, then quite warm to our
+bare feet, with towels and leaf buckets in our hands, we reached the
+little stream, running under the shade of tall trees in which the
+wood-pigeons were cooing. How delicious and fresh that water was! and
+every sense was charmed at the same time, unless some stinging ants
+walked over our feet, which was not uncommon.
+
+Then we trudged home again, with the wet towels folded on our heads to
+shield us from the sun, who by that time was an enemy to be shunned.
+
+A little colony of Chinese were settled here in 1852, but they never
+took to the place; the soil was perhaps not good enough for their
+gardens. In 1857 the Malays fell upon them and killed them all, because
+they were of the same tribe as the rebels, although they had nothing
+whatever to do with the insurrection. When we were building our cottage
+on the sands two Chinese skulls were dug up. We were all indignant at
+this wanton cruelty, but unable to resent it, except by the expression
+of our opinion, for the English were a mere handful of individuals in
+Sarawak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE MALAY PLOT.
+
+
+Our cottage at Santubong was a source of much pleasure to many people.
+We often lent it to invalids, sometimes to newly married couples, who
+certainly had a good opportunity of studying each other's characters and
+tastes in that lonely solitude.
+
+Sometimes we sent down all the children from the school, who wanted
+sea-air and a holiday. Indeed, when we were staying there, we always had
+relays of children to play on the sands and enjoy themselves. We had a
+place staked round with strong hurdles, where we could bathe in safety
+from sharks and alligators, who both infested the coast. I have often
+seen quantities of jelly-fish and octopus sticking on the outside of the
+hurdles: they sting dreadfully, so they were quite welcome to stay
+there.
+
+During one of our visits to Santubong I remember a timber-ship lying off
+the mouth of the river, to lade planks from a saw-mill which was on the
+other side. One day three sailors came ashore to fill a cask with fresh
+water; there was a spring among the rocks close to the water's edge. As
+they neared the shore, the three men jumped into the sea for a swim; but
+suddenly, one of them threw up his arms and disappeared. In vain his
+comrades searched for him, but the next day his body, partly devoured by
+a shark, was thrown upon the rocks. No doubt he was seized and dragged
+under water. His comrades were much distressed, for he was a favourite
+among the crew. Frank buried him, and helped the men to put a wooden
+cross on the grave.
+
+In the north-west monsoon we sometimes went to Buntal, a bay on the
+other side of the mountain of Santubong. No soul resided there, but it
+was the resort of great flocks of wild-fowl at that season. We rowed
+into the bay while it was still high tide, then left the boat; and our
+men made little huts of boughs some distance from the shore, where we
+could sit without being perceived. As the tide ebbed the birds
+arrived--tall storks, fishing eagles, gulls, curlew, plover, godwits,
+and many others we did not know. They flew in long lines, till they
+seemed to vanish and reappear, circling round and round, then swooping
+down upon the sand where the receding waves were leaving their supper. I
+never saw a prettier sight. The tall storks seemed to act like
+sentinels, watching while the others fed. At a note of alarm they all
+rose in the air, flew about screaming, and then settled again on the
+sands in long lines, the smaller birds together, the larger ones in
+ascending rows. At last, alas! a gun fired into their midst caused death
+and dismay. A few fell dead, and the rest fled to some happier shore,
+where no destroying man could mar their happiness. And there are many
+such spots in Borneo where no human foot ever trod, and where trees,
+flowers, and insects flourish exceedingly; where the birds sing songs of
+praise which are only heard by their Maker, and where the wild animals
+of the forest live and die unmolested. There is always something
+delightful to me in this idea. We are apt to think that this earth is
+made for man, but, after many ages, there are still some parts of his
+domain unconquered, some fair lands where the axe, the fire, and the
+plough are still unknown.
+
+While we were at Santubong, in 1859, we were distressed to hear that Mr.
+Fox and Mr. Steele, two Government officers in charge of a fort at
+Kenowit, had been murdered by some Dyaks, whom they were judging in the
+court-house. We were very grieved for our friends, especially for Mr.
+Fox, who was for two years with us as catechist in the mission, and only
+left because he could not make up his mind to be ordained. However, he
+was most faithful in the performance of his duties at that lonely fort,
+and most blameless in his life; we could only regret the loss of so good
+a young man. We did not at that time connect this event with any general
+enmity to Englishmen among the natives, but only thought that
+particular tribe of Kenowits were not to be trusted.
+
+It was really a much more serious matter. Mr. Charles Johnson went up to
+Kenowit directly, taking the Bishop's yacht, the _Sarawak Cross_, as his
+floating fortress. He sent a thousand Dyaks to attack the fortified
+village of the Kenowits, who were engaged in the murders. These Dyaks
+were repulsed, but he led them on again himself with two hundred Sarawak
+Malays, good men and true. They took a brass gun overland to the
+village, and pounded them for a day; then the Malays and Dyaks attacked
+and fired the place, and took it.
+
+There were many killed, but it was their own fault; for, before
+attacking, a flag of truce had been hoisted, and all who would were
+invited to submit, and promised their lives, but only a few women and
+children availed themselves of it and were saved. Tanee the brave was
+killed, and Hadji Mahomet. It was found that these traitors had spread a
+report that all the English at Sarawak and at Labuan, as well as at
+Bunjermassin, had been killed, and this was so thoroughly believed that
+the Kenowits thought they had only to kill Mr. Fox and Mr. Steele, in
+order to possess themselves of the arms and goods in the fort with
+impunity. It was true that the Malays at Bunjermassin had risen upon the
+Europeans there, and killed twenty Dutch officials and their families;
+also four of the German missionaries living among the Dyaks, and a Mr.
+Mattley, with his wife and three children, who used to live at Labuan.
+The Dutch took summary vengeance for this massacre, but in spite of that
+the Malays at Coti killed the Europeans who lived there; so that
+neighbouring countries showed a bad example to our people, and we were
+afraid that religious fanaticism might have something to do with the
+hatred to Christians, whether Dutch or English.
+
+In every country there are unfortunately some bad men, who are
+irreclaimable by kindness or severity. Such were the two who instigated
+a plot to murder all the English in the Sarawak territory, and take the
+Government to themselves. The oldest and most shameless of these men was
+the Datu Patinghi of Sarawak, and to tell his story I must go back to
+the early days of Sarawak. When Sir James Brooke first visited Mudah
+Hassim, the Malay Rajah, he found him endeavouring to put down a
+rebellion among his subjects. After a time Sir James Brooke helped him
+with the guns of his yacht and the services of his blue jackets. The
+enemy submitted, and then he begged their lives of Mudah Hassim. It was
+with very great difficulty this unprecedented favour was granted.
+
+Gapoor and his followers were pardoned, and when Sarawak was given over
+to Sir James Brooke by the Sultan of Bruni, it was naturally supposed
+that this man who owed his life to the English Rajah would remain his
+faithful friend and follower. He was made the chief datu, or magistrate,
+of whom there were three--the Datu Patinghi, the Tumangong, and the
+Bandhar. These Malay chiefs were members of the Council, and represented
+Home Department, War Office, and Treasury in the State. For some time
+all seemed to go well, but the Rajah soon found that the Datu Patinghi
+could not be restrained from oppressing the Dyaks under his charge,
+levying more than the proper tax, or obliging them to buy whatever he
+wished to sell, at exorbitant prices. His power over the Dyaks was
+therefore taken away, and a fixed income given him to preclude
+temptation. When the Rajah was in England, in 1851, this Datu intrigued
+with the Bruni Malays to upset the Government; he mounted yellow
+umbrellas, a sign of royalty, and arrogated power to himself which might
+have been mischievous had he been more popular with the natives. But he
+had many relations among the high Malays of the place, and it was a
+question whether they would resent his being publicly disgraced. Captain
+Brooke told them plainly that he must be exiled, but that it should be
+done in the most cautious way, and appearances should be saved. Datu
+Patinghi was therefore advised to go a pilgrimage to Mecca. Money and
+servants were supplied him, but he had no choice about it. We all hoped
+he would never return.
+
+About a year afterwards Sir James Brooke said to me, "Did you ever feel
+pleasure at hearing of the death of an old friend?" Before I could
+consider this knotty question, he added Gapoor had died of small-pox at
+Mecca. It was only a report, and proved untrue. Datu came back a hadji,
+but was desired to go and live at Malacca the rest of his days. In 1859
+he begged to be allowed to return to Sarawak, and, as it was hoped he
+could not be ungrateful for so much kindness and forbearance, he was
+permitted; but he was only biding his time. After his return to Sarawak
+he married his daughter to Seriff Bujang, the brother of Seriff
+Messahore, whose rascality and bad faith were on a par with his own.
+Bujang was a quiet creature enough, drawn into the wicked plots of his
+brother and father-in-law, but they were bad to the core. A Seriff is
+supposed to be a descendant of the Prophet Mahomet, at any rate he is an
+Arab, and Messahore was said to be invulnerable and sacred in his
+person. He was a fine, handsome creature, with insinuating manners, but
+there was nothing more to say in his favour. He was at the bottom of
+every disturbance in the country, but was cunning enough to keep himself
+in the background. Directly a plot miscarried, he came forward zealously
+to punish the wrong-doers.
+
+He instigated the murder of Mr. Fox and Mr. Steele; nay, it was intended
+to be a general massacre of all the English in Sarawak territory; but by
+a mistake of the Kenowits these two unfortunates were killed
+prematurely. The day had not arrived, and this led to the discovery of
+the plot. When Mr. C. Johnson went with an armed force to Kenowit,
+Seriff Messahore had already killed the fort men, who had only executed
+his own orders. For some time he, the guilty one, escaped detection. At
+last some Christian Dyaks of Lundu and Banting disclosed to their
+missionaries that Malays had visited them to say they had better turn
+Mahometans, for soon there would be no English left in the country.
+These stories being communicated by the Bishop to Mr. Johnson, he
+consulted the Malay members of the council and other trustworthy native
+friends, and it was evident they knew there was good reason for anxiety,
+as they advised all the English to wear firearms, even the ladies.
+
+At last the rumours of threats were traced to old Gapoor, the
+ex-Patinghi, and he was again banished the country by order of the
+council. Seriffs Messahore and Bujang, being connected with him by
+marriage, were also suspected. Messahore was warned that if he came to
+Kuching he would be treated as an enemy. Nevertheless he advanced up the
+river; his boat was greeted by a shower of balls, and he ignominiously
+fled. When the glamour was thus taken from him everybody was ready to
+divulge what they knew of the plot, and that a pension of six hundred
+rupees a year was promised to any one who would kill Mr. C. Johnson. The
+Rajah was in England, and known to be in bad health. Very few English
+men-of-war visited Sarawak at that time. Rumours were got up at Bruni
+that the Rajah was in disgrace with his own queen. This was the
+consequence of the commission of inquiry about piracy, which had taken
+place in 1858, by order of the English Parliament; for though the
+results of that commission thoroughly exculpated Sir James Brooke from
+any blame, there was never any _amende honourable_ made for subjecting
+him to such an indignity. It was never understood by the natives as
+anything but a slur on the Rajah's character, and was a terrible injury
+to his prestige for a time. Indeed, it was the seed of the Malay plot;
+and if we had all been killed, our own English Government would have
+been the remote cause of our death. It is no doubt difficult for
+Englishmen to understand the feelings of Malays and Dyaks. We are
+accustomed in England to find fault with our rulers, and submit to them
+all the same. But in the East it is different: no breath of blame must
+touch the Rajah, nor can he be arraigned before any court, except the
+throne of God.
+
+Fatima, Seriff Bujang's wife, was an old friend of mine. She had always
+visited me from the time of our first arrival at Sarawak, and was then a
+very handsome girl, with a pale, clear complexion, and fine hair and
+eyes. We took a great interest in her marriage, and Seriff Bujang
+frequently came to our house. He was apparently fond of Mab, and liked
+to hear her tell fairy tales. Mab spoke Malay very well, and was always
+popular with the natives, to whom she would sing, dance, or relate
+Cinderella, the White Cat, or the Three Bears, etc. It was curious to
+see a grave-looking Malay sitting to listen to fairy stories; still more
+so when all the time he was party to a plot for the destruction of the
+household he visited. He was more weak than wicked; and two years after
+that he died. I had occasion to visit some Malays in his kampong after
+his death, and found poor Fatima bereft of all her ornaments and gay
+dresses, and working as a drudge in the house. Widows are little
+accounted of in Eastern households.
+
+To return to the events of October, 1859.
+
+A timber-ship, the _Planet_, was lying in the river, and Mr. Johnson
+requested that the women and children of the mission should be sent on
+board until the panic passed away, and the old Datu was got safely out
+of the place. The fort and Government House were manned and armed, and
+the rest of the Europeans sheltered there. The Hacket family went down
+at once, and in the evening we sent Miss McKee and the two youngest
+children with her; but Mab was ill of fever, and could not be moved. So
+the Bishop and I stayed with her, and ten Chinamen guarded our house.
+
+Mr. Chalmers had come from Merdang with news that some of those Dyaks
+had joined the Datu Hadji, and also some bad Lundus, who had been
+punished for sedition four years before. We all sat up that night; but I
+was too much occupied with my sick child to be nervous about anything
+else. The night passed over without any rising of the disaffected, and
+the next day Gapoor consented to leave the country quietly, finding no
+chief Malays would stand by him, and to be taken in a Government
+gunboat to a brig just leaving the river. Thus, through God's mercy and
+the loyalty of the people, no harm came of this plot, except that Mr.
+and Mrs. Hacket decided to leave the mission, not being strong enough to
+stand such alarms. They went to Malacca, where he became Government
+chaplain, and died there of consumption, after some years' service.
+
+The heat of Sarawak climate was so injurious to our child Mab, who had
+frequent attacks of fever, that as soon as the place was quiet again, we
+resolved to pay another visit to England. The Bishop's health was much
+shaken, and the doctors at Singapore ordered him home at once. But it
+was winter, and we were afraid of taking our children too quickly into
+the rigorous cold of England; therefore we took a passage in the
+_Bahiana_, a steamer which had brought out a telegraph cable to lay
+between Singapore and Batavia, and having accomplished her purpose, was
+returning empty to England. The Bishop went with us as far as Bombay,
+and then took P. and O. boat to England; whilst we called first at
+Mauritius, then at the Cape of Good Hope, staying some days at each
+place, and at the latter adding several passengers to our small party.
+We proceeded very happily until we were within a day's steam of the
+Island of St. Vincent, off the coast of Africa; then the great crank of
+the steam-engine snapped in two, and we had to sail. It took us ten days
+to beat up to the island, for a large screw steamer was never intended
+to be propelled by sails.
+
+We began to have gloomy forebodings of the time which must elapse before
+we could reach England, sailing at this rate, when we saw, lying in the
+roads at St. Vincent, a very large West Indian steamer on her way home.
+It was difficult to communicate with this ship, because she lay in
+quarantine, yellow flag flying; and we did not know whether she had
+yellow fever on board or not. Our captain, however, called us all
+together, and said, "I hoped to have found some provisions in this
+island, to add to our stores; but I find there is nothing." The island
+seemed just a bare rock, with one solitary palm-tree growing by the
+office door, and not a blade of grass. It was difficult to imagine what
+provisions there could be, except the coal left by ships to supply
+passing steamers. "It will be necessary," added Captain Grenfell, "that
+some of you should go home in the _Magnolia_, West Indian steamer, for
+we have not food on board for all, and cannot expect to be less than
+another month reaching England under sail: therefore you must each of
+you decide to-night what you will do; and if you choose to go home in
+the _Magnolia_, I will pay your passage. But I ought to tell you that
+probably there are cases of yellow fever on board that ship; for it is
+the time of year when it is rife at the South American stations."
+
+Here was a problem to solve in the night! Should I take my children on
+board a ship where there was probable infection, or should I subject my
+husband to harassing anxiety about us for a whole month? In the morning
+I decided to go home in the _Magnolia_; and I was rewarded when we
+climbed up into that great ship, with two hundred passengers on board,
+by finding that there was not a single case of yellow fever, or anything
+infectious. We had a delightful ten days' passage, stopping a few hours
+at Lisbon, but not allowed to land, and then straight to Southampton. My
+only regret was leaving Captain Grenfell, who had been so kind to the
+children all the way.
+
+The _Bahiana_ took just a month to get to England from St. Vincent.
+
+
+
+
+PART III.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE CHILDREN'S CHAPTER.
+
+
+In 1861 we again returned to our Eastern home, leaving our three
+children behind, and taking only our baby girl for companion. What a
+difference it makes in India, to "leave the children behind!"--a common
+fate indeed for parents, but not the less to be deplored. We used to
+think and speak of Sarawak as home until 1861; but ever after, we spoke
+of going home to our children, for where the treasure is there must the
+heart be also. To do the work so that the time might pass quickly and
+peacefully, to live upon the mails from England, to carry on two lives
+as it were, one in the present, the other in the pictures our English
+letters presented--such at any rate was my fate, though my husband was
+too true a missionary to feel as I did.
+
+Most of our old Sarawak friends had either died or gone away when we
+returned in '61, but the mission grew more and more interesting as
+Christian Churches sprang up on the Dyak rivers. Four new missionaries
+came out soon after our arrival. Mr. and Mrs. Abe, Mr. Zehnder, Mr.
+Mesney, and Mr. Crossland, the two latter from St. Augustine's College,
+Canterbury, from whence had formerly come those two good men, Mr.
+Chalmers and Mr. Glover. They had both gone to Australia on account of
+their health, but the teaching of Mr. Chalmers had left its mark among
+the land Dyaks of Murdang and the Quop, so that Mr. Abe, who was
+afterwards placed on that station, reaped the harvest which had been
+sown with many prayers two years before. Mr. Mesney succeeded Mr. Glover
+at Banting, and its many branch missions; and Mr. Crossland went farther
+off, to the Dyaks, on the Undop, where he eventually built a church and
+gathered a little flock of Christians about him. Mr. Richardson came as
+catechist about the same time, and after staying a short time at Lundu,
+built himself a house among the Selaku Dyaks at Sedemac, in the country
+towards Sambas. He was much beloved by those simple people, who speak
+quite a different language to the Lundus. They exerted themselves to
+build their own church of substantial balean-wood, and their women
+learnt to pray as well as the men. "To learn to pray" is the Dyak
+description of a Christian. "What will you do," asked a missionary, "to
+bring those around you to Christ?" "I will teach them to pray," was the
+answer. And surely this is the great distinction between the Christian
+and the heathen--the one has communion with his Father in heaven, an
+all-powerful, wise, and loving Friend; the other may cherish some vague
+belief and worship of an unknown God, but has neither love nor trust to
+carry him above this world's troubles and trials.
+
+Another baby was added to our family in May, 1862, whose mother died at
+her birth. This little one stayed with us only seventeen months, and was
+a great happiness to me; then Sir James Brooke took her to England.
+However, it was a pleasant chapter as long as it lasted.
+
+Julia, one of our original school-girls, became very useful to me at
+this time. We had taken her home with us in '59, and sent her to a
+training-school for teachers in Dublin, so that she was quite competent
+on our return to take the management of the girls' school. We had eight
+girls in the house, and a few day-scholars from the town. Lessons used
+to go on in a room on the basement, where of course I was
+superintendent, and they learnt sewing in the afternoon. Julia was a
+very gentle mistress, and I was feeling very happy about my girls, when
+I found to my sorrow that Julia had an admirer, and I must make up my
+mind to part with my child who had lived with us since she was four
+years old. Such natural events must not be considered trials, but the
+difficulty of replacing her was insuperable. I was obliged at last to
+send my girls to Mrs. Abe, at the Quop Station, for I was too often away
+in the mission-boat with the Bishop to keep them at the mission-house.
+This was not until 1865, however. Poor Mildred felt parting with "her
+girls," as she called them, very much, and often said, "Mamma, if Sarah
+and Fanny might come back we would never, never quarrel any more." Are
+not such pricks of conscience common to us all when our dear ones leave
+us? But the past never returns!
+
+In 1863, the Bishop built a charming little yawl for mission work. The
+_Fanny_ was just suited, from her light draught of water, to cross the
+bars of the rivers, and she was a very good sea-boat too. Not only was
+she wanted to take the Bishop on his missionary, tours, but she brought
+the missionaries to Sarawak when, they came for ordinations, or the
+annual synod; also when they were sick, and required medical aid or
+change. Very few clergymen know much about the management of boats, and
+native crafts are very unsafe, so that until the Bishop had a yacht many
+accidents used to occur, not actually dangerous, for the natives swim
+like fishes, but drenchings and loss of goods from the upsetting of
+boats. In the north-east monsoon _Fanny_ was thatched over and laid
+snugly up a creek, but all the south-west monsoon she was very useful;
+and no one wanted to travel about, if they could help it, during the wet
+tempestuous weather which prevailed from November to March.
+
+The Bishop paid his annual visit to Labuan in any steamer which happened
+to be going. We had the great advantage of frequent visits from an
+English gunboat, for the admiral of the Chinese seas had orders from
+England to tell off one gun-boat for the two stations of Labuan and
+Sarawak. This arose from our being also blest with the presence of an
+English consul. But after he and his wife had remained two years at
+Sarawak, they were heartily tired of the dulness of their lives, and did
+their best to get removed to a more stirring station. However, the
+recognition of England gave confidence to native traders and security to
+the well disposed, so that there ensued a time of peace such as we had
+not experienced during our former sojourns in the country.
+
+[Illustration: Tommy. Fanny. Mary. Mab. Sarah. Nietfong.
+
+SCHOOL CHILDREN. _Page_ 194.]
+
+I think the history of our life during these years may be partly told by
+the letters I wrote to my children at home, or extracts from them; so
+that this may be called the children's chapter.
+
+    Sunday before Easter, 1862.
+
+    MY DARLING MAB,
+
+    I am glad you are not here, for it is very, very hot, and you
+    would probably have a bad headache. Julia is sitting in the
+    verandah teaching Polly, Sarah, Fanny, and Phoebe the Easter
+    hymn for next Sunday. Ayah is walking up and down with Mildred,
+    and Louis Koch is running about, making her laugh. I must tell
+    you how we spend the day. Papa gets up at five, and takes a ride
+    on his pony. I make the tea at six, and cut bread and butter for
+    Ayah and Julia, and Samchoon, one of the boys who has had fever
+    and wants feeding up. The bell calls us to church at seven, but
+    I don't go till the afternoon. The gardener brings me a tray of
+    flowers, and I make the nosegays for the day. Then I go
+    downstairs and see the butter made. The boy brings in a great
+    jar of milk, with which he mixes some warm water; into this he
+    puts a long piece of bamboo, with cross pieces fixed in it like
+    the spokes of a wheel. This he twirls round and round in the jar
+    till the butter comes. Then he takes it out with his black
+    hands, and I carry it off and wash and salt it. We only get five
+    ounces now at a time, though there are six cows in milk; but the
+    calves are such miserable little things they have to be helped
+    first, and fed with rice-gruel also. The butter finished, I go
+    up to the sewing-class, who are very busy making their Easter
+    clothes, both boys and girls; and I help them with my
+    sewing-machine until half-past ten, only running away
+    twice--once to see what the school cook has brought for their
+    breakfast, and then to order our own. Then we all bathe and
+    breakfast, and Ayah goes away for two hours for her breakfast
+    and midday nap; and I take care of Mildred, which is, I own, the
+    hardest part of my day's work, for the little restless thing
+    will never let me sit down, and is up to all sorts of mischief.
+    At two o'clock Ayah comes and sings Mildred to sleep, with the
+    same old tune of "Doo doo baby" which you used to sing to your
+    dolls. I think in the next box I have from home you might send
+    your old friends Sarah and Fanny a doll each, and dress them
+    yourself. Our Malay Tuan Ku was here the other day and asked
+    after you; he remembered your Malay fairy tales.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    MY BELOVED CHILD,
+
+    Our letters were very welcome last Sunday, _Easter Sunday_,
+    telling us good news of you all. Our church was very gay with
+    flowers and moss ferns; and the font was filled with large pink
+    water-lilies, whose beautiful round green leaves, a foot wide at
+    least, looked quite lovely round the white shell font. All holy
+    week and Easter Monday and Tuesday we had full service at seven
+    o'clock in the morning, papa preaching a short sermon from the
+    altar. It was delightfully cool at that hour, and began the day
+    so pleasantly. I always love Easter, when all our dear ones seem
+    to be gathered to us in Christ our Lord, whether those in Heaven
+    or those far away--all one family, and Christ's children through
+    God the Father's love and mercy. I have been very busy. The
+    school-children had all new clothes for Easter. We worked
+    diligently for three hours every morning. The jackets were made
+    of the Irish gingham I brought from home. This week is holiday,
+    and Julia and I have had a fine wash, and have clear-starched
+    the Bishop's sleeves and ruffles--such a business! My hand aches
+    to-day with lifting the heavy smoothing-iron, which is not iron,
+    but a large brass box, hollow and filled with hot charcoal. We
+    shall get more used to it in time. Mrs. Stahl used to do it. Now
+    she is gone it is quite impossible to let the Kling Dobie touch
+    papa's sleeves; they would soon be torn to ribbons. I gave the
+    school a treat on Easter Tuesday. They had two soup-tureens full
+    of syllabub, plum cake, and pine-apple puffs. My cook stared
+    when I said, "Make forty large pine-apple puffs." However, they
+    were for his own countrymen--he is Chinese. I thought at first
+    he understood English, for he always said "Yes" to my orders;
+    but it was his one word. After the school-children had finished
+    off with fruit and native cakes, they had, what they like best
+    of all, quantities of crackers, which filled the house with the
+    smell of gunpowder, and frightened baby Mildred out of her
+    sleep. Good-bye.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    July, 1862.
+
+    MY PRECIOUS MAB,
+
+    Thank you for your note, written on the 4th of May, which I
+    received the other day. I always rejoice to think of you in the
+    springtime, because, like other young things, you enjoy the
+    opening buds, flowers, and sunshine after the long grave winter.
+    But winter is a good friend, although he has a grave face; we
+    should be all the better for a visit from him out here. My
+    garden is now as full of flowers as it will hold; Mrs. Little
+    brought me so many new ones from Singapore. I have a very gay
+    nosegay every morning, and still, leave flowers to adorn the
+    beds outside. We have turned out some of the fruit-trees to make
+    more room for flowers. This morning I have sown a quantity of
+    blue and purple convolvulus, which only display their beauties
+    to those who rise early before the sun closes their blossoms;
+    but we have flowers which only open at night, the moon-flower,
+    and night-blowing cereus, both white and fragrant. Dr. Little
+    has been travelling about the country looking for new plants. He
+    and Mr. Koch went to the top of the mountain of Poe near Lundu.
+    It was so cold six thousand feet above the level of the sea,
+    that they had to supply the natives who went with them with
+    blankets. At the very top of the mountain they found a new
+    orchid growing on the ground, a bright yellow flower, with
+    streaks of magenta colour inside. Dr. Little picked some of the
+    blossoms, and dug up one hundred roots, two of which he gave me;
+    but they will not live in my garden, they want mountain air. He
+    also gave me the dead flowers, and asked me to paint a picture
+    of one from his description and the faded blossom. I did it as
+    well as I could, but I fear it was not very good, and, after
+    all, the flower was not nearly as pretty as a bunch of laburnum
+    in England. They also found growing on the roots of a tree that
+    strange fungus flower described by Sir Stamford Raffles in his
+    book on Java and Sumatra--a yard wide across the petals,
+    brilliantly coloured red, purple, yellow and white, and, in the
+    hollow of the flower (nectarium), capable of holding twelve
+    pints of water, the whole weighing from fifteen to twenty
+    pounds; for it is a thick fleshy flower, not frail and delicate
+    as one likes a flower to be. It is very curious and gorgeous,
+    but as soon as it is fully expanded it begins to decay and
+    smells putrid. Sir James Brooke once found a specimen of this
+    gigantic flower in the jungle, and sent it to me to look at; but
+    it had lost all its beauty in the journey, and I held my nose as
+    I looked at it. The Dyaks said, "It is an auton" (spirit), which
+    is their explanation of anything they never saw before. The
+    natives of Sumatra call it "The Devil's sirih-box."[8] Are you
+    as fond of frogs as you used to be? Last week, some people were
+    dining with us. I had just helped the soup, and, letting my hand
+    fall upon my lap, picked up one of your friends who had settled
+    himself there. Not knowing at first what the cold clammy thing
+    was, I jumped up, and everybody else jumped up too, to see what
+    was the matter; for it might have been a snake, you know!
+    Good-bye.
+
+    [Footnote 8: The real name is _Rafflesia Arnoldi_. See page 343,
+    vol. i., "Raffles' Life and Journals."]
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    December 1, 1862.
+
+    MY DEAREST MAB,
+
+    Uncle told me of your walk with him to West Hyde Church, and how
+    you made believe to get to Sarawak and see mamma walking in the
+    verandah. You are much better off in the cold December air of
+    England, than you would be in this sultry place, for all its
+    green beauty and never-failing flowers. I had rather you carried
+    the roses in your cheeks than have them in the garden all the
+    year round. Last month papa went to visit the Quop Mission,
+    where Mr. and Mrs. Abi and their little baby, and your old Ayah
+    Fatima, live. To get there he goes down the Sarawak River and
+    up the Quop River, then lands at a Malay village, from whence
+    there is a walk of three or four miles, up and down pretty hills
+    and across Dyak bridges, and over paths made of two bamboos tied
+    together, with a muddy swamp on either side. Then you come to
+    the mission-house which papa has built, and to Mr. Chalmers' old
+    house, which at present serves as the church, and to some long
+    Dyak houses. Papa baptized twenty-four men, women, and girls,
+    and confirmed nineteen people who had been baptized by Mr.
+    Chalmers. The old Pangara, one of the principal chiefs, was
+    baptized, and three of his grown-up sons, and one little
+    grandson whom the old man held in his arms. We had made white
+    jackets for the baptized, but the old Pangara had not quite made
+    up his mind, fearing the ridicule of the other elders of the
+    tribe, till papa talked to him; so there was no jacket for him,
+    and papa gave him a clean white shirt, round the skirt of which
+    we tied his chawat, a very long waist-band which wraps round and
+    round the body, and that was all! no trousers, and very funny he
+    looked; but papa was too rejoiced at his becoming a Christian,
+    to laugh at him. These people will all be Christians soon. They
+    come to Mr. and Mrs. Abi, morning, noon, and night, to be
+    taught, and there are two daily services; so the missionaries
+    have plenty to do. Two of our old school-boys, now grown up, are
+    catechists there, Semirum and Aloch. There is much love between
+    the people and their teachers; they are so happy at the Quop
+    they never want to come away. However, I have asked the Abis to
+    come for a fortnight at Christmas, and bring their poor little
+    baby to be fattened on cow's milk. There are no cows at the
+    Quop.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+     January, 1863.
+
+     MY BELOVED CHILDREN,
+
+     As I cannot have you with me this Christmas and new year, I
+     must comfort myself as best I may by writing you an account of
+     all we have been doing, and how we have tried to fancy
+     ourselves in old England amidst the frost and snow,
+     notwithstanding the bright sunshine and perpetual green of our
+     Eastern home. When we woke before daylight on Christmas morning
+     the school boys were singing under our windows, "When Joseph
+     was a-walking he heard an angel sing," so we got up and looked
+     out, wishing the children a happy Christmas. Then we dressed,
+     for there was a great deal to do. Papa had many services in
+     church, Chinese, English, and Dyak. I had the wreaths to make.
+     The church had been decked with moss fern the day before, but
+     the flowers must be added in the morning, or they would be
+     faded. So Julia and I made a crown of French marigolds to hang
+     on the cross over the altar, two large wreaths for either side,
+     and one at the west end made entirely of the golden allamanda,
+     in the buds of which you used to imprison fire-flies when you
+     lived here. The font was adorned all over, in preparation for
+     the baptisms to take place in the morning service. At half-past
+     eleven we all went to church, and after the Litany there were
+     sixteen Dyaks from Murdang, six Chinamen, and six little
+     children baptized. Mr. Koch read the service in Malay, and papa
+     baptized. It was a beautiful sight. The children, four of my
+     little girls, and two small boys from the school behaved very
+     well, and looked pretty in their new clothes. But they all
+     understood something of why they were sprinkled with the
+     blessed water, for we had been teaching them for some time, and
+     Limo told me on Christmas Eve, that "our Saviour came into this
+     world a little child, to teach us to be good; and when He had
+     blessed them in their baptism, they must take pains to do all
+     He desired them." I thought this pretty well for a beginning.
+     Ambat always repeats what Limo says, so I do not know how much
+     is her own: she is Limo's sister. Ango and Llan, the other two
+     girls, have been taught by Miss Rocke, who has given them to
+     me; they know but little, but are gentle children. The school
+     had a feast at five o'clock, beef curry (papa had an ox
+     killed), salt pork, rice, and a huge plum-pudding. They had
+     newly white-washed their dining-room the week before, and
+     decked it with boughs, so that it looked very nice with six
+     lanterns hanging from the roof. They played there while we were
+     at dinner, and the Christian Chinese feasted at Sing Song's
+     house. Julia had her little party in her school-room, and
+     dinner from our table: some of the grown-up schoolboys and
+     Polly. We had Mr. and Mrs. Koch, Mr. and Mrs. Owen, Mr.
+     Zehnder, and Mrs. Crookshank at our table. Papa counted that
+     ninety-seven people were fed on the mission premises on
+     Christmas Day. After dinner we had a bonfire in the hollow
+     below our hill, between the house and the church. Quantities of
+     dry bamboo had been collected there, which threw up columns of
+     sparks, and lit up all the under leaves of the trees, making
+     the dark sky and the young moon look so far far away. Then the
+     boys began with crackers and rockets. Baby Agnes was not
+     frightened, but poor Mildred could not sleep for terror. Every
+     rocket made her call out "Bumah," and hide her face on my
+     shoulder; however, she got used to it at last. Christmas is the
+     time of year which belongs especially to children, because our
+     Lord Jesus Christ then deigned to become a little child. We
+     forget what happened to us when we were very young--even a
+     mother does not know all the feelings, little troubles, ardent
+     wishes and desires of her little ones--but it is impossible
+     that our Saviour can ever forget. He knows exactly all that
+     belongs to the daily life of a child, not only because He is
+     God and knows everything, but because He was once a child
+     Himself, and remembers all the joys and sorrows of His
+     child-life in the cottage at Nazareth; and so children are very
+     dear to Him--He listens to their prayers, accepts their
+     praises, and watches over them always. Remember, my darling,
+     that He is your best friend; to Him you may tell all your
+     little troubles and confess all your faults, for He is very
+     pitiful and of tender mercy.
+
+     I gave my school-girls a box of dominoes and a set of
+     draughtsmen with a board for their Christmas present. They play
+     very well. All the sewing-class boys, too, had each a
+     present--either a knife, or belt, or box or basket to keep
+     their treasures in, or a head-handkerchief; but the Sarawak
+     bazaar does not furnish many desirable things, even for
+     school-boys. H.M.S. _Renard_ has arrived since I wrote thus
+     far, and we have had the boat races, which always take place in
+     January. Eleven of our school-boys won the boys' race, pulling
+     against Inchi Boyangs' school, the Mahometan school, and some
+     other boats. We dressed our boys in white and blue, and they
+     pulled beautifully. Papa had taught them to pull all together,
+     when they went to mission stations with him, and they are
+     really good paddlers. They disdained the short course marked
+     out for the boys, and pulled all the way out to the
+     winning-post, a boat anchored near the wharf, round it, and
+     back again, winning by two boats' lengths. They won five
+     dollars, and papa added two more; they gave some of the money
+     to their school-fellows, and celebrated their victory by
+     singing all the evening so nicely, and hurrahing at the end of
+     each song. They are good boys, and much happiness to us.
+     Good-bye.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+ILLANUN PIRATES.
+
+
+I have described in a former chapter the habits of the Dyak pirates of
+Sakarran and Sarebas, and how, after being punished by Sir James Brooke
+when they were caught at the entrance of their river, with captives and
+plunder in their boats, they were required to live at one with their
+neighbours, and to study the arts of peace. Happily for them, they had a
+wise and paternal Government to repress their vices, and, after a time,
+Christian missionaries to teach them the fear and love of God. But the
+Malay pirates who lived on the islands and coasts of North Borneo were
+governed by sultans who encouraged piracy, and insisted on sharing their
+spoils; moreover, they are Mahometans by religion, and that is not a
+faith which teaches mercy or respects life. To this day, therefore,
+these Illanuns remain pirates. They have larger prahus and carry heavier
+guns than the Dyaks, and nothing can exceed their cruelty. When we
+lived at Kuching there was scarcely a Malay family there who had not
+suffered from them, either by the loss of relations or property; for
+they are naturally a trading people.
+
+It is a common practice for a party of men to join together in hiring a
+boat in which to venture goods or gold-dust by trading on the coast, or
+even to Singapore three hundred and sixty miles away, These small and
+comparatively unarmed boats fell an easy prey to the pirate prahus, who
+went out in fleets.
+
+The Spaniards and the Dutch were every now and then roused to search the
+seas for these pests of the human race, but they were so cunning they
+generally evaded them. At last they had a signal lesson. In the year
+1862, Captain Brooke, then governing Sarawak in his uncle's absence,
+decided to go to Bintulu on the north-west coast of Borneo, a territory
+which had lately been ceded to the Rajah by the Sultan, and build a fort
+on the river, to check piracy and protect the peaceable inhabitants who
+were settling there on the promise of such protection. For this purpose
+he took the _Rainbow_, a small screw steamer of eighty-nine tons and
+thirty-five horse power; and the _Jolly Bachelor_, a Government
+gun-boat. The Bishop accompanied him, to see what missionary prospects
+there were in that distant spot, also because he was at that time
+anxious about Captain Brooke's health. Mr. Helms, the manager of the
+Borneo mercantile company, accompanied them as far as Muka, where was
+an establishment to collect sago for exportation. On the second day
+after his arrival, a piratical fleet of Ilanuns, consisting of six
+large, and as many smaller vessels, appeared on the coast, and blockaded
+the town. For two days they remained off Muka, capturing there, and on
+the coast southwards, thirty-two persons.
+
+Mr. Helms persuaded Hadji Mataim and a few natives to start in a fast
+boat and apprize Captain Brooke; and this boat, though chased by the
+pirates, got safe to Bintulu. Hadji Mataim got alongside the steamer
+early on Thursday morning, while it was still dark, and the Bishop,
+recognizing his voice, called him on board. He delivered a letter from
+Mr. Helms, asking for help. Steam was got up directly, the Chinese
+carpenters who were to build the fort were landed, and the guns which
+had been brought to protect it were put on board, as well as the fort
+men who were to man the fort, that they might strengthen the crew. With
+the first dawn of light the _Rainbow_ steamed over the bar taking the
+_Jolly Bachelor_ in tow, and steered for Muka.
+
+Meanwhile all preparation was made for fighting. Planks were hung over
+the railing to raise the sides of the poop where there were no bulwarks,
+and mattresses were laid inside to receive the shot and spears of the
+enemy; this doubtless saved the lives of several of the crew. There were
+eight Europeans on board, including the captain of the _Rainbow_ and his
+mate, the engineer, Captain Brooke, Mr. Stuart Johnson, Mr. Hay, Mr.
+Walters, and the Bishop. As soon as there were any wounded, Mr. Walters
+assisted the Bishop in his work of mercy. The Bishop always carried a
+medicine chest and case of surgical instruments wherever he went; and,
+happily, a large sheet had been packed among his things this voyage,
+which was speedily torn up into bandages. Now all was ready, but it was
+not until Friday morning that they sighted what looked like three large
+palm drifts to seaward off Tanjong Kidorong, to the north-east of the
+British River. They proved to be three large prahus, with their masts
+struck, and bristling with men, who were rowing like the Maltese,
+standing, and pushing for shore, casting off their sampans[9] one by one
+to make better way. Hadji Mataim recognized the sampan which chased and
+fired at him when he slipped away from Muka. Brooke then asked one of
+the chief officers of the Sarawak Government, who was on board, and
+Pangeran Matussim of Muka, if they were perfectly sure that these prahus
+were Illanuns? "Not a shadow of doubt," they said. So they loaded their
+guns and prepared for action. The leading prahu was going almost as fast
+as the steamer herself, and though steam was put on, and every effort
+made to get between her and the Point, the prahu won the race, and got
+into shallow water where the steamer could not follow; then she opened
+fire on the steamer, which was returned with interest. This prahu had
+three long brass swivel guns, and plenty of rifles and muskets. As she
+was beyond the reach of the steamer, Captain Brooke turned to the second
+prahu, which was now fast nearing the shore. His plan was to silence the
+brass guns by the fire of the rifles on board the steamer, and shake the
+rowers at their oars by a discharge of grape and round shot; then to put
+on all steam and run at them with the stem of the _Rainbow_. This was
+done with great coolness by Captain Hewat when Captain Brooke gave the
+order; the steamer struck the prahu amid-ships and went over her. Those
+on board called to the slaves, and all who would surrender, to hold on
+by the wreck until the boats could take them off; then they steamed away
+after the third prahu, which had already got into two-fathom water and
+was struck too far forward to sink. All the pirates in her jumped
+overboard and swam for shore, leaving their own wounded, the slaves, and
+captives, who were also bid to remain by their vessel till they were
+rescued.
+
+    [Footnote 9: Small boats.]
+
+Meanwhile the first prahu, seeing the fate of the others, ran ashore
+among the rocks inside Tanjong Kidorong; and all the crew, pirates, and
+slaves ran into the jungle. Had the captives known better they would not
+have run away. The _Jolly Bachelor_ was left to look after these
+runaways, and then the captives of the other two prahus were helped on
+board the steamer. Several of the crew of the _Rainbow_ recognized
+friends and acquaintances among the saved; and the joyous, thankful look
+of the captives, as they came on board and found themselves among
+friends, was indeed a compensation for the awful destruction of the
+pirates. Many were wounded, either with shot or the fearful cuts of the
+Illanun swords of the pirates, who tried to murder their captives when
+they saw all was lost. The Bishop was dressing one man who was shot
+through the wrist, when he spoke to him in English, and after pouring
+out his gratitude for his wonderful escape, said he was a Singapore
+policeman, and was going to see his friends in Java when he was
+captured. There were also two Singapore women, and a child, and two
+British-born Bencoolen Malays, who were taken in their own trading boat
+going to Tringanau. The husband of the younger woman had been killed by
+the pirates, and she, like all women who fall into their hands, had
+suffered every outrage and insult which could be offered her. They were
+almost living skeletons. One was shot through the thigh, and after the
+Bishop had dressed her wound, Mr. Walters said quaintly, "Poor thing,
+she has not meat enough on her bones to bait a rat-trap." It is a wonder
+how the poor creatures lived at all, under the treatment to which they
+were subjected. When the Bishop asked some of the men whether their
+wounds hurt much, they answered, "Nothing hurts so much as the salt
+water the Illanuns gave us to drink. We never had fresh water; they
+mixed three parts of fresh with four of salt water: and all we had to
+eat was a handful of rice or raw sago twice a day." Very few of the
+pirates who were not wounded surrendered. They are marvellous swimmers:
+took their arms with them into the water, and fought the men in the
+boats who were trying to pick up the captives. The Bishop and Mr.
+Walters were fully occupied doctoring friends and foes, arresting
+hemorrhage, extracting balls, and closing frightful sword or chopper
+wounds. One man came on board with the top of his skull as cleanly
+lifted up by a Sooloo knife, as if a surgeon had desired to take a peep
+at the brain inside! It took considerable force to close it in the right
+place. This man had also two cuts in his back, yet the next morning he
+was discovered eating a large plate of rice, and he ultimately
+recovered. Another poor fellow could not be got up the ladder because he
+had a long-handled three-barbed spear sticking in his back: the Bishop
+had to go down and cut it out before he could be moved.
+
+While all this was going on, the captives told Captain Brooke that there
+were three more pirate vessels out at sea, waiting for those near shore
+to rejoin them; as soon, therefore, as the steamer had picked up as many
+captives as she could find, she steamed out to sea in search of them.
+After an hour, the look-out from the mast-head reported three vessels in
+sight. It was then a dead calm, and they were using their long sweeps,
+when they were seen from the deck, to arrange themselves side by side,
+with their bows towards the steamer; but, a breeze springing up, they
+hoisted sail, spread themselves out broadside on, and opened fire on
+the _Rainbow_ as soon as she was within range, so that there was no
+question as to whether these were pirate prahus or not. The same plan
+was followed as in the case of the other boats, and with more success,
+as there was no shore to escape to.
+
+The pirates had secured their captives below the decks of the prahus,
+but when the steamer struck them and opened their sides, they were
+liberated. But few of them were drowned, being all good swimmers; but
+some were killed by the pirates in their rage and despair, and some had
+been lashed to the vessel and could not therefore escape.
+
+One poor Chinaman came swimming along, holding up his long tail of hair
+lest he should be suspected to be a pirate; other men held up the ropes
+round their necks, to show they were captives. The deck of the steamer
+was soon covered with those who had been picked out of the water, men of
+every nation and race in the Archipelago, who had been captured during
+this cruise, which had lasted seven months. These vessels left
+Tawi-Tawi, an island to the south-west of Sooloo, in October. The Sultan
+of Sooloo is in league with the pirates, and receives part of the
+plunder and slaves. In the only boat boarded by Captain Brooke was found
+the Sultan's flag, which is only given to people of high rank; also the
+usual Illanun flag, six Dutch, and one Spanish flag, which no doubt
+belonged to vessels they had captured. The men who were saved gave
+details of the taking of two large vessels--one a Singapore prahu
+trading to Tringanau; the other a Dutch tope, of one hundred and fifty
+tons, on the coast of Borneo to the south of Pontianak. There they fell
+in with five other Illanun boats, which had come down from the
+northward--they themselves were going up from the southward. The
+new-comers told them of a merchant vessel near at hand, and proposed
+they should join them in capturing her, which they did. She had a
+valuable cargo, worth ten thousand dollars. They killed everybody on
+board, plundered and burnt the vessel. Only the one Chinaman escaped who
+told this tale. The captives stated that this was the usual proceeding
+if resistance was made. When they spare their captives' lives, they beat
+them with a flat piece of bamboo over the elbows and knees, and the
+muscles of arms and legs, until they are unable to move; then a halter
+is put round their necks, and, when they are sufficiently tamed, they
+are put to the oars and made to row in gangs, with one of their own
+fellow-captives as overseer to keep them at work. If he does not do it
+effectually, he is krissed and thrown overboard. If these miserable
+creatures jump into the sea they spear them in the water. They row in
+relays, night and day; and to keep them awake, cayenne pepper is rubbed
+into their eyes or into cuts dealt them on their arms.
+
+The masts of these prahus are very small, so that they may not be seen
+at a distance. They go very fast. Those encountered by the _Rainbow_
+were seen off Datu on Monday night, and on Friday morning they were near
+Bintulu, a distance of two hundred and forty miles, although they had
+delayed nearly two days at Muka, picking up thirty people on the coast.
+Most of these were recaptured and returned to Muka. On reckoning up, it
+was found that one hundred and sixty-five people had been rescued, and
+perhaps one hundred and fifty or two hundred had got away from the
+vessels sunk on shore. In every pirate prahu were from forty to fifty
+Illanuns, and from sixty to seventy captives, many of whom were killed
+by the pirates when they found themselves beaten, among them two women.
+Nine women and six children were saved; seven of the women belonged to
+Muka or Oya. Of the Illanuns, thirty-two were taken alive; ten of these
+were boys. Some died afterwards of their wounds; some were taken to
+Kuching in irons, there tried, and some of them executed. They died the
+death of murderers; but Captain Brooke gave the boys to respectable
+people to bring up, hoping they might be reformed. We had one young
+fellow, about fourteen years old, when he had been cured of his wounds
+in the hospital. I kept him about me, and used to teach him; but he
+could not be tamed. He turned Mahometan, and left us to be employed at
+the fort; but there he stole money, and had to be sent elsewhere. The
+nature of an Illanun pirate seems almost unmixed evil, because they are
+taught to be cruel from their childhood.
+
+There were two circumstances in this affray with the Illanuns which
+called for thankfulness on the part of the victors. First, that they met
+the pirates in two detachments, which enabled them to attack them
+successfully, without the danger of their boarding the steamer, which,
+from their numbers, would have been fatal to the little party on board
+the _Rainbow_. Secondly, that their ammunition lasted through the two
+engagements. It was quite finished; only a little loose powder in a
+barrel, and a few broken cartridges, remained when the last prahus were
+taken. Had they fallen in with another fleet, they would have been at
+their mercy. Almost while I write these last words, we have received a
+letter from the present Rajah of Sarawak--Charles Johnson Brooke. He
+says, "I have heard this morning that one of our schooners has been
+captured by the Sooloo pirates, and the crew murdered." The last twenty
+years have not therefore altered the character of these people, and
+their extermination seems the only remedy for the misery they inflict on
+their fellow creatures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+A MALAY WEDDING.
+
+
+    MY DARLING MAB,
+
+    I am sitting in a darkened room, while Mildred is having her day
+    sleep; and as I am thinking of you, I may as well begin a letter
+    for next mail. Last week I went to a Malay wedding, the first I
+    ever attended, although I have been here so many years. It
+    amused me very much; so I shall try to describe it to you.
+
+    Early in the morning the bridegroom's friends came to beg
+    flowers from our garden. Then papa told them I would go to the
+    wedding, and they said, "Be sure not to be later than twelve
+    o'clock." Accordingly, Mr. and Mrs. Ricketts, the British Consul
+    and his wife, Mr. Zehnder, and I set off in two boats, after
+    eleven o'clock breakfast; but we need not have got there before
+    two o'clock.
+
+    Eastern people set little value on time. They would just as soon
+    sit cross-legged on the floor smoking for three hours as for
+    one. The bride is the daughter of one of the first merchants in
+    the place, Nakodah Sadum, and the bridegroom is the grandson of
+    the old Datu Tumangong, whom you may remember. A handsome young
+    man is Matussim, and enlightened, for a Malay. He made his
+    betrothed a present of his photograph last year. Formerly Malays
+    objected to having their portraits taken, fancying it a breach
+    of the second commandment.
+
+    The bride's father's house was gay with flags and streamers, and
+    in front of it lay, by the river's brink, four small cannon,
+    which had been busy, for days before and all that morning,
+    saluting the occasion. We walked up into the house, which was
+    full of guests. A long verandah, lined with hadjis and elders,
+    all smoking and talking, led to the principal room, which,
+    unlike any Malay house before built in Sarawak, had large
+    Venetian-shuttered doors all round, and was therefore cool and
+    airy. There was a little round table, and some armchairs covered
+    with white mats for the expected guests, in the middle of the
+    room. Sadum and his wife came forward and greeted us very
+    cordially, and then we were told to sit down on the chairs. I
+    looked about for the bride, and saw a crowd of women in one
+    corner, and a boy holding a gilt umbrella over the young lady,
+    who was being shaved. A woman with a razor was shearing her
+    eyebrows into a delicate line, and all round her forehead
+    trimming disorderly hairs. Four women, seated on their heels in
+    front of her, were fidgeting over her face; she, impassive as a
+    log in their hands. A vast deal of singing and drumming went on
+    all the time, a row of musicians keeping it up all round the
+    room. The girl was washed; then her hair, magnificent black hair
+    down to her heels, knotted in two great bows on either side of
+    her head. Over these, gold ornaments like wings were fixed, and
+    a little tower of gold bells above them. Then the women painted
+    a black band round her forehead, and added a silver edge to it,
+    also painted. Her eyebrows were likewise touched up, and her
+    skin rubbed all over with yellow powder. Poor child! she was a
+    curious figure by the time it was all finished, and her skin
+    must have felt painfully stiff. She was then attired in very
+    handsome silk robes, ornamented with solid gold, and the
+    attendants carried her to a raised dais or bed-place at one end
+    of the room. There she sat, not daring to lift her eyes until
+    the bridegroom's arrival.
+
+    The divan was gorgeous with silk curtains and cushions
+    embroidered with gold thread and embossed with tinsel ornaments,
+    the work of the bride herself. The seat for the bridegroom was
+    somewhat higher and larger than the bride's. At last the
+    bridegroom approached in a large barge, which held about two
+    hundred people. A small boat preceded it with three guns, which
+    kept up a deafening noise as he drew near. He was carried up the
+    steps, and the house door was shut to in his face, according to
+    the Malay custom. Then he begged admittance very humbly, and
+    after paying a fee of five dollars, was admitted. His followers
+    rush in first--such a clatter! Greetings, welcomes, jokes, and
+    laughter, make a Babel of noise; everybody speaking at once.
+    Then a cloth was laid down for the bridegroom to pass over, and
+    he was pulled with apparent reluctance into the room, panting
+    and shutting his eyes as if exhausted. His head was wreathed
+    with Indian jessamine. He was naked to the waist, except a gold
+    scarf over one shoulder; otherwise he had plenty of gold and red
+    silk about him. He was pulled up to the bride, turning his head
+    away as if he was ashamed to look at her, and dropped a red silk
+    handkerchief over her face for a moment. Then he sat down on the
+    divan, and all the old women of both houses sprinkled the couple
+    with yellow rice, and rubbed their foreheads with some charm,
+    which looked like a bit of stone and a nutmeg-grater, and wished
+    them all kinds of luck--but especially that they might be the
+    parents of _sons_ only. After the young people had endured this
+    long enough, the curtains were let down round the dais, and only
+    two or three old women kept going in and out. We found they were
+    taking off all the finery, and dressing the bride and bridegroom
+    in their usual clothes; for while we were drinking coffee and
+    eating Malay cakes at the little table, they came out from the
+    curtains, looking quite pleasant and natural. So we shook hands,
+    made our congratulations, and bade them adieu. We got home at
+    four o'clock, very hot and tired, and papa laughed at us for
+    going; but I was glad I did for once in a way.
+
+    A wedding is a very serious expense to Malays of any rank. The
+    bridegroom has to make settlements on the bride, and the bride's
+    father has to keep open house for weeks, besides fees to the
+    hadjis, and gunpowder _ad libitum_. The religious part of the
+    ceremony is enacted some days before the marriage. One day papa
+    was calling at a Malay house, where a wedding was about to take
+    place, and found the bridegroom learning a passage in the Koran,
+    in Arabic, which he could not translate, but which it was
+    necessary he should repeat. A hadji was standing by, driving the
+    words into his head. The hadji could not translate it either;
+    but the Koran may only be read in Arabic, lest it should be
+    desecrated. Sometimes papa would read a chapter to any Malay who
+    desired to understand the meaning of his sacred book; but they
+    were generally content with learning it as a charm, or certain
+    parts of it.
+
+    The Rajah often made a present of an ox for a great man's
+    wedding. This was a great help, for many dishes of curry could
+    be made out of so much meat. When we wished for some meat at
+    Christmas and Easter, we sent for the Mahometan butcher to kill
+    the animal. He turned its head towards Mecca, repeated prayers
+    over him, and then cut his throat in such a way that no drop of
+    blood was left in the flesh; for the Malays hold to the Jewish
+    law in that as well as many other particulars. Then the people
+    would buy whatever beef we did not want ourselves; but not
+    otherwise.
+
+    This is a long letter, but as I am on the subject of weddings, I
+    may as well tell you about a Chinese wedding we had the other
+    day at our house. The bridegroom was Akiat, a carpenter, about
+    six feet two inches high. He was dressed in whity-brown silk,
+    which made him look like a tall spectre; and the bride was Quey
+    Ginn, a fat, dumpy little girl of sixteen, the Chinese deacon's
+    daughter, and one of my scholars. She did not choose her old
+    husband of fifty years, but her parents arranged it, and Akiat
+    paid one hundred dollars for his wife. I went to see her the day
+    before the wedding, and she showed me all her clothes and
+    ornaments; but I thought she did not look as if she cared for
+    them. So I whispered, "Are you happy, child?" "No, not at all,"
+    burst out Quey Ginn. "I don't want to be married and leave my
+    parents." Whereupon I could not help taking her in my arms and
+    comforting her, telling her to be a good wife, and she would
+    soon learn to be content. She has been to visit me since her
+    marriage, and I am amused to see that she is quite a little
+    woman, instead of the shy girl she used to be; and, whereas as a
+    girl she was never allowed to be seen in the streets, or even to
+    go to church, she now does exactly as she likes, and, I am happy
+    to say, comes regularly to church. These people were all sincere
+    Christians. Akiat was the Chinese churchwarden, and, as papa
+    esteemed them very highly, he allowed the breakfast to take
+    place at our house.
+
+    I had a cake made for the occasion, which Quey Ginn cut up with
+    much pleasure. The ring in it fell to Mr. Zehnder's share, which
+    amused him also. Good-bye.
+
+It was this year, 1865, that Mr. Waterhouse, the chaplain of Singapore,
+came to visit us. The doctors often sent us a patient or friend to be
+under the Bishop's care, and for rest and change; the latter was the
+cause of Mr. Waterhouse's visit, and six weeks of jungle life did him
+good, while his society and sympathy were a great pleasure to us, the
+Bishop especially. The Bishop took him to visit the different mission
+stations, and he often spoke to me with satisfaction of the "real
+mission work" he witnessed at Banting, Lundu, and the Quop. At each of
+these stations he found a consecrated church and a community of
+Christian people; whilst the missionaries set over them, not only
+instructed and ministered to the tribe among whom they lived, but
+journeyed to outlying places, founding branch missions and setting
+catechists to work under them. I find in one of my letters, when Mr.
+Waterhouse returned from Banting, he said, "I cannot but admire the
+patience with which Mr. Chambers talks all day, morning, noon, and
+night, to every party of Dyaks, who march into the house whenever they
+like, making it quite their home: it is what very few people could do
+day after day." This is the trial of Dyak teaching. You cannot appoint
+specific hours for instruction. People come when they can, sometimes
+long distances. They can never be denied, except you are actually at
+meals, and then they sit down and wait till the eating is over. Here is
+a programme of a day at Banting:--
+
+By seven in the morning Mr. Chambers goes to one or another Dyak house
+to teach. These houses contain many families under one roof. The people
+understand now that teaching is the sole object of Mr. Chambers' visit,
+so, when he enters, all who are at leisure gather round him. He returns
+home to eleven o'clock breakfast. After breakfast his school of boys
+occupies him for the afternoon; but every party of Dyaks who come in
+must be listened to, and, if they are willing, instructed, taught a
+prayer, a hymn, a parable, or some Scripture lesson. This goes on till
+five o'clock, when the bell calls them to daily prayers, and they all
+walk together down the beautiful jungle avenue to the pretty church. A
+short service, in which the Dyaks respond heartily, and a catechizing
+follows, during which they are allowed to ask questions of their
+teacher. Then an hour's rest before dinner. But immediately after dinner
+more Dyaks, sometimes a whole house, _i.e._ forty or fifty persons, come
+in, and have coffee, and pictures, and a lecture. All this does not
+happen every day, but most days during what we call the working season,
+from March till October, and no doubt so much talking and so little
+leisure is very fatiguing. But then comes the harvest, and afterwards
+the wet monsoon, and the schools fall off, and the Dyaks no longer come
+from a distance to be taught. It is sufficiently dull and lonely then in
+the jungle stations. The sea runs too high for boats to bring mails, or
+books, or provisions; the rain falls heavily, and with little
+intermission, and food becomes scarce. Mrs. Chambers told me that the
+prayer for daily bread, which seems to us to relate to the daily needs
+of our souls for the bread and water of life, bore a literal meaning to
+them in the north-east monsoon, when the day's food was by no means
+certain. Rice they had, it is true; but English people get nearly
+starved upon rice alone, without fish, meat, or bread. It was therefore
+with sincere thankfulness that they welcomed a chicken, however skinny,
+in that season.
+
+After the Banting expedition, the Bishop took Mr. Waterhouse to Lundu,
+and Mr. Hawkins, a missionary lately come out, went with them. They
+arrived on a Saturday. On Sunday there was a great gathering of
+Christian Dyaks: fifty-two people were confirmed, eighty received the
+Holy Communion, so that they were more than three hours in church, the
+Bishop preaching to them in Malay. On Monday Mr. Waterhouse and Mr.
+Hawkins paid a visit to a beautiful waterfall, about two miles from the
+town; and on Tuesday all the party, Mr. Gomez included, went in boats
+forty miles up the river Lundu, with three hundred Dyaks, to tuba fish.
+The Bishop had paid the Dyaks to collect tuba the week before. It is a
+plant found in the jungle, the root of which washed in water makes a
+milky-looking poison. It does not make the fish unwholesome to eat, only
+intoxicates them for the time, so that they rise floundering about on
+the surface of the water, but it destroys human life, and is the poison
+chosen by Dyaks who commit suicide, though I do not believe that this
+crime is common among them.
+
+When the party had ascended the river far enough, the Dyaks built a hut
+for the English to sleep in. They made a floor of logs of wood, spread
+over with the bark of trees, which, beaten down hard, made a capital
+mattress on which to lay their mats and pillows. The kajangs (leaf mats)
+off the boat made some shelter from the weather, although it takes a
+good deal to keep Borneo rain out! The Dyaks were much too busy to go to
+sleep at all: they drove stakes all across the river to secure their
+fish, then they beat out the tuba in the bottom of their boats. It took
+all night, by the light of torches, to do this; and a wild sight it was,
+in the midst of the solemn old jungle. Very early in the morning, when
+the tide was at its lowest ebb, they put the tuba into the river; the
+flood coming up, and bringing plenty of fish, encountered this
+intoxicating milk, and carried over the stakes a whole shoal of dead and
+tipsy fish. Then the Dyaks, darting about in little boats, speared the
+big fishes, and caught the small ones in landing-nets.
+
+Hundreds of fish were caught, and the Dyaks had a grand feast; also,
+they salted quantities, in their nasty way--pounding the fish up,
+letting it turn sour, and then packing it into bamboos with salt, as a
+relish to eat with their rice. Certainly it has a strong flavour! They
+all camped two nights in the jungle, then returned to Lundu, and reached
+Sarawak in the yacht _Fanny_, after an absence of ten days. We had a
+visit from H.M.S. _Scout_ about this time, and one day sat down sixteen
+to dinner in the mission-house, some of the officers having come up to
+spend the day. It is difficult to improvise a dinner in a country where
+no joints of meat are to be had, unless you kill an ox for the purpose.
+Sheep there are none. A capon or goose, or a sucking pig, are the only
+big dishes, and not always to be had. However, we did very well, and our
+visitors were delighted with Sarawak, and with the schoolboys' singing;
+for I had them up to sing glees and rounds, and "Rule Britannia," after
+dinner. Captain Corbett was so pleased with the little fellows that he
+invited them all to see the ship the next morning. Accordingly our
+largest boat took the choir down very early to Morotabas, where the
+_Scout_ lay, and Captain Corbett took them all over it himself, even
+down to the screw chamber. The boys had never seen so large a man-of-war
+before (1600 tons), so they were delighted. Some Dyaks who went with
+them were much terrified lest they should be carried off to sea, for the
+captain ordered "up anchor," that the boys might see how it was done,
+and then sent them off the last minute. They came home in high glee.
+Only those who live at the ends of the earth can tell what a pleasure
+and refreshment is a little visit from her Majesty's ships from time to
+time. The whiff of English air they bring with them, and the hearty
+English enthusiasm which has not had time to evaporate, is most
+reviving.
+
+Many Chinese Christians returned to China this summer. I hope they
+carried the good seed of the word of life with them. They are only birds
+of passage at Sarawak: when they grow rich they prefer to spend their
+money in their native country. Our Chinese deacon took his family for a
+visit to their Chinese relations. Even the married daughter went with
+them; and a few days afterwards, Akiat, her husband, came to tell me
+that he was so wretched without his wife, that he should go to Singapore
+for the few months of her absence, to while away the time, and he meant
+to have a nice new house ready for her on her return.
+
+Voon Yen Knoon deserved a holiday, certainly, for he worked hard among
+his countrymen, besides teaching every day in the school. Three evenings
+every week were devoted to the instruction of the Chinese, at the
+mission-house. Two distinct languages were spoken by the different
+tribes of Chinese who had settled at Sarawak. They could not be taught
+together. The people of the Kay tribe came on one evening, the Hokien
+another, each having their own interpreter. On the third evening the
+interpreters were instructed in the lessons for the following week. On
+these nights our long dining-room was full of Chinamen, and a large tray
+of tiny cups of tea was carried in, and consumed before the teaching
+began.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+LAST YEARS AT SARAWAK.
+
+
+Mr. Chalmers' Merdang Dyaks once said to him, "See how many races of
+people there are: Dyaks, Malays, Klings, Chinese, English. They have all
+different religions: this is proper, for God has given to each the
+religion suited to them."
+
+I remembered this ingenious remark when I was reading Mr. Helms's
+interesting book, just published, "Pioneering in the Far East." He says:
+"Like most barbarous and savage nations, the Dyak identifies his gods
+and spirits with the great phenomena of nature, and assigns them abodes
+on the lofty mountains. Though, in his opinion, all spirits are not
+equally malignant, all are more or less to be dreaded. The silent
+surroundings of primaeval forests in which the Dyak spends most of his
+time, the mountains, the gloomy caves, often looming mysteriously
+through cloud and mist, predispose him to identify them with
+supernatural influences, which in his imagination take the form of
+monsters and genii. With no better guide than the untutored imagination
+of a mind which in religious matters is a blank, who shall wonder that
+this is so? I have myself often felt the influences of such
+surroundings, when dark clouds deepened the forest gloom, and the
+approaching storm set the trees whispering: if, at such a moment, the
+shaggy red-haired and goblin form of the orang-outang, with which some
+of the Dyaks identify their genii, should appear among the branches, it
+requires little imagination to people the mystic gloom with unearthly
+beings."
+
+Mr. Helms is quite right--the religion which springs from circumstance
+and surrounding nature is always one of fear; evil is so close to the
+heart of man that the very elements and mysteries of nature seem his
+enemies, so long as he is ignorant of the love of God. The great
+creating Spirit, whose existence is acknowledged by all Dyaks, inspires
+them with neither love nor trust; it is only malign spirits who are
+active, who concern themselves with his affairs, and threaten his
+happiness and prosperity, and who must therefore be propitiated. What a
+different aspect his native woods must present to the Christian Dyak,
+who can look around without fear, and believe that his Heavenly Father
+made all these things! You would imagine that Christianity would be
+welcomed as a deliverance from such superstition; but here the apathy of
+long habit raises a barrier. The Dyak who professed to think his dismal
+religion was given him by God, was probably too intellectually idle to
+think at all. "What you say is most likely true, but we have received
+our belief from our forefathers, and it is good enough for us," is the
+common remark of the Land Dyak. This listlessness was perhaps originally
+caused by oppression and misery, a hard life and cruel masters. In the
+days we knew these people they had a sad and patient expression in their
+faces, as if they could not forget the time when they were ground down
+by Malay extortion, and despoiled by stronger, more warlike tribes. The
+present generation may have more spirit, more independence, and the
+blessings of peace and liberty may leave their minds more open to the
+light of truth. It is, however, interesting to note how different races
+of men develop different religious beliefs, and how these Dyaks
+intuitively perceive spirit through matter, and are governed, however
+blindly and ignorantly, by the powers of the unseen world.
+
+The orang-outang, or wild man, in not very commonly met in the jungle. I
+have seen the trees alive with monkeys, but never met an orang-outang at
+liberty. The Dyaks may well be afraid of them if it is true, as they
+say, that if one of these monsters attacks a man, he picks his flesh off
+his bones like a cook plucking a chicken. They are immensely powerful,
+but once caged are gentle enough. Their one desire in confinement is
+clothing, why I cannot tell; large-sized monkeys always wrapped
+themselves in any bit of cloth they could find, partly in imitation of
+their keepers, and perhaps also because they are very chilly creatures,
+and, deprived of their usual violent gymnastics, suffered from cold. A
+Chinaman had a female orang in his shop while we were at Sarawak, who
+took a violent liking to the Bishop, and always expected to be noticed
+when he passed the shop. Then she would kiss and fondle his hand; but if
+he forgot to speak to "Jemima," she went into a passion, screamed, and
+dashed about her cage.
+
+I never allowed any kind of monkey to be kept at the mission-house. We
+had too many children on the premises, and they are jealous and
+uncertain in their behaviour to children. Indeed I always regretted
+their being either shot or caged--they enjoy life so intensely in the
+jungle, and are so amusing, swinging themselves from the branches of
+tall trees, leaping, flying almost, in pursuit of one another for mere
+fun, that it was sad to put them in prison, where they never lived long,
+and where they only exhibited a ludicrous and humiliating parody on the
+habits of mankind.
+
+There was a race of monkeys at Sarawak called by the natives "Unkah,"
+from the noise they made, but which we called Noseys, for they had long
+noses which fell over their mouths, so that the large males had to lift
+their noses with one hand, while they put food into their mouths with
+the other. When we first lived in the country, and were anxious to send
+specimens of every new and curious thing to England, my husband shot one
+of these large monkeys for the sake of his skin, but he was so
+distressed at the look the beast gave him when he felt himself hit, he
+was so like his own uncle in England, who had rather a red face and long
+nose, that he resolved never again to shoot a monkey. This ape was
+clothed in long brown fur, while his legs were encased in much shorter
+hair of a tan colour, which gave the idea of leather breeches. I once
+saw a monkey's nest in a high tree. The tree was very bare of leaf or
+the nest might have escaped notice. It was formed of big sticks laid in
+a strong fork of the branches; and whether it was lined with anything
+softer could not be seen from below, but the sticks stuck out, covering
+a large space, which had no appearance of comfort or snugness.
+
+The one monkey I liked, and that at a distance, was the wa-wa, whose
+voice was very sweet and melodious, like the soft bubbling of water; but
+it was a very melancholy animal, and never seemed to possess the fun and
+trickishness of the more common sorts of ape. They are all delicate and
+difficult to rear, and invariably die of over-eating, or rather eating
+what is unwholesome for them, if they have a chance. It seems as if, in
+approaching the form of man, they lost the instinct of the brute. It was
+a great addition to the pleasures of life in Sarawak that there were no
+wild beasts to be feared in the jungles. When we were once staying at
+Malacca, and, for the sake of a natural hot spring, inhabited a little
+bungalow in the country, we were always liable to encounter a tiger in
+our walks; on Penang Hill, also, there was a large tiger staying in the
+woods. During one of our visits, we tracked his footsteps in a cave on
+the hill; and he carried off a calf from a gentleman's cow-house near
+us--at another time a pony from a neighbour's stable. Tigers do not,
+however, live at Penang: they occasionally swim over the strait from
+Johore, opposite the island, if driven by hunger. The natives made deep
+pits to catch them, with bamboo spears at the bottom to transfix them
+when they fall in. On one occasion a French Roman Catholic missionary
+fell into one of these tiger-pits, and remained there, starved and
+wounded, for three days before he was discovered. He was a very good
+man, and gave a wonderful account of his happiness, his visions of
+heavenly bliss while dying in that slow torture, for he was too far gone
+to be restored. He died rejoicing that he had known what it was to
+suffer with Christ.
+
+The last two years of our life at Sarawak, the Bishop's health failed
+and caused me much anxiety. The long jungle walks, which were so
+necessary in getting about from one mission to another, became more and
+more difficult to him. Often he had to stop and lie down under a tree
+till the palpitation of his heart abated; repeated attacks of Labuan
+fever affected his liver; and our friends often warned us that we ought
+to go home to save his life. The interest of the different missions
+increased so much at this time, that it seemed hard to give up a post
+in which many trials and disappointments had been lived through, just as
+success seemed about to reward the years of patient labour. The peace
+and harmony of the mission was greatly promoted, the last three years of
+our stay, by an annual meeting of the clergy with their bishop. They
+came from their different rivers to spend a week at the mission-house,
+and for certain hours of each day met in the church to discuss
+missionary operations, Church discipline, religious terms, translations,
+etc. It was very desirable there should be no diversity of opinion in
+these matters, but that the different missions should have the same
+plans, uses, and customs. And these meetings, besides the importance of
+the subjects discussed, knit the missionaries to one another and all to
+the Bishop, promoting also that _esprit de corps_ which strengthens any
+institution, be it school, college, or Church in a heathen country.
+
+A curious adventure happened to the Bishop in 1865. It was the rainy
+season, and the roads were saturated with water and full of holes,
+especially a new bit of road towards Pedungan, where sleepers of wood
+had been laid down, to steady what would otherwise have been a bog; but
+holes here and there could not be avoided. The Bishop always took a ride
+early in the morning, before seven o'clock service in church. That
+morning I had asked him to go to a house down that road, to inquire
+about a servant. He came home late, and covered with mud all down one
+side. "Papa has fallen," said little Mildred, playing in the garden. At
+her voice her father seemed to wake up out of a deep sleep, and
+gradually he became conscious of a severe bruise on his face and pain in
+his head; but he could give no account of the matter, which was,
+however, explained by a Malay in the course of the day. This man was
+walking on the road to Pedungan, when he met the Bishop returning home.
+He saw the horse put his foot into a deep hole and come down, the Bishop
+also. He did not, however, at once fall off, not until the horse in his
+efforts to rise had inflicted a blow with his head on his rider's face.
+The Malay helped the horse up, which was not hurt, and the Bishop on his
+back; and seeing he was much stunned, he followed them for some way lest
+the Bishop should need assistance: but when they reached the town and
+seemed all right, he went back. All this time, however, the Bishop was
+perfectly unconscious; the horse carried him as he chose, over a ditch,
+up a steep bank, under low-hanging trees, and quite safely until he
+stopped at our own door. A headache and some stiffness were the only
+results of what might have been a fatal accident. We were very thankful
+to God for having sent His angel to guard steps as unconscious and
+heedless as any little child's could have been. No memory of what had
+happened ever came back to the Bishop.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1866 the _Rifleman_, her Majesty's surveying ship, gave us a passage
+to Labuan, where the Bishop wanted to hold a confirmation. This ship
+was going to Manilla, and from thence to Hong Kong, before she returned
+to Singapore, and, through the kindness of Captain Reed, we accompanied
+her. At Labuan I caught the fever of the country, but it did not come
+out for ten days, by which time we were at Manilla. We anchored off
+Manilla on Christmas-day evening: it had been a very wet day, but
+cleared up at night, and we sat on deck watching the lights on shore,
+and listening to the constant chimes of the numerous church bells,
+whilst the sailors sang songs and did their best to amuse us. It seemed
+so strange to be in a Christian country again.
+
+They have some customs at Manilla which I could not help admiring. When
+the Vesper bell rings at six o'clock, all business and pleasure is
+suspended for a few minutes, and all the world, man, woman, and child,
+say a prayer. The coachmen on the carriages stop their horses, the
+pedestrians stand still, friends engaging in animated conversation are
+suddenly silent. The setting sun is a signal for the heart to rise to
+God; it is a public recognition of His protecting care, and an act of
+thanksgiving. When it is over, the children ask their parents' blessing
+for the night. This was told me by a native of Manilla, an educated
+gentleman, who gave his children every advantage of learning and travel.
+The Vesper custom I saw for myself every time I took an evening drive.
+We witnessed a very gorgeous procession on the feast of the Epiphany.
+All the city functionaries, the military, the priests, bands of music,
+and a masquerade of the three kings on horseback, surrounded by troops
+of children beautifully dressed in white and scattering flowers, passed
+through the streets to a church, into which they all poured, the three
+horses riding in too, to attend high mass. I saw but little of Manilla,
+being ill nearly all the time. It is a place shaken to pieces by
+earthquakes. When we were there the great square, where the Government
+offices once stood, was a heap of ruins, and the treasury was too poor
+even to clear them away. The bridges were all broken in the middle, and
+patched up somehow; and all the rooms in the houses were crooked, the
+timbers of the walls being joined loosely together to admit of the
+frequent trembling, heaving, and subsidence of the ground, without their
+cracking. I believe the country all round was lovely, but I only took
+one drive when I was convalescent, and then we steamed away to Hong
+Kong. I shall say nothing about Hong Kong, for all the world knows what
+a beautiful place it is in winter--how bright and sparkling the blue
+sea, how clean and trim the streets, and how stately the buildings; also
+what a dream of loveliness is the one drive out of the town to the Happy
+Valley, where many an Englishman lies buried in the cemetery. I had a
+second bout of fever at Hong Kong. Happily for us, we found kind
+relatives both at Manilla and Hong Kong, who nursed me, and who were
+very good to us. We found it very cold there after stewing for six
+years in Borneo, and the Bishop caught a chill which made him ill all
+the rest of the way home. Had we thought when we left Sarawak in '66
+that we should never return there, it would have been a great trial to
+bid adieu to our old home, but we had no such intention. We were only
+taking Mildred to England, and seeking a necessary change for the
+Bishop's failing health. The knowledge that he would not be able to
+resume his work in the East dawned upon us by degrees. It was a great
+disappointment, but we were thankful that an English vicarage was found
+for us, where we could make a home for our children, and where the
+duties and pleasures of an English parish remained to us. It is,
+however, very pleasant, on a foggy day in November or February, to
+return in fancy to that land of sunshine and flowers; to imagine one's
+self again sitting in the porch of the mission-house, gazing at the
+mountain of Matang, lit up with sunset glories of purple and gold. Then,
+when the last gleam of colour has faded, to find the Chinaman lighting
+the lamps in the verandah, and little dusky faces peeping out, to know
+if you will sing with them "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," or the hymn
+about the "Purple-headed mountain and river running by," which must have
+surely been written for Sarawak children.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE ISLAND OF BORNEO.
+
+
+Borneo is so little known that a short account of it may be interesting.
+If any one will examine a map of Borneo they will see that it is a large
+island, in shape something like a box with the lid open. The interior of
+the square part of it presents almost a blank on the map, for the coasts
+only are known to the civilized world. Its greatest length is eight
+hundred miles, and its greatest breadth six hundred and twenty-five
+miles. Ranges of mountains through the centre of the island provide the
+sources of many fine rivers which are the highways of the country.
+
+The Dutch claim the south and south-west of the island. They have
+settlements at Sambas, at Pontianak, and at Banjermassin; and forts on
+the rivers, inhabited by Dutch residents, or Malay chiefs in their pay:
+but they have never won the hearts of the aborigines, for the Dutch
+maxim is always to get as much money as possible out of native
+subjects, consequently they are every now and then obliged to send
+European troops to enforce the obedience of the Chinese and Dyaks to
+their rule. On the west of Borneo lies the little kingdom of Sarawak,
+about three hundred miles of coast line from Cape Datu to Point
+Kiderong.
+
+The Sultan of Bruni, who was the nominal ruler of all the north-west of
+Borneo, gave up this province to Sir James Brooke in 1841, "to him and
+his heirs for ever," on condition a small sum of money was paid him
+annually. The province consisted originally of "about sixty miles of
+coast, from Cape Datu to the entrance of the Samarahan River, with an
+average breadth of fifty miles inland;"[10] but from time to time the
+Sultan entreated Sir James Brooke to take the rule of one river after
+another beyond this province towards Borneo Proper, for, owing to his
+own weakness, and the rapacity of his nobles who governed in his name,
+no revenue came to him from those rivers, nor could he protect native
+trade, or secure the lives of his subjects from the extortions and
+covetousness of their Malay chiefs. So Sarawak grew, and peace, and
+justice, and free trade flourished where before there were only poverty
+and oppression. The country is traversed by fine rivers. The Rejang,
+four fathoms deep two hundred miles from the mouth, the Batang Lupar,
+and the Sarawak are the largest, and the great highways of the country;
+along the banks of which are cultivated clearings and Dyak villages,
+but beyond these extend dense jungle which even clothes the sides of the
+mountains. Besides the before-mentioned rivers are many smaller ones
+which are still noble streams--the Sarebas, Samarahan, Sadong, Lundu,
+etc. It is indeed a well-watered country, and only requires the industry
+of man to develop its riches.
+
+    [Footnote 10: Letter of Sir J. Brooke to J. Gardner, Esq.]
+
+There are great mountain ranges to the north-west and through the
+interior of the island, and the natives speak of lakes of vast extent,
+with Dyak villages on their shores. But this is only tradition. There is
+a lake commonly reported only two days' journey from the foot of Kini
+Balu, a high mountain on the north-west, but no Englishman has yet trod
+its shores. The difficulties of exploring such dense jungles and
+mountain precipices as bar the way across Borneo are almost insuperable.
+I quote from Mr. Hornaday's recent lecture at Rochester. He says, "Owing
+to the peculiar and almost impassable nature of the country, Borneo has
+never been crossed by the white man. Travelling over some of the
+mountains seems to be an absolute impossibility. Many of them consist
+almost wholly of huge blocks of basalt, soft, moist, and too slippery to
+walk upon. I would rather attempt to cross the continent of Africa than
+the island of Borneo. The explorer must carry with him provisions enough
+to last both going and returning. The jungle affords nothing fit for
+human sustenance, and there are no inhabitants to supply the explorer
+with food. Fame awaits the man who will thoroughly explore the interior
+of the island."[11]
+
+    [Footnote 11: Mr. Hornaday's lecture before the Young Men's
+    Christian Association.]
+
+Sir Spencer St. John, who has had more experience of Borneo jungles than
+any other Englishman hitherto, says, "As I have now made many journeys
+in Borneo, and seen much of forest walking, I can speak of it with
+something like certainty. I have ever found, in recording progress, that
+we can seldom allow more than a mile an hour under ordinary
+circumstances. Sometimes, when extremely difficult or winding, we do not
+make half a mile an hour. On certain occasions, when very hard pressed,
+I have seen the men manage a mile and a half; but, with all our
+exertions, I have never yet recorded more than ten miles' progress in a
+day, through thick pathless forests, and that was after ten hours of
+hard work. It requires great experience not to judge distance by the
+fatigue we feel."[12]
+
+    [Footnote 12: St. John's Limbong Journal.]
+
+It seems that the Sultan of Bruni has found out that the best way he can
+govern his subjects and gain a revenue without trouble, is by ceding
+parts of his territory to others. He has given over the whole of the
+north of the island to an English company, on condition they pay twelve
+thousand five hundred dollars for it annually. This country, embracing
+an area of twenty thousand square miles, has fine harbours on its
+coasts very suitable for a commercial settlement. The great mountain of
+Kini Balu, nearly fourteen thousand feet high, with its range of lesser
+mountains, stands on the north-west, and between it and the sea lies a
+very fertile country, thus described some years ago by Sir Spencer St.
+John, in his "Forests of the Far East": "We rode over towards Pandusan
+in search of plants. From the summit of the first low hill we had a
+beautiful view of the lovely plain of Tampusak, extending from the sea
+far into the interior. Groves of cocoanuts were interspersed among the
+rice-grounds which extended, intermixed with grassy fields, to the
+sea-shore, bounded by a long line of Casuarina trees. Little hamlets lie
+scattered in all directions, some distinctly visible, other nearly
+hidden by the rich green foliage of fruit-trees. The prospect was
+bounded on the west by low sandstone hills, whose red colour
+occasionally showing through the lately burnt grass, afforded a varied
+tint in the otherwise verdant landscape. In the south Kini Balu and its
+attendant ranges were hidden by clouds."
+
+Here is another description after a day's journey towards the
+mountain:--
+
+"While reclining under the shade of cocoanut palms, we had a beautiful
+view of the country beyond. The river Tampusak flowed past us, bubbling
+and breaking over its uneven bed, here shallower and therefore broader
+than usual. To the left the country was open almost to the base of the
+great mountain, to the right the land was more hilly, and Saduk Saduk
+showed itself as a high peak, but dwarfed by the neighbourhood of Kini
+Balu, whose rocky precipices looked a deep purple colour. The summit was
+beautifully clear. The people in this part of the country are called
+Idaan. They seem industrious and good agriculturists, even using a rough
+plough, and cultivating the whole valley; a rich black soil produces
+good crops of rice, and Killadis, an arum root used for food. They also
+grow tobacco."
+
+These people live too far from Bruni to be robbed by the Sultan and his
+nobles. The Lanuns who inhabit the north coasts are very warlike, and
+have always been pirates within the memory of man. They will not be easy
+subjects to deal with, nor will the Sooloos on the east coast, but if
+they can be reclaimed they may become an enterprising and fine people,
+like the Sarebas pirates of Sarawak.
+
+I hope the Company will have patience with the natives of this vast
+territory. They will probably _not work for wages_. Chinese labour must
+be depended upon, and as they are the most industrious people on the
+face of the earth, and will do anything for money, they are always
+available. But they require a firm government, and great care must be
+taken that they do not infringe on the rights of the natives or there
+will be quarrels and bloodshed. Tradition says that there was once a
+Chinese kingdom at the north of Borneo, whose chiefs married into the
+families of the principal Dyak chiefs; but it is the misfortune of the
+Chinese character to be both boastful and cowardly, and when they had
+irritated the Malays by their big words, they stood no chance of
+prevailing against them in war. If their enemies did not run away after
+the first attack and discharge of firearms, they were pretty sure to
+show them an example by doing so themselves. I speak of the Chinese
+fifty years ago; since they have had wars with Europeans they have
+learnt better to stand to their arms. But they were gradually
+exterminated by the Malays in these petty wars, and now all that remains
+of them is a trace of Celestial physiognomy in their Dyak descendants,
+and the knowledge of agriculture which they still retain.
+
+The Bruni Government protects no one. It is wonderful that any Chinese
+should still trade at a place where riches, however moderate, are sure
+to excite the cupidity of the Malay nobles, and to be transferred, under
+some pretext or another, to their own pockets. I rejoice to think that
+English rule and justice is now to be offered to the inhabitants of the
+North of Borneo. They expect an Englishman to be just and generous,
+brave and firm, and they ground this expectation on their knowledge and
+experience of Labuan and Sarawak, and the lessons which her Majesty's
+ships of war have from time to time impressed on the corrupt and
+faithless Bruni people. I trust this experience will never be reversed
+by unworthy agents or settlers. The climate is too tropical for
+colonization, no families of emigrants can be reared in such heat.
+There are, no doubt, more decided seasons in the north of the island
+than in the centre: it is hotter at one part of the year, and colder at
+another, than in the lands bordering on the equator, which are the rain
+nurseries of the world. A less fierce heat, but rain almost every day in
+the year, was our lot at Sarawak; and though it was very healthy for
+English men and women, it was not so good for crops: pepper and coffee
+prefer a drier climate.
+
+There will be one difficulty in the North Borneo settlement which will
+require wise handling. I mean the slaves which are the possession of
+every petty chief and every Malay family in the country. All pirates
+bring home fresh slaves from every expedition. This can be put an end to
+at once. But it will be as impolitic as impossible to put a sudden end
+to the state of slavery in which so large a proportion of the
+inhabitants will be found. In this respect I hope the North Borneo
+Company will take a leaf out of Sarawak experience. Sir James Brooke, as
+long ago as 1841, appealed to the English Government "to assist him to
+put down piracy and the slave trade, which," he said, "are openly
+carried on within a short distance of three European settlements, on a
+scale and system revolting to humanity."
+
+The exertions of Sir James Brooke and his nephews, aided occasionally by
+her Majesty's ships, have indeed nearly put a stop to piracy, and
+therefore to the kidnapping of slaves. Still the descendants of Dyak
+slaves remain the property of their masters. Besides these, there are
+slave debtors, whole families who have sold themselves to pay the
+accumulations arising from taxes or impositions of the Malays which they
+had no hope of repaying. Usury, which was the fountain of this evil, has
+been forbidden at Sarawak, and many are the slave debtors whom the
+Rajah's purse has freed.
+
+"Slavery in the East," says Mr. Low,[13] "has always been of a more mild
+and gentle character than that which in the West so disgusted the
+intelligent natives of Europe. The slaves in Borneo are generally Dyaks
+and their descendants, who have been captured by the rulers of the
+country to swell the number of their personal attendants. Their duties
+consist in helping their master, who always works with them, in his
+house or boat building operations, accompanying him in his trading
+expeditions, assisting in the navigation of his boats, etc. Their
+masters generally allot them wives from amongst their female domestics,
+and many of them acquire the affection and confidence of their
+superiors. The price of a slave in Sarawak is from thirty to sixty
+dollars, but as the trade is being as quickly repressed as possible,
+without too much shocking the prejudices of the inhabitants, they have
+of late become very scarce, and difficult to be bought. The price of a
+girl varies from thirty to one hundred dollars, but at Sarawak they are
+even more difficult than men to obtain." Thus wrote Mr. Low in the year
+1848. By this time, 1882, slavery is almost nominal at Sarawak. I read,
+in a _Sarawak Gazette_, six months ago, that Rajah Brooke had proposed
+to his Supreme Council, which consists of four Malays and two
+Englishmen, that slavery should be by law abolished in Sarawak
+territory. He had proposed this, he said, six months previously, and the
+Malay councillors present assented heartily as far as themselves and the
+people of Kuching were concerned, but they thought it would be desirable
+to give six months' notice to the outlying rivers and coasts, where the
+people were not as advanced in civilization as those at the capital. Now
+the six months had passed away, were they prepared to assent to the law?
+They again expressed their cordial approval of the abolition of slavery,
+but recommended three months more delay before it was enforced on the
+out-stations. In the same _Gazette_ I noticed a letter from the Resident
+at Bintulu, one of the farthest stations from Kuching, in which he
+speaks of a Malay noble, warmly attached to the Sarawak Government, who
+claimed all the inhabitants of a large district as his slaves. It was
+merely a nominal claim, as they did no work for him, but he said they
+belonged to him. Still, when he was assured by Mr. De Crespigny[14] that
+such a claim would not be allowed by the Rajah, he submitted without
+complaint. We may hope that such will be the universal acceptance of
+the new law, but it is easy to see that forty years of past repression
+and discountenance, and the strong influence of English opinion on the
+subject of slavery, has effected what would doubtless have caused strong
+opposition and estrangement if attempted hastily.
+
+    [Footnote 13: "Sarawak, its Inhabitants and Productions," by
+    Hugh Low.]
+
+    [Footnote 14: The Resident.]
+
+I have just received a _Sarawak Gazette_, dated July 1st, which contains
+an account of a further cession of territory from the Sultan of Bruni to
+Rajah Brooke of Sarawak.
+
+This is the passage:
+
+    "On Saturday, the 10th June, his Highness the Sultan signified
+    his willingness to cede to the Rajah of Sarawak, and his heirs,
+    all the country and rivers that lie between Points Kadurong and
+    Barram, including about three miles of coast on the east side of
+    Barram Point. Negotiations about the sum to be paid for this
+    hundred miles of coast continued for three days, when the deed
+    of cession was finally sealed and delivered. This deed of
+    cession, sealed with the respective seals of his Highness the
+    Sultan of Bruni and the Rajah of Sarawak, was read out in full
+    court on the 10th June. After which his Highness the Rajah
+    addressed a few words to the people, telling them that he
+    intended going to the river Barram towards the end of this moon,
+    for the purpose of choosing a site whereon to erect a fort, and
+    establishing a government there, to be a nucleus of trade. He
+    added that all those who wished to trade there might now do so
+    without fear."
+
+This is an important addition to the country of Sarawak.
+
+The time may indeed not be far distant when the country of Bruni, now
+wedged in between Sarawak and the territory of British North Borneo, may
+disappear altogether, and with it the misrule and oppression of that
+corrupt Eastern court. Then English people will be responsible for the
+whole of the north and north-west of the island of Borneo, and a new era
+of peace and happiness will dawn upon its inhabitants.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
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+=The North-African Church.= By the Rev. JULIUS LLOYD, M.A. With Map.
+
+=Thoughts and Characters.= Being Selections from the Writing of the
+author of "The Chronicles of the Schoenberg-Cotta Family."
+
+
+THE FATHERS FOR ENGLISH READERS.
+_Fcap. 8vo, cloth boards, 2s. each._
+
+=Leo the Great.= By the Rev. CHARLES GORE, M.A.
+
+=Gregory the Great.= By the Rev. J. BARMBY, B.D.
+
+=Saint Ambrose: his Life, Times, and Teaching.= By the Rev. ROBINSON
+THORNTON, D.D.
+
+=Saint Augustine.= By the Rev. E. L. CUTTS, B.A.
+
+=Saint Basil the Great.= By the Rev. RICHARD T. SMITH, B.D.
+
+=Saint Hilary of Poitiers and Saint Martin of Tours.= By the Rev. GIBSON
+CAZENOVE, D.D.
+
+=Saint Jerome.= By the Rev. E. L. CUTTS, B.A.
+
+=Saint John of Damascus.= By the Rev. J. H. LUPTON, M.A.
+
+=The Apostolic Fathers.= By the Rev. Canon HOLLAND.
+
+=The Defenders of the Faith; or, The Christian Apologists of the Second
+and Third Centuries.= By the Rev. F. WATSON, M.A.
+
+=The Venerable Bede.= By the Rev. G. F. BROWNE.
+
+
+CONVERSION OF THE WEST.
+_Fcap. 8vo, cloth boards, 2s. each._
+
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+
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+
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+
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+D.C.L., Dean of Ely. With Map.
+
+
+NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS.
+_Fcap. 8vo, cloth boards, 2s. 6d. each._
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+Buddha.= By T. W. RHYS DAVIDS. With Map.
+
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+
+=Confucianism and Taouism.= By ROBERT K. DOUGLAS, of the British Museum.
+With Map.
+
+=Hinduism.= By Professor MONIER WILLIAMS. With Map
+
+=Islam and its Founder.= By J. W. H. STOBART. With Map.
+
+=The Coran: its Composition and Teaching, and the Testimony it bears to
+the Holy Scriptures.= By Sir WILLIAM MUIR, K.C.S.I., LL.D.
+
+
+ANCIENT HISTORY FROM THE MONUMENTS.
+_Fcap. 8vo, cloth boards, 2s. each._
+
+=Sinai: from the Fourth Egyptian Dynasty to the Present Day.= By HENRY
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+the Rev. A. H. SAYCE.
+
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+GEORGE SMITH, Esq.
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+
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+Godalming.
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+Canon of Canterbury.
+
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+Dean of Ely.
+
+=St. Paul in Asia Minor and at the Syrian Antioch.= By the Very Rev. E.
+H. PLUMPTRE, D.D.
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+DIOCESAN HISTORIES.
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+boards_, 3s. 6d.
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+HISTORY OF INDIA.
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+Printed in Colours, by WILLIAM DICKES. With descriptive Letterpress, by
+the Author of "Life in the Walls," "Robin the Bold," &c. Demy 4to. Cloth
+boards, 10s. 6d.
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+SCENES IN THE EAST.
+
+Consisting of twelve Coloured Photographic Views of Places mentioned in
+the Bible, beautifully executed, with Descriptive Letterpress. By the
+Rev. CANON TRISTRAM, Author of "Bible Places," "The Land of Israel," &c.
+4to. Cloth, bevelled boards, gilt edges, 7s. 6d.
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+SINAI AND JERUSALEM; OR, SCENES FROM BIBLE LANDS.
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+Letterpress. By the Rev. F. W. HOLLAND, M.A., Honorary Secretary to the
+Palestine Exploration Fund. Demy 4to. Cloth, bevelled boards, gilt
+edges, 7s. 6d.
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+BIBLE PLACES; OR, THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY LAND.
+
+A succinct account of all the Places, Rivers, and Mountains of the Land
+of Israel mentioned in the Bible, so far as they have been identified;
+together with their modern names and historical references. By the Rev.
+CANON TRISTRAM. With Map. A new and revised edition. Crown 8vo. Cloth
+boards, 4s.
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+revised. With Maps and numerous Illustrations. Large post 8vo. Cloth
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+NARRATIVE OF A MODERN PILGRIMAGE THROUGH PALESTINE ON HORSEBACK, AND
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+Author of "The Attractions of the Nile," &c. Numerous Illustrations and
+four Coloured Plates. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5s.
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+THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BIBLE.
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+By the Rev. CANON TRISTRAM, Author of "Bible Places," &c. With numerous
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+A HISTORY OF THE JEWISH NATION.
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+From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. By the late E. H. PALMER,
+Esq., M.A., Fellow of St. John's College, Author of "The Desert of the
+Exodus," &c. With Map of Palestine and numerous Illustrations. Crown
+8vo. Cloth boards, 4s.
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+BRITISH BIRDS IN THEIR HAUNTS.
+
+Being a Popular Account of the Birds which have been observed in the
+British Isles; their Haunts and Habits; their systematic, common, and
+provincial Names; together with a Synopsis of Genera; and a brief
+Summary of Specific characters. By the late Rev. C. A. JOHNS, B.A.,
+F.L.S. Post 8vo. Cloth boards, 10s.
+
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+THE CYCLE OF LIFE.
+
+A Book of Poems for Young and Old, Town and Country. Printed on toned
+paper. Illustrated with eighteen Woodcuts. Fcap. 4to. Handsomely bound
+in cloth, gilt edges, bevelled boards, 5s.
+
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+THE ART TEACHING OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.
+
+With an Index of Subjects, Historical and Emblematic. By the Rev. R. ST.
+JOHN TYRWHITT. 7s. 6d.
+
+
+AFRICA, SEEN THROUGH ITS EXPLORERS.
+
+By CHARLES H. EDEN, Esq. With Map and several Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+Satteen cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+AFRICA UNVEILED.
+
+By the Rev. H. ROWLEY. With Map, and eight full-page Illustrations on
+toned paper. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+AUSTRALIA'S HEROES:
+
+Being a slight Sketch of the most prominent amongst the band of gallant
+men who devoted their lives and energies to the cause of Science, and
+the development of the Fifth Continent. By C. H. EDEN, Esq., Author of
+"Fortunes of the Fletchers," &c. With Map. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+SOME HEROES OF TRAVEL; OR, CHAPTERS FROM THE HISTORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL
+DISCOVERY & ENTERPRISE.
+
+Compiled and re-written by W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS, Author of "Great
+English Churchmen," &c. With Map. Crown 8vo. Satteen cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+CHRISTIANS UNDER THE CRESCENT IN ASIA.
+
+By the Rev. EDWARD L. CUTTS, B.A., Author of "Turning Points of Church
+History," &c. With numerous Illustrations. Post 8vo. Cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+THE FIFTH CONTINENT, WITH THE ADJACENT ISLANDS.
+
+Being an Account of Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea, with
+Statistical Information to the latest date. By C. H. EDEN, Author of
+"Australia's Heroes," &c. With Map. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+FROZEN ASIA: A SKETCH OF MODERN SIBERIA.
+
+By CHARLES H. EDEN, Esq., Author of "Australia's Heroes," &c. With Map.
+Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+HEROES OF THE ARCTIC AND THEIR ADVENTURES.
+
+By FREDERICK WHYMPER, Esq., Author of "Travels in Alaska," &c. With Map,
+eight full-page and numerous small Woodcuts. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards,
+3s. 6d.
+
+
+CHINA.
+
+By Professor ROBERT K. DOUGLAS, of the British Museum. With Map, and
+Eight full-page Illustrations on toned paper, and several Vignettes.
+Post 8vo. Cloth boards, 5s.
+
+
+RUSSIA: PAST AND PRESENT.
+
+Adapted from the German of Lankenau and Oelnitz. By Mrs. CHESTER. With
+Map, and Three full-page Woodcuts and Vignettes. Post 8vo. Cloth boards,
+5s.
+
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+Depositories:
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+NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS;
+43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET; 26, ST. GEORGE'S PLACE, S.W.;
+AND 135, NORTH STREET, BRIGHTON.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
+
+
+Inconsistencies in the hyphenation of words preserved. (cocoanut/s,
+cocoa-nut/s; firearms, fire-arms; gunboat, gun-boats; schoolboys,
+school-boys; schoolroom, school-room)
+
+Pg. 32, duplicated word "the" removed. (the coasts and the seas)
+
+Pg. 42, inserted period after "Mr". (that in 1867 Mr. Chambers)
+
+Pg. 63, closing double quote inserted at end of what appears to be the
+end of a quoted passage.(carried them away over their shoulders.")
+
+Pg. 95, duplicated period removed at sentence end. (by jet ornaments and
+bugle trimmings.)
+
+Pg. 111, "examition" changed to "examination". (After the examination,)
+
+Pg. 118, added period at sentence end. (agreeable and uniformly kind.)
+
+Pg. 138, period changed to comma. (If you must go, some of us will go
+with you)
+
+Pg. 162, unusual construction retained. (a new cook-house and servants'
+rooms near, to build;)
+
+Pg. 243, closing double quote added at end of title of a book. (in his
+"Forests of the Far East":)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak, by
+Harriette McDougall
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