THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
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G-ora, C^tK^Mve Qr^c<^Fr^y,C9sCyi^>>0<iyJ:, 
 
 ADVENTURES 
 
 IN 
 
 BORNEO: 
 
 A TALE OF SHIPWRECK. 
 
 " Remember that thou wert a bondman in Egypt, and that 
 the Lord thy God redeemed thee from thence."— Exodus. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, 
 
 LONDON: 
 HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, 
 
 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1849. 
 
 C-US-'B 
 

 TO 
 HIS EXCELLENCY 
 
 SIR JAMES BROOKE, K.C.B, 
 
 GOVERNOR OF LABUAN, 
 
 AND 
 
 BAJAH OF SARAwIk, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED, 
 
 BY AN ADMIRER OF HIS ENERGY, FIRMNESS, 
 AND MODERATION. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/adventuresinbornOOgorerich 
 
ADVENTURES IN BORNEO 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 It has been often said that no human life 
 is so uneventful but that, if fairly and simply- 
 recorded, the story would afford profit to the 
 reader. I will not pretend, however, that I 
 am commencing my autobiography by way of 
 lesson to mankind. It is rather for the pur- 
 pose of relieving my own breast, long the 
 solitary prison-house of painful reminiscences, 
 that I am about to confide to the world what, 
 </ B 
 
2 ADVENTURES 
 
 for years, I had not courage or self-command 
 to relate to even the dearest of my friends. 
 
 The first thing I can recall to my recol- 
 lection is a mean house in a dreary street 
 towards Gray's Inn Lane, where I lived with 
 my father and mother. They^ however, were 
 neither mean nor dreary. Throughout the 
 years that have since elapsed, I have rarely 
 seen a nobler-looking man than my father, and 
 never, decidedly never^ a more beautiful woman 
 than his wife. He was grave, indeed, — much 
 graver than my mother ; and I attributed the 
 different impression they made upon me to 
 the black colour of his dress, while she was 
 constantly attired in white, or some light 
 quaker-colour, pleasant to look on. I did not 
 then know that the black coat I thought so 
 mournful, was simply the livery of a grave 
 profession. — My father was in orders. 
 
 Unluckily, the sobriety of his deportment 
 
IN BORNEO. 3 
 
 was to be accounted for in another manner. 
 He was poor! — A curate, and with slender 
 hopes of preferment, he had won the affec- 
 tions of the only daughter of a noble family 
 in whose parish he officiated; and their mar- 
 riage, unsanctioned by her parents, had never 
 obtained forgiveness. Aware that nothing 
 could be argued against her young husband 
 but his want of fortune, my poor mother had 
 trusted as mistakenly to the promptings of 
 affection in the hearts akin to her, as the 
 man whose intrinsic worth had captivated 
 her heart, confided in the clemency of the 
 great personages to whom, professing and 
 calling themselves Christians, he had long 
 preached the duty of forgiveness of tres- 
 passes. 
 
 On the death of Lord H , two years 
 
 after the rash marriage of his daughter, her 
 
 name was found to have been erased from his 
 
 32 
 
4 ADVENTURES 
 
 will. He left two sons; the elder, ^vlio suc- 
 ceeded to his title and estate — a proud man, 
 proudly married; and a second, who was serv- 
 ing with his regiment in Spain. My grand- 
 mother would probably have been tempted to 
 relent in her daughter's favour at this soften- 
 ing epoch of family affliction, had not the new 
 
 Lord H persuaded her to continue her 
 
 residence under his roof; where her mind was 
 soon engrossed by the changes incident on the 
 instalment of his large household. By feed- 
 ing her resentments with idle tales against 
 "the curate and his wife," and conciliating 
 her harsh and imperious temper, her son soon 
 obtained as complete a control over her join- 
 ture as over his own revenues. 
 
 Nothing could exceed, I have been told, the 
 insolence with which my father was treated 
 by the Dowager and her son ; unless the pa- 
 tience with which he forbore towards them, so 
 
IN BORNEO. 5 
 
 long as hope remained of the reconciliation so 
 languished after by his wife. But it was 
 soon clear that all chance was at an end. 
 The old lady seldom stirred abroad. Even at 
 church, the pew, so well-cushioned and well- 
 curtained to screen from prying eyes her 
 drowsy devotions, excluded even a glimpse of 
 the curate's wife, on her oaken bench ; so that 
 she had some plea for ignorance that her 
 daughter was about to become a second time 
 a mother, though her eldest born, my un- 
 worthy self, had never been noticed by its 
 grandame, with so much as the recognition of 
 a passing glance. 
 
 So well and so cheerfully, however, had my 
 darling mother accommodated herself to the 
 evils of her own creation, that her husband 
 would have borne up without a murmur 
 against the scorn of which he was the object, 
 had he not found it operate injuriously in the 
 
6 ADVENTURES 
 
 discharge of his parochial duties. In most 
 country villages, where the want of a resident 
 rector destroys the wholesome balance afforded 
 by the influence of the parsonage to that of 
 the " great house," the latter becomes mag- 
 nified into a fourth estate in the body politic. 
 Compared with the insignificance of young 
 Meredyth the curate, the greatness of Lord 
 
 II grew and grew ; till my father's piety, 
 
 and learning, and watchfulness over the best 
 interests of his parishioners, were forgotten in 
 the recital of Christmas doles and aristocratic 
 hospitalities. A few chaldrons of coals and 
 dozens of blankets, sufficed to efface all recol- 
 lection of his services throughout the year. 
 The rich farmers began to treat him like an 
 inferior. Even the poor, whom he comforted, 
 were heard at times to mutter, that " the ill- 
 blood betwixt the parson's wife and the 
 mother she was bound by gospel-law to honour, 
 
IN BORNEO. i 
 
 was a scandal and offence in the eyes of the 
 parish." — As if the ill-blood lay on her side ! 
 
 The end of all this was, as my uncle had 
 probably foreseen, that as soon as my pretty 
 little sister Emily began to run alone, my 
 father resigned his curacy and removed to 
 London. The H family were thence- 
 forward spared the necessity of averting their 
 faces, when, on their way to church in the 
 grand family-coach, they passed the little 
 vine-covered parsonage, where the daughter 
 of their house was honourably fulfilling the 
 duties of a wife and mother. 
 
 Children delight in change. It was some 
 time before I discovered how much I had lost 
 in renouncing our pleasant little garden for 
 the dingy streets of the metropolis ; and that 
 even my parents had left their cheerfulness 
 behind. Their worldly means, indeed, had 
 undergone no diminution. My father had 
 
8 ADVENTURES 
 
 accepted, in lieu of his curacy, the chaplaincy 
 to some public institution; so that, though 
 poor, they ^Yere no poorer than before. But 
 the same household tasks which, in the coun- 
 try, it was no penance to fulfil, became menial 
 in town ; and it vexed my father mortally to 
 see his beautiful wife not only exposed to pri- 
 vation, but compelled to turn her fair soft 
 hands to servile occupations. 
 
 But, worse than all, the little daughter who 
 was come to augment their pains and plea- 
 sures, proved sadly delicate. Her face, though 
 full of sweetness, was colourless as a wood- 
 anemone; and her mother, kept awake night 
 after night by her restlessness, grew pale and 
 feeble as herself. 
 
 Such was the earliest state of things I can 
 remember. I was not quite four years old; 
 but I have a distinct recollection of the tears 
 that used to fall from my mother^s eyes as she 
 
IN BORNEO. y 
 
 sat quietly at work ; and of the long silences 
 that ensued, after 1 had been reproved for 
 prattling, so as to disturb my father, who sat 
 reading, or pretending to read. Never was 
 there so still a house ! — Our hours were regular 
 as clockwork — our provisions scanty — our 
 dress penurious. No friendly knock ever 
 disturbed the door. My mother's former 
 friends decided, with her family, that she had 
 disgraced herself; my father's did not presume 
 to intrude on the seclusion of his aristocratic 
 helpmate. 
 
 I can remember months and months passing 
 gloomily away: — the dreary November fogs, 
 — the chilly winter evenings; — and, above all, 
 the still more desolate spring that shone only 
 upon barren flagstones, and brought forth 
 neither violets nor cowslips. What a sad 
 time it was ! — No playthings — no playmates ! 
 Nothing but the wail of poor little Emily, 
 B 3 
 
10 ADVENTURES 
 
 peevish from sickness; nothing but the tugs 
 and cuffs of the cross maid-servant, who 
 waited upon us all, and vented her ill-humour 
 upon 7ne^ (who, by good luck, was sturdy 
 enough to bear her chafings,) the moment my 
 mother's back was turned. 
 
 The only circumstance I recall with pleasure 
 is that, however joyless those days, I heard no 
 murmurs from the lips of my parents. Their 
 marriage vow fulfilled its promise, and they 
 were all in all to each other. But I suspect 
 there must have been peculiar sadness in their 
 forced cheerfulness while together: for no 
 sooner were they apart, than each would turn 
 aside and weep. 
 
 My solitary recollection, in evidence of a 
 mutual confiding of their cares, is a suggestion 
 I more than once overheard from my mother, 
 that " if Charley were there, things would be 
 otherwise;" or that " if Charley knew how they 
 
IN BORNEO. 11 
 
 were situated, he would assist them." And 
 whenever I pleased her most, either by my 
 endeavours to amuse the poor sick haby, or my 
 diligence in doing errands for my father, she 
 would observe aside to the latter, that I " re- 
 minded her of Charley." This Charley was 
 her younger brother; and I discovered that one 
 of the sources of her tears was his imprison- 
 ment at Verdun. A termination of the war 
 was at that time so little hoped for, and the 
 communication between English prisoners and 
 their friends at home so frequently interrupted, 
 that he was almost as much lost to her as if 
 numbered with the dead. 
 
 Young as I was, I remember running to 
 hide my head for shame in the bed-clothes, the 
 first time I found that dear good mother put- 
 ting a patch into my clothes ! — Her own had 
 long been faded and threadbare. But the 
 patch was too unmistakeable a badge of poverty ! 
 
12 ADVENTURES 
 
 When the maid-servaiit gibed and laughed at 
 me on my first appearance in my stigmatized 
 garb, I felt that I could have killed her. I 
 did so resent her sarcasm that she took the 
 opportunity of giving warning on the spot. 
 And lo ! a moment afterwards, I repented my 
 rage, and hurried after her to beg pardon on 
 my bended knees. For I knew that my mother 
 prized her services, and had often said that no 
 one else would make herself half so useful. 
 
 But it was too late. If / was penitent, the 
 girl was stubborn, and would not hear of stay- 
 ing in her place : " Hard words as well as 
 hard work was too much for any one." 
 
 When my mother saw me broken-hearted for 
 having brought down this annoyance upon her, 
 she comforted me by telling me, with a kiss 
 such as mothers only can give, that " though I 
 was to blame for having spoken harshly and 
 hastily, I need not reproach myself on her ac- 
 
m BORNEO. 13 
 
 count. She had long intended to send Hannah 
 away, and did not mean to replace her." 
 
 And so it was. In a month's time, we were 
 all waiting upon each other : my mother on 
 her sick child, and I and my father on that 
 dear mother. — An unmerited reward; — for 
 what greater pleasure to me on earth than to 
 serve her who so fondly served us all ! — 
 
 But thinner and thinner she grew, alas! 
 and paler and paler. I dared not notice the 
 change, however, to my father. For the only 
 time I ventured to say to him that " mamma 
 worked too hard; that it was a shame she 
 should work so hard ; that she never enjoyed a 
 good night's rest in her bed, like other people," 
 he uttered such a frightful imprecation — not 
 upon me — nay, I cannot say upon whom, — 
 though the words seemed wrung out of the 
 depths of his heart, that I never strove to ex- 
 cite his pity again. That was the only time 
 
14 ADVENTURES 
 
 I ever heard a curse or an unseemly expression 
 from the lips of my father. 
 
 Soon afterwards, I heard him talking, for 
 the first time for months, in a cheerful tone. 
 The newsvenders' horns were announcing in the 
 street tidings of the flight of Napoleon, and the 
 retreat of the French army ; and he ventured 
 to predict to my mother that, ere the summer 
 was past, she would see her dear Charley again. 
 She did not answer. Perhaps because poor 
 little Emily was dozing upon her knee ; and to 
 take and press the hand which my father ex- 
 tended sympathizingly towards her, she must 
 have disentangled her own from the flaxen 
 curls of the little head she was supporting. 
 
 " Think, my dear Mary," said he, " of the 
 comfort of being clasped once more to the 
 heart of your brother !" 
 
 She did not answer, till urged again and 
 again for an avowal of her joy; when, in a 
 
IN BORNEO. 15 
 
 broken voice, and with a scarcely perceptible 
 glance at her husband's rusty suit and the 
 empty bookshelves from which the favourite 
 volumes brought from the country had, some- 
 how or other, unaccountably disappeared, she 
 at length faltered — '' Yes, I shall be indeed 
 happy to welcome the companion of my youth. 
 But — but he will come too late ! — He will not 
 find us what we were. — He will not find us 
 
 what we ought to be I feel changed at heart. 
 
 My mother's unkindness and this poor baby's 
 sufferings have made me peevish and un- 
 reasonable. — I feel — forgive me for saying so 
 — I feel hardly worthy to see dear Charley 
 again." 
 
 My father's lip quivered; not because he 
 was about to speak, for he attempted no 
 answer. There needed none, indeed ; for 
 when, some days afterwards, a sunburnt 
 stranger burst into the room, and rushing to 
 
16 ADVENTURES 
 
 my mother, flung his arms around her and 
 strained her to his heart, as though resolved 
 never to part with her again, there was 
 neither cloud nor shadow over the gush of 
 joyful tears with which she repaid these de- 
 monstrations of affection on the part of her 
 beloved brother. 
 
 I remember going and sulking in a corner, 
 because, for full half an hour after his en- 
 trance, neither of them found a moment's 
 leisure to notice me. Though I had a patch 
 at my elbow, I wanted to be shown to this 
 long-talked-of uncle, as the little Charles who 
 was named after him, and was supposed to 
 bear some resemblance to his namesake ! 
 
 At length, however, I was called for, and 
 had nothing left to wish for in the world ! 
 
IN BORNEO. 17 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Almost sooner than it takes to relate 
 the change, the dingy house grew cheerful, 
 the surly servant was replaced, and the patched 
 
 garment and rusty suit disappeared It was 
 
 my good uncle's pleasure to share with his disin- 
 herited sister the fortune of ten thousand pounds 
 bequeathed him by his father. It was her right, 
 he said. For marrying an honest man, she 
 ought not to be defrauded of her birthright. 
 Not a step would he take towards H Hall 
 
18 ADVENTURES 
 
 till he had seen his sister well and cheerful. 
 His embarrassments thus cleared ojQT, my father 
 found no difficulty in obtaining a curacy in a 
 healthy country neighbourhood ; and neyer 
 shall I forget our first glorious summer among 
 the green fields, after two years' miserable 
 imprisonment in town ! 
 
 It was positively intoxicating to the soul of 
 a child to look up to the blue sky flecked with 
 snowy clouds, after labouring so long under 
 the heavy, noisome, opaque atmosphere of 
 London: and to watch the expansion of the 
 summer flowers, or the flitting of its bright- 
 hued insects. But my father, I suspect, en- 
 joyed a still more thrilling delight, in behold- 
 ing the bright hues of health revive upon the 
 happy faces of his wife and children. Little 
 Emily ceased to pine. She was no longer 
 sickly — no longer peevish. She was like other 
 children of her age. But no — not like other 
 
IN BORNEO. 19 
 
 children : — except in some Italian picture, no 
 cherub's face was ever half so fair. She was 
 my father's idol; partly from a revulsion of 
 feeling arising from the consciousness that, at 
 one time, in the depths of our poverty, he had 
 ceased to pray that her life might be prolonged. 
 
 My uncle soon rejoined his regiment; his 
 attempts to produce a reconciliation between 
 my mother and her family having proved 
 abortive. I have since heard that he took 
 matters with too high a hand for any chance 
 of success. His intercessions too much resem- 
 bled reproaches. Whenever he began to allude 
 to my poor mother's sufferings since her mar- 
 riage, he spoke with such emotion and bitter- 
 ness, that Lord H 's endeavours to defend 
 
 his line of conduct produced fresh alterca- 
 tions. 
 
 But even though " Charley" was away, and 
 his kith and kin still unrelenting, we were 
 
20 ADVENTURES 
 
 supremely happy. The strongest impres- 
 sions imbibed by childhood are of a physical 
 nature; and just as my baby-days in London 
 survive in my memory through a misty haze 
 of winter fog and summer dust, my recollec- 
 tions of Swallowfield are clothed with per- 
 petual verdure and fragrance. 
 
 The parsonage house, which, during the 
 absence of the incumbent, (who had been 
 despatched to the South of France for a pul- 
 monary complaint,) we were permitted to 
 inhabit, was divided from the village church 
 by a short over-arching avenue of lime-trees ; 
 the sweetness of whose blossoms, for a time, 
 and tender green of whose quivering foliage 
 for a longer period, rendered the path as 
 pleasant, as the vista of the church porch and 
 quiet churchyard beyond was cheering to look 
 on. It was thence I derived due reverence 
 for my ffither's holy estate. The path being 
 
IN BORNEO. 21 
 
 private, he usually robed at home ; and when, 
 on the summons of the early service bell, the 
 pastor issued forth with grave deportment, and 
 proceeded, under the shade of the lime-trees, 
 followed by his little household, towards the 
 venerable edifice wherein he was about to 
 expound the word of God, I used to feel, as I 
 held fast by my mother^s hand on my way to 
 join his congregation, as though we formed 
 part of a privileged and sacred caste. The 
 mellow tone of the old bell, — the bright 
 snatch of daylight visible beyond the shadowy 
 avenue, — the soft rustle of the lime-leaves, — 
 the fragrance of the summer atmosphere, — 
 created an unspeakable charm of sanctity and 
 grace. It was as a sort of beatification, after 
 the dreary, stony streets of that busy city, 
 whose churches constitute something between 
 a shop and a place of public amusement, — with 
 their wine-vaults below, and flaunting gal- 
 
22 ADVENTURES 
 
 leries above ; — where Christians "perform" 
 their devotions, as though merely an allotted 
 part of the business of the week. 
 
 The village of Swallowfield was surrounded 
 by large dairy farms ; fertile pastures, divided 
 by those unpleached hedges of hawthorn, 
 maple, honeysuckle, and briar-rose, which 
 enrich and perplex the low grounds of English 
 landscape. Nothing was audible in those 
 rural solitudes but the song of the linnet in 
 the thicket, or the loud breathing of the cows 
 as they cropped the luxuriant grass, with 
 whose abounding wild flowers mingled the 
 sweetness of their breath. I dwell upon these 
 images, familiar thougli they be to every 
 rustic, because, in after-days, amid the arid 
 dryness of a tropical waste, where the feathery 
 leaves of a solitary palm formed the only 
 visible verdure, and the night-cry of the 
 jackal the only sylvan sound, I used to re- 
 
IN BORNEO. 23 
 
 cur to the green haunts of Swallowfiekl as 
 enviously as Dives, in his hour of torture, 
 may have looked upon Lazarus in the regions 
 of the blest. 
 
 What would my scorched lips have then 
 given for one of the humblest fruits with 
 which our parsonage garden abounded ? or 
 what my yearning spirit, for one poor half- 
 hour in the lime-tree avenue, with the sabbath 
 bell knelling from the old church tower; — my 
 father pacing gravely before us, and my hand 
 clasped in my mother's hand? — 
 
 But I must not anticipate. At Swallow- 
 field, my parents were as much beloved as in 
 the neighbourhood of H — Park they had been 
 slighted. No coronet coach to launch its 
 weekly contempts at their head! Nay, not 
 so much as a resident squire to divide with 
 them the deference of the village. It was a 
 family living; the property of the sickly in- 
 
24 ADVENTURES 
 
 cumbent, whose liberal salary enabled bis 
 curate, during his absence, to exercise some- 
 thing of a paternal care over his poor. In 
 those days, the minds of men having been 
 absorbed in the issue of that grievous national 
 war which decimated their families and con- 
 tracted their subsistence, polemical controversy 
 was confined to the Dissenters. There were 
 no schisms in the Anglican church. As to 
 our village, the doctrines preached by my 
 father were venerated as the Word itself; 
 bringing forth such wholesome fruit as your 
 sticklers about painted glass and rood-screens 
 will never cull from the bush-harrowed field of 
 modern divinity. My mother, too, was wor- 
 shipped almost as a guardian angel ; not only 
 by the poor, to whom she dealt out with a 
 merciful hand the worldly aid fitted to their 
 needs; but by the more prosperous class, to 
 whom the still holier mercies of her heart were 
 
IN BORNEO. 25 
 
 manifest. Her Christianity was part of her- 
 self. — In the burning furnace of adversity had 
 its lessons been ingrained into her soul ! 
 
 Arriving as a stranger at Svvallowfield, she 
 had dropped at once the title of " honourable," 
 as at variance with her present condition ; and 
 among the farmers' wives was only Mrs. 
 Meredyth the curate's wife, with whom they 
 were not afraid to exchange trifling presents 
 and services. But she was not the less re- 
 spected for her humbleness. Independent of the 
 beauty that made it a pleasure to look upon 
 her, there was something so distinctive of the 
 gentlewoman in her air and gait, that, had 
 she been toiling in a field or working at a 
 churn, no man would have passed her without 
 touching his hat. 
 
 When I want to think of her in her fairest 
 and dearest guise, I picture her to myself 
 strolling of a summer afternoon along the vil- 
 
 c 
 
26 ADVENTURES 
 
 lage, holding in her arms the little girl on 
 whom, in our necessities, she had so long 
 waited as nurse, that the little creature was 
 never happy apart from her; and with one 
 waxen arm entwined round her mother's neck, 
 and one little naked foot clasped in her fond- 
 ling hand, a kiss ever and anon exchanged 
 between them, they would wander homewards ; 
 greeted by the labourers on their way from 
 work with a murmured blessing, and by the 
 good dames standing at their cottage-doors, 
 with a salutation savouring at once of love 
 and duty. The pastor's wife left a charm in 
 the air as she went, like the track of some 
 celestial being. 
 
 I distinctly remember one evening, when my 
 father and mother were seated together side by 
 side, on the lawn sheltered by the garden-front 
 of the Parsonage, which was covered over with 
 jessamine and muskroses, enjoying the soft 
 
IN BORNEO. 27 
 
 lustre of the harvest moon, the only moon of 
 the year which seems to warm as well as en- 
 lighten. I had been allowed to sit up an hour 
 later than usual, that I might share with them 
 the delicious sweetness of the night ; an indul- 
 gence which I repaid by enjoying it in quiet- 
 ness, and not molesting them by questions. 
 My mother had taken off her straw hat, and 
 was holding it by the strings, the better to 
 survey the beauty of the heavens ; which seemed 
 to smile upon her in return, so soft, and yet 
 so glorious was the light that fell on her up- 
 lifted face. 
 
 " Would you believe," whispered she to my 
 father, on whose shoulder she was leaning, 
 ^' that sometimes, on waking in the morning, 
 I tremble to draw aside the curtain of my bed, 
 lest I should find myself again in our old 
 dreary London home; and discover that all 
 the happiness I have been lately enjoying was 
 c 2 
 
28 ADVENTURES 
 
 only a dream ! At last, when I take courage, 
 and peeping out, catch sight of the white crib 
 by my side, with a little rosy face lying 
 Ileal thy and hopeful on the pillow, I can scarce 
 contain myself for joy; and never seem to 
 render my prayers thankful enough for all the 
 blessings vouchsafed us. Even now, while 
 seated safe by your side, I can hardly realize 
 the delicious moments we are enjoying." 
 
 " Child r was my father's half-reproachful, 
 half-fond rejoinder, imprinting, as he spoke, 
 a kiss upon the fair forehead resting on his 
 shoulder; ''yet how can I reprove you, 
 when, alas ! I often indulge in vagaries quite 
 as groundless? I suspect, dearest Mary, that 
 the mind never wholly resumes its healthy 
 tone, after such hours of anxiety as we under- 
 went in London. My sense of remorse for 
 having betrayed you into a position so un- 
 worthy of you, — my terror lest our children. 
 
IN BORNEO. 29. 
 
 already cold and ragged, should finally want 
 bread, — above all, my fear lest that tender 
 little one should fall a victim to the privations 
 we were enduring, ate into my very soul. It 
 ought not to be so ; or at least, should be so 
 no longer. I should have learned a lesson of 
 double reliance on the protection of that Pro- 
 vidence which rescued us from such depths of 
 misery. Yet am I free to confess that while 
 you dread to awake from a happy dream, my 
 fears are quite as overwhelming that the reality 
 is too delightful to last !" — 
 
 The moment he spoke despondingly, it be- 
 came my mother^s task to cheer him up. And 
 deeply rooted must have been the hypochon- 
 driacism which could resist the endearing 
 remonstrances she addressed him, and the 
 endearing tones in which they were uttered. 
 She reminded him, though Heaven knows it 
 did not need, of the sacred character of his 
 
30 ADVENTURES 
 
 mission ; and that though she^ a weak woman, 
 might be shaken in spirit by the trials she had 
 undergone, he, whose strength was from above, 
 and who was consecrated to the service of a 
 Master mighty to save, should be as the oak 
 upon the mountain side, the stronger rooted 
 for the storm. 
 
 " You are only too right, my dear Mary !" 
 was his mild rejoinder. " But if I may dare 
 confess my weakness, that very consecration 
 is one of the causes of my discomfiture. The 
 idea of doing my Master's work for hire, is pain- 
 ful to me. I say it to you, dear wife, in all 
 sincerity, and in presence of Him by whom our 
 words and thoughts are recorded, that if a 
 throne were offered to me, or any more enjoy- 
 able condition of worldly grandeur, I would 
 choose and prefer for my vocation that of a 
 parish priest, endowed with faculties both 
 worldly and moral, to cause my teaching to 
 
IN BORNEO. 31 
 
 prosper. But my mind misgives me that my 
 present duties are too light. I feel that more 
 is required of me. My crown is of roses rather 
 than thorns. What merit in pursuing my 
 way when there are no flints in the path !" — 
 
 Gentle words and gentle tones again quali- 
 fied her reply ; by dint of which, rather than 
 by any stress of argument, she convinced him 
 that he was in the wrong. '' Contentment," 
 she said, " was one of the most acceptable of 
 the heart's sacrifices." 
 
 I have often dwelt upon the remembrance 
 of this little scene, in explanation to myself of 
 my father's conduct in one of the most import- 
 ant steps of his life. — Alas ! why must I add 
 the most fatal ! — 
 
32 ADVENTURES 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 It was in the spring time of the succeeding 
 year, somewhere about March, (for the snow- 
 drops and crocuses were dying away among 
 their lance-like leaves, and the rods of the 
 mezereon bushes studded with bloom,) that, one 
 day, as my mother was standing at the par- 
 lour-window with little Emily before her on 
 the window-seat, and myself by her side, with 
 one eye on my lesson-book and the other fixed, 
 like her own, on the sweep-gate by which we 
 were expecting my father's return from the 
 
IN BORNEO. 66 
 
 village, T saw him hurry in with a disturbed 
 step, aud a face as pale as ashes. 
 
 It was a bitter day. A slight sprinkling of 
 sleet was beginning to fall ; and to me it ap- 
 peared as if the blueness of his pinched face 
 was occasioned by the cold. But the eye of 
 his loving wife was not to be so deceived ; and 
 an exclamation that escaped her lips convinced 
 me in a moment that something was amiss. 
 My father entered the room, as soon as he had 
 divested himself of his hat and great-coat, with 
 a forced smile upon his face. But the manner 
 in which he desired me to take Emily by the 
 hand and lead her carefully to the nursery, and 
 not return till I was sent for, made my heart 
 sink within me. — It could not be good news 
 he had to communicate ! — 
 
 When, at length, I rejoined them at the 
 dinner-table, both were composed; though 
 graver and more silent than usual. But it was 
 c 3 
 
34 ADVENTURES 
 
 not difficult for me, to whom every turn of my 
 mother's countenance was familiar, to perceive 
 that her eyes were heavy with weeping. 
 
 No need to prolong for my reader the sus- 
 pense and anxiety I found so painful ; and few 
 words will suffice to relate the blow which had 
 fallen upon our little household. My parents' 
 worst presentiments were verified. The inva- 
 lid rector of Swallowfield was no more ; and 
 previous to his death, at Nice, had disposed of 
 the next presentation to the living. Already, 
 my father had received a letter from the 
 new incumbent; claiming possession, and an- 
 nouncing his early arrival. 
 
 From the family councils that ensued, I was 
 of course excluded. My father and mother 
 sat up late that night, to talk over their pro- 
 spects ; and I noticed that, next morning, when 
 my mother made her appearance with the air 
 of one walking in a dream, my father's aspect 
 
IN BORNEO. 36 
 
 was radiant with joy. He went off to town 
 that morning, on some errand of business ; and 
 during his absence, people came thronging in 
 from the village to inquire whether the news 
 were true that the loss of their old rector was 
 to be followed by that of his substitute? — The 
 old wept, the young murmured! Any one 
 would have thought some severe injury had 
 been inflicted on them, instead of a dispensa- 
 tion in the ordinary course of nature. 
 
 And I, too, I am ashamed to say, murmured. 
 Without considering what my kind uncom- 
 plaining mother might have to undergo in 
 consequence of the change, I kept openly fret- 
 ting at being forced to quit my pretty garden, 
 the spring sowing of which I had just com- 
 pleted ; and relinquish the gift of a foal pro- 
 mised me by one of the Swallowfield farmers, 
 which I was hourly expecting. 
 
 But when, the following day, towards dinner- 
 
36 ADVENTURES 
 
 time, my father returned, new prospects were 
 opened to me which superseded all further re- 
 gret for foals, or lupines, or convolvulus- 
 majors. 
 
 " How shall you like, Charley, my boy," 
 said he, when I was summoned to rejoin my 
 parents at tea-time, " to cross the wide, wide 
 sea ; and live in a far-off country, where, in- 
 stead of flights of carrion crows, as at Swallow- 
 field, the air is full of parrots and lories ; and 
 where you will see groves of plantain trees and 
 cocoa nuts, such as you have read of in " Eo- 
 binson Crusoe?" — 
 
 "With papa and mamma?" was my reply. 
 
 " With papa and mamma, and little Emily, 
 whose delicate frame will be fostered by the 
 warmth of a more genial climate." 
 
 "Let us go directly!" cried I. "I am 
 quite ready." I had begun to pack up my 
 books and playthings as soon as ever I heard 
 we were to quit Swallowfield. 
 
IN BORNEO. 37 
 
 '' There ! — One of your objections is removed 
 at once," said my father, turning with a smile 
 towards his wife, whose eyes were swimming 
 in tears. "You fancied that Charles would 
 be wretched at the prospect of leaving Eng- 
 land." 
 
 " But even he^ you see, premises that papa 
 and mamma are not to be left behind!" 
 faltered my mother. "Situated as I am, 
 it is surely natural I should experience 
 some regret at quitting my native country 
 unreconciled to my family. At my mother's 
 age, it is most unlikely that she will survive 
 till our return. — I shall never, never see 
 her again !" 
 
 "Before we sail, you must make a last 
 attempt. God forbid that I should do aught 
 to frustrate the reconciliation. Perhaps this 
 time your brother may withdraw his oppo- 
 sition ; for Lord H can no longer stigma- 
 tize us as beggars. Between your brother 
 
38 ADVENTURES 
 
 Charles's generous concession and a chaplaincy 
 of eight hundred a year, he will see that we 
 require no assistance at his hands." 
 
 This was the fii'st intimation I received of 
 the pui^ort of the long voyage announced by 
 my father ; and whereas, a few months before, 
 I had been told, when my uncle Charley sailed 
 from Falmouth to rejoin his regiment at New 
 Orleans, that he too was about to "cross the 
 wide, wide sea," I now naturally inquired 
 whether we should not find him in the far-off 
 land to which we were about to repair? 
 
 At this hint, my mother's tears flowed 
 afresh. She knew, alas! that her future 
 place of banishment was as far distant from 
 the country where her best loved brother was 
 confronting the perils of war, as from that 
 native shore where her last surviving parent 
 was soon to drop into the grave ! — 
 
 A word of exhortation from her husband 
 
IN BORNEO. 39 
 
 sufficed, however, to console her. He spoke 
 of the blessings spared her in her children; 
 of the benefit my delicate little sister would 
 derive from the voyage; and, above all, of 
 the august and responsible nature of the 
 functions he had undertaken — to teach the 
 Word of Life in a heathen country, and enter- 
 tain the faltering faith of the English exile 
 in a savage land. 
 
 The following Sunday, he made a similar 
 explanation in a farewell discourse to the 
 parishioners, by whom he was so truly re- 
 spected ; and sobs of heartfelt sympathy were 
 the best answers to his appeal. He preached, 
 I remember, from the 28th verse of the last 
 chapter of the Acts of the Apostles : " Be it 
 known to you that the salvation of God is 
 sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will 
 hear it:" concluding his discourse in the 
 words of St. Paul, ** Finally, brethren, 'pray 
 
40 ADVENTURES 
 
 for us ; that the word of the Lord may have 
 free course, and be glorified even as it is with 
 you^ — 
 
 When he came down from the pulpit, a 
 spiritual radiance shone from his face, such 
 as painters ascribe to those of saints. Young 
 and old of the congregation hurried after him 
 out of church, and across the churchyard to 
 the gate leading into the lime-tree avenue, (at 
 that time bare and cheerless,) with many a 
 withered face bathed in tears, — many a rough 
 hand extended towards him, — many a falter- 
 ing mother's voice entreating his benediction 
 on some young child uplifted to receive it. 
 They could not bear to part with him. It 
 was as if the anchor of their faith were lost, 
 and they were drifting out to sea. 
 
 In a few days, we were to sail from the 
 Downs; on board the good ship the Kelso, a 
 merchant vessel of 500 tons, '' copper sheathed 
 
IN BORNEO. 41 
 
 and copper bolted," which was to touch at 
 Rio Janeiro and the Cape, before we reached 
 our ultimate destination at Pinang : and my 
 mother's arduous preparations were hourly 
 interrupted by the visits of the farmers' 
 wives, bringing such humble presents as they 
 could command. Webs of homespun linen, 
 to assist in our outfit; and all sorts of cordial 
 distilments and conserves, of home manu- 
 facture, as necessaries for the five months' 
 voyage, — to their apprehension more terrible 
 and mysterious than that of the patriarch 
 of old!— 
 
 My poor mother accepted cordially what 
 it would have inflicted pain and grief upon 
 them to refuse. 
 
 " When all this is past and over," I heard 
 her say to my father, in a faint voice, as the 
 last straggler quitted the house, " my burthen 
 will be less hard to bear." 
 
42 ADVENTUEES 
 
 She spared herself nothing, however. No 
 one was turned from the door. To the 
 poor, she gave with one hand ; while with the 
 other, she did not disdain to gather the offer- 
 ings of the rich. Even to the workhouse, 
 she paid a parting visit; that the bediidden 
 pauper she had so often comforted, and the 
 sickly orphan to whom a kindly word from 
 lier had a price beyond rubies, might, not feel 
 themselves forgotten. One poor lame and 
 epileptic girl, who was in the habit of crouch- 
 ing like a dog at her feet, though incapable 
 of understanding that the only human being 
 who had ever spoke to her kindly was going 
 away from her for ever, seemed to have an 
 instinctive conception of coming evil. As 
 my mother stood leaning grave and sad against 
 the door-post, casting a last wistful glance 
 upon that refuge of misery, poor Nancy seized 
 the handkerchief with which she had been 
 
IN BORNEO. 43 
 
 wiping her tears, and begged it for a keep- 
 sake. 
 
 *' We shall both of us be soon there r said 
 she, pointing with a significant nod to the 
 ground under their feet; "and when old Rody 
 the sexton puts me to bed, they shall place 
 this on my heart. It will serve to keep me 
 still and happy, in that dark place. But i/ou 
 will need nothing 1" — added she, in a lower 
 voice, on seeing my mother shudder at her 
 words, "^o^^ will go up to heaven among 
 the birds and stars ; and everybody in Swal- 
 lowfield will pray for you, that you may be 
 happy for ever and ever." — 
 
 Such scenes were trying enough. Even 
 my own young heart grew heavy at this 
 constant talk of parting and banishment, and 
 the perils and dangers of those who go down 
 to the sea in ships. 
 
 But a far severer trial was in store for my 
 
44 ADVENTURES 
 
 mother; who, lacking the nobler inspirations 
 of the aspiring Christian priest, could only 
 comfort herself by clasping closer to her 
 bosom the tender child she flattered herself 
 was to be rendered robust by the balmy gales 
 of a milder climate. At her earnest desire, 
 I was to accompany her on her expedition to 
 H Hall ; and while my father was com- 
 pleting his pecuniary arrangements in town, we 
 proceeded together to the abode of one of the 
 few among his former parishioners who, through 
 good and evil report, had stood his friend; 
 from whence, a letter was despatched to the 
 Dowager, announcing our departure from 
 England, and craving a parting word. My 
 poor mother fancied that the sight of her 
 handwriting, and my own name and face, 
 recalling those of my absent uncle, (now 
 lighting once more the battles of his country !) 
 would plead in our favour; and that she 
 
IN BORNEO. 45 
 
 should not be forced to depart for the land of 
 strangers with her mother's malediction still 
 weighing, unrecalled, upon her head. 
 
 Within a few hours her letter was returned, 
 unopened. But another, indited by Lord 
 
 H , was placed at the same time in her 
 
 hand ; apprizing her that the old lady, having 
 suffered severely from an apoplectic attack 
 the preceding winter, he was forbidden by 
 the faculty to expose her to the slightest 
 emotion. " Barely convalescent," he added. 
 " the perusal of a letter from the daughter 
 whose undutiful conduct was the original 
 cause of her loss of health, would probably 
 prove fatal." Having " seen in the news- 
 papers an announcement of Mr. Meredyth's" 
 appointment in the East," he concluded by 
 " wishing her a safe and prosperous voyage ; 
 trusting that her husband's ministry might be 
 crowned with a success in some degree ex- 
 
46 ADVENTURES 
 
 piatory of his former irregularities of con- 
 duct." 
 
 By the despairing look with which my 
 mother suffered the letter to fall from her 
 hands, I saw that the object of our little 
 journey was defeated. So thoroughly wretched 
 did she look, that I did not dare address her ; 
 for already, I had overheard the communica- 
 tion of our good host and hostess, that " if it 
 warn^t my Lord's will and pleasure to admit 
 her to the hall, nought was to be holpen." 
 The old lady was completely immured ; never 
 seen by the tenants or villagers, except at 
 rare intervals in the family-coach, on her way 
 to Divine service. 
 
 This hint afforded a last hope to ray mother. 
 The sabbath was at hand ; and though denied 
 access to her offended parent, it would be 
 something to obtain a last sight of her still- 
 loved face. Nine years had passed since they 
 
IN BORNEO. 47 
 
 were as strangers to each other ; and the 
 faithful daughter yearned to look upon those 
 features which, soon, she must behold no 
 more. 
 
 Better have abstained from that coveted 
 enjoyment! From the pew in which she 
 stationed herself, which commanded a view 
 of the gallery into which, every Sunday, my 
 grandmother was pompously assisted by two 
 menials arrayed in the showy family livery, 
 she was borne senseless into the churchyard. 
 The shock was too much for her. But Lady 
 
 H was never aware that the confusion in 
 
 church, incident on her removal, was caused 
 by the swoon into which the spectacle of her 
 infirmities had thrown her discarded child ! — 
 
 Three days afterwards we sailed. The 
 languid state in which my poor mother 
 reached the ship which, for five months to 
 come, was to be our home, arose solely from 
 
48 ADVENTURES 
 
 the disappointment to which she had un- 
 luckily exposed herself. But so powerful was 
 her self-control that, before my father, who 
 was detained by business at the India House, 
 rejoined us at Portsmouth ere we stood out 
 to sea, she had regained, if not all her usual 
 cheerfulness, at least the most perfect resig- 
 nation. All was carefully arranged in our 
 little cabin; — our furniture and gifts made 
 the most of, — his favourite books placed 
 within his reach. And as, luckily, though 
 she and poor little Emily were already at- 
 tacked by the sufferings which render a sea- 
 voyage so unpalatable, my father and myself 
 experienced nothing beyond the dizziness of 
 which every novice is susceptible, we were 
 able to devote ourselves entirely to the ser- 
 vice of my mother, and sister. And now, the 
 immensity of the ocean was before us, with all 
 its pangs and perils ! — 
 
IN BORNEO. 49 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Everybody accustomed to ship-board must 
 have noticed the partiality of sailors for 
 monkeys and children. The Kelso, in which 
 we were embarked, was a third-class merchant 
 vessel — the passage-price of a first-rate India- 
 man being greatly beyond my father's means. 
 The accommodations, poor as they were, were 
 divided between our family and an old Anglo- 
 Dutch Colonel, who was returning to his planta- 
 tions at the Cape ; so that, had not the good- 
 
 D 
 
50 ADVENTURES 
 
 humour of the crew rendered the deck agree- 
 able to myself and my little sister, my poor 
 mother, who suffered grievously from the sea, 
 would have been sadly cramped in her cabin. 
 
 Unluckily, our captain was a churl. Both 
 my father and Colonel Nieuwenhuysen had 
 been advised to drive a strict bargain with 
 him; and he revenged himself now that we 
 were in his power, by a thousand petty an- 
 noyances. The old Dutchman's pipe was 
 prohibited; and it was only at certain hours 
 we were allowed the freedom of the deck. 
 Above all, instead of profiting by the pre- 
 sence on board of a clergyman of the estab- 
 lished church for the regular performance of 
 divine service, as my father was the first to 
 propose, he chose to continue his usual practice 
 of reading prayers once a week to the crew. 
 
 *' A blue coat is as nigh to heaven as a 
 black un, any day o' the year," was Captain 
 
IN BORNEO. 51 
 
 Garvain's rejoinder to Williams, the mate, when 
 nrged to accept my father's offer. " This 
 skinflint of a parson must please to know that, 
 being lord paramount on my own deck, I'm 
 also both parson and clerk." 
 
 But though this illiterate fellow persisted 
 in garbling the word of God for the sole plea- 
 sure of thwarting my father and mother, they 
 made it a duty to attend whatever semblance 
 of public worship, according to the form of the 
 established church, was going on in the ship. 
 
 In more trivial things, he was still more 
 aggravating. My mother was too weak to 
 join the public meals in the cuddy — my little 
 sister too young ; and it was with great diffi- 
 culty they obtained the comforts necessary to 
 their enfeebled state. The steward was re- 
 peatedly reprimanded for supplying them by 
 stealth, and at undue hours, with the requisite 
 food. 
 
 P2 
 
52 ADVENTURES 
 
 My mother, a dear lover of peace, kept lier 
 grievances as far as possible from her hus- 
 bands knowledge; and such offences on the 
 captain's part as were personal to himself, he 
 rebuked with the gentlemanly mildness which 
 on all occasions distinguished his deportment. 
 Whereas oldNieuwenhuysen raged and stormed 
 like a hurricane ! Scarce a day passed 
 without some violent altercation between 
 them, by which all on board were the suffer- 
 ers. By the close of the first fortnight, how- 
 ever, my father's forbearance exemplified the 
 value of a soft answer in turning away wrath. 
 For the storming colonel had accomplished no- 
 thing towards having his way; while nearly 
 all the annoyances and obstructions of which 
 my parents had to complain, were gradually 
 and silently removed. Surly as ever in de- 
 portment, Captain Garvain desisted from petty 
 molestation. He was even seen to pause 
 
IN BORNEO. 53 
 
 while pacing the quarter-deck at dusk, to 
 listen to the sweet voice of my mother hushing 
 her little daughter to sleep with the evening 
 hymn ; though he had more than once threat- 
 ened his men with punishment for uncovering 
 their heads at the same pious invocation. 
 
 Poor fellows! — it was surprising in what 
 veneration they held both mother and child ! 
 Whatever fish was caught, the " little lady" 
 must be summoned to look on as it lay 
 floundering on deck, — whether the dolphin, 
 with its varying hues, or the lesser fry, for 
 more profitable use. It was the delight of the 
 sailors, too, when aiming at the seabirds, as 
 we approached Rio Janeiro, to wing one of the 
 smaller sea-hawks, in hopes that my father 
 and mother might obtain permission for them 
 to keep it as a pet by way of recreation for 
 " little miss." 
 
 Between our pastimes and our feuds, in 
 
54 ADVENTURES 
 
 short, the voyage, if tedious, -vvas far from 
 monotonous. Part of my father's day was 
 occupied in study, part in giving me lessons ; 
 and even the hours of leisure spent on deck, 
 were diversified by a constant succession of 
 novel objects and the explanations to which 
 they gave rise ; — the new aspect of the 
 Southern firmament, — the endless variations 
 of a marine atmosphere. 
 
 For the first six weeks the weather was so 
 calm, that I began to grow malapert, and 
 fancy the dangers of a sailor's life exagger- 
 ated on shore. Nay, I would sometimes twit 
 the older mariners who endeavoured to amuse 
 me with tales of shipwreck and piracy, as 
 *' spinners of yarns." One and all rebuked 
 me, indeed, for my rash incredulity, and bade 
 me beware of evil to come in " rounding the 
 Cape :" a crisis of our passage of which even 
 my father spoke uneasily. 
 
IN BORNEO. 55 
 
 *' For my own part, I shall be glad, — main 
 glad, — to find myself on dry land again !" — 
 was Colonel Nieuwenhuysen's frequent aside 
 to my mother; " not only to get rid of the 
 sight of that ruffian old Garvain's mortal 
 ugly face, and command the independent en- 
 joyment and company of the best friend Fve 
 got in the world, my blessed old Meerschaum, 
 but because, since I came aboard, I'ye had a 
 hint from Ned Morley, (who cares not a pinch 
 o' snuff for Garvain's gagging,) that the Kelso's 
 a doomed ship !" — 
 
 The word carried an unpleasant sound with 
 it! My mother asked for further explana- 
 tions. 
 
 *' What do I mean by doomed ?" cried the 
 old Colonel. " Why, I mean that it was built 
 for a purpose which the glorious Christian 
 spirit of our country. Madam Meredyth, has 
 rendered abortive. The Kelso was once a 
 
56 ADVENTURES 
 
 slaver, ma'am ! — Every plank and every joist 
 of her has been wet with the blood or tears 
 of the poor niggers. I was the fii'st colonist 
 of the Cape who set my face against the 
 slave trade; and by the blood o' my body, 
 Madam Meredyth, had I guessed that this 
 confounded ship was ever engaged in the 
 traffic, I'd have embarked in Beelzebub's own 
 yacht, ma'am, before I'd ha' come aboard 
 her !" 
 
 " Since you are now so near the termina- 
 tion of your voyage," remonstrated my mother, 
 " it would be an act of mercy on your part, 
 my dear Colonel, not to excite my uneasiness, 
 or the fears of my children." 
 
 " But I do want to excite your uneasiness, 
 Madam Meredyth !" retorted the dogged old 
 Colonel. " I like you too well, my good lady, 
 you and your worthy husband and your 
 pretty bantlings, to bear the thoughts of your 
 
IN BORNEO. 57 
 
 being cabined up three months longer with 
 an old wronghead like Garvain; in a ship, 
 too, which bears Satan's own black marks of 
 ownership on the forecastle 1" — 
 
 My mother could not forbear a smile at all 
 this vehemence; but she contented herself 
 with reminding him of the old proverb, that 
 what " folks could not cure they must en- 
 dure ;" that our passage-money was paid ; and 
 that even if the job were a bad one, we must 
 make the best of it. 
 
 *' That's just what I'm driving at, my good 
 lady," cried the old Dutchman. " I've told 
 you a many times already, that I'm not quite 
 the lack-penny I'm treated like, by Captain 
 Garvain and his crew. There's more golden 
 ducats maybe at the bottom o' my locker, than 
 o' silver dollars in his. So if you and your 
 good man and your children choose to land 
 and take up your quarters with me at Wivil's 
 D 3 
 
58 ADVENTURES 
 
 Lust, till some good safe ship, Dutch or 
 British — no matter for that — touches at Cape 
 Town, bound for Pinang, — you shall have no 
 cause to complain o' your fare while you stay 
 with me, — and not a stuyver to pay for your 
 passage when you say good bye !'* 
 
 It was impossible not to be grateful for this 
 generous offer; and thank him she did — and 
 heartily. But it was also impossible to incur 
 so great an obligation towards a stranger. 
 
 " Not when I tell you that yours and your 
 children's lives are at stake?" — cried Colonel 
 Nieuwenhuysen, angrily. 
 
 My mother gave an incredulous* shake of 
 the head. 
 
 " And is a fellow-creature and a fellow- 
 Christian, ma'am,'^ he resumed, *' ever to be 
 called a stranger ? Haven't you Scripture war- 
 rant to love your neighbour as yourself T — 
 
 Stilly neither with my father nor my mother 
 
IN BORNEO. 59 
 
 did his arguments prevail. They believed Cap- 
 tain Garvain, in spite of his fractious temper, 
 to be a good man and excellent seaman ; and 
 as to the crew, there was an old sailor, called 
 Ned Morley, who was as tender a nurse to my 
 little sister as half-a-dozen female attendants 
 rolled into one. 
 
 '* I tell you what, then. Parson Meredyth," 
 resumed the kindly-hearted Dutchman ; " since 
 you're not to be persuaded for yourselves, at 
 least don't risk your whole venture in this 
 doomed ship ! Though you're bent upon going 
 down to Davy's locker, you and your lady, at 
 least leave a handful o' seed-corn behind ye ! 
 Where the stock's so good, a slip or sucker's 
 always worth having. So even leave me your 
 
 lad ! I'll have a father's care o' the boy When 
 
 you say the word, he shall be for'arded to you 
 safe and sound at Pinang. Or, if content to 
 leave him to me for better for worse, I've 
 
60 ADVENTURES 
 
 told you before that I've neither chick nor 
 child o' my own : — so that the thirty thousand 
 florins per annum I shall leave after me will 
 be going a-begging, if the Jonkheer Carolus 
 yonder chooses to stand by the old fellow to 
 the last, and stretch out his hand for't !" — 
 
 For a moment I was horribly alarmed lest 
 my parents should be tempted by this more 
 than liberal offer; for I would rather have re- 
 mained with them to work my hands off, than 
 quitted them to become a prince. But a glance 
 at my father's face relieved my mind. It said, 
 as plainly as face could speak, that he 
 would as soon part with his right arm as with 
 one of his children. All he uttered aloud, 
 however, was, that he was grateful to the 
 Colonel for his good- will ; but still more grate- 
 ful to that Providence which had not only 
 vouchsafed him children, but the heart to love 
 them, and the means to afford them bed and 
 board. 
 
IN BORNEO. 61 
 
 After this, the Colonel said no more. But 
 for the two days longer he remained with us 
 he sulked with our family, instead of wrangling 
 with Garvain; and, on entering Table Bay, 
 prepared for disembarkation, scarcely bidding 
 us good bye. Just, however, as he was step- 
 ping into the shore- boat, his heart became too 
 full to keep up any further show of resentment ; 
 and, hobbling back into the cabin, he stretched 
 out both his hands to my father. 
 
 " Think better on't. Parson!" said he; 
 " don't let pride get the upper hand over rea- 
 son. — Accept my proffer. — Come ashore. — Let 
 the Kelso go to the devil ! — I tell you again 
 and again, 'tis a doomed ship !" — 
 
 " My trust is in Him who sinks or saves, my 
 
 dear Colonel !" replied my father, gravely. " I 
 
 have accepted a solemn mission, and must 
 
 not loiter in the discharge of its duties." 
 
 '^ Then farewell, and the Lord God bless and 
 
62 ADVENTURES 
 
 keep ye all !'^ was the Dutchman's abrupt re- 
 joinder. But I heard afterwards, from the 
 mate, that big tears were rolling down the 
 bluflf old ColoneFs face as he gave a last look 
 from the harbour at what he had been pleased 
 to call the "Doomed Ship/'— 
 
 We remained three days off Cape Town, 
 for water and provisions ; but saw no more of 
 the old man. It was not till we weighed anchor 
 again, we were informed that he had sent on 
 board a supply of old Constantia for my parents' 
 use, and an abundance of fine fruit and sweet- 
 meats, for the children. 
 
 But even this did not altogether prevent a 
 laugh at the expense of the false prophet, 
 during the ensuing month of fine weather; 
 which thoroughly reconciled us, old and young, 
 both to the Kelso, its captain, and the salt 
 sea. Ned Morley was allowed to spin his 
 choicest yarns for Emily's amusement; while 
 
IN BORNEO. 63 
 
 my father and mother presided alternately 
 over my lessons. As to Captain Garvain, it 
 was seldom he wore his seamy side outwards, 
 now that he experienced no further provoca- 
 tion. So pleasant, in short, was the even 
 tenour of our days, that I could almost have 
 regretted our voyage was drawing towards a 
 close. Yet when we approached the Straits of 
 Sunda, I shall never forget the thrill of joy ex- 
 perienced by all on board on hailing the first 
 land breeze which had greeted us for weeks — 
 the " breeze from shore," so often described — 
 but in that tropical climate deliciously laden 
 with the fragrance of the tuberoses and mag- 
 nolias that abound on the Java coast. 
 
 After touching at Batavia, we had to pass the 
 Straits of Banka, on our direct course to Pinang. 
 Once or twice, indeed, I heard observations 
 pass between Williams, the mate, and one of 
 the reefers, that " old Garvain was as obstinate 
 
64 ADVENTURES 
 
 as a mule ; and that the voyages of the Kelso 
 having been hitherto limited to Rio and the 
 Cape, he knew no more of the navigation of 
 those seas than the capstan itself. I even 
 heard Williams declare that it was the first 
 time he had sailed in the Kelso, and should be 
 the last, so dissatisfied was he with the skill 
 of his commander. But all this gave me no 
 uneasiness. If the Captain's skill was small, 
 his luck was great, for finer weather never 
 attended a voyage than we enjoyed till we lost 
 sight of the Sumatra coast. 
 
 On that very evening, however, as I 
 was standing with my father on the tafirail, 
 looking out, we noticed a seaman, who had 
 just scrambled down from the rigging, pointing 
 out to Captain Garvain a small cloud that 
 seemed to rise out of the sea, at the extreme 
 verge of the horizon. — The Captain replied, 
 as was his custom when addressed by his men, 
 
IN BORNEO. 65 
 
 with a coarse oath. But he immediately took 
 his glass from his pocket, and directed it 
 anxiously to the spot; and almost before we 
 had time to be alarmed by the anxious look of 
 his countenance, we became conscious of a 
 short, rocking movement in the vessel ; though 
 no wind had arisen to account for the change. 
 A question which my father addressed to Gar- 
 vain on the subject was so brutally answered, 
 that he took me by the hand and led me down 
 into the cabin, as he was in the habit of doing 
 when it was desirable that the Captain should 
 have only his crew for audience; and there 
 we found that the uneasy movement of the ship 
 had already driven my mother and Emily to 
 their berths. 
 
 They were soon, however, subjected to 
 disturbance. By the Captain^s orders, the 
 hatches and portholes were to be fastened 
 down, and every article of furniture double- 
 
66 ADVENTURES 
 
 lashed. Already the loud shrill voice of the 
 rising wind was alarmingly audible. The 
 creaking and labouring of the vessel soon made 
 us remember that we were in the arms of an 
 element a-vvful even when friendly, but ter- 
 rible as an angry giant when aroused in wrath. 
 Of the night that ensued, the most exag- 
 gerated language would fail to give an 
 adequate conception. The set of sun was 
 followed by instant darkness ; while the pitch- 
 ing of the ship, tossed upon billows realizing 
 the popular expression of " mountains high," 
 rendered it impossible to retain alight the 
 lamp usually suspended in our cabin. On 
 finding that the violence of the storm had 
 disabled several hands of the crew, my father 
 quitted us to lend his aid on deck; leaving 
 strict injunctions that not one of us should 
 attempt to quit the cabin. Nor should I 
 have ventured to disobey him, so long as, 
 
IN BORNEO. 67 
 
 amid the roaring and howling of the storm, I 
 heard at intervals the faint voice of my 
 mother, (who was secured into her berth with 
 Emily in her arms,) recommending her dear 
 ones to the mercy of God. But after this 
 state of uproar and terror had been prolonged 
 for hours, till my soul waxed faint within me, 
 and I felt that any change, even the stillness 
 of death, would be a release, — a sudden crash, 
 as of heaven and earth coming together, or as 
 if twenty of the preceding peals of thunder 
 had been joined into one, appeared to smite the 
 ship into nothingness. I could not conceive, 
 when the stunning effect of the shock had 
 ceased, how we could still be floating on the 
 waters, as the regular rocking of the vessel 
 announced. 
 
 The real state of the case instantly occurred 
 to me. Our mainmast had yielded to the 
 violence of the typhoon! — But while de- 
 
68 ADVENTURES 
 
 bating what would be the result of such a 
 loss, I discovered that the murmured prayers 
 of my mother were no longer audible; and 
 having with difficulty crawled out of my 
 hammock and made my way into her cabin, 
 from the partitioned space set apart for me, 
 I crept towards her berth, and called and 
 entreated her by name. — No answer ! — Not a 
 sound, but the moans and sobs of my little 
 sister ! — 
 
 Clinging to the lashings, I contrived to 
 reach my mother's face. Alas ! it was cold as 
 death ; and the manner in which her hand and 
 arm fell from my grasp and hung lifeless from 
 the berth, convinced me that she had sunk 
 under the agony of soul and body arising 
 from that mighty convulsion of nature. At 
 that fearful moment, I own that the pro- 
 phecies of Colonel Nieuwenhuysen recurred to 
 my mind ! — 
 
IN BORNEO. 69 
 
 I was but a child. I had scarcely entered 
 into my ninth year; and it is not wonderful 
 that my first impulse should have been to 
 weep and bewail myself for the loss of that 
 precious mother. My next was to rush up 
 the companion ladder, in search of my father. 
 But the mere effort of forcing open the cabin 
 door against the raging wind, which, pene- 
 trating every crack and cranny, bellowed 
 without, was beyond my strength. Nor, had 
 I succeeded, would my main object have been 
 accomplished: for the hatches above were 
 made fast to exclude the waves which were 
 now beating over the deck. Except by Cap- 
 tain Garvain's orders, the cabin was unattain- 
 able from without. 
 
 With every pulse beating, and every nerve 
 strained by my fruitless efforts, I crawled 
 back to the berth ; and in order to quiet the 
 cries of Emily, terrified by the darkness and 
 
70 ADVENTURES 
 
 her mother's unnatural tranquillity, crept to 
 the side of my poor little sister, and forgot 
 my own misery while endeavouring to quiet 
 her fears: how little dreaming that the act 
 would prove the means of preserving a life far 
 dearer than our own ! — 
 
 Two hours afterwards, as, towards dawn, 
 the storm appeared to pass eastward, and the 
 wind to experience a lull, I heard the welcome 
 sound of my father's entrance into the cabin, 
 and, worn out by weeping, had not strength 
 even to answer him when he called aloud, from 
 the very door, the names of his wife and 
 children. Believing that, in spite of the 
 uproar of the elements, we slept, he hastened 
 to strike a light ; and as the spark lit up for a 
 moment the scene of desolation, I saw him 
 stripped to the waist, with his dripping hair 
 and trowsers clinging to him as tliough he 
 had been immersed in the water; his face and 
 
IN BORNEO. 71 
 
 shirt streaked with blood from some blow he 
 had encountered in the course of his exertions. 
 I had not strength for so much as an exclama- 
 tion; but when he tottered towards the 
 berth, pointed in silence to the cold white 
 face of my mother. 
 
 " Great God ! how long has shebeen thus?" 
 cried he, discerning at once, by symptoms 
 imperceptible to my ignorance, that she was 
 insensible ; but that the breath of life was not 
 extinct, sustained by the vital warmth of the 
 children clinging to her senseless form. And 
 without waiting for an answer, he was in- 
 stantly on the alert; reviving her with cor- 
 dials, with frictions, with aromatic essences. 
 By degrees, as daylight dawned, I had the 
 unspeakable comfort of seeing her languidly 
 unclose the eyes which I had fancied shut for 
 ever. She was not herself, indeed ; — she did 
 not recognise us — She was delirious. — But 
 
72 ADVENTURES 
 
 it was happiness enough to hear the faint 
 sound of her voice, even though it called on 
 any other name than my own. No wonder 
 that she should not at once recognise my 
 father. Fatigue and horror had so changed 
 him, that he did not look like the same man 
 from whom we had parted the preceding 
 evening. Even / felt as if ten years had 
 passed over my head during the two heart- 
 breaking hours I had spent in stifling my 
 tears in what I believed to be the dead bosom 
 of my mother. 
 
 By the time she was restored to something 
 of a life-like condition, I heard the voice of 
 old Garvain on the companion-ladder: and 
 trembled lest he should be come to load my 
 father with abuse for having withdrawn the 
 attention of the steward for even a moment, 
 during the still continued distress of the 
 vessel. I was even afraid he might claim my 
 
IN BORNEO. 73 
 
 father's services, and take him away from us 
 again ; leaving me to a renewal of the anguish 
 of the past night. But I was soon unde- 
 ceived. The old churl was as much changed 
 as ourselves. The hand of God had not been 
 laid on him in vain. Without so much as 
 pausing at the door for leave to enter, he 
 tottered into the cabin, rushed towards my 
 father, and throwing his arms around his neck, 
 sobbed like a child ! — 
 
 " God be praised, that you have not lost 
 her!" was the only intelligible phrase he 
 could utter ; and he repeated it again and 
 again, as if his senses, too, were wandering. 
 My father insisted upon his taking refresh- 
 ment, and half an hour's rest. But the 
 danger of the ship was still too imminent for 
 him to quit the deck for more than a minute. 
 The wind had sunk. But the tremendous 
 swell produced by its preceding violence ren- 
 
 E 
 
74 ADVENTURES 
 
 dered it impossible at present to ascertain the 
 full extent of damage the poor Kelso had 
 sustained. I was surprised to see how com- 
 pletely, within those few short hours, the 
 relative positions of my father and our captain 
 were reversed. The high courage and active 
 intelligence displayed by the " black coat," 
 (which all on board were ready to testify had 
 more than replaced the services of the two 
 able seamen washed overboard during the 
 storm,) seemed to assign him a temporary 
 authority over the weather-beaten, wrong- 
 headed old captain; who now addressed him 
 alternately with the tenderness of a father 
 and deference of an inferior. 
 
 It was not till long after noon that a 
 council was held in Captain Garvain's cabin, 
 to report upon the state of the ship, 
 and the measures to be adopted. Of what 
 passed there, I could judge only by the de- 
 
IN BORNEO. 75 
 
 spending face with which my father returned 
 to us. — In reply to our inquiries, he answered 
 by bidding us rely on the goodness of 
 Him who is mighty to save! — But the fact 
 that he was obliged to leave us to take his 
 turn in working at the pumps, while the car- 
 penters devoted their service to the more 
 urgent repairs, sufficed to prove that we were 
 now in as much danger from our own weak- 
 ness as before from the strength of the storm. 
 
 Wearied by my vigils of the preceding 
 night, and overcome by the pain of the 
 bruises and contusions I had received in my 
 attempt to reach the deck, I rolled myself up 
 in my cot, and felt as if nothing could ever 
 rouse me again. It was, nevertheless, a whis- 
 pered conversation between my father and his 
 poor enfeebled wife, that broke my feverish 
 doze. 
 
 " lie is a madman, and should be treated 
 e2 
 
76 ADVENTURES 
 
 as such !" was my mother's Itiint reply to 
 some confidential communication made by her 
 husband. 
 
 " No, there is method in his madness," 
 replied my father, in an earnest tone ; " and 
 what is more, there is that which I little 
 expected to find in him — conscientiousness ! 
 He will act, he says, according to the strict 
 letter of his duty. His first is towards his 
 Maker — to save the lives of those entrusted 
 to his command." 
 
 " Which ought to determine him to follow 
 the course suggested by Williams; and, since 
 the ship no longer obeys the rudder, let it 
 drift back to the coast of Sumatra. If the 
 present winds continue, you say, we might be 
 there in a few days." 
 
 " And Garvain contends that there is not a 
 day's seaworthiness in the ship ! — Besides 
 which, the better part of our stock was thrown 
 
IN BORNEO. 77 
 
 over, or washed over during the storm; and 
 we have consequently a terrible alternative 
 before us !" 
 
 " My poor children ! — What a destiny ! 
 Why had I not courage to part from them, 
 and leave Charley, at least, safe at the Cape !" 
 was my dear mother's ejaculation, for which 
 I blessed her in my heart — silently — for I 
 would not increase her misery by apprizing 
 her that I was aware of our coming fate. 
 
 At length, she recovered presence of mind 
 for further inquiry. 
 
 " But since Captain Garvain considers es- 
 cape impossible, why not accede to the wishes 
 of his crew? Why not run for the coast?" 
 
 " Because his duty to his owners requires 
 him to keep the ship to her destination. If 
 lost in any other channel, the insurances 
 would be forfeited. The Kelso is under- 
 written for something like twenty thousand 
 pounds." 
 
78 ADVENTURES 
 
 " And are human lives to be placed in the 
 scale against silver and gold ?" 
 
 " Gar vain is of opinion — and his long expe- 
 rience and good seamanship demand some 
 consideration — that we have as little chance 
 of reaching Sumatra as Malacca. Our only 
 chance is by falling in with the homeward- 
 bound China fleet, from which we should 
 obtain succour and provisions ; or possibly 
 some coasting trader, bound for Java or 
 Ceylon." 
 
 " You have his consent, then, to embark in 
 the first vessel we fall in with?" — 
 
 " I should not have waited for it, Mary ! 
 It is a mere question of expense; and our 
 lives and the lives of our children being in 
 imminent jeopardy, we must spare no huuian 
 means for their preservation." 
 
 In spite of the fearful importance of every 
 word uttered by my parents, I fell asleep 
 
IN BORNEO. 79 
 
 before their discussion wore to an end; and 
 the heavy stupor of over- weariness relieved me 
 for a time. But to what an awful conscious- 
 ness did I awake, when roused from dreams of 
 dry land and peace and prosperity, to find 
 myself still tossing upon the waste of waters, 
 with the terrors of shipwreck, or the slow 
 death of starvation, staring me in the face ! 
 
 So long as the typhoon was rending our 
 canvas asunder and sweeping down our. masts, 
 the consciousness that we were all together — 
 that I was under the protection of my father 
 and mother — inspired me with a feeling of 
 security. I felt that with them I could not 
 die. But now, with such miseries in pro- 
 spect, how I wished that I was alone with the 
 ship's crew! To look forward to the spec- 
 tacle of a wasting and struggling death for 
 my dear patient little sister, for my loving 
 mother, for the father who was to us as a 
 
80 ADVENTURES 
 
 second providence, was far worse tlitiii the 
 thunders of the storm ! — 
 
 Of liim, we now saw little; for he took his 
 turn in working before the mast. And could 
 lie have been multiplied into ten times the 
 strong and active man he was, his assistance 
 would not have half availed to supply the 
 place of the seamen who had been snatched 
 into the deep. For their surviving messmates 
 were now not only doubly tasked in conse- 
 quence of the leaky state of the ship, but 
 reduced to less than half rations. 
 
 No need to wear out the patience of my 
 readers by describing the abortive endeavours 
 of the carpenters to effect such reparations as 
 would diminish that struggle with the en- 
 croaching sea, which kept the pumps constantly 
 at work. While my fiither shared in these 
 harassing labours, I did not quit my mother's 
 side; who, though careful to conceal her de- 
 
IN BORNEO. 81 
 
 pressioii, betrayed herself by the earnestness 
 with which her eyes were constantly directed 
 towards the horizon, — straining and straining 
 from the first moment of daylight to the last ; — 
 in the vain hope of descrying that distant 
 sail which was to bring renewed life to her 
 children, or the savage shore, the proximity 
 of which not a soul on board ventured to 
 announce ! — 
 
 Twice did the welcome cry of "• a sail" de- 
 ceive our hopes; but each time, the long- 
 looked-for vessel bore away, long before it 
 came within hail. Once, indeed. Captain 
 Garvain swore, with frightful imprecations, 
 that his signals of distress must have been 
 seen, since the craft in question was near 
 enough for him to recognise it as a Portuguese 
 frigate. But it was no matter! — Curses or 
 blessings were alike unavailing — 
 
 A hopeless darkness settled o'er our fate. 
 E 3 
 
82 ADVENTURES 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The first intimation I received that my 
 parents had given up all hope, was when I 
 found my mother kneeling on the floor with 
 her arms thrown over my sleeping sister, as 
 if bestowing upon her, in the yearning of a 
 mother's heart, a last benediction; while my 
 father, standing beside the table, was forcing 
 into a bottle a small roll of paper, over which 
 he tied some oilskin, carefully sealed. 
 
 " Who knows? — It may drift with the 
 current to the Java coast," said he, addressing 
 
IN BORNEO. 83 
 
 my mother, " and be the means of apprizing 
 your family, through the newspapers, of the 
 fate that has befallen us/' 
 
 But she answered not a word. She was 
 wrapped up in her sleeping child; and as 
 both were too much engrossed by distracting 
 thoughts to heed my presence, I had leisure 
 for wondering conjectures, while I watched my 
 father abstract from his desk and fasten in a 
 belt round his waist, a purse, a pocket-book, 
 and a few closely folded papers. In the 
 pocket of the seaman's jacket which he now 
 habitually wore, he placed his watch and 
 pocket bible ; having completed which pre- 
 parations, he touched my kneeling mother 
 gently on the shoulder. 
 
 " You must waken the children now, Mary !'* 
 said he. *' Gar vain gave me but an hour !" 
 
 " All is ready," she replied, in a voice that 
 hardly sounded like her own^ — so hoarse was 
 
84 ADVENTURES 
 
 it and so hollow. — " I have made up a packet 
 of the few necessaries that can be allowed us." 
 
 And she pointed as she spoke to a bundle 
 tied up in a boat-cloak that lay on the floor. 
 
 I now saw what was before us. We were 
 about to quit the doomed ship. For two 
 days past, I had seen a carpenter at work 
 on the long boat. We were doubtless to em- 
 bark in that slight craft upon the element 
 which had already proved so unpropitious, for 
 the chance of reaching the coast of Borneo; 
 which Captain Gar vain pronounced to be 
 within two days' sail. But this assertion had 
 been negatived by an incredulous shake of the 
 head from my father ; who was of opinion — as 
 the sequel proved — that the old man was 
 completely out of his channel. During the 
 typhoon which had destroyed our rudder, 
 the compass- box had undergone a serious in- 
 jury, the magnetic fluid affecting the polarity 
 of the needle. 
 
IN BORNEO. 85 
 
 I consequently foresaw as clearly as my pa- 
 rents, that all we had to trust to was the 
 mercy of the Almighty ; and the steadiness of 
 those five among the crew who, I found, had 
 been selected by lot to share our forlorn hope. 
 
 " Fear nothing, father !" said I, in answer 
 to a few words of exhortation which he ad- 
 dressed me, bidding me be a man, that I 
 might support the courage of my mother and 
 sister — *' I will obey you while my strength 
 lasts. — Let it only please God that we may die 
 together. '^ 
 
 I saw his lip quiver, though his face was as 
 firm as it was pale, when he assisted us for the 
 last time on the companion-ladder. But nei- 
 ther he nor my mother spoke a word. 
 
 Not so on deck. The scene there was try- 
 ing and terrible. The boat was afloat, and 
 the small stock of provisions that could be 
 spared us already shipped. At first, I fancied 
 that the clamour going on round Captain 
 
86 ADVENTURES 
 
 Garvain arose from the struggle of the men to 
 escape from the all but sinking ship. But I was 
 wholly wrong; nor could there be a greater 
 proof of the unfairness of my former prejudices 
 against the gruff old man, than the earnestness 
 with which every man among the five selected 
 by chance as our boat's crew, entreated his 
 commander to change places with him. 
 
 The Captain himself, who, apprehending 
 that, in the last struggle for life, an attempt 
 might be made to over-crowd the boat, had 
 armed himself with his pistols, determined to 
 shoot the first man who, for his own sake, 
 risked the lives of all, was deeply touched by 
 the unlooked-for generosity of those under his 
 command. 
 
 " No, no, my brave fellows!" cried he; 
 " Jack Garvain '11 stick by you to the last. 
 So long as a plank of the old Kelso remains, 
 there is my place 1 I've sailed in her these eigh- 
 
IN BORNEO. 87 
 
 teen year, and she shall desert me before I'll 
 desert her! Tell my owners as much, Parson 
 Meredyth, if you've the luck, with God's will, 
 to reach dry land, and see old England again." 
 He took as fond a leave of my mother and 
 sister, as though they had been a wife and 
 child of his own ; though he had often boasted, 
 in merrier times, that *' he^d never been such 
 a fool as to get spliced." But though Emily 
 put her little arms round his neck at parting, 
 to beg with many tears that Ned Morley 
 (an old sailor who had been indefatigable in 
 endeavouring to amuse her, by supplying us 
 with sea-birds or fish during the early part of 
 our voyage) might accompany us in the boat, 
 softened as he was at the moment, he would 
 not hear of it. His word had gone forth. 
 Discipline was discipline. On his own deck, 
 the will of a commander must be never seen 
 to waver. Such had been his uniform system ; 
 
88 ADVENTURES 
 
 and I believe it was to that alone we were in- 
 debted for our escape from the doomed ship. 
 Such was the subordination of the Kelso, that 
 the moment the Captain proclaimed that his 
 passengers were to be the first embarked in the 
 gig, the men would as soon have dreamed of 
 arresting the course of the winds and waves, as 
 of shaking his determination. 
 
 Before my father quitted the deck, he raised 
 instinctively his hands and eyes to Heaven, as 
 imploring its blessing on our enterprise. On 
 which, three of the seamen who had been help- 
 ing our embarkation, dropped on their knees 
 to ask his benediction; and a solemn thing 
 it was to see it bestowed upon them, by 
 a minister of the gospel who had been labour- 
 ing hand to hand with them before the mast. 
 
 It was a soft sunny day, in the afternoon 
 of which we embarked. The influence of the 
 storm was completely at an end. The sea 
 
IN BORNEO. 89 
 
 was calm. It seeuied to wear a treachorous 
 smile : for who, after witnessing its fury 
 during a tempest, ever confides trustfully to 
 its promises again? And as the first few 
 strokes of our oars created a space between us 
 and the disabled ship, now within half a foot 
 of the water's edge, both our own crew, and 
 the crew we were leaving, endeavoured to 
 raise a cheer. — But a mournful attempt it 
 was! — That faint cry, exchanged between 
 those who were going forth to death, and 
 those who remained to perish, was as the re- 
 quiem over a grave ! — 
 
 Both I and my sister hid our faces on my 
 mother's shoulder. The last thing I saw dis- 
 tinctly of the Kelso, was old Garvain's white 
 head upon the deck. Tie was peering out 
 after us, as if for a last exchange of kindli- 
 ness ; and unless I much mistake, his weather- 
 beaten hand was more than once passed over 
 
90 ADVENTURES 
 
 his eyes while we remained in sight. Nor 
 could I help weeping bitterly at parting 
 from him : — I who had so abhorred him but a 
 few weeks before! Emily kept sobbing the 
 name of " her good, kind Ned Morley, whom 
 she should never see again!" but all my 
 tears were for our gruff old captain. His 
 firmness in danger and consistency of purpose 
 had inspired me with deep respect. 
 
 And now, let those who talk of " loving the 
 sea," because familiar with its summer aspect 
 in the waveless waters of the Solent, or from 
 the Ramsgate pier, endeavour to figure to 
 themselves the sensations of a young child to 
 whom, for weeks past, the word " shipwreck" 
 had become familiar, launched upon the breast 
 of an ocean without an horizon, in a boat, to 
 which the recent sense of motion in a vessel of 
 five hundred tons imparted a double appear- 
 ance of insecurity. No shade — no shelter — 
 
IN BORNEO. 91 
 
 no resting-place. — Nothing around us but 
 glare, and the sharp briny particles of the sea- 
 spray : nothing beneath, but the struggle of a 
 painful death. The high resolve of my 
 father, — the pious resignation of my mother, 
 bore them up in that hour of trial. But my 
 poor little sister wept and murmured. As 
 for myself, I remember feeling, when the old 
 Kelso diminished to a speck in the distance, 
 (reminding us that by the dawn of another 
 day we must become ignorant of the fate of 
 those we had left behind,) as if my heart 
 had ceased to beat, — so heavy — so heavy was 
 it within my breast ! — 
 
 Our boat was a ten-oared boat. But the 
 five hands which had been spared us to work 
 it, exclusive of my father who took his turn 
 with the rest, would have sufficed to reach the 
 shore, wind and weather permitting, had poor 
 old Garvain's assertions been founded on fact, 
 
92 ADVENTURES 
 
 that we were witliiii two days of the coast. 
 Our crew hickily iiichidecl Williams, the 
 mate; who was not only valuable as an in- 
 telligent man and experienced seaman, but 
 as having the authority of long habit over 
 his shipmates. Though subordination could 
 scarcely exist under our deplorable circum- 
 stances, custom caused them to look up to 
 him with deference. In pursuance of his 
 advice, they pulled in relays of four oars at a 
 time, leaving a rest of two hours in rotation to 
 each, to husband their strength ; and for the 
 first two days, the excitement of novelty, 
 emulation, and, above all, of hope, caused 
 them to deal lightly with their undertaking. 
 But when the third day dawned, without 
 aftbrding the smallest prospect that we were 
 approaching land, and with their strength 
 and stock alike diminished, then began the 
 usual petulance of mutual recrimination and 
 selfish despair ! — 
 
IN BORNEO. 93 
 
 The heat of a tropical sun at noon-day had 
 wrought upon the tender veins of poor little 
 Emily, till she was almost in a state of frenzy ; 
 and my mother had some difficulty in keep- 
 ing her reclined at the bottom of the boat, 
 covered with the few garments she could com- 
 mand to screen her from those scorching rays ; 
 while her own head, like those of the Bedouins 
 of the desert, was enveloped in a thick shawl. 
 But there was no way of defending against 
 the sultry atmosphere our parched lips, to 
 which drink was now awarded drop by drop : 
 our small allowance of water being already 
 almost exhausted. 
 
 How we longed for the decline of day, 
 when the disappearance of that terrible sun 
 whose light darted into our flesh like a 
 poisoned weapon, would afford us a respite 
 from pain ! But alas ! the brief twilight of 
 those tropical latitudes was succeeded at once 
 by the gloom of night; and terrible is the 
 
94 ADVENTURES 
 
 gloom of night for those who must labour 
 through its darkness, and even at day- dawn 
 find no rest ! — 
 
 It was on the fourth morning, that, as the 
 screams of my poor little sister, who was 
 labouring under inflammation of the brain, 
 burst shrilly and distractingly through the 
 measured sound of the oars, whose monotony 
 was, if possible, still more excruciating, my 
 poor mother, helpless and hopeless, could not 
 forbear repining that she had not abided in 
 the ship. 
 
 " Either we should have now been at peace," 
 she exclaimed, " or I should have had the 
 means of relieving the anguish of this tortured 
 child!"— 
 
 But she was not the only murmurer. The 
 men, harassed and irritable, cursed the child 
 for shrieking; and one sulkily wished it dead, 
 that we might be free from its noise ! — What a 
 
IN BORNEO. 95 
 
 moan burst from my mother's lips as she 
 heard that heart-rending sentence ! A little 
 more provocation, and the excited man might 
 realize his wish, and snatch the little sufferer 
 to stifle its cries in the deep ! 
 
 Better had it been so, for such a blow would 
 
 have killed my mother at once And oh ! that 
 
 I should say so — would, would that she had 
 died!— 
 
 I cannot count the hours, for in such an 
 extremity as ours every hour might pass for 
 an ordinary day, during which we suffered 
 and despaired. When the minute came which 
 saw our last drop of water exhausted, we were 
 warned by Williams against endeavouring to 
 slake our thirst with sea-water, the bitter- 
 ness of which, in such moments of torture, 
 is no preventitive. For the last day and 
 night, my mother had lain at the bottom of 
 the boat, with her expiring child ; to whose 
 
96 ADVENTURES 
 
 paroxysms luckily succeeded a heavy stupor, 
 and the dilated pupils of her glassy eyes 
 seemed already fixed in death. 
 
 Yet my father spake never a word; and 
 when he did address some admonitory ex- 
 postulation to those out of whose hearts blas- 
 phemies and execrations were wrung by the 
 depths of their despair, the sound was so 
 faint and unnatural that I could scarcely 
 recognise it as his. It seemed as if he 
 were afraid of increasing the exhaustion of 
 his sinking nature by the emission of the 
 breath needful to ask us how we fared. All 
 he thought of was his part in the rowing; to 
 work — work — work, — so long as his failing 
 strength would admit; for every stroke of 
 the oar brought those whom his soul loved 
 nearer and nearer to their chance of rescue. 
 His hands, less used to such severe labour 
 than those of the seamen, were completely 
 
IN BORNEO. 97 
 
 excoriated ; so that I saw the blood drop from 
 them, when, after his turn of respite, he re- 
 sumed the oar. But such despondency was 
 in his face, that I did not dare to tell him 
 how my heart bled with them. It would 
 have seemed like intrusion on such deep- 
 seated woe, to talk of pity. All I could do 
 was to creep down to the bottom of the boat 
 and kiss his feet; for I saw that he was too 
 deeply absorbed to be conscious of the move- 
 ment, though at any other time the lightest 
 whisper of one of his children sufficed to 
 wake him from sleep, and the slightest caress 
 was returned a thousand fold. 
 
 Even when, after many hours of fearful 
 struggle betwixt life and death, old Hiram 
 (an American seaman, who had embarked 
 with us from the Cape, and from the moment 
 of quitting the Kelso harassed us by declaring 
 that ours was a lost case, and that it would 
 F 
 
98 ADVENTURES 
 
 save us many a pang to leap overboard at 
 once,) was the first of our crew to realize his 
 own predictions by sudden death, my father, 
 instead of pronouncing the usual form of 
 prayer over the body, ere it was consigned 
 to the deep, contented himself with pronounc- 
 ing — " the Lord receive thy spirit !" In such 
 a state of physical prostration as ours, the 
 mind, I am convinced, becomes paralyzed; 
 its best faculties lie dormant. 
 
 It was day-break when I saw the waters 
 close over our brother sufferer; and the dead 
 and sullen sound produced by the plunge of 
 the corpse over the side of the boat, afforded, 
 I suspect, the first indication to the ex- 
 perienced ear of Williams that we were 
 approaching land. Lead we had none, and 
 to judge by the eye was impossible; for a 
 moist, unwholesome haze seemed to exude 
 like steam from the sea. At the distance of 
 
IN BORNEO. 99 
 
 a hundred yards, we should have been unable 
 to discern a vessel bearing down upon us. 
 
 As to myself, partly from inanition, and 
 partly from the influence of this stifling va- 
 pour, my head swam, and my heart sickened, 
 as I have since often found them do under 
 the action of opium ; and all that was going 
 on round me in the boat appeared to pass in 
 a dream. Lying at my father's feet, — so close 
 to my poor mother that I could hear her 
 irregular breathing, — log-like as I was, and 
 almost devoid of sensation, I overheard at 
 intervals a few hoarse phrases exchanged be- 
 tween Williams and my father. Both of 
 them had descried on the verge of the horizon 
 the preceding evening, which was luckily 
 clear from mist, a strange sail, which, when 
 pointed out by their exclamations, I could 
 liken only to the curiously-rigged boats or 
 junks one sees sailing in the air on some 
 f2 
 
100 ADVENTURES 
 
 Japan screen or Chinese tea-box. But Wil- 
 liams, who was familiar with these seas, 
 instantly pronounced the word " prahu," in a 
 tone of consternation which I knew not how 
 to interpret ; and I now heard him assert to 
 my father his conviction that we were nearing 
 the coast of Borneo, and that the vessel we 
 had seen was one of the pirate ships of the 
 Illanun tribe! — 
 
 "And then," added Williams, in his now 
 guttural and despairing voice, " the Lord 
 have mercy upon us! Better, a thousand 
 times, that we had gone to the bottom in the 
 poor old Kelso, than fall into the hands of 
 those nithless ruffians !" 
 
 " A poor conquest for their valour," re- 
 joined my father, inarticulately. " A boat- 
 load of dying men, with the bodies of a dead 
 woman and her babes!" And there was 
 something horrible in the burst of half hys- 
 
IN BORNEO. 101 
 
 terical laughter with which he concluded the 
 sentence. 
 
 What ensued I know not, for my senses 
 were dimmed by a weight of insensibility, — 
 half weakness, half stupor. The first thing 
 I recollect was the keel of the boat grating on 
 some hard substance, — the sands of a coast 
 which extensive coral reefs rendered only par- 
 tially accessible. It was evening. A broad 
 sheet of purple, flecked with streaks of gold 
 and crimson, already covered the West, from 
 whence the sun had but just disappeared; and 
 by the glimmering light, I could discern a shelv- 
 ing bank, sloping upwards from the waters, 
 composed of what appeared to be colossal ser- 
 pents, writhing round each other. At all 
 events, our keel was fast in the sand. Yes, dry 
 land was before us! — Yet though such a 
 change had been looked for as fervently as of 
 old from the ark of the patriarch, not a cry 
 
102 ADVENTURES 
 
 of exultation burst from the four living men 
 wlio now, alas! constituted our boat's crew. 
 No one spoke, not even to render thanks to 
 God for his deliverance. The consternation 
 of our minds was paramount. 
 
 " I know these mangrove shores," muttered 
 Williams, in answer to my father's proposal to 
 him, that he and one of the crew should land 
 and obtain succour for my mother, who, 
 though insensible from fear, still breathed, as 
 till very recently did the little sufferer, nest- 
 ling in her bosom ; " it is next to impos- 
 sible to obtain a footing on them. What you 
 see are but the roots, and may be climbed 
 like a ladder; but, above, the plant itself is 
 still more bitterly intertangled. The morass 
 in which it springs would probably immerse 
 you to the middle in black and fetid mud. 
 There is no reaching the land from hence." 
 
 " Then let us pull round to the creek, half 
 
IN BORNEO. 103 
 
 a mile to the eastward, which we noticed from 
 sea," cried my father ; " to which we traced 
 the current of fresh water, and where Harmer 
 fancied he saw the smoke rising among the 
 trees." 
 
 " The smoke of some confounded village of 
 Dyak Lauts, where we should be butchered in 
 cold blood for the sake of our clothes and 
 pistols !" rejoined Williams, crossing his arms 
 dispiritedly over his breast, instead of follow- 
 ing my father's example of again seizing his 
 oar. 
 
 " What do you mean, Williams? — What do 
 you suggest? — What would you propose?" — 
 cried my father, impatiently, for the precious 
 lives of those he loved might be squandered 
 during the altercation. " If the danger you 
 surmise exist, we must face it at last ; why not 
 now ? Be a man, and let us row for the creek." 
 
 And already, he struck the oar among the 
 
104 ADVENTURES 
 
 mangrove roots, to push oiF from shore; so 
 shelving at the spot we had touched, that two 
 yards off. we were in five fathom water. But 
 Williams, backed by his messmate Harmer, 
 still resisted. " Wait at least till nightfall," 
 said he, "that we may reconnoitre, and do 
 the best we can for ourselves." 
 
 Wait ! — when the sands of that precious life 
 were ebbing away ! — 
 
 " At nightfall — it is but an hour," resumed 
 Williams, — " we will push for the creek, or at 
 least till we reach the nearest landing-place 
 to this accursed jungle. I will go on shore 
 myself. I am better used than you are to deal 
 with these barbarians. They will accom- 
 pany me back to see what is to be gained 
 by blowing out our brains, instead of chaffer- 
 ing with me for fruit and water, or agreeing 
 to afford us shelter. As I've told you again 
 and again, Mr. Meredyth, your old-world 
 
IN BORNEO, 105 
 
 notions about hospitality and mercy will only 
 lead you astray. With these Godless savages, 
 you must deal as they would deal with you^ 
 or you'll get the worst of it." 
 
 " At what are you aiming ?'' said my father, 
 peevish at what appeared the mate's insensibi- 
 lity to the sufferings of his wife and children. 
 
 '' At making you understand that if, while 
 dealing with an lUanun, you allow him to per- 
 ceive that you are in possession of a larger 
 sum of money than the one you offer him, 
 you will get your throat cut. God knows we 
 have not much besides our skins, to tempt 
 their covetousness. But the little we possess, 
 either coin or arms, is all we have to look to 
 for the purchase of our escape from this 
 savage land." 
 
 A murmur of assent from his three mess- 
 mates seemed to assign consideration to his 
 counsel. 
 
 F 3 
 
106 ADVENTURES 
 
 " What we have to do, therefore, is to bury 
 at some given point, hereabouts, in the sand, 
 our money and watches, with the exception 
 of a few silver pieces for the purchase of ne- 
 cessaries. Escaped from shipwreck, they 
 cannot expect to find us very nobly provided ; 
 and we shall thus have a resource to fall back 
 upon, if, as I trust, we find a few Chinamen 
 settled among the natives. Accustomed to 
 deal with English traders, they would, for in- 
 terest sake, espouse our cause." 
 
 My father shrugged his shoulders. But he 
 saw that acquiescence alone would quiet Wil- 
 liams's anxieties, and procure shelter and 
 refreshment for her whose existence hung 
 upon a thread. To what purpose, indeed, 
 dispute with one so much more practised in 
 the straits of Oriental adventures, and so 
 much more master of his faculties ! Mecha- 
 nically, therefore, he placed in the hands of the 
 
IN BORNEO. 107 
 
 mate the little packet, stowed away under the 
 gunwale, containing his valuables ; which, with 
 a few trifles belonging to the men, Mr. Wil- 
 liams enclosed carefully in a stout leathern 
 pouch which had been used by poor Hiram 
 for tobacco. Then, having leapt on shore, he 
 sought a spot high and dry among the man- 
 grove roots; where, after carefully scraping 
 away the sand, the treasure was deposited. 
 To mark the place for future recognition, he 
 tied round an adjoining root of peculiar twist, 
 the ragged remnant of a black silk handker- 
 chief, which had once served as a cravat, and 
 of late as a signal, of which none but the 
 sea-birds were likely to take heed. 
 
 When he had finished his task and re- 
 turned to the boat, my father, who had 
 thrown himself down beside us, was weeping 
 like a child, from exhaustion and helpless- 
 ness* — He saw that the preservation of his 
 
108 ADVENTURES 
 
 wife and children depended on his exertions, 
 and that the powers of his mind and body 
 were alike prostrate. Even Williams was a 
 plummet over him. The good mate bad him 
 " cheer up, and be a man !'* 
 
 " A man, — but a doomed one," faltered my 
 father in reply. " Old Nieuwenhuysen was 
 right. We sailed under a black flag." 
 
 The words had scarcely passed his languid 
 lips, when Williams, finding his low " hush !" 
 disregarded, seized him by the arm to impose 
 silence. "Listen!" said he, in an ominous 
 whisper ; and in a moment, through the still- 
 ness of that desert shore and breathless even- 
 ing, the strike of distant oars was percep- 
 tible. 
 
 Though nothing was yet to be seen, a boat 
 was certainly approaching. But came it in 
 peace or came it in war ? Alas ! the only one 
 of our party skilled in the demonstrations of 
 
IN BORNEO. 109 
 
 these barbarians, evidently apprehended the 
 latter extremity. 
 
 "Arm yourself, Meredyth!" cried he, at 
 the same time snatching up the pistols and 
 powder flasks, which lay under the gunwale of 
 the boat. 
 
 " Whatever may betide, stir not," cried my 
 father, addressing me in his turn, and flinging 
 his boat-cloak over myself and my mother, ere 
 he seized the weapons held out to him by the 
 mate. 
 
 I obeyed by pressing close to the dear 
 side of what I could not then distinguish to 
 be a breathing body, or a lifeless corpse. 
 Over both of us, the heavy boat-cloak was 
 extended like a shroud ! — 
 
110 ADVENTURES 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A MOMENT afterwards, my heart was pa- 
 ralyzed by the sound of a yell such as I had 
 not conceived the human lungs capable of 
 producing. No further question, whether 
 friend or foe were at hand ! — It was the war- 
 cry of some savage foe ! — 
 
 The hasty orders given by Williams to my 
 father to arm himself, had probably been mis- 
 understood. Or it may be that, in the flurry 
 of loading, his pistol inadvertently went off, 
 
IN BORNEO. Ill 
 
 just as the first of two canoe-like boats, that 
 were advancing through the twilight, glided 
 rapidly towards us. For the report was so 
 closely intermingled with the horrible uproar 
 of our assailants, that I was never able to 
 satisfy myself whether their rage was pro- 
 voked by a hostile demonstration on our part, 
 or whether they had from the first approached 
 with evil intent. But their enmity was now 
 unmistakeable. 
 
 Enfolded as I was, my sight was wholly 
 obstructed, and my hearing partially impeded. 
 But I found, by the movement of the boat, 
 that Williams and his companions had, at the 
 fearful outcry of our assailants, leapt on 
 shore, to find such ambush as they might 
 among the mangroves; while my father, not 
 choosing to desert the precious freight over 
 which he was guardian, remained stand- 
 ing in the boat, prepared to defend, to the 
 
112 ADVENTURES 
 
 last drop of liis blood, his own life and the 
 lives far dearer to him. But, from his stag- 
 gering gait, I soon perceived that he was 
 wounded, though no second explosion had 
 taken place, and the canoes were not yet close 
 enough for boarding. Nor was it till when, long 
 afterwards, I became familiar with the use of 
 the sumpitan or blow-pipe, through which the 
 Dyaks discharge their poisoned arrows, that I 
 knew his wound to have proceeded from one 
 of those darts pointed with fish-bones steeped 
 in the deadly juice of the upas, which con- 
 stitute one of the most fatal weapons of bar- 
 barian warfare. 
 
 A moment afterwards, I became conscious 
 that strong men were closing with him, arm 
 to arm; but the strife of tongues, both loud 
 and strange, answering each other in various 
 directions, rendered it impossible to decide 
 whether we were attacked from sea or land. 
 
IN BORNEO. 113 
 
 Many of these, resounding in the distance, 
 probably arose from the savages pursuing our 
 fugitives into the jungle; but the ruffians by 
 whom my father was speedily overmastered, 
 bore him off instantly a prisoner to the canoes ; 
 two of them, who remained behind, proceeding 
 to ransack our boat, carrying off the few 
 articles of clothing that remained. At the 
 meaning of their exclamations, while tram- 
 pling on our prostrate bodies, it was impos- 
 sible to guess. But as the corpse of our poor 
 precious little Emily, which they first snatched 
 up, was already cold, they probably decided 
 that the white strangers were bringing these 
 their dead to shore for interment, when they 
 were discovered and set upon. Our boat 
 being secured till the reflux of the tide, they 
 chose to leave it and join their comrades in 
 pursuit of the fugitives ; whom they probably 
 suspected of having carried off the European 
 
114 ADVENTURES 
 
 treasures on which they had calculated, no 
 trace of which was to be found. 
 
 Either in the wantonness of disappoint- 
 ment, however, or to " make assurance double 
 sure" of leaving only lifeless corpses behind, 
 one of these barbarians, ere he stepped back 
 into the canoe, drew forth from his belt a 
 kriss or long Malayan knife, and stabbed my 
 poor mother again and again in the breast. 
 A third stab was destined to myself; but 
 luckily — must I say luckily ! — the stroke which 
 would have been otherwise mortal, glanced 
 from the metal buttons of my jacket, and the 
 weapon entered only the fleshy part of my 
 arm. 
 
 Sufficiently master of myself not to utter 
 the slightest cry of pain or terror, the savages 
 doubtless judged that their first surmise was 
 correct, and that they were dealing only with 
 dead bodies; for they went on their way re- 
 
IN BORNEO. 115 
 
 joicing. I heard the stroke of their receding 
 oars, mingled with shouts of triumph, as if 
 replying to those audible at intervals from 
 the jungle. But from the precipitation of 
 their movements, both during the attack and 
 retreat, there was reason to suppose that they 
 were people acting surreptitiously and trea- 
 cherously, as regarded some greater power. 
 And this subsequently proved to be the case. 
 
 But my condition was not one that admitted 
 of reasoning. As I lay there, maimed, bleed- 
 ing, and lonely, my life ebbing from me on 
 the savage shore of an unknown country, 
 where our remains, if not devoured by can- 
 nibals, would be the prey of the sea-eagles or 
 the jackals already howling in the jungle, 
 my soul did not instinctively compose it- 
 self to peace. In the smart of my wound, 
 and bitterness of my apprehensions, murmurs 
 broke from my parched lips. '' Why was I 
 
116 ADVENTURES 
 
 born to suffer thus? — Why, why were my dear 
 parents and myself thus grievously tor- 
 mented ?"— 
 
 I spoke aloud ; and the hissing on the sand 
 of the receding tide was the sole answer 
 vouchsafed me. On which, as if mocked by 
 the sound, I burst into such a paroxysm of 
 sobbing, as caused the blood to well yet more 
 freely from my wound; and again, in what I 
 believed to be my dying moments, I cried 
 aloud, like Job in his misery, that " God had 
 forsaken me!" — 
 
 Let those who benevolently sympathize 
 with the grievousness of my position, figure 
 to themselves my sensations when, the next 
 moment, I heard the voice of my mother faintly 
 but audibly articulating beside me, '^ Patience, 
 patience, my child ! — Patience, my poor 
 child !"— 
 
 Firmly convinced that she addressed me 
 
IN BORNEO. 117 
 
 from the dead to reprove my insubmission to 
 the will of Heaven, my tongue clave to the 
 roof of my mouth; and, terror-struck, I re- 
 signed myself to die. But after a minute's 
 pause, the same dear gentle voice called upon 
 me by name ; and I perceived that, by some 
 strange miracle, the breath which had been 
 suspended was restored. There was now 
 nearly as much warmth in the body I had 
 for hours regarded as lifeless, as in my own. 
 The copious flow of blood from the wounds 
 wantonly inflicted by our savage assailants, 
 had, in fact, afforded that relief to her fever- 
 struck frame which, in Europe, would have 
 been imparted by the aid of the physician. 
 
 I had, however, as little strength to ques- 
 tion her, as she to answer. She extended her 
 feeble arm, as if to bless me; but it fell back 
 powerless to her side. The remedy which 
 had recalled her to life must, unless sus- 
 
118 ADVENTURES 
 
 pended, soon bring that life to a close. No 
 merciful hand to staunch those salutary 
 wounds! — No aid to yield so much as a 
 draught of water to her parched lips ! — 
 
 "Where is Emily?" faltered she, as I dragged 
 my wasted cheek nearer to her own. 
 
 "Dead, dear mother! — At rest!" I had 
 not breath to add that the corpse of that dar- 
 ling sister lay unburied at our feet. 
 
 " And your father?" — she gasped, as I 
 managed to reach her hand and press it in my 
 own. 
 
 I did not answer. To what purpose in- 
 crease her sufferings by telling her that he 
 was wounded and a captive ! 
 
 "Dead, too!" said she — as if replying to 
 my silence. " Soon to be re-united — soon, 
 soon to be happily re-united !" was, a moment 
 afterwards, her ejaculation. Then, as if sud- 
 denly remembering the sufferings which had 
 wrung such heavy moans from my lips, she 
 
IN BORNEO. 119 
 
 prayed aloud that, if it pleased God, we might 
 be released. 
 
 " Yet, if otherwise appointed, Thy will be 
 done !" said she, clasping our hands together 
 upon her labouring bosom. Adding, after 
 a short pause, during which she had endea- 
 voured to gather breath to admonish me, — 
 " You are young, my son. You may struggle 
 through it yet !" — 
 
 *' Oh! mother — not through sufferings like 
 these !" murmured I, with failing fortitude. 
 
 " Trust to the sustaining hand which hath 
 rescued the poor and needy out of sorer straits 
 than ours !" said the dying woman. " And 
 now, and ever, call humbly and patiently 
 upon the name of the Lord thy God !'' 
 
 But I could not obey her. — I was sullen with 
 pain and despair. — It was only towards her 
 that my heart softened. 
 
 " Should you survive, my poor darling," 
 said she, attributing my silence to weakness, 
 
120 ADVENTURES 
 
 " remember, Charles, remember as long as you 
 
 live, that " Alas ! alas ! her words, which 
 
 had been throughout incoherent — for I give 
 them only as I concluded them to be — be- 
 came thoroughly inarticulate; or else my 
 own sense of hearing was so imperfect from 
 pain, that her last charge was incompre- 
 hensible. Thenceforward she uttered but a few 
 detached ejaculations — of which I distinguished 
 only — " my brother — Swallowfield — me- 
 mory." A long silence ensued, — interrupted 
 by a frightful spasmodic rattle in the throat, 
 intimating the approach of death. Ere it 
 ceased, my own consciousness forsook me. 
 All afterwards was a blank. 
 
 The first thing that recalled me to myself 
 was a cool fresh sensation ; and then, a 
 sudden leaping or gasping back to life — worse 
 to endure than all my previous pangs. — And 
 lo! a greenish glimmering light was around 
 
IN BORNEO. 121 
 
 me — the light of a tropical dawn;— and close 
 over my head hung a dusky face — how un- 
 sightly to my childish eyes ! Yet the counte- 
 nance was mild and friendly ; and the hands 
 that were chafing my limbs and chest were 
 soft and tender. On endeavouring to look 
 around me, I saw that I was lying in a canoe ; 
 the paddles of which were worked by two 
 women, of the same swarthy complexion and 
 strange aspect as the one who was removing 
 my garments saturated and stiffened with 
 blood. But the operation, though kindly in- 
 tended, served only to renew the haemorrhage 
 which had reduced me to my present weak- 
 ness. Again, a deadly faintness came over 
 me. I remember only that the kind woman 
 who was endeavouring to aid me, moistened 
 my lips with the juice of a fresh lime, more 
 welcome than nectar ; and rested my aching 
 head upon her knees, till the canoe, which had 
 
 G 
 
122 ADVENTURES 
 
 been coasting along shore, reached what was 
 probably its destination. For the paddles 
 were now flung down, and I was carefully taken 
 out by the two rowers, and removed between 
 them as tenderly as if a child of their tribe. 
 And yet so swift were their movements that 
 the morning air, through which they bore me, 
 refreshed my feverish face. I was scarcely 
 sensible. All I knew was that we passed under 
 the shade of spreading trees, overtopped here 
 and there by a feathery palm. When my 
 bearers paused, some sort of discussion arose 
 between the three women ; which ended with 
 my being clasped in the arms of my first 
 attendant, (whom I heard apostrophised by 
 the other two by the name of "Acheena,") 
 and carried with some difficulty up a steep 
 ladder that appeared to lead to a granary, 
 mounted upon piles and thatclied with palm 
 leaves. 
 
IN BORNEO. 123 
 
 On reaching the top, she paused to recover 
 her breath ; then, making her tottering way 
 with her burthen through several compart- 
 ments of this strange structure, the rough floor- 
 ing of which consisted of split bamboos, she 
 reached an inner chamber; in one corner of 
 which was spread a neat white mat, with a 
 cane-work pillow. Here, she carefully depo- 
 sited me ; and in a moment I was surrounded 
 by a tribe of half-naked children and 
 women, habited in a short kilt or petti- 
 coat; — some of coarse white cloth, some of 
 wrought birch bark, and wearing rude metal 
 rings on their arms and ancles. But Acheena 
 peremptorily dismissed them, save one old 
 woman, whom I supposed to be her mother ; 
 with whose assistance she proceeded to bathe 
 and bind my wound, and foment the contusions 
 with which I was covered. 
 
 The tears that stood in Acheena's eyes, and 
 g2 
 
124 ADVENTURES 
 
 the pitying exclamations of the old woman, as, 
 at every motion and every recurrent thought, 
 heavy moans attested my anguish of body 
 and spirit, convinced me that I had found 
 friends ; and I endeavoured in return to make 
 them sensible of my gratitude, when refreshing 
 drinks were brought me in rude cups formed 
 from the cocoa-nut ; while a decoction of bruised 
 herbs was carefully applied to my wounded 
 limbs. 
 
 These drinks probably contained some of 
 the powerful narcotics familiarly used in the 
 East. For, in spite of pain and excitement, I 
 fell into a profound slumber ; in which my spirit 
 became as active as my body remained help- 
 less. The terrible scenes in which I had 
 been recently an actor, reproduced themselves 
 in my visions ; but magnified in all the horror 
 of their details. The mangrove roots became 
 twisting and menacing serpents, guarding that 
 
IN BORNEO. 125 
 
 ill-oiiiened sliore : the miscreants who had 
 plunged their weapons into the breast of my 
 dying mother were fiends from Hell, whose 
 triumphant yells proclaimed unlimited mastery 
 over their victims. My fair-faced sister, my 
 mild holy mother, were dragged before my eyes 
 to unimaginable torments. My father became 
 the prey of cannibals; — and all the while I 
 fancied myself extended on a couch of red-hot 
 iron, or floating on a sea of burning marie. 
 
 Anon came the softer influence of the opiate : 
 green vistas and waving corn-fields, — the 
 pleasant hamlet-homes of my lost country; 
 — the sheep in the fold, — the kine in the pas- 
 tures, — the sun-burnt hay-fields, — the furzy, 
 heathy common, with its scraps of gravel-pit, 
 overhung with weeping birch or pendent 
 briony : — cottage-gardens, bursting with fruit 
 and dappled with flowers, — or lordly parks, 
 with stately avenues, and herding deer 
 
126 ADVENTURES 
 
 cherished into lameness. Everywhere, ver- 
 dure, — everywhere, quiet. Even the clouded 
 atmosphere presented a charm to eyes long 
 seared by the monotonous glare of a bound- 
 less ocean and tropical sky. 
 
 But, amid those refreshing scenes, I looked 
 in vain for my parents ! — I looked in vain for 
 the smiling sister, born to us in just such a nest 
 of peace ! — In vain did I wander and wander 
 through wood, and shrubbery, and open plain ; 
 seeking and seeking the dear familiar faces that 
 shone upon my childhood. I sought the well- 
 known church : my father's place stood empty. 
 I flew from cottage to cottage ; but the form of 
 my mother, which, like a ray of light from 
 Paraclete the comforter, used to hover of old 
 wherever there was darkness, and diffuse 
 comfort wherever sickness prevailed, was 
 strangely, strangely absent ! — And that absence 
 marked the unreality of all I gazed on. 
 
IN BORNEO. 127 
 
 And yet so vivid were my impressions, and 
 even my power of reasoning thereon, that at 
 length I sought out, till I found it, the wicket 
 gate leading to the avenue of lime-trees, and 
 from thence to the church-yard ; where, to my 
 childish eyes, perpetual sunshine seemed to 
 abide. Since gone from the face of the earth, 
 it was there^ I fancied, I should find the me- 
 morial of all that had been: humble head- 
 stones, perhaps, recording only that they had 
 lived and died, — had been beloved, and were 
 still lamented. — But what can human memory 
 wish for more? 
 
 Yet even there, was their name wanting ! 
 The church-yard I entered was not the same 
 as of yore. The vegetation was grown dank 
 and unwholesome ; tall grass, and weeds over- 
 topping the grass. The ancient yew-trees 
 extended their sombre boughs till they shut 
 out the sky. But, lo! glimmering dispro- 
 
128 ADVENTURES 
 
 portionately beneath them, like some huge 
 excrescence of the ground, rose a shapeless 
 marble tomb, surmounted by a coronet, and 
 garnished alternately with the heraldic shapes 
 I used to notice on the old family coach of 
 the H.'s, and the grim emblems of death; 
 — wyverns and skulls, unicorns and cross- 
 bones, so jumbled together as to be lu- 
 dicrous rather than imposing. — But the titles 
 engraven on the tomb were Eight Honourable 
 ones. Nothing of the humble name of Mere- 
 dyth slept below ! 
 
 Where, oh ! where, then, should I seek them 
 next? Alas! my spiritual Avanderings were 
 actuated by no volition of my own; and all 
 further impressions became misty, inconclu- 
 sive, vague. But as I seemed to flit along 
 the ground, skimming the surface of flowery 
 savannahs, a strain of softest and sweetest 
 music led me on, so that I had no fui'ther 
 
IN BORNEO. 129 
 
 fears. I was at once happy and sad. I was 
 even conscious of shedding tears in my sleep, 
 and that they were tenderly wiped away by 
 some watchful hand. But I knew not whether 
 I lived the life of this world, or existed as a 
 disembodied spirit. 
 
 Why do I revert to these purposeless 
 visions? Because to write of them is a relief 
 to my feelings, after recurrence to facts so 
 torturing, and with the records of such dreary 
 days in store awaiting my commemoration. 
 For when, by degrees, my long-protracted doze 
 gave way to the clear consciousness of my 
 situation, — a situation scarcely wilder in the 
 reality than my opium-prompted dreams, — 
 what was there to reconcile me to life, in find- 
 ing myself a lonely captive, amidst a horde of 
 savages, whose very name, country, faith, and 
 customs were a problem to my mind? 
 
 On unclosing my eyes I was still lying on 
 g3 
 
130 ADVENTURES 
 
 my mat, in a chamber open at the sides, but 
 shaded from the sun and weather by deep- 
 sloping eaves of thatch formed with the 
 leaves of the Nepa palm; of which material 
 also consisted the interior compartments of 
 this wild habitation. But over the bamboo 
 flooring, the rude crevices of which I had 
 noticed on my first entrance, had been placed 
 a sort of carpet-work formed of the bark of 
 trees ; an act of mercy on the part of my kind 
 attendants, in order to muffle their footsteps, 
 and preserve undisturbed the restorative sleep 
 afforded by their medicaments. 
 
 At the further corner of the room sat 
 Acheena and the old woman ; engaged in weav- 
 ing slender slips of rattan into ornaments 
 similar to those serving to attach their linen 
 kirtles, which I afterwards learned to call 
 sarongs. Unwilling to speak, I lay and 
 watched the movements of Acheena ; who, in 
 
IN BORNEO. 131 
 
 the intervals of her work, came and went as 
 if her attention were partly engaged in an 
 outer room : her naked feet, light and noise- 
 less as those of the aerial figures I had seen 
 in my dreams, — her movements supple and 
 graceful. Tawny as a Moor, her jet-black 
 hair fell in two long braided tresses below her 
 waist ; but round her brows was a cincture of 
 interwoven rattan and birch bark, similar to 
 that which girded her loins ; imparting a queen- 
 like air to her head, somewhat at variance 
 with the youthfulness of her shape and move- 
 ments. Strange, however, as was her aspect, 
 my kind nurse was pleasant to look on; for 
 humanity and cheerfulness brightened her 
 swarthy face. 
 
 There was but one thing about her repul- 
 sive to my feelings. Eound her neck, among 
 many strings of tiny beads, (not more barba- 
 rous, perhaps, as ornaments, than the multi- 
 
132 ADVENTUBES 
 
 plicity of chains with which English ladies 
 delight to overload themselves,) was one, — a 
 white and glistening necklace, — not of pearl, 
 but of small teeth. A horrible surmise 
 glanced into my mind ! — Were they human ? 
 
 The shudder I was unable to control at 
 the surmise, attracted Acheena's attention; 
 and, hastening to her patient, she knelt down 
 beside my mat, and, with a serious counte- 
 nance, felt my hands, feet, chest, and fore- 
 head. Her investigation having satisfied her 
 that I was wholly free from fever, she leapt 
 up with an altered air; clapping her hands for 
 joy, and indulged in a number of familiar 
 gambols, while issuing her commands to the 
 old woman, who, by this time, was peeping 
 over her shoulder. 
 
 I thought they were about to unbind and 
 dress my wound. But after examining the 
 ligatures and the limb, it was gently replaced 
 
IN BORNEO. 133 
 
 by my side ; in pursuance, I suppose, of a 
 system which might be advantageously adopted 
 in more civilized lands, of " letting well alone." 
 The truth was — and they seemed to know it 
 as well as if I had expressed it to them — my 
 wound had ceased to pain me; and I expe- 
 rienced only the stiffness and numbness con- 
 sequent on compression. But had I been still 
 in a state of acute suffering, I could not have 
 been more tenderly dealt with than by Acheena 
 and the old woman, while again bathing my 
 face and limbs, and adjusting my couch of 
 mats. Their gentleness brought my own dear 
 mother to my mind, and saddened my spirits, 
 which a refreshing beverage of lime-juice and 
 honey had for a moment raised. But on see- 
 ing tears in my eyes, Acheena fled into the 
 adjoining chamber; and, by way of recreation 
 and comfort for me, brought back in her arms 
 a little brown thing, swathed in bark, which. 
 
134 ADVENTURES 
 
 nodding and smiling significantly, she laid by 
 my side. Lucky that she was unable to 
 surmise how much more like a monkey than a 
 human being I thought this pledge of her 
 affections ! — 
 
 Poor little animal ! Uncouth as it seemed 
 to me^ it partook of its mother's kindly 
 nature ; for on turning its eyes upon the 
 languid white boy, it laughed, not only with 
 its bright dark eyes, but with a little mouth 
 that unclosed to show the first four pearly 
 teeth of babyhood; at sight of which, I once 
 more drew back and shuddered, from asso- 
 ciating them with Acheena's necklace. 
 
 Again, the mother surveyed me compas- 
 sionately, and again disappeared. But this 
 time she returned laden with something more 
 grateful to the eye than the little brown- 
 headed urchin; viz., several calibashes filled 
 with fruits unknown to me by name or sightj 
 
IN BORNEO. 135 
 
 but with which I soon made myself better 
 acquainted ; the delicious mangosteen, the 
 luscious durien, the creamy banana; besides 
 oranges ripe and melting, and pomegranates, 
 whose ruddy rinds were bursting with the 
 juicy seeds so acceptable to a feverish mouth. 
 The little one by my side tried to snatch some 
 of these tempting treasures; but with words 
 and gestures of such fondling endearment as 
 I could scarcely reconcile with the ugliness 
 of the poor little imp, Acheena coaxed them 
 away from it ; and hugging it rapturously in 
 her arms, carried it off to her mat at the 
 opposite side of the room,^ to bestow upon 
 it the nutriment better suited to its tender 
 age. 
 
 As she nursed it and crooned to it, I seemed 
 better to understand the tender mercies her 
 motherly heart had bestowed upon myself. 
 She had seen my dead mother; and the 
 
136 ADVENTURES 
 
 woman's instinct of her nature yearned to- 
 wards an orphan ! — 
 
 But oh ! whenever that thought of orphan- 
 hood recurred to me, how wildly did my tears 
 burst forth ! As yet, I had seen no male in 
 the dwelling under whose roof I was shel- 
 tered. But this kind woman must have a 
 husband — this crowing babe a father — in the 
 tribe who had slaughtered my parents, and 
 perhaps carried off our surviving people into 
 captivity. 
 
 If unable fully to enter into my feelings, 
 my mild hostess comprehended them suffi- 
 ciently to spare no pains in endeavouring to 
 comfort and re-assure me. When I gained 
 strength to attempt such inquiries as signs 
 and gestures would express, and she was made 
 to understand my anxieties concerning the 
 fate of those who, I explained to her by 
 placing her infant in her arms, stood in the 
 
IN BORNEO. 137 
 
 same relation to me as she to the poor urchin, 
 nothing could be more phiintive than the 
 tones in which she replied by words I could 
 not understand, but which her movements 
 gracefully, though grievously, availed to in- 
 terpret. She assured me that my mother — 
 she of the long hair — whose little one lay by 
 her side, — had been buried by her people ; and, 
 with a solemn countenance, fetched a bowl full 
 of flowers from the adjoining chamber, and 
 showed me how they had been strewn over 
 their grave. 
 
 I then endeavoured to ascertain the fate of 
 my dear father. — Was he dead? — Was he a 
 prisoner? — 
 
 But on that point, my best efforts were in- 
 effectual. Acheena knew nothing of our boat 
 or its crew, antecedent to the moment of find- 
 ing me, senseless and bathed in blood, beside 
 the corpses of a woman and child abandoned 
 
138 ADVENTURES 
 
 ill a stranded boat. But by dint of vehement 
 expressions of horror and indignation, she 
 made me comprehend that, whatever mis- 
 chance had befallen our party, was the work 
 of a strange tribe — the enemy of her own; — 
 that she and hers stood as much in awe of 
 these sea-robbers as the white men themselves ; 
 that if their prahus had quitted the coast, it 
 was because the Illanun crew which had at- 
 tacked us found they had enough to do in 
 overmastering the white people, without stay- 
 ing to attack the hamlet of Tanjoo, of which 
 the dwelling I was sheltered in, formed a 
 part. 
 
 All this I did not, of course, at once com- 
 prehend ; but after many earnest explanations, 
 I came to the above conclusions. Acheena 
 also apprised me that her husband and his 
 fellow-villagers were away, up the country, to 
 carry their annual tribute to the rajah of the 
 
IN BORNEO. 139 
 
 district. She seemed to fancy it was their 
 absence which had tempted the Illanuns to 
 land upon the coast, with a view to plunder 
 and capture; when our unlooked-for arrival 
 produced a change in their purpose. 
 
 By degrees I imbibed, among these impres- 
 sions, the comfort of knowing myself to be in 
 security. As I gained strength, the kinsfolk 
 and companions of Acheena flocked in to gaze 
 upon the stranger. But not offensively. All 
 spoke me kindly, or soothed me with endear- 
 ing gestures. I was an object of heartfelt 
 compassion among those dusky women, with 
 their cane-wrought armlets and coronals. Some 
 brought me fruit, some sago, some rice, some 
 the gaudy feathers of lories, some the purple 
 shells of their coast. For I was small of my 
 years ; and they compassionated me as a poor 
 motherless child, whom the Illanuns had de- 
 prived of his parents. And what could Chris- 
 
140 ADVENTURES 
 
 tians have done more tbaii these poor un- 
 lettered heathens? — 
 
 I noticed that, every morning, the first mea- 
 sure of Acheena, on entering my chamber from 
 tlie outer one -which she shared with the 
 women and children of the household, was to 
 take off and cast out of the window a single 
 flower from a string of half-dried blossoms, of 
 the jessamine kind, but larger and more highly 
 scented than the dear old tree at Swallowfield ; 
 a ceremony Avhich at first I believed to form 
 part of some religious observance. But her 
 eyes brightened so whenever she snatched 
 down one of those withered buds, that I en- 
 deavoured to gain an explanation. On which 
 she pointed out to me, that only two flowers 
 remained on the string; and explained that, 
 after two more sunsets, her husband, Bulan, 
 would be at home again ! — This flower-tally 
 was an almanack, by which to count the days 
 of his absence. — 
 
IN BORNEO. 141 
 
 Though Acheena leapt up and clapped her 
 hands for joy when she made this announce- 
 ment, snatching up the little brown urchin 
 that was crawling over the bamboo floor, and 
 covering it with triumphant caresses, I 
 own it served to depress me. Creeping into 
 the shadiest corner of the chamber, which I 
 had not yet found strength to quit, I began 
 to weep bitterly. If this man, this savage, 
 this Bulan, as she called him, should prove as 
 brutal as those other wretches of his colour 
 whose war-cry still seemed to sound in my 
 ears, what would become of me? — I might 
 still be carried into slavery, or slaughtered 
 in cold blood! — Vague, but terrible appre- 
 hensions, overcame me. The tenderness of 
 Acheena had for a time tranquillized my 
 sorrow; and the novelty of the scene around 
 me excited my interest. But now, I began 
 to reproach myself with having submitted to 
 
142 ADVENTURES 
 
 be comforted. My tears flowed unresisted. 
 Poor helpless outcast that I was ! Why was 
 I not at rest beside my mother and sister ? — 
 
 So occupied were the women in preparing 
 a festival for the return of their lords and 
 masters, that they took less heed than usual 
 of my sorrows. They brought me, at inter- 
 vals, morsels of the viands they were prepar- 
 ing. But I could not eat. Nor, had appetite 
 been vouchsafed me, should I have ventured 
 upon their food, unless under the unmistake- 
 able form of fish or fowl. A meat, which I 
 afterwards knew to be dried venison, filled me 
 with indescribable horror. I had heard such 
 loathsome stories from the sailors of the Kelso, 
 touching the unclean food of the Borneans, 
 Chinamen, and Malays! — 
 
 Vainly did I endeavour to make poor 
 Acheena sensible of the origin of the anxie- 
 ties which were producing so unfavourable a 
 
IN BORNEO. * 143 
 
 change in my health. At length, as she stood 
 beside me, putting a finishing hand to a sort 
 of hat or helmet of palm leaves adorned with 
 beads, which I saw was destined for Bulan, I 
 flung myself down on the floor, and placing 
 her foot upon my head, endeavoured to show her 
 how willing I was to be her servant — her 
 slave. — Then, clasping my hands in an atti- 
 tude of intercession, implored her not to send 
 me away from her, or surrender me to be tlie 
 slave of another. Holding the brown urchin 
 to my heart, I tried to make her understand, 
 that by adopting me, she would secure an 
 elder brother for her darling; that I should 
 grow up to be strong, and to defend him, even 
 as she had proved my friend ! — 
 
 Earnestly and pityingly did she gaze upon 
 me ; and I was endeavouring to interpret the 
 expression of her countenance, when, of a 
 sudden, she uttered a piercing cry — a cry of 
 
144 ' ADVENTURES 
 
 frantic delight; and flinging down the work 
 she held in her hand, darted like an arrow 
 towards the door. 
 
 In a moment, she was folded in the arms of 
 a tall stern-looking man, of her own tawny 
 hue, but not of her own prepossessing aspect ; 
 in whose girdle were stuck two Malay knives, 
 and who had only laid aside his spear to 
 enfold his loving Acheena. From the outward 
 room resounded discordant cries of joy and 
 greeting ! — The tribute -bearers had returned 
 home on the eve of the appointed day ; and, 
 lo ! the crisis of my destiny was at hand ! — 
 
IN BORNEO. 145 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 It struck me that, while Acheena continued 
 to prattle and wind herself, like one of the 
 luxuriant parasite plants of her country, 
 round the stately stem of which I stood so 
 much in awe, she was endeavouring to prevent 
 Bulan from obtaining a glimpse of the new 
 inmate of his household, till she had told him 
 her tale and my own. For after chattering 
 like a parokeet, yet using all the time as many 
 signs and gestures as she employed in speak- 
 
 H 
 
146 ADVENTURES 
 
 ing to myself to whom her language was 
 unknown, she suddenly relaxed in her clasp 
 of this beloved Bulan ; and, simply taking his 
 hand, led him towards me. 
 
 Let me repeat again and again that I was 
 but a child, and a diminutive child, of nine 
 years old ; lest I be taxed with cowardice, while 
 admitting that the searching glance of his 
 dark eye seemed to transfix me. I shrank 
 into less than myself. With my head sinking 
 upon my bosom, and every drop of blood 
 curdling in my veins, I expected to find 
 myself snatched into the arms of this tall and 
 rigid savage, impaled upon his kriss, and 
 my teeth added to the neck ornaments of poor 
 Acheena ! — 
 
 My suspense, however, was so protracted 
 that at length I ventured to look up ; when I 
 found the stern expression of the bronze 
 visage changed into a look of unutterable 
 
IN BORNEO. 147 
 
 contempt. His shoulders were elevated, his 
 upper lip bitterly curled. Probably he de- 
 tected my cowardice, so different from the 
 hardy bearing of the youths of his tribe. 
 For from the tones of Acheena's voice, I could 
 see that she was expostulating, and telling 
 him that I was still sick and weak from the 
 loss of blood consequent upon my wound. 
 But when she removed the covering from my 
 arm, and showed him the deep cut, not yet 
 skinned over, the barbarian looked ten times 
 more scornful than before ! — 
 
 Luckily, his attention was readily diverted 
 from me. His own imp of darkness was 
 placed in his arms by its grandmother; and, 
 lo ! his grim aspect relaxed, and he began to 
 fondle the little creature with the passionate 
 tenderness of an ape towards its young. I 
 fancied that he even glanced more humanely 
 towards myself, on seeing what a good under- 
 H 2 
 
148 ADVENTURES 
 
 standing prevailed between me and his child ; 
 for the little one tried to reach down from 
 its father's arms to sport with and caress me. 
 But the chamber was soon cleared of them 
 all; and the careful manner in which, on 
 quitting it, Acheena placed food and drink 
 within my reach, proved to me that I was to 
 be long alone. The fact was, that Bulan, 
 haughty as he looked, was not the great man 
 of the village. — The feast was to be held 
 elsewhere ; each house contributing its share. 
 But by the disagreeable uproar of human 
 shouts, and gongs, and tom-toms, which shortly 
 afterwards proceeded from a dwelling similar 
 to the one I inhabited, and though included 
 within the same fence or fortification of 
 pointed bamboo stakes, separated from it by 
 a group of betel trees, I found that, for a time, 
 I was safe from molestation. — The savages were 
 in full carouse. 
 
IN BORNEO. 149 
 
 My first sensation was one of exquisite re- 
 lief. My next impulse was to ponder on the 
 possibility of effecting my escape, during the 
 absence of this grim Bulan and his comrades. 
 But how, or whither ? — What chance of rejoin- 
 ing my father? — What hope of obtaining 
 kinder masters than those from whom I wildly 
 wished to liee? — I should unquestionably 
 perish in the jungle — either of hunger, or 
 to satisfy that of the beasts of prey ! 
 
 At least I might profit by my solitude to 
 examine the house, and investigate the habits 
 of its inmates. Scarcely able to stand up- 
 right, I tottered, holding by the wall, to- 
 wards the outer chamber, — or rather cham- 
 bers, — for there were five compartments under 
 the roof: one, with which I was already 
 familiar; the second, a dormitory furnished 
 with mats of all sizes and textures, for the 
 use of the women and children; the third, a 
 
150 ADVENTURES 
 
 kitchen, containing cooking utensils of strange 
 device, with mortars and mills, for grinding 
 corn and stripping the padi, or rice, of its 
 husk ; the fourth, a store-room, piled with bags 
 of rice, sago, millet, and maize, — segments of 
 sugar-cane for boiling, and heaps of birds'- 
 nests, — I mean the edible nests of the sea- 
 swallow formed of fish-bones, which consti- 
 tute so dainty and nutritious an article of 
 Oriental food. The fruits, too, with which 
 Acheena had been in the habit of regaling 
 me, were kept there in baskets of delicate 
 cane-work, effusing a delicious aroma; and I 
 could hardly forbear smiling at the recollec- 
 tion of the disgusts and fears with which, so 
 recently, her strange provisions had inspired 
 me. 
 
 Nevertheless, my awe was far from dissi- 
 pated. For the fifth chamber, evidently de- 
 voted to the use of the males of the community, 
 
IN BORNEO. 151 
 
 had yet to be visited; and a single glance 
 from the threshold showed me that it was an 
 armoury, full of their spears, sumpitans, 
 and war-shields ; their krisses steeped in upas 
 juice, and other nameless and poison-tipped 
 weapons. And how could I be sure but that 
 one of their dusky warriors remained there in 
 ambush, in some dark corner, to watch over 
 this treasury of the house? — 
 
 I took the precaution of peeping from the 
 outermost door, down the steep ladder, (the 
 precipitous descent from which to the earth, 
 turned me dizzy to look at ! ) to satisfy myself 
 that no one was approaching to surprise me 
 in my search. But nothing was stirring be- 
 low, save the flocks of domestic fowls per- 
 petually crowing and chucking round the 
 house; and the wild pigeons which, in the 
 absence of the fowls' masters, settled down 
 among them, to rob them of their food. 
 
152 ADVENTURES 
 
 With a cautious step, therefore, I now ap- 
 proached the Blue chamber, on approaching 
 which, I was struck by an odour not abso- 
 lutely foetid, but unpleasantly different from 
 the atmosphere of the opposite room, where 
 the grains and fruits were deposited. Nothing 
 doubting that it proceeded from the poisonous 
 vegetable juices in which I knew the weapons 
 of these savages to be steeped, I did not scruple 
 to make my way in; and was soon lost in 
 cliildish wonder at the neatness with which 
 the sharpened fish-bones were fitted into the 
 spears and arrows, to render their heads more 
 searching ; and the exact bore of the slender 
 sumpitans, through which their darts were 
 discharged. The handles of ivory, niother- 
 o' pearl, and tortoiseshell of many of tlie 
 krisses and swords, also attracted my atten- 
 tion. 
 
 I had seen such things in ray own country, 
 
IN BORNEO. 153 
 
 in museums and collections of curiosities. 
 And that I should now be gazing upon them 
 in a dwelling thatched with palm-leaves, and 
 floored with bamboo, with the whoops of 
 naked savages resounding from an adjoining 
 hovel, so that the next moment these cruel 
 instruments might be buried in my flesh, was 
 a fact to startle away my breath ! — 
 
 Daylight was declining. My hosts might 
 return; hurriedly, therefore, I completed my 
 survey, scarcely giving myself time to ex- 
 amine, by the uncertain light, the padded war- 
 jackets of the Dyaks, capable of repelling a 
 wooden spear-head; which, by their dusty 
 and faded appearance, seemed to have been 
 long out of use. But as I flung them back 
 upon the floor where they had been lying, I 
 discovered that the strangely pungent smell 
 which had disgusted me on the threshold, pro- 
 ceeded from a large net, apparently a fishing- 
 - H 3 
 
154 ADVENTURES 
 
 net, suspended above the war-jackets, from 
 the joists; and containing what I conjectured 
 to be large buoys, or floats of cork. 
 
 Though evening was now glimmering to- 
 wards dusk, my boyish curiosity prevailed; 
 and drawing down the heavy net, so that I 
 could reach it by standing on the ledge upon 
 which the spears were deposited, I proceeded 
 to investigate the contents. 
 
 But how ! oh heavens, to describe the ghastly 
 spectacle that met my view! — Five human 
 heads, reeking with a sort of briny or aro- 
 matic varnish, in which they had been satu- 
 rated to preserve them from corruption ; but, 
 even in that foul and distorted state, retain- 
 ing the painful semblance of humanity ! — 
 
 Heart-sickened and rebuked, I sunk down 
 upon the floor, upon my knees — upon my 
 face. — All my horrible misgivings respecting 
 the cannibalism of my savage hosts recurred 
 
IN BORNEO. 155 
 
 to my mind. One only thought sustained me. 
 The heads were decidedly not of European 
 origin. However disfigured by the means 
 taken to preserve them, I was able to satisfy 
 myself, by the texture of the tufts of hair re- 
 maining, and the formation of the grinning 
 jaws, that they were the skulls of Malays : — 
 enemies, probably, conquered in battle, and 
 preserved in token of conquest. — But what 
 had become of the bodies from which these 
 grim trophies were dissevered? — 
 
 Overcome by loathing and weakness, I could 
 scarcely drag my limbs out of this chamber 
 of abominations. The smell I had found un- 
 savoury when its Origin was unsuspected, now 
 caused my very gorge to rise, till I grew faint 
 as a girl. And what if these ghouls — this 
 Bulan and his people, — should return and find 
 me extended on the threshold of his horrible 
 sanctum I — 
 
156 ADVENTURES 
 
 By slow degrees, however, pausing oft to 
 wipe the clammy dew from my face, I managed 
 to crawl on my hands and knees along the 
 uneven flooring to my allotted place. And 
 having obtained it, I lay me down upon my 
 mat, and endeavoured to soothe down the beat- 
 ing of my heart by recurrence to the last com- 
 mand of my mother, '' to call humbly and 
 patiently upon the name of the Lord my 
 God!"— 
 
 §till, though solaced by the recollection, my 
 childish faith was not strong enough within me 
 to enable me to surmount all fear. At times, 
 a frightful surmise darted into my mind that I 
 was to be sacrificed, at leisure, in honour of the 
 return of the tribute-bearers ! The gentle re- 
 monstrances of Acheena on her husband's 
 entrance had perhaps been intercessions that I 
 might be spared : and kept, like some Pongo 
 of the woods, to make mirth for her child! 
 
IN BORNEO. 157 
 
 Nay, the calm, cold, cruel eye of Bulan, as he 
 examined my proportions and condition, might 
 possibly have been the survey of a butcher ! 
 
 While revolving these agonising reflections, 
 which caused my breath to come in gasps like 
 that of a drowning man, I heard indications of 
 a thunder-storm growling in the distance ; a 
 thing of too frequent occurrence in those lati- 
 tudes to be noticed; but that I feared the 
 change of weather might drive home the re- 
 vellers, ere I had time to compose myself into 
 the semblance of sleep, so as to remove the 
 suspicion that, during their absence, I had 
 been prying into the secrets of my prison 
 house. 
 
 I covered myself over, meanwhile, with one of 
 my mats, partly to screen myself from the vivid 
 glare of the forked lightning, which even the 
 deeply-sloping canes could not quite shut out, 
 and which showed itself distinctly between the 
 
158 ADVENTURES 
 
 crevices of the rough flooring, and partly to 
 conceal my face from observation, in case I 
 should be visited by my hosts. 
 
 What was my horror, therefore, when I sud- 
 denly found a hand far rougher than Acheena's 
 interposed under my covering, and laid upon 
 my chest! — Amid the thunder-peals, those 
 light-footed savages had traversed the room 
 unheard ; and were profiting by the darkness 
 to examine their hapless prisoner ! — 
 
 While Bulan passed his hand over my breast 
 and forehead, rendering his account of me to 
 the others in so low a voice that I saw he 
 fancied me to be fast asleep, Acheena was in- 
 vestigating, by touch and smell, the calibashes 
 containing my untasted food. I could discern 
 a sadness in her tone while informing her com- 
 panions that, though they had been feasting, I 
 still fasted ; and if their intentions were indeed 
 hostile, nothing could be milder than their 
 
IN BORNEO. 159 
 
 voices, or more deferential than their tread. 
 But as much to my relief as my surprise, after 
 a short dialogue, they retired. At least, when 
 a blaze of lightning next lighted up the room, 
 thanks to the interposition of Bulan in removing 
 the mat from over my face, I could clearly per- 
 ceive that I was alone. And oh, how fervently 
 did I give GoD thanks for that great mercy ! 
 
 But is it to be wondered at that rest visited 
 not my feverish frame? " In thoughts from the 
 visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth 
 upon man," saith one whose words will abide 
 for ever and ever, " fear came upon me, and 
 trembling, which caused all my bones to shake." 
 And let no man presume to scoff at fear ; un- 
 less, having been exposed to terrible extremi- 
 ties, he hath shown himself fearless. Even then, 
 coldness and want of sensibility are often mis- 
 taken for courage. 
 
 There was nothing — no, nothing in this 
 
160 ADVENTURES 
 
 world, to which I could turn for comfort. My 
 father, if yet he lived, might be exposed to 
 perils still greater than my own. My mother 
 and sister, whose long protracted sufferings I 
 had witnessed, might, in spite of Acheena's 
 ill-understood assurances, be denied the de- 
 cencies of burial. Myself, if spared in the 
 flesh, might be destined to live and die among 
 heathens, — a participator, by slavish coercion, 
 in their profane rites. 
 
 Wearied out by my solitary tears, at length 
 I fell asleep. But from my unrefreshing 
 slumbers, I was snatched, ere daylight dawned, 
 by a powerful hand. " And now," thought I, 
 " my hour is come." And I prayed aloud that 
 God would help me, and that my agony might 
 be short. But as the words escaped my lips, 
 the same hand firmly sealing them, imposed 
 silence upon me. And having been borne 
 struggling out of the room and along the central 
 
IN BORNEO. 161 
 
 passage of the house, I found myself in pre- 
 sence only of Acheena and the women ; who, by 
 the morning light of a fine day dawn, were pre- 
 paring the morning's repast of their husband 
 and master. 
 
 But already, I had no further fear of forming 
 part of the viands of the day ! The faces of 
 these women were at once so mild and merry, 
 that an evil project could scarcely be in agita- 
 tion. The moment I caught sight of Acheena's 
 laughing eyes and snow-white teeth, I felt re- 
 assured. 
 
 With the instinctive tact of her sex, she had 
 discovered the repulsion entertained by her hus- 
 band towards the white man's child ; and hoped 
 to moderate his prejudices by demonstrating 
 outwardly and ostensibly, my adoption into their 
 tribe. By dint of begging and borrowing, she 
 had consequently obtained from her neighbours 
 the means of converting me into a son of the 
 
162 ADVENTURES 
 
 Dyaks. And having presided at my toilet, 
 and attired me in a sarong, with anklets and 
 armlets similar to those of Bulan, she made 
 me present him, at his waking, his morning 
 mess of rice and curried venison. 
 
 I know not w^hether the savoury fumes of 
 his meal softened his heart — as is the case at 
 times with the citizens of more civilized coun- 
 tries ; — or whether the unwonted sight of the 
 child of the stranger bedizened with the 
 adornments of his people tickled his fancy. But 
 he not only laughed as heartily as Acheena 
 while surveying me. but, on becoming satis- 
 fied that my bodily weakness was no impos- 
 ture, took me up kindly in his arms, — carried 
 me down the steep ladder that afforded access 
 to the house; — and, after passing under the 
 group of betel trees and beside the adjoining 
 habitations, lifted a couple of the bamboo- 
 stakes, left loose for the purpose of egress from 
 
IN BORNEO. 163 
 
 the stockade. But that his frank deportment 
 completely reassured me, I might have won- 
 dered why he was fatiguing himself by bearing 
 such a burthen as my attenuated frame into 
 the open country. 
 
 I was soon satisfied. After threading a 
 straggling thicket, high over the flowering 
 shrubs of which predominated the sago and 
 nepa palm, we reached a gushing stream, 
 swollen probably by the heavy rains of the 
 preceding night ; on the banks of which, a group 
 of the Dyaks of his tribe (for they were fac- 
 similes in colour and vestments of himself,) 
 were busily employed in fishing, by means of 
 a net fastened to stakes on either bank : for 
 sport, probably, rather than profit; since the 
 proximity of the ocean insured them a far 
 more advantageous take, in the salt water. 
 To these men, a manly but mild looking race, 
 he exhibited me, not like some "rare mon- 
 
164 ADVENTURES 
 
 ster," but with something of paternal pride. 
 Whatever exphmations he gave, were approv- 
 ingly accepted; and at the close of the ha- 
 rangue, he deposited me on a bank, high and 
 dry above the river ; where I might at once 
 amuse myself by watching their occupation, 
 and be braced by the cooling breezes gene- 
 rated by the fall of the mountain stream. 
 Such was his wise leechcraft. Discerning 
 that my fever was the fever of weakness, he 
 omitted no means of renovating my strength. 
 Before the fervours of noon compelled 
 us to retreat into the house, I was thoroughly 
 reconciled to Bulan's return. His air of 
 sternness in first accosting me, was simply an 
 expression of trouble and surprise. He was 
 of a graver nature than Acheena, but scarcely 
 less kind. I enjoyed my meridian repose as 
 if not a care remained on my mind ; and was 
 far from sorry to find, on awaking, that the 
 
IN BORNEO. 165 
 
 evening was to be spent in sociable community 
 with our village neighbours. The tom-toms 
 and gongs were again busy ; perhaps by way 
 of termination to the banquet, which the 
 storm had interrupted the preceding night. 
 But by the care with which Acheena presided 
 over the arrangement of my gaudy ornaments 
 on the occasion, and the solemnity with which 
 I was addressed by Bulan, I gradually dis- 
 covered that I was about to be publicly wel- 
 comed by Matari, the Chief of their settlement, 
 and formally inaugurated into their tribe. 
 
 At first, the prospect of these festivities 
 somewhat pained me. Though for some time 
 p^st my thoughts had been wholly engrossed 
 by the idea of self-preservation, now that I 
 was released from immediate apprehension, 
 my heart could not but recur heavily to those 
 I had lost. So perverse is human nature that, 
 the moment the fear of death was past, I 
 
166 ADVENTURES 
 
 discovered how little remained to endear the 
 life to which, only the previous day, I had 
 clung as precious. 
 
 But my courage soon rallied. Youth is 
 youth ; and now that the blood had begun to cir- 
 culate more freely in my veins, the breath of 
 the summer air fanning my cheeks and the 
 novel fragrance of the strange flowers in the 
 adjoining thickets, served to revivify my 
 nature. I was almost content — almost joy- 
 ous, — when towards sunset I was borne by 
 Bulan, attended by the merry Acheena, with 
 her face shaded by a spreading hat of palm 
 leaves, and carrying her urchin slung round 
 her neck, to a bright platform of greensward, 
 adjoining the hamlet of Tanjoo. Enclosed by 
 a belt of podada trees, it had been evidently 
 laid bare by the axe, for the purpose, at the 
 first clearing of the jungle. 
 
 In so pleasant a spot, but for the stunning 
 
IN BORNEO. 167 
 
 noise of the gongs and tom-toms, the soft 
 stillness of evening v/ould have afforded a 
 really enjoyable pleasure. And to my great 
 surprise, the trees, as twilight deepened, be- 
 came resplendent with light ; though by what 
 artificial means these untaught people ma- 
 naged to procure so brilliant an illumination, 
 it was hard to account for. At length, one of 
 the sparks which I noticed flitting or falling 
 from the trees, fluttered so near me, that I 
 was able to ascertain its nature ; and, lo ! for the 
 first time I beheld one of those glittering fire- 
 flies, which, when clustered together, invest 
 the object on which they settle with a blaze of 
 light. 
 
 But though the sports of the evening seemed 
 about to commence, (for Bulan and one of his 
 companions, well matched with him in point 
 of height and athletic agility, were already 
 measuring and poising their wooden spears 
 
168 ADVENTURES 
 
 for the performance of their war dance,) I 
 had as yet seen nothing of the chief. At length, 
 a loud shout in the direction of the dwelling 
 pointed out to me by Acheena as Matari's, 
 at the head of the bamboo enclosure, an- 
 nounced his coming forth : responded to from 
 the platform by such a crash of gongs, such a 
 rattling of shells, and banging of tom-toms, 
 as nearly overpowered my weakened senses. 
 Half deafened and half awed, I turned towards 
 the opening among the palm-trees, through 
 which Matari was to make his appearance. 
 
 In a moment, I was hoisted upon Bulan's 
 shoulder, and borne to meet him; and even 
 from a distance, could perceive that he was a 
 man of colossal proportions, well calculated 
 for the honours of his supremacy. Kound his 
 waist was a sarong of fine cloth, embroidered 
 in gaudy colours; in the belt of which, in 
 addition to two krisses, whose handles were 
 
IN BORNEO. 169 
 
 enriched with rudely wrouglit gold, and pearls 
 of irregular form, were stuck a pair of Euro- 
 pean pistols. But his cap, or helmet of bark 
 and rattan, surmounted by gay streamers, was 
 the crowning pride of his wild and picturesque 
 costume. 
 
 After gazing upon me, face to face, as I 
 clung half terrified to the shoulder of my 
 bearer, he nodded approvingly; and taking 
 one of the metal circlets from his brawny arm, 
 placed it round my neck. I could have dis- 
 pensed with the gift, which seemed to intimate 
 a badge of slavery; nor was I much better 
 pleased when, after closing his own eye-lids 
 with his fingers, he applied the same ceremony 
 to my own. 
 
 The next form he observed was, however, 
 
 far more revolting. Snatching from the hands 
 
 of an attendant a white fowl, which appeared 
 
 to have been brought for the purpose, he 
 
 I 
 
170 ADVENTURES 
 
 swung it wildly round his head for some 
 minutes, till the velocity and force of the 
 movement deprived the poor bird of life : then 
 tore it with frantic gesticulations limb from 
 limb, sprinkling the blood upon himself and 
 me, and all the bystanders. After which, the 
 gongs and tom-toms struck up again ; and the 
 Dyaks burst into a yell that chilled me to the 
 marrow, — so fearfully did it remind me of the 
 war-cry of the Illanuns of the coast ! — 
 
 But oh ! had this been my only grief ! — 
 On raising my eyes to watch the movements 
 of the savage, while whirling the fowl round 
 his head, I noticed that, among other adorn- 
 ments, his gaudy cap boasted what at first 
 appeared to me a flowing tuft of unbleached 
 silk. But on looking again, I saw that it was 
 hair — human hair — flaxen hair ! — No ! I 
 could not mistake it ! — I had too often seen 
 our darling Emily's beautiful locks curling 
 
IN BORNEO. 171 
 
 round my dear mother's hand, not to reco- 
 gnise their texture ! My sister — my sister — 
 my dear sister ! — That I should have lived to 
 behold them thus degraded ! — 
 
 I 2 
 
172 ADVENTURES 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 So deep was the horror with which this 
 discovery oppressed my mind, that from that 
 moment all my thoughts were of escape. 
 Though sorely perplexed as to the strange 
 land on which I was thrown, I believed it to 
 be either Malacca or Borneo ; and doubted not 
 but that, near or far, the English must possess 
 a settlement there. I had been so accus- 
 tomed, from my childhood, to hear of Britan- 
 nia ruling the waves, and of the British flag 
 
IN BOKNEO. 173 
 
 being sovereign in India, tliiit I was firmly 
 convinced some fort, or factory, or colony 
 must be attainable, as soon as my strength 
 enabled me to set forth upon the search. By 
 keeping along the coast, I should be sure to 
 reach some stronghold of my amphibious 
 nation. Alas! I had already forgotten the 
 impervious nature of the mangrove jungle, 
 which constituted my first experience of that 
 terrible shore ; and which would cut short my 
 enterprise in the onset. 
 
 But while my strength was gathering, and 
 my purpose of truancy maturing, so parental 
 was the kindness of Bulan and Acheena, that, 
 involuntarily, I began to attach myself to 
 them, like a dog to its master. Before I was 
 strong enough to wander beyond the thickets 
 adjoining the village, Acheena used daily to 
 bring me bunches of the jessamine-flowers in 
 which she had seen me take pleasure as a 
 
174 ADVENTURES 
 
 memento of home; while her husband endea- 
 voured to divert me by gifts of wing-strung 
 doves, a great variety of which abounded in 
 the district, or some of the curious little tor- 
 toises frequenting the creek. They told me 
 of larger tortoises — turtles, as it afterwards 
 proved — which visited the sands of Tanjoo in 
 spring time; depositing myriads and myriads 
 of eggs, which they promised me I should 
 taste. But the chief luxury in which the 
 Dyak Darak delighted, the chewing of sirih 
 and betel-nut, was not of a nature to inspire 
 me with much confidence in their taste. 
 
 The climate, though subject to storms, was 
 a pleasant one. But I suppose there must be 
 something in the cuticle of an European skin 
 less qualified for exposure than that of either 
 browns or blacks. For I sufiered terribly from 
 exposure ; not alone from the stinging of 
 moschetos and other insects, but from the 
 
IN BORNEO. 175 
 
 mere action of the sun. My hosts were not 
 a little diverted at seeing me proceed to 
 bruise, in one of their mills, the oily seeds of 
 a species of tournesol, to form an unguent ; by 
 a careful friction with which over my limbs 
 and body, I relieved myself from the pain of 
 my burns. 
 
 Soon afterwards, Bulan and his comrades 
 proceeded on a hunting-party into the jungle; 
 hog-hunting, I believe, — for there was a grand 
 preparation of their sharpest spears. I felt 
 relieved by their absence. Though as yet I 
 had never experienced an angry word or un- 
 kind gesture from any one of the tribe, I 
 could not but feel that, at some unexpected 
 moment, I might inadvertently offend. And 
 it is scarcely safe to tread upon the toe of a 
 man who wears a poisoned kriss in his 
 girdle ! — 
 
 But my chief anxiety to get rid of Bulan 
 
176 ADVENTURES 
 
 was, that I might proiit by his absence to 
 revive my friendliness with Acheena ; of whom 
 I had seen less since she had a double house- 
 hold duty to fulfil, and from whom I wanted 
 to ascertain facts concerning which she alone 
 could satisfy me. The lock of hair adorning 
 Matari's head-dress weighed heavily on my 
 spirits. I had now detected, in all and each 
 of the dwellings of these barbarians, a collec- 
 tion of heads similar to the one which so 
 appalled me in my new home; and Avas re- 
 solved to learn whether, among these horrible 
 trophies, existed the relics of my unfortunate 
 parents. 
 
 The question was scarcely less hazardous to 
 propose than it was heart-rending to utter. 
 The first time, however, I found myself alone 
 with Acheena, after her husband's departure, 
 I led her gently into the armoury, (stripped of 
 half its contents by the absent warriors,) and. 
 
IN BORNEO. 177 
 
 pointing to the nets, made her understand the 
 cause of my distress. With uplifted hands, I 
 implored her to tell me whether Matari had 
 possessed himself of the remains of the white 
 woman and child, as well as of their silken 
 hair ! — 
 
 But the moment my meaning reached her, 
 she would not listen to another word. Nothing 
 could be more genuine than the warm-hearted 
 woman^s indignation. She readily made me 
 understand that the heads I saw were those of 
 enemies honourably conquered in battle — not 
 of women and children. 
 
 Dragging rather than leading me through 
 the enclosure, she insisted on my accompany- 
 ing her, that very moment, across the padi 
 fields to a remote spot, situated high above 
 the banks of the stream, but skirted with 
 trees and thickets; and which, by its peculiar 
 aspect, I soon saw to be the burying-place of 
 i3 
 
178 ADVENTURES 
 
 the village. Small tombs, formed of the bark of 
 trees, and raised like their houses upon piles, 
 as a precaution against the rising of the 
 stream, were scattered at intervals among the 
 bushes; on many of which lay armlets and 
 head-circlets of some value, besides metal 
 ornaments, such as the wife of Matari wore 
 suspended from her sarong. There were also 
 calibashes of food, in a few of which the rice 
 still lingered; though, for the most part, the 
 flocks of doves abounding in the neighbouring 
 jungle had made free with the grain provided 
 by these simple people for the sustenance of 
 their dead in a future state. By the humble 
 attitude in which Acheena inclined herself 
 beside one of these depositories, I saw at 
 once that it contained the remains of her 
 parents. When she raised her head again, 
 the tears swimming in her eyes had extin- 
 guished every spark of the indignation pre- 
 
IN BORNEO. 179 
 
 viously kindled there by my opprobrious sur- 
 mises. And it was with a far gentler deport- 
 ment than she had worn when we reached 
 the cemetery, that she led me to its furthest 
 verge, and pointed out a spot near to a group 
 of lofty palm-trees, as the grave of those I 
 loved. 
 
 The place was marked out in a manner 
 very different from that which designated the 
 last home of the dead of her tribe. — Probably 
 it had been necessary to omit the peculiar 
 consecration by which the other tombs were 
 made holy. For in lieu of a sarcophagus of 
 bark or wood, these kindly-thoughted people 
 had planted over the grave two similar flowers, 
 of rare beauty, resembling our European lily, 
 but taller, and more profuse of blossom: 
 perhaps from some well discerned resemblance 
 between their spotless petals, and the fair haired 
 children of the west who slept belowi 
 
180 ADVENTURES 
 
 Acheena did not grudge or reprove my grief 
 when she saw me throw myself weeping on the 
 grave which contained all that was kindred 
 to me in that distant world. On the contrary, 
 she wept with me. But when my tears had 
 flowed as fully as she thought compatible with 
 the rougher nature of my sex, she raised me 
 up, and pointed gravely, but proudly, to the 
 earth ; pronouncing in a solemn manner, the 
 names of " Tupa" and " Suleyan," the divinity 
 and elysium of the Dyaks. The subterra- 
 nean heaven of the poor savage was not, 
 perhaps, such as it became a Christian child 
 to look to for comfort. — But it was there, she 
 told me, that " by the blessing of Tupa, the 
 God of her people, my parents would await me 
 when the pleasures and pains of this life were 
 at an end." 
 
 Tenderly embracing my kind comforter, I 
 endeavoured to thank her for having charitably 
 
IN BORNEO. 181 
 
 bestowed sepulture upon the strangers. But 
 this act, if I rightly interpreted her, she dis- 
 claimed. Sulara, the wife of Matari, (who 
 had accompanied her on the morning when I 
 so fortunately fell into their hands, on one of 
 their frequent expeditions to the shore, for the 
 purpose of procuring shell-fish, on the ebb of 
 the tide,) had undertaken to return with 
 stronger aid than her own, and bring back the 
 bodies for interment, while Acheena devoted 
 her care to myself. And it was thus, she 
 explained, that the hair I had valued so highly 
 fell into Sulara's hands. 
 
 She endeavoured, as we proceeded homeward 
 together, hand in hand, to convince me that 
 no insult had been intended towards the dead, 
 in the use to which that one single tress was 
 applied ; that her people being accustomed to 
 ornament their head-dresses with all they pos- 
 sessed of choicest or most beautiful — pearls, 
 
182 ADVENTURES 
 
 gold, or precious stones, — the hair I loved had 
 been selected as fairer than even these. — But 
 I could not enter into her arguments; or even 
 repress, in reply, a mournful and reprobatory 
 wave of the head. 
 
 On seeing me thus pertinacious, she added, 
 that " since I so dearly prized the hair, she 
 would endeavour to procure the remainder of 
 it for me, of Sulara ; by an exchange of one or 
 two household articles, of which the wife of 
 the chief stood in need." 
 
 Nor was this a mere empty profession. Some 
 days afterwards, she brought me, neatly spread 
 and rolled between two strips of birch bark, 
 the whole of that precious treasure ; the long 
 auburn tresses of the mother, — the shorter 
 flaxen curls of the darling child ! — And oh ! 
 how fondly did I press them to my eyes, my 
 heart, my lips — those memorials of my Chris- 
 tian home, — my early happiness ! — 
 
IN BORNEO. 183 
 
 I noticed, in the sequel, that the most 
 brilliant of Acheena's personal ornaments, 
 her silver anklets and the jingling trinkets 
 formerly appended to her sarong, had altogether 
 disappeared; and could perfectly appreciate 
 the sacrifice she had generously made for me, — 
 for they were the handiwork of her beloved 
 Bulan! But if, in process of time, Sulara 
 appeared in brighter accoutrements than of old, 
 at our dance holdings on the green platform, 
 Matari was less richly adorned. From his 
 casque, the one silken tress had disap- 
 peared. 
 
 I have frankly avowed the awe in which I 
 stood of my Dyak lords; whether armed for 
 the hunting field, with spear and pistol, per- 
 forming the wild evolutions of their war dance, 
 or even when engaged in the uncouth discharge 
 of their domestic duties. But will it be 
 credited that, before a year, nay, before many 
 
184 ADVENTURES 
 
 months had elapsed, I became an object of fear 
 and veneration, in my turn ! — 
 
 After kneeling on my mother's grave, and 
 obtaining possession of a relic that so forcibly 
 recalled her presence, I gave up all thoughts 
 of flight. I resolved to wait till I was older, 
 and then depart only with the sanction of my 
 protectors. I would not escape, like a thief 
 in the night, from those who treated me like 
 a son. But it mortified me to think that, 
 in the interval, my nature was running to 
 waste. Though I might pray in secret to 
 the God of all grace — the Trinity in unity, 
 the Christian's God, — though I might feel 
 assured that in resuming at some future epoch 
 the habiliments of Europe, I should be able to 
 resume the notions and habits of an English- 
 man, — I was conscious that, day after day, my 
 impressions of the past were weakened. The 
 little book-knowledge I ever possessed was all 
 
4 IN BORNEO. 185 
 
 but gone. It might be that my efforts to 
 acquire the language of my new country were 
 injurious to my reminiscences of hie, h^ec, hoc ; 
 or that the bodily weakness and severe shocks 
 to which I had been exposed might have pro- 
 duced a deterioration of my faculties. But 
 certain it is, that as regarded names and dates, 
 or time or place, my memory failed me. 
 
 The thought that to me the Sabbath was 
 as any other day, was inexpressibly painful. 
 But in my inevitable ignorance of the day 
 hallowed to the Lord, I did my best to remedy 
 the evil by consecrating part of every day of 
 the week to religious observances. Between 
 the rising and setting of every sun, a sabbath 
 was included. 
 
 Still, the thought of becoming rude and 
 illiterate as the gatherers of human heads 
 among whom my lot had been cast, was 
 indeed humiliating ; and having turned in my 
 
186 ADVENTURES 
 
 thoughts by what means I could preserve the 
 impression of such knowledge as my lamented 
 father's lessons had imparted, I betook myself 
 every day, at the ebb of the tide, to the sands 
 westward of the creek, which the receding 
 waves left hard and dry and trackless. 
 There, with a sharp-pointed cane, I managed 
 to continue the exercises of writing and arith- 
 metic I had daily practised with my father, 
 while on shipboard; and, by degrees, while 
 sedulously devoting myself to my task, I found 
 a thousand impressions revive, and reminis- 
 cences recur, which had been previously effaced. 
 While labouring to bring my rambling text- 
 hand into a form and shape worthy the formal 
 lines of a copy-book, I could almost fancy I 
 heard the merry voice of dear little Emily, pro- 
 claiming that " Charley had made a blot," or 
 that " Charley had forgotten his tables !" — 
 When my self-imparted lesson was at an 
 
IN BORNEO. 187 
 
 end, I spared myself the trouble of effacing my 
 copies and calculations, seeing that the next 
 turn of the tide would sweep them away ; and 
 the consequence was, that the first time the 
 prawn-fishers proceeded to their work in that 
 direction, they were as much astounded by the 
 discovery of these amazing hieroglyphics on 
 the sand, as Eobinson Crusoe by the print of 
 a human foot in his uninhabited island. I 
 noticed that several solemn meetings were 
 held just then in Matari's dwelling-house, ac 
 companiedwith a wondrous beating of tom-toms 
 and gongs 5 but little surmised that my pains- 
 taking scholarship was the cause of so much 
 stir. 
 
 Nothing doubting that these marvellous 
 inscriptions were the work of spirits, either 
 good or evil, the Dyaks had scarcely courage 
 to return to the haunted spot. But when they 
 did visit it, it was not the least of their terrors 
 
188 ADVENTURES 
 
 to perceive that, everyday, the mystic charac- 
 ters assumed another form ! 
 
 At length, one morning, Acheena, unwilling 
 to exclude me from any portion of the pains 
 or pleasures of the family into which I was 
 adopted, beguiled me out of the enclosure by 
 a series of the most energetical nods and becks, 
 and led me by a short cut through the jungle, 
 of which I had never doubted, straight to my 
 briny school-house on the beach. 
 
 But that she was unfurnished with a net or 
 basket, I should have fancied her bent upon a 
 fishing expedition. But her manner was too 
 earnest for so every-day an enterprise. She 
 kept pointing to the skies above our head, and 
 the earth under our feet, with an air of reli- 
 gious awe — such as I used to see worn by the 
 elders of my father's flock, on entering the 
 church-porch of Swallowfield. From time to 
 time, as we neared the sea shore, she repeated 
 
IN BORNEO. 189 
 
 certain words and phrases ; — the names, I 
 believe, of her people's divinities, and their 
 form of prayer, which I heard for the first 
 time. 
 
 As we passed through a scrubby thicket of 
 underwood, fringing the high -water mark, I 
 possessed myself of my pointed cane, which I 
 was in the habit of depositing there after my 
 daily exercises, to spare myself the trouble of 
 transportation, but which looked to her like 
 any other stick. On reaching the edge of the 
 waves, just then rapidly receding on the beach 
 with a pleasant ripple, she began to examine 
 so carefully the speedily-dried sands as white 
 as silver, gradually exposed to the sun, that I 
 fancied her intent on finding some of the 
 sprays or fragments of coral, which, after a 
 storm at sea in the direction of the reefs, were 
 apt to be thrown up entangled in the sea- 
 weed. Nothing of the kind was discernible; 
 
190 ADVENTURES 
 
 and yet, as the tide receded and receded, 
 Acheena continued to advance with careful 
 steps and down-bent eyes, earnestly scrutiniz- 
 ing the beach. 
 
 Puzzled to conjecture of what she was in 
 search, I thought it as well to devote the 
 interim of her saunterings to the execution of 
 my daily task; and down I threw myself on 
 the hardest and whitest portion of the sand, 
 and set to upon my text-hand and rule of 
 three, as diligently as if under the eye of an 
 usher. As I made to myself something of a 
 delight — something that linked me with my 
 lost home and country, in this occupation, — I 
 was soon engrossed in it. Nor was it till, on 
 reaching the last line of my copy — from which 
 I was forced to blow away the sand raised by 
 my rude graver, in order to render it a fair 
 one, — I turned to ascertain whether my com- 
 panion had accomplished her task, whatever it 
 
IN BORNEO. 191 
 
 might be, and wanted me to return home with 
 her, — I beheld poor Acheena squatted on 
 her knees, at a few paces distant from me on 
 the sand, worshipping me, I verily believe, as 
 something more than mortal ! 
 
 Unable to comprehend the motive of so 
 sudden a change in her demeanour, I jumped 
 up, and flew to raise her from her submissive 
 posture ; nor, when I discovered from her tor- 
 rent of words and profusion of gesticulations 
 that they had only lately begun to suspect 
 that the writings on the sand were the work 
 of some supernatural being, (little surmising 
 that the son of the spirits was abiding among 
 them as one of themselves,) could I restrain 
 my laughter. To be taken for a magician — 
 perhaps for a divinity — I, poor little Charley 
 Meredyth! And all for being able to work 
 (errors excepted) a sum in the rule of three! 
 Another moment, and I checked ray hasty 
 
192 ADVENTURES 
 
 mirth. Since this undue importance had been 
 assigned me without fraud or pretension on my 
 own part, might it not be as well to avail my- 
 self of the misconception ? By retaining some- 
 thing of a mystic character in the eyes of the 
 Dyaks of Tanjoo, might I not secure myself 
 from present harm, and perhaps hereafter ob- 
 tain an influence over their minds, leading to 
 their religious regeneration? If I reflected at 
 that moment that a child once taught in the 
 Temple, I thought it not profanely ; but hum- 
 bly trusting that the simplest Christian child, 
 so placed as I was placed, might by God's 
 will be permitted to proclaim to the] Heathen 
 the Gospel tidings of — " On earth peace and 
 good will towards men." 
 
 Without confirming or negativing her sup- 
 position, therefore, I accompanied Acheena 
 quietly home, and allowed her to ofier her 
 own explanations to her people. But from 
 
IN BORNEO. 193 
 
 that day, I was treated with unusual defer- 
 ence by Matari and his comrades; consulted 
 concerning their comings and goings, by sea 
 and land; whether the wind was favourable 
 for their fishing, or whether the game would 
 be plentiful for their chase. Like other oracles, 
 I took care to make my replies predictive of 
 good or evil fortune, as the case might be; 
 and so retain my reputation as a prophet. 
 If convicted of a blunder by their return home 
 with empty nets or pouches, I took care to 
 double my consequence on the morrow, by 
 new rows of hieroglyphics on the strand, or 
 a wilderness of curly-tailed capital letters. 
 When everything else failed, I laid the blame 
 on the sinister influence of Sakarra, or the 
 Pleiades; whose brilliant little cluster of stars 
 had often been pointed out to me by Acheena, 
 as the protecting genius of the Dyaks. 
 
 I had received from my poor mother, on 
 
 K 
 
194 ADVENTURES 
 
 board the Kelso, some slight instructions in 
 drawing: sufficient, at all events, to enable 
 me to give a correct outline of natural ob- 
 jects, — birds, beasts, fishes; — to sketch the 
 strange dwellings of the enclosure, mounted 
 on their piles, among the betel-trees ; or 
 even of Acheena, carrying her infant on her 
 shoulder, or Matari, brandishing his sum- 
 pitan. 
 
 These objects I now proceeded to trace 
 upon the beach; taking care that my first 
 raw attempts should be obliterated before they 
 met the eyes of my neophytes. But never 
 shall I forget the impression produced on 
 their minds when I first allowed them to dis- 
 cover my delineation of their village ! Till 
 they had ascertained by ocular demonstra- 
 tion, that Tanjoo still stood in its place, 
 with the old wood-pigeons cooing in its 
 grove of trees, they positively trembled lest 
 
IN BORNEO. 195 
 
 my black art should have removed it from 
 its foundations. 
 
 Having certified to their own satisfaction 
 that my sketch was merely a " counterfeit 
 presentment" of their beloved homes, they 
 signalized their joy by adorning me with a 
 necklace similar to the one which had caused 
 such uneasiness in my mind when I saw it 
 encircling the tawny throat of Acheena ; but 
 which I had long discovered to be composed 
 of cubs' teeth, from the young bears destroyed 
 in their jungle. After all, my ignorance and 
 prejudices were scarcely less absurd than 
 those of the poor Dyaks! There was one 
 point on which, even then, I accused myself 
 of both stupidity and supineness. In the first 
 miserable days of my sojourn in the land of 
 the stranger, I had been too smitten down by 
 grief and terror to take account of the lapse 
 of day and night, or even the changes of the 
 K 2 
 
196 ADVENTURES 
 
 moon; so that of the time of my banishment, 
 I entertained only a vague idea. As soon as 
 I began to feel uncomfortable at the notion of 
 having broken accounts with the civilized 
 world, I reminded myself that, at least, the 
 regular recurrence of the seasons would ac- 
 quaint me when a year should have revolved. 
 But even that hope was transitory. In the 
 genial climate I inhabited, the leaves never 
 lost their verdure ; nor was the niggardly 
 earth restricted to an annual crop. Though 
 Bulan and Acheena, and their fellow-villagers, 
 applied themselves, at stated intervals, to 
 sowing and reaping the padi in the wet lands 
 and maize in the dry, I felt pretty certain 
 that not more than a third of a year could 
 have elapsed since I witnessed a similar opera- 
 tion. 
 
 Even the gathering of the cocoa-nuts, the 
 sago, the betel, or the cacao-nut for chocolate, 
 
IN BORNEO. 197 
 
 afforded no certain grounds for calculation. 
 And I was so perplexed by a variety of works 
 and harvests, which I witnessed for the first 
 time, such as the extraction of camphor and 
 gutta-percha from the wood, the collecting of 
 the wild honey-combs from the jungle, and 
 birds'-nests from the caves on the sea -shore, — 
 that I finally became in doubt whether I 
 had spent months or years with those among 
 whom I was rapidly acquiring strength and 
 stature. When I thought of my father and 
 mother, I appeared to have lost ten years of 
 my life. Yet from day to day, I scarcely 
 found an hour too long. I worked with 
 Bulan in the fields, or Acheena at home; and 
 the perpetual variety of our labours prevented 
 them from becoming tedious. 
 
 One thing sometimes occurred to me in 
 proof that my residence among the savages 
 did not extend beyond a year: that on my 
 
198 ADVENTURES 
 
 arrival, the men were absent at the seat of 
 government, wherever that might be, to pay 
 what I then understood to be an annual tri- 
 bute. But when I questioned Acheena on 
 this head, and inquired when they would 
 again depart on their errand, she told me 
 their taxes had been remitted to the Eajah by 
 certain prahus which had visited Tanjoo some 
 months before for the sole purpose, as I 
 thought at the time, of traffic and barter be- 
 tween two friendly tribes. For the strangers 
 brought implements of wrought iron, and 
 pieces of Chinese cloth and stuffs, in exchange 
 for the wax, camphor, and birds'-nests of our 
 people; and very amusing had it been to me 
 during their stay, to watch the over-reaching 
 spirit displayed on both sides. 
 
 On one point, indeed, the arrival of these 
 Bruniotes had marked an epoch in my cap- 
 tivity. For from them I ascertained, through 
 
IN BORNEO. 199 
 
 Acheena, that I was the first white they had 
 ever seen, that none such ever visited their 
 part of the country. I even charged them, 
 through her, should one of the ships of the 
 West ever anchor on their coast, to acquaint 
 the captain that he had a fellow-christian in 
 captivity at Tanjoo ; a spot where the names 
 of Christian and Sabbath were unknown. 
 I shred off a lock of my fair hair, that he 
 might produce it as a pledge of his veracity ; 
 — the long straight black hair of the Malays 
 and Dyaks differing as widely from that of 
 the Europeans, as their complexion and phy- 
 siognomy. 
 
 I saw that Acheena waived her head mis- 
 givingly while executing my commission; a 
 movement which I ascribed to her vexation at 
 my anxiety to be released from my present 
 mode of life. But she was in truth afraid 
 that the Rajah of Brune might experience 
 
200 ADVENTURES 
 
 some curiosity to look upon tlie fair Western 
 boy, who could predict of the ch«auges of the 
 weather, and depict upon the level sea-sand 
 objects usually seen perpendicular between the 
 earth and sky. For the prahus belonged to 
 traders resident in the capital ; through whom 
 Matari had signified to his liege lord the de- 
 scent made upon his poor little village by the 
 pirates, during the last absence of its male 
 population, as a justification of his desire to 
 pay tribute to the seat of government for the 
 future through the intervention of native 
 merchants. 
 
 Fortunately for my simple-hearted protec- 
 tors, these prahus arrived in their anchorage 
 at Tanjoo at the very period they were in the 
 habit of setting forth on their annual expedi- 
 tion ; for, counting on their absence, the war- 
 boats of the Illanuns were soon observed cruiz- 
 ing off the coast. But as prahus of con- 
 
IN BORNEO. 201 
 
 siclerable tonnage were already riding in the 
 roads, they judged it prudent to shape their 
 buccaneering course in some other direction. 
 
 " The Brune boats will not always be here !" 
 was poor Acheena's sage rejoinder, when con- 
 gratulated on their departure. *' The Bru- 
 niotes have left us till next season ; and these 
 Badjows, these sea-robbers, will perhaps re- 
 turn with an additional force, and destroy and 
 plunder the village." 
 
 " Not at present, at all events, my little 
 wife!" replied Bulan, lifting her at arms'- 
 length from the ground in his athletic grasp, 
 (one of his favourite modes of conjugal endear- 
 ment when in good humour.) *^ The Badjows 
 know that our stores are empty. The Bad- 
 jows will wait till we have dug and delved 
 and dived again, to procure fresh merchandize, 
 before they steer for our shore." 
 
 Still, Acheena, who was the wiser head of 
 k3 
 
202 ADVENTURES 
 
 the family, remained sorrowful; and many a 
 time did she invite me, as a child who had 
 known no sin, to consult the stars touching 
 their prospects. She was harassed by a pre- 
 science of evil to come. The note of the 
 Papow bird, of gloomy omen, had been heard 
 in the village ; and she accompanied me, more 
 than once, to the burial ground ; and while I 
 knelt beside the grave where the two beautiful 
 lily plants luxuriated and expanded in the 
 sunshine beside the earthly resting place of 
 those whose true home was in the skies, she 
 performed a variety of superstitious rites 
 around the tomb of her ancestors, whose me- 
 mory was doubtless dear to lier^ as to me the 
 thought of my lost parents. 
 
 Whenever Bulan returned home after a pro^ 
 tr acted absence in the jungle, she embraced 
 and danced round him, with a glee I could 
 only explain by her forebodings of mischance ] 
 
IN BORNEO. 203 
 
 and towards his old mother, the withered 
 crone, whom in the first instance I had mis- 
 taken for her own, her deportment redoubled 
 in duty and tenderness. At meal time, she 
 waited upon old Benak more like a slave than 
 a daughter-in-law; and spread her mat so 
 carefully at night, and set before her so 
 scrupulously the choicest fruit of their store, 
 that her filial piety was a pleasure to witness. 
 But when I inquired whether it were Benak's 
 care of her little one that rendered her so 
 assiduous to the old woman, whose temper 
 was none of the sweetest, she replied, that 
 "life was uncertain — that it might please 
 Tupa to call her suddenly to himself, and 
 demand an account of her doings." 
 
 One morning, not long after she had made 
 me this explanation, as I proceeded to the 
 shore for the resumption of my ciphering, 
 which my labour in the maize fields had 
 
204 ADVENTURES 
 
 caused me to neglect, I descried the two well- 
 known Bruniote pralius, bearing down towards 
 the roads; each towing a sampan, or canoe, 
 calculated for landing in the creek. I was 
 overjoyed at the sight; for in a life so mono- 
 tonous as ours, any novelty is hailed with 
 pleasure. I had entreated the Brune traders, 
 when they quitted us, to bring me on their 
 return, a store of the reed pens and Chinese 
 ink, which I found were in use among their 
 Mahomedan scribes; and without calculating 
 whether the time of their absence had been 
 sufficient for the disposal of their cargo and 
 relading of their vessels, felt assured that my 
 commissions had been duly executed ; and that 
 I should shortly be able to present my dear 
 Acheena with family portraits of her husband 
 and chUd, my rude performance of which 
 would pass for the supreme perfection of art ! 
 In the elation of my spirits, I was about to 
 
IN BORNEO. 205 
 
 rush to the shore and hail the prahus, when it 
 occurred to me, that, by giving premature 
 notice of their arrival to Bulan, and thus 
 enabling him to be the first on board, he 
 might drive a better bargain for himself with 
 these merchants than amidst the competition 
 of the thirty-three individuals who, exclusive 
 of his family, composed the population of 
 Tanjoo. 
 
 Away I went, therefore, through the thickets 
 — for the enclosure in which Bulan resided 
 lay on a landward slope a quarter of a mile 
 from the shore, and so divided from it by lofty 
 trees, that, unless when the inhabitants 
 sought the coast for fishing, they took little 
 heed of what was passing at sea. It was not 
 a maritime settlement. A few small paddle 
 boats, moored in the creek, constituted their 
 fleet. 
 
 " The prahus are on the coast !'* cried I, 
 
206 ADVENTURES 
 
 on reaching the campong, where Bulan was 
 hard at work, splitting rattans. " The prahus 
 are within an hour's sail of the oflfing.'* 
 
 ** What prahus?" — he replied. 
 
 " Those of our friends from Brune !" said I, 
 (for I had now acquired as much of their 
 dialect as was available for all practical 
 purposes.) On which hint, Bulan, though 
 entertaining slight misgivings touching the 
 accuracy of my intelligence, threw down his 
 hatchet, and prepared to accompany me to the 
 beach. 
 
 As we gained sight of the roads from an 
 eminence intervening betwixt the village and 
 the jungly shore, he laughed aloud for joy, 
 and pulled me sportively by the hair, calling 
 me " thick-head" and " blind eye." It was as 
 he supposed. The prahus in sight were not 
 those of the Brun6 merchants. " But no 
 matter!" cried he; *^ they are friends. They 
 
IN BORNEO. 207 
 
 bear at their mast head the ensign of our 
 rajah. They are manned, as you perceive, 
 by Chinamen; who have a settlement four 
 days' sail eastward, on our coast." 
 
 And as he spoke, I did indeed perceive that 
 such of the crew as appeared on deck were 
 habited in the pointed cap and womanlike 
 costume of the celestial empire. 
 
 Already Bulan, drawing himself up to the 
 full height of his fine athletic figure, had 
 hailed the prahus. But scarcely had the 
 shrill cheer escaped his lips, when I saw him 
 stop short, with his eyes dilated, and his whole 
 frame seized with a spasmodic trembling. I 
 have read of people and even of animals, 
 exhibiting such symptoms when fascinated by 
 the eye of a rattlesnake. For, alas ! the noble 
 frame of the warrior was convulsed by suddenly 
 recognising in the crews of the two vessels 
 bearing down upon Tanjoo, a band of 
 
208 ADVENTURES 
 
 Badjows or sea gypsies, disguised in the 
 costume of a friendly tribe for the purpose of 
 surprising the unfortunate Dyaks ! — 
 
 " Fly, boy !" cried he. " Return to the 
 village. Seek Matari, or, in his absence, 
 Siru, or Pandassan. Bid them arm. Bid 
 them draw up their ladders and fortify them- 
 selves in their houses. Tell them the Badjows 
 are upon us. Tell them not a moment must 
 be lost!"— 
 
 Eager to obey him, I was on the point of 
 starting at speed for the village, when lo! 
 fierce eyes glared upon me from among the 
 adjoining mangroves! — The Badjows had 
 already effected a landing! During my 
 absence at the village, a boat's crew had 
 pushed on shore, and the tide favouring, the 
 sampan lay close in shore at the foot of the 
 eminence where Bulan was standing. His 
 quick eye discerned in a moment the extent 
 
IN BORNEO. 209 
 
 of the evil. Fainiliar with the predatory 
 habits of the sea gypsies, he knew that they 
 not only plundered and ravaged the villages 
 on the coasts exposed to their fleets, but 
 carried off into slavery those adults whose 
 lives were too valuable to be sacrificed. Aware 
 that his hour was come, he was too high 
 couraged not to sell his freedom dearly ; and 
 before the pirates had time to spring upon 
 him from behind, and pinion him, his kriss 
 was flourished high in air, ready to inflict a 
 death wound on whoever was the first to 
 attempt his capture. 
 
 The present object of the Badjows being an 
 ambuscade, from which to emerge upon the 
 unsuspecting village, I was spared the sound 
 of that horrible yell, which always sounded to 
 me like the passing bell of my parents. But 
 I listened without compunction to the howl of 
 anguish uttered by the rufiian who, in endea- 
 
210 ADVENTURES 
 
 vouring to imprison Bulan in his arms, had 
 been stabbed to the bone ; though I was myself 
 at that moment a captive, dragged through 
 the bushes towards the boats by a lasso 
 fastened round my waist. Flung down hastily 
 in the sampan, I was instantly secured to a 
 ring in the bottom. Meanwhile poor Bulan^s 
 struggles for liberty were both firm and 
 heroic. But what chance has even the bravest 
 man against numbers? Though one of his 
 assailants was disabled by his weapon, and 
 another had already thrown himself on the 
 ground beside his wounded comrade, to suck 
 the poison from the orifice, five well-armed 
 and stout-bodied Badjows remained to secure 
 their prize ! — 
 
 Soon over-mastered and fastened neck and 
 heels together with the rough gno ropes of the 
 country, so harshly that the blood started 
 from his limbs, the poor fellow was flung 
 
IN BORNEO. 211 
 
 beside me into the boat; which was instantly 
 paddled off towards the anchored prahus, in 
 one of which we were stowed away between 
 decks; so that, two minutes after our capture, 
 we had as completely disappeared from the 
 surface of the earth as if lying in the cemetery 
 of Tan j 00 ! — 
 
 What ensued, therefore, we could only 
 faintly guess at. Bulan, indeed, having re- 
 ceived some severe contusions on the head, 
 was stunned by the treatment he had under- 
 gone. But I, who had sustained no further 
 injury than the loss of my liberty, (for the 
 Badjows having previous intimation of my 
 sojourn among the Dyaks, believing me to be a 
 king's son in my own country, reckoned too 
 largely on my ransom to maltreat me,) I was 
 free to observe as much as could be observed 
 by a poor prisoner lying corded like a bale of 
 goods, in the hold of a prahu. 
 
212 ADVENTUKES 
 
 I soon heard the [)irates hurry from the 
 vessel, doubtless to attack the village. And 
 though, thanks to the tardiness of poor Bulan's 
 discovery of the error I had committed con- 
 cerning the identity of our visitors, no alarm 
 had been given so as to place the tribe on the 
 defensive, it was probable that such resistance 
 would be made as must detain the enemy a 
 considerable time from their ships. Pinioned 
 as we were, they might have left us there till 
 the day of doom without the smallest risk of 
 our self -enlargement. All we could do was to 
 interchange moan for moan. And soon, in 
 addition to the misery of our situation, was 
 added the agony of thirst. For the day passed 
 on; and from early morn till eve not a 
 drop of Avater to slake our lips, parched as 
 they were with grief and fatigue. — In Bulan's 
 breast the fever ran high, indeed ! — His wife, 
 child, home, at the mercy of godless and law- 
 less ruffians, like the Badjows ! — 
 
IN BORNEO. 213 
 
 At length, as day-light declined, we heard 
 first one heavy package, and then another, 
 thrown down on the deck over our heads; 
 and, again and again, the paddles of the canoes 
 approaching the prahus, announced that new 
 freights were added to the cargo : the house- 
 hold goods, the arms, the stores of the un- 
 happy village. Though Bulan was unable to 
 move hand or foot, or even turn his face 
 towards me, I could discern, by the shorten- 
 ing gasps of his breathing, the increase of his 
 emotion as the moment drew near which 
 would probably acquaint him with the fate of 
 Acheena and the child. It was the invari- 
 able custom of these Badjows — {who knew it 
 better than himself?) — to sacrifice the babes 
 and aged of the native settlements they 
 sacked and burnt, as useless and encumbering 
 baggage, not worth the removal. What if his 
 mother and infant should be slain? What if 
 
214 ADVENTURES 
 
 his wife — But why depict the unavail- 
 ing torments of that manly breast ! 
 
 At every fresh shout of the conquerors, as 
 they neared our vessel, I could perceive the 
 plank on which he was lying vibrate with his 
 agony. At length, though almost towards 
 dark, two of the pirates leapt down suddenly 
 into the hold ; and I was seized and borne 
 from his side. It was decided by our new 
 masters that the white king's son should be 
 transferred to the prahu in which the female 
 prisoners were confined; the males, destined 
 for the slave-market, being more rigorously 
 dealt with, as well as more meagrely fed. 
 
 This change in my destination pleased me. 
 For I was painfully anxious to see again my 
 poor Acheena, — my sister — mother — friend, — 
 and reassure her concerning the safety of her 
 husband. But when I did behold her, face 
 to face, oh ! liow I longed to escape back to 
 
IN BORNEO. 215 
 
 my original prison ! — Poor creature, — poor 
 mother, — poor wife!— There she sat, at the 
 furthest extremity of the boat, crouching like 
 an idiot ; her long hair dishevelled, — her eyes 
 fixed and haggard. I was fool enough to 
 approach her, hoping to rouse her from this 
 deep despondency by an inquiry after her 
 child. She did not answer; but, on my re- 
 newing the question, pointed towards the 
 shore from which we were receding. And, lo ! 
 through the dusk which was now thickening, 
 I saw a red column rising into the sky, in 
 the direction of the village of Tanjoo. 
 
 Still, the gesture by which Acheena en- 
 deavoured to explain to me that she was 
 homeless and childless, was so devoid of her 
 usual sensibility, — so unnatural, — so deeply 
 despairing, — that I hoped to impart comfort 
 to her feelings, by telling her that her husband 
 had escaped all personal violence; — that Bulan 
 
216 ADVENTURES 
 
 was there — close beside us ; — that a few hun- 
 dred yards' distance of water only rippled 
 between ; — that shortly, very shortly, we should 
 all three meet again. 
 
 At that assurance, a shriek whose piercing 
 bitterness no language can describe, burst 
 from the lips of Acheena. Before I could 
 speak a second word, she had fallen senseless 
 on the deck! — 
 
 I know not to what savage entreatment the 
 prisoners in the other prahu may have been 
 exposed. But I must needs own that, to- 
 wards this young and suffering woman, the 
 deportment of the Badjows was mild in the 
 extreme. There were no females on board, 
 save her fellow captives; most of them be- 
 reaved, like herself, but either paralyzed by 
 fear or stupefied by horror. They were forced, 
 however, by the Badjows, to wait upon 
 Acheena during the paroxysm of fever that 
 
IN BORNEO. 217 
 
 followed her revival from her swoon; for 
 we were now standing out to sea, and there 
 was no further hope of escape for these 
 wretched women : one of whom, Palanga, the 
 sister of Matari, having flung herself over- 
 board ere we quitted the moorings, with the 
 intent to swim on shore, was shot dead in the 
 attempt. 
 
 Acheena was deposited on deck, under an 
 awning of palm-leaves, interwoven between 
 slips of rattan into a compact form ; where, 
 as soon as it was explained to Hussim Atim, 
 the captain of the Badjows, that I had formed 
 part of her household, I was permitted to 
 share their attendance on the patient. Rather, 
 however, would I have undertaken the hardest 
 labours of the steerage, than been exposed to 
 the sight of the sad smiles that broke over her 
 bewildered face, when, raising herself feebly 
 on her mat, she went through the move- 
 
 L 
 
218 ADVENTURES 
 
 ments of rocking her infant to sleep upon her 
 bosom, and crooning its evening hillaby ! 
 
 Sometimes she would raise herself on her 
 knees, as if to wash the feet of poor old 
 Benak, and ask a blessing of her for her pains. 
 But oftener stilly she attempted to bind up 
 her scattered hairs, and gird on her sarong; 
 whispering, in a tone of heart-breaking joy, 
 that " Bulan was coming back with the tri- 
 bute bearers from Brune ; that only two more 
 jessamine blossoms remained to be shed from 
 her tally; that happy was the woman who 
 could go forth to the gate, and welcome back 
 the beloved husband of her youth." For to 
 this wife-like transport was sure to succeed 
 a start, — a thrill of horror, — as the recollec- 
 tion of recent events dawned upon her mind ; 
 and to that grievous thought succeeded, first, 
 painful convulsions; and next, total insensi- 
 bility. 
 
IN BORNEO. 219 
 
 On the third day, thanks be to Heaven, she 
 died ! — I took her cold hand between my own, 
 with love and reverence, ere, at Hussim Atim's 
 order, the Badjows heaved the body over- 
 board, as a happy riddance to their cargo. 
 And as I watched it disappear under the blue 
 waters, though unable to restrain my tears 
 for the loss of so kind a friend, I could not 
 but rejoice that our dear Acheena's troubled 
 soul was released ; and pray with my whole 
 heart that she who had relieved the orphan, 
 and consecrated the grave of his Christian 
 mother, might be accepted as a Christian in 
 spirit, if not in name, before the throne of the 
 Christian's benignant God ! — 
 
 1.2 
 
220 ADVENTURES 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Four more days at sea, — four dreary, sluggish 
 days, — made doubly wretched by my sorrow- 
 ings after the dead, and my dread of having 
 the sad tale of her death to reveal to her hus- 
 band on our arrival at our destination. That 
 destination, I supposed to be one of the pirate 
 settlements on the coast of Borneo. But I was 
 deceived. We stood over towards a neigh- 
 bouring island ; and I soon discovered that it 
 was the intention of the Badjows to dispose of 
 
IN BORNEO. 221 
 
 their slaves and plunder, ere they rejoined their 
 fleet at Sakarra. 
 
 I was chidden down below from the moment 
 we sighted land; and was standing in the 
 midst of a group of miserable women, torn 
 from their husbands and children, and about 
 to be sold into they knew not what hor- 
 rible slavery, when at length we anchored in 
 smooth water. We were indeed in river har- 
 bourage — a wide, slow river, with low and 
 marshy banks ; the water turbid, — the air 
 thickened with noxious exhalations and ephe- 
 meral swarms, generated by the vapours ex- 
 tracted by a fierce, copper-tinted sun. Pre- 
 cisely such a stream must have suggested to 
 the ancients their notions of the rivers of hell ! 
 
 On the mud-bank, betwixt our anchorage 
 and the reeds, were the trails of alligators or 
 crocodiles. The very birds, whose heavy 
 wings flapped over the dreary morass which 
 
222 ADVENTURES 
 
 deserved not to be called a shore, wore a livid- 
 coloured plumage instead of the usually bright 
 colours of the tropics ; and uttered a dispirit- 
 ing cry, like the mournful booming of the 
 bittern. 
 
 Oh ! what a change from our green, green 
 village, with its feathery palm-trees, its fruit- 
 ful plantains, its circling pigeons, and the 
 merry crowing and cackling of its feathered 
 tribes ! To attain a due appreciation of the 
 joys of his lost Eden, the fallen father of 
 mankind should have looked forth from its 
 gates, notui^on stones and thorns and thistles; 
 but upon such a swamp of quaggy mud and 
 wilderness of dismal reeds, as I surveyed from 
 the prahu ! — 
 
 The thought of landing in this aguish 
 region, was far from inviting. But on that 
 point, I was soon re-assured. After lying at 
 anchor during the night, which the cries of 
 
IN BORNEO. 223 
 
 the marsh-birds rendered as sleepless as the 
 stench of the mud rendered it baneful, we 
 pursued our way on the morrow up a stream 
 navigable for vessels of thrice our tonnage. 
 And lo ! at a spot where the reeds were dis- 
 coloured and stunted, a series of thatched and 
 peaked roofs appeared over their tops ; at no 
 great distance from which, in a reach of the 
 river, lay a fleet of dingy rafts, rudely con- 
 structed of bamboo, which indicated the ad- 
 jacency of a town or village. 
 
 One of the brass swivel-guns of the prahu 
 in our company was instantly discharged down 
 the stream ; but whether as a friendly signal 
 to the inhabitants, or in token of warfare, I 
 was at first uncertain. My suspense, how- 
 ever, was short. As if called into existence 
 by a stroke of magic, out crawled from the 
 reeds a swarm of naked natives, black, and 
 hideous to look on; with woolly hair, and a 
 
224 ADVENTURES 
 
 physiognomy as foreign to that of the Dyaks 
 as these to the Europeans. The water seemed 
 alive with them, as a ditch with tadpoles ; for 
 they swam to the rafts, and were speedily 
 crowding round the prahus ; the chief among 
 them, distinguished by huge ornaments of 
 brass pendent from their ears, being alone 
 admitted on board. 
 
 But even with the score or so thus favoured, 
 what a hideous tumult! More especially in 
 the other prahu ; which contained the most 
 attractive wares, in the shape of able-bodied 
 slaves. They were bought, like stalled oxen, 
 after a careful manipulation, as well as ocular 
 survey ; each man realizing, as well as I could 
 interpret their dialect, the value of about a 
 hundred rupees. But this was in very few 
 instances paid in specie. This loathsome 
 spot, whose vegetable and animal productions 
 were, at the first glance, so unsightly, was 
 
IN BORNEO. 225 
 
 rich in products tending to demonstrate the 
 equable distribution of the gifts of Provi^ 
 dence. In payment for their human brethren, 
 they produced not only gold-dust in small 
 quantities, but certain furs, almost equalling 
 in fineness and silkiness the skins of the sea- 
 otter, so prized by the Chinese ; but whether 
 the skins of a large species of mole or small 
 kind of beaver, I was never able to ascertain. 
 Unfortunately, my^ idle curiosity to exa- 
 mine some singular specimens of basket-work 
 and quill-work, brought for sale or barter by 
 some of the later rafts, induced me to trans- 
 gress the prohibition against being seen on 
 deck ; for I was instantly bid for, and largely. 
 They pronounced me to be, in spite of my 
 hideous whiteness, a stout, active stripling. 
 Nay, I verily believe they hoped to realize a 
 premium for me in the inland markets, as a 
 " fancy article." 
 
 l3 
 
226 ADVENTURES 
 
 Hussim Atim, the captain of the pirates, 
 had, however, other projects; which he was 
 cunning enough to disguise, under the pre- 
 tence of keeping me as a plaything for his 
 offspring, as baboons or orang-outangs are 
 kept in Europe! The design was far from 
 flattering ; still less, the smart stroke of a 
 leathern thong, with which Hussim Atim 
 enforced his commands to me to go below and 
 keep quiet, by way of certifying to his cus- 
 tomers the docility of his pet animal. 
 
 As well for me, perhaps, that he judged it 
 prudent to keep me out of sight of his cus- 
 tomers ! For I was thus spared the spectacle of 
 poor Bulan, conveyed corded upon a raft to 
 the miserable scene of his future toils. 
 Acheena was gone for ever, and I had no 
 comforting word to breathe to him. Better, 
 far better, therefore, that we should meet no 
 more. 
 
IN BORNEO. 227 
 
 The negotiations between tlie Badjows and 
 the monsters with whom they were trafficking, 
 were not brought to a close without libations 
 on both sides of a fermented liquor called 
 quarri, or some such name ; which left the 
 sea-gypsies in such a state, that I verily 
 believe I might have effected my escape, had 
 I experienced any temptation to that effect. 
 But whither was I to direct my steps? The 
 country on which we were touching, was the 
 worst specimen I had yet seen of the earth^s 
 surface; and the natives were evidently sunk 
 into a far lower depth of brutalization than 
 even the Badjows ; while the Dyaks of Tanjoo 
 were, by comparison, a refined and enlightened 
 tribe. Better, therefore, accompany the prahus 
 back to their pirate's den ! For I had strong 
 evidence, in a variety of their habits and 
 belongings, that they kept up some sort of 
 commerce, if not with Europe, at least with 
 
228 ADVENTURES 
 
 lands where Europeans occasionally set foot. 
 When we weighed anchor, my heart re- 
 joiced within me; for neither cuffs nor stripes 
 could subdue the hope which had sprung up 
 at the bottom of my soul, that all the days of 
 my life were not appointed for submission to 
 the bondsman's scourge ; but that I should live 
 to hail white faces again, and listen once more 
 to the now almost forgotten accents of my 
 native land. 
 
 It was probably the exhilaration of spirits 
 proceeding from this deep-seated hope, which 
 extinguished all sober reason within me. For 
 one day — several having elapsed since we 
 cleared the fated harbour of that horrible 
 coast, a couple of days spent upon whose 
 rotting stream had introduced fever into the 
 pralius, so that one of the crew had already 
 expired, and two more were despaired of, — 
 one day, I say, as we were sailing across the 
 
IN BORNEO. 229 
 
 renovating waves of the open sea, and Hussini 
 Atim was sporting with me insolently on 
 deck, much as if I had really been one of the 
 Simious tribe with which he had dared to 
 class me, I was idiot enough to attempt to 
 make him understand that, if he chose to re- 
 lease me, and set me on shore in the land he 
 spoke of as one with which he traded, where 
 white men were kings and governors, I pos- 
 sessed the means of paying him a noble 
 ransom. For of the sum and valuables de- 
 posited by the English boat's crew at the 
 moment of the attack of the Illanuns, off 
 Tanjoo, the greater part belonged to my 
 parents ; and the remainder would, I felt 
 satisfied, be amply refunded to the survivors 
 or their heirs, by my uncle Charles, should 
 the cession of the whole enable me to compass 
 my enlargement and return to Christendom. 
 But I was a fool for my pains : or rather 
 
230 ADVENTURES 
 
 I was but ten years old, and green of my 
 years. For no sooner had the Badjow captain 
 got scent of a treasure, which I declared 
 myself able to point out in the vicinity 
 of the village where I was taken prisoner, 
 than he profited by having taken in fresh 
 water, provisions, and sirih and betel for 
 chewing, in the river of rafts, to give orders 
 for tacking for an immediate return to 
 Tanjoo. 
 
 Terrified, less by the prospect of the conflict 
 that must ensue should the pirate prahus fall 
 in with those of Brune, cruising off our coast, 
 than by the notion that, if Hussim Atim 
 obtained premature possession of the spoil, my 
 sole and only chance of release would be lost, 
 so that I should have misappropriated the 
 property of others to benefit outcasts and 
 thieves, — I endeavoured to draw in, — to eat 
 my words, — to treat my previous assertion as 
 an idle vaunt. But Hussim Atim knew better. 
 
IN BORNEO. 231 
 
 Pretending to consider it necessary to give 
 me a lesson on the heinousness of lying, (he, a 
 member of a tribe notorious for cunning and 
 deceit,) he administered severe correction in 
 the shape of a knotted thong ; — which made 
 me howl lustily, I am afraid, but did not make 
 me confess. 
 
 Still, his suspicions were strong. He did 
 not give his orang-outang credit for the mother- 
 wit necessary to invent such a tale as I pre- 
 tended to have palmed upon him. 
 
 He consequently treated me to a specimen 
 of the tender mercies I had heard ascribed 
 to the Badjows by Dyak report : — I was placed 
 naked on deck, under a vertical sun, with 
 a lighted match fastened between each of my 
 fingers ! — This was more than flesh and blood 
 could bear ; and no sooner had my shrinking 
 hands begun to scorch and shrivel in the flame, 
 than I cried aloud to be released: offering to 
 point out to Hussim Atim's private ear, the spot 
 
232 ADVENTURES 
 
 among the mangroves where the treasure was 
 deposited, and by what mark the place might 
 be detected. 
 
 And oh ! when, after several days, a week, 
 I believe, of sailing and tacking among shoals 
 and coral reefs, and at one time under chase 
 of a fleet of Borneon prahus, — what agony of 
 spirit assailed me as we neared the coast 
 adjoining the Tanjoo creek; lest peradventure 
 time and tide might have rotted away the 
 silken rag that w^as to serve me for clue! 
 Twice, during my sojourn with Bulan and 
 Acheena, I had visited the spot in secret ; and 
 found the silken thread fast bound round the 
 root. But a year had elapsed since my last 
 visit; and the evil genius which seemed to 
 preside over my destinies might, in the interim, 
 have spirited it away ! — 
 
 Hussim Atim stood on deck, watching me 
 with a malignant and scrutinizing eye. 
 
IN BORNEO. 233 
 
 through the circling liimes of the pipe in 
 which he was accustomed to smoke a mixture 
 of opium and aromatic leaves, which, whatever 
 delight it might impart to his inward man, did 
 little towards the mollification of his temper : — 
 the ill-conditioned misbeliever being probably 
 puzzled to inteipret the bewilderment of 
 emotions that assailed me on approaching a 
 shore, consecrated at once by reminiscences 
 of my lamented parents, and the humane 
 beings who had so mercifully supplied their 
 place : to say nothing of its containing, as I 
 trusted, the germs of my liberation. How my 
 heart beat, when the opposition of wind and 
 tide obliged us to tack, at the very moment 
 we were nearing the creek ! — How my over- 
 strained eyes, long on the watch for familiar 
 objects on the beach, became suddenly dim 
 with tears when, on recognising a well-known 
 group of sago-palms, I recalled to mind the 
 
234 ADVENTURES 
 
 column of flame and smoke overtopping them, 
 overtopping all, when I beheld them last ! — 
 Westward of those palm trees, was the burial- 
 ground, where rested my mother and my lost 
 playmate, my darling little sister ! — 
 
 "And oh," thought I, "if now saints in 
 Heaven, pray for me, ye dear ones, — pray for 
 me, — that the hour of my deliverance be not 
 delayed ; — and that I may be rescued out of the 
 grasp of the tormentor." — 
 
 At last, we were in the roads. At last, our 
 anchor was dropped, and the canoe launched — 
 Gliding like a sea snake through the smooth 
 waters, we reached the mangrove bank; and 
 Hussim Atim, as we leapt on shore, appeared 
 to me to keep his hand significantly upon the 
 ivory pommel of his kriss. His eyes fixed 
 themselves searchingly upon mine,* as I pro- 
 ceeded, with the dew of anxiety starting from 
 my brow, to examine the convolved mangrove 
 
IN BORNEO. 235 
 
 roots protruding from the sand. Crawling 
 on my hands and knees among these huge 
 feelers, I searched again and again; and was 
 as often disappointed. — Oh ! God ! oh ! God ! — 
 the junctures on which my memory had dwelt 
 so familiarly, that I fancied it impossible I 
 could be puzzled, were not to be found ! — 
 
 At last, I cried aloud, or I should rather 
 say, shrieked aloud for joy. — A few paces 
 further, on a branch cresting the well-remem- 
 bered embankment, I descried the black hand- 
 kerchief, — all that remained of it at least, — 
 fluttering in the Sea breeze, on the stem to 
 which it was tied, like a fragment of wool on 
 the thorns of some English hedge. — It was 
 there ! — It was safe ! — I had attained the object 
 of my hopes and prayers ! — 
 
 On pointing it out to Hussim, I could per- 
 ceive by the sudden brightening of his terrible 
 eye of the hue of rusty iron, that he was 
 
236 ADVENTURES 
 
 agreeably surprised ; that lie had not, hereto- 
 fore, placed unlimited faith in my veracity. 
 His first movement was to face about towards 
 the prahus, to satisfy himself that we were out 
 of distance for our proceedings to be observed, 
 having been careful to paddle the boat with 
 his own hands, rather than be accompanied by 
 even the most confidential of his confederates ; 
 so that the prize secured by his stratagem 
 would, he thought, fall exclusively to the share 
 of the lion. 
 
 He drew closer to me, however, when we 
 reached the critical spot; and when I threw 
 myself on my knees to insinuate my hands 
 under the roots and scoop away the sand that 
 covered the leathern bag, was so close upon 
 me, that I could feel his hot breath upon my 
 shoulders. 
 
 Heavenly mercy! what a thrill of horror 
 ran through my frame when, in place of the 
 
IN BORNEO. 237 
 
 expected treasure, I found only a vacant 
 hollow. — Gone! — The deposit was removed. 
 But it was not alone that I knew myself to 
 be thus thrown back upon the vengeance of 
 the old wretch, who would be certain to think 
 I had throughout deceived him, — that the 
 treasure was the mere coinage of my dupli- 
 city. A still greater pang it cost me to reflect 
 that the bag could only have been removed 
 by the hands of a fellow-countryman ; — perhaps 
 by my father himself, — for none but the sur- 
 vivors of the Kelso's ill-fated launch were 
 cognizant of the hiding-place. If, therefore, 
 I had remained at Tanjoo but a month longer, 
 I should have been rescued from bondage, and 
 restored to my country and friends. 
 
 I was confirmed in this grievous supposition 
 by finding in the sand, a few feet from the 
 spot whence the treasure had been abstracted, 
 an English penknife, probably used in cutting 
 
238 ADVENTURES 
 
 the strings of the leathern pouch, and over- 
 looked in the hurry of the moment. On the 
 handle was a small silver scutcheon, engraved 
 with initials. But I could not make them 
 out. My head was dizzy. My sight failed 
 me. I was pondering how I should ever gain 
 courage to announce to the armed wretch 
 hanging over me, my discovery that we were 
 come too late ! 
 
 At length I found his fiend-like clutch upon 
 my shoulder. 
 
 " The treasure !" — cried he ; " the money, — 
 the jewels !" — 
 
 A sudden gleam of enlightenment, emitted 
 by the mercy of Heaven, seemed to enter my 
 mind as I shrank under his grasp. The bag 
 had been removed during my short absence. 
 The ground was newly disturbed. There was 
 not a speck of rust on the blade of the pen- 
 knife; so that it could not have been long 
 
IN BORNEO. 239 
 
 exposed to the influence of the sea-spray and 
 weather. My country-people were, perhaps, 
 still on the island. I might still be rescued ! — 
 I might still be free ! — 
 
 At all events, it would be gaining time if I 
 could prevail on Hussim Atim to go in search 
 of the treasure-finders. 
 
 " My father, the white Eajah, or some man 
 high in authority under him, has visited the 
 place since my departure in your prahus,'' 
 said I, with as resolute an air as I could 
 muster. '' I know it by this token, an imple- 
 ment belonging to my family. His ship is 
 still doubtless on the coast; probably at Brune, 
 with which city, you tell me, you trade; and 
 have, before now, seen commanders of my 
 nation. Let us go thither. You will there 
 command for me a ransom doubling in amount 
 the sum I expected to find deposited here." 
 
 My composure staggered the barbarian; 
 
240 ADVENTURES 
 
 and the knife, fortunately a choice silver- 
 mounted one, served to accredit my assertion. 
 After squatting himself for some minutes on 
 a mangrove root, with his head buried in his 
 hands, for reflection, he rose abruptly, and 
 assented to my proposal. In another minute, 
 we were in the sampan on our way back to 
 the prahu. 
 
 Much would I have given for a half hour's 
 visit to the ruins of the village. But I dared 
 not propose it. Besides, as it was more than 
 probable that an English ship was really cruis- 
 ing round the island, every moment was pre- 
 cious. The opportunity once lost, might 
 recur no more. 
 
 It was amusing to observe, that is, it would 
 have been amusing to me, had not my life lain 
 at the disposal of a wretch who carried pistols 
 and krisses in his belt, but neither law nor 
 religion in his heart, the uncertain mood to 
 
IN BORNEO. 241 
 
 which Hussim Atim was wrought by the dis- 
 appointment of his cupidity struggling against 
 his hopes of future gain. He would have 
 slain me on the spot, perhaps, for having 
 beguiled him out of his course to visit Tanjoo ; 
 but that he regarded me as the goose from 
 which golden eggs might still be expected. 
 Sometimes, I caught him regarding me askance, 
 with grinding teeth and his rust-coloured eyes 
 rolling menacingly in the sockets. But the 
 next minute, the thought of my Rajah father 
 subdued his ire ; and he would order me an 
 additional mess of rice, or sweet potatoes, or 
 even bestow upon me a handful of duriels or 
 mangusteens, in order that I might be sleek 
 and in good case when I came to be appraised 
 in the market. 
 
 Fresh supplies of water for the prahus hav- 
 ing been procured on shore, we quitted the 
 roads. The river Brun^, it appeared, was 
 
 M 
 
242 ADVENTURES 
 
 many days' sail from Tanjoo, according to the 
 state of the wind; and all humane persons 
 will enter into my wild anxieties whenever 
 the flapping sails afforded a hint that the 
 period of suspense might be prolonged by a 
 calm, and so enable the English ship to quit 
 those seas previous to our arrival. So peevish 
 and impatient did I grow, that I wonder I 
 was not consigned to close confinement, in- 
 stead of being allowed to share the work of 
 the prahu's company. The risk I ran would 
 have been trying to the fortitude of a Stoic. 
 For if, on arriving in the river, it proved 
 that no European vessel had visited the coast, 
 and that the treasure had been removed by 
 some straggler of our boat-wrecked party, how 
 was I to pacify the pirate, — how escape from 
 the slave-merchant's degrading thong? — 
 
 For the first two days, the excitement of 
 my mind took the form of restlessness. The 
 
IN BORNEO. 243 
 
 slowness of our progress made me envy the 
 wings of every sea-bird that flitted past the 
 uncouth sails of the prahu, formed of the 
 woven bark of the ippu tree. 
 
 But on the third day, this prolonged want 
 of sleep overmastered even my emotions ; and 
 I sank dull and stupified on a corner of the 
 deck ; murmuring to myself that " blessed 
 were those who died in infancy, to be spared 
 such sufferings as mine." 
 
 But if my frame waxed weary, my soul 
 was restless as ever. As I lay, loglike, on the 
 teak deck of the prahu, spurned by every 
 passing foot, I was dreaming of home — of 
 Swallowfield. — The fragrance of the old jes- 
 samine tree, and of the English bean- fields 
 and briary lanes, seemed to haunt me. I heard 
 linnets and thrushes, as from our pleasant 
 garden-hedge. But, above all, though no 
 sound was near me at the time, save the 
 M 2 
 
244 ADYENTURES 
 
 monotonous ripple of tlie ocean, I distinctly 
 heard the Sabbath bell that used to summon 
 us to the old grey church, up the avenue of 
 quivering lime-trees, with the blue sky of 
 England shining cheerfully over all ! — 
 
 So heavily did I sleep, that even Hussim 
 respected my slumber, and let me lie there 
 through the night, on the coil of gomati ropes 
 I had selected for my pillow ; instead of waking 
 me up by a kick, to go below to my mat in 
 the hold, as on ordinary occasions would have 
 been my fate. But he was himself keeping 
 watch. For the prahu was making all sail, and 
 running before the wind ; which, on a shore 
 circled with shoals and studded with coral 
 reefs, demanded such careful pilotage as only 
 the interested vigilance of ownership can in- 
 spire; more especially as the nights were apt 
 to thicken with the unwholesome haze so com- 
 mon to the coasts of the Indian seas. 
 
IN BORNEO. 245 
 
 I was, as I said before, wrapt in a beneficent 
 dream of home and those who had made it 
 dear; when a sudden cry, a cry nearly as 
 frightful as the war-yell of the Illanuns, dis- 
 pelled the charm. I was on my feet in a 
 moment. But what did I behold ! The mists 
 of night gently disappearing as the first rays 
 of dawn formed a pathway of light along 
 the rippling waves, — before us, — scarcely at 
 half a mile distance, — lying at anchor near what 
 was announced to me as the mouth of the Eiver 
 Rejang, — rode what theBadjows cried out aloud 
 to be the sea palace of Tupa their God; — and 
 what every pulse of my frame bounding within 
 me announced to be — an English frigate! — 
 
 Eeader ! — you have doubtless, in the course 
 of your days, had occasion to applaud with 
 enthusiasm certain stanzas and sonnets illus- 
 trating an Englishman's attachment to the 
 flag which has braved — 
 
 A thousand years, the battle and the brepv** 
 
246 ADVENTURES 
 
 But depend upon it, nothing that was ever said, 
 sung, or written on the subject rises to the 
 height of my ecstasy on surveying, pendent 
 to the mast before me, the glorious " bit o' 
 blue," — the well-known Union Jack! — To 
 others, it is an emblem of victory — of national 
 triumph. — For me^ it combined life — love — 
 liberty — home, — country, — friends ! — 
 
 I own — let no man despise me for it, (no 
 woman will! — ) I own that, on seeing it wave 
 lightly in the early breeze of morn, floating 
 sportively, as though in scorn of the pigmy 
 enemy it came to reduce to nothingness, the 
 weakness of nature prevailed, and I wept — 
 wildly and hysterically; calling aloud, and 
 as in frenzy, upon many a beloved and sacred 
 name, which of late I had not dared to utter. 
 
 Hussim Atim, although he spoke not, was 
 evidently thoroughly cowed. He, whose 
 maritime experience was confined to native 
 
IN BORNEO. 247 
 
 prahus, the largest fifty feet long, or the 
 lumbering craft of a few insignificant Dutch 
 skippers, surveyed with an air of stupefaction 
 the noble ship ; as a yokel from the country 
 stares at the cathedral of St. Paul. But the 
 men spoke out; exclaiming that the Eajah of 
 the white men was come in person to claim 
 his child. One of them ventured to ask me 
 whether, in my country, there existed another 
 such monster prahu as the one we were near- 
 ing. But when I answered, " Ay, a hundred 
 such, and a few thrice as large, and carrying 
 thrice as many guns !" the Badjows regarded 
 me with pity, as a liar and a braggart. 
 
 I know not what mischief was expected of 
 us by the gallant ship before us: probably, 
 that we were about to profit by the light wind 
 and early tide, and shoot past the frigate up 
 the river, to alarm and bring down the natives ; 
 for on our making sail, a shot was fired over 
 
248 ADYENTURES 
 
 US to bring us to. In a moment, Hussim Atim 
 took the hint, and let go his anchor. In 
 another, his canoe was paddling towards the 
 frigate. He did not hesitate to be his own 
 ambassador in a case of diplomacy that re- 
 garded the blood royal ! — 
 
 What passed on the deck of the Palmyra, I 
 have since learned from others. The pirate 
 presented himself boldly ; for he was conscious 
 of having in his hands a valuable hostage. 
 But the English Captain, who saw in him 
 only one of an abhorred race, sea-robbers from 
 sire to son, surveyed him, in his turn, much 
 as the best-wigged of our judges surveys a 
 convicted felon in the dock of the Old Bailey, 
 on whom he is about to pronounce the sentence 
 of the law. 
 
 The worst of it was, that though supplied 
 with a competent Malay interpreter, not a soul 
 on board could furnish a clue to a sylla^e 
 
IN BORNEO. 249 
 
 of the ** confounded lingo" so volubly uttered 
 by the Badjow. 
 
 *' Let my friend Lord H be apprized of 
 
 this fellow's arrival," said Captain F , to 
 
 one of his officers. " He will not mind turning 
 out an hour earlier than usual to see what can 
 be made out of the rascal ; — though, if my skill 
 in physiognomy go for anything, I fear, little 
 good!"— 
 
 Before Hussim could do more than repeat 
 some twenty times, in his Badjow dialect, his 
 already thrice-told tale of having on board his 
 prahu the white-faced Kajah's son, a fine- 
 looking young man, attired in a loose wrapper, 
 and with a careworn face and sickly aspect, 
 made his appearance on deck. And he^ having 
 but one business there, and that business in- 
 volving every affection of his heart, he quickly 
 made it understood. 
 
 " Were there," he inquired, " in Hussim 
 m3 
 
250 ADVENTURES 
 
 Atiin's country, white prisoners — man, woman, 
 or child ?" 
 
 It was not very difficult to point to a mid- 
 shipman, climbing the shrouds of the Palmyra, 
 probably to survey more at his ease the curious 
 scene passing on deck; and explain that his 
 facsimile — though the blue jacket and et 
 ceteras were wanting, — was " at that moment 
 awaiting their summons in yonder prahu." 
 
 Almost as soon as the words were spoken. 
 
 Captain F had issued orders to man his 
 
 gig, and board the pirate vessel; in order to 
 ascertain the truth of the Badjow's assertion. 
 Taken in a trap, Hussim Atim, according to 
 the habits of his people, became violent and 
 dangerous ; and, drawing his pistols from his 
 belt, prepared to leap into his sampan and 
 precede the mission of the Europeans. But 
 Jack was as much on the alert as the pirate ! 
 He was seized and disarmed, before he could 
 
IN BORNEO. 251 
 
 spring overboard; and there he stood, chafing 
 and blaspheming, in all the dialects of Poly- 
 nesia, between two jolly tars, who listened to 
 him with about as much concern as they would 
 have done to the chattering of a baboon. 
 
 I cannot pretend to guess what the mid and 
 men sent to search for me, thought of Lord 
 
 H 's nephew ; whose outward boy, through 
 
 long exposure to a tropical sun, bore the com- 
 plexion of a new farthing or a well-scoured 
 tea-kettle. But recognise me they did, even 
 before they boarded the prahu. For I retained 
 just enough of poor old Ned Morley's instruc- 
 tions to return, with a true British cheer, the 
 three cheers given by the sailors, on discern- 
 ing, upon the deck of the pirate-boat, the Eng- 
 lish youngster of whose evil hap they had heard 
 
 so much Not one of them so much as jeered 
 
 at my nakedness ; — for they saw in it the livery 
 of misfortune ! — 
 
252 ADVENTURES 
 
 Long before I reached the presence of my 
 uncle, the proceedings on board the prahu 
 convinced him that the object of his wearisome 
 voyage to the East was as much accomplished 
 as it pleased the Almighty it should be; and 
 he was prepared to press the poor shaggy wild 
 boy to his heart, and tell him that the father- 
 less had found a father, and the exile a home. 
 
 To explain in detail, from first to last, how 
 this happy meeting had been brought about, 
 would entail a story nearly as long as that 
 which has been already related. But it may be 
 stated in a few words, that, on my uncle's return 
 from the United States, whence he had been 
 summoned to attend the dying bed of his 
 brother, the late lord, he found his whole 
 family occupied with a statement regarding 
 their discarded Mary, which had appeared 
 in the newspapers. — The bottle prepared 
 by my parents had been most fortunately 
 
IN BORNEO. 253 
 
 picked up, off Ceylon, by his Majesty's war- 
 sloop, the Thunderer ; and soon after the de- 
 cease of his brother, my uncle Charles, on 
 pushing his inquiries upon the subject at the 
 India House, found that a seaman belonging to 
 the unfortunate Kelso had reached Pinang; 
 captured in a slaveship belonging to the Ilia- 
 nuns, on its way to Manilla. By him, it was 
 reported that my mother, sister, and father 
 were no more : the latter having died of his 
 wounds in the jungle, on the morrow of the 
 day on which our boat was surprised. But he 
 also declared that the boy, young Meredyth, 
 was a prisoner among the Dyaks. 
 
 Sad as was this intelligence, my uncle was 
 content to learn that his blood yet ran in the 
 veins of a living thing. All his thoughts, from 
 the moment that his affairs in England were got 
 into train, was to recover his poor nephew from 
 the land of darkness. 
 
254 ADVENTURES 
 
 Had it been necessary, he would have 
 freighted a ship for the express purpose of 
 exploring the Eastern Archipelago, with a 
 view to obtaining tidings of my whereabout. 
 But yachting was then in its infancy ; and the 
 enterprise was beyond the skill of any ordinary 
 landsman. As has since been proved by the 
 arduous career of our admirable countryman, 
 Sir James Brooke, of Sarawak, it required the 
 tactics of a diplomatist, and courage and skill 
 of naval and military commanders united, to 
 say nothing of the patience of a saint, to bring 
 the pirates of the Eastern seas to submission. 
 
 MeauAvhile, though yachting had not as yet 
 taken its place side by side with the royal 
 navy, Toryism was so high in the ascendant, 
 that it was not very difficult for a noble lord 
 having votes in both houses, to obtain the 
 assistance of a government vessel, and a pas- 
 sage on board. The Palmyra, already com- 
 missioned for the Chinese seas, was directed to 
 make such a cruise of discovery in the Eastern 
 Archipelago, as would at once serve to benefit 
 
IN BORNEO. 255 
 
 the Admiralty charts and the object of a faith- 
 ful ally of the administration. 
 
 For an account of the retributive justice 
 dealt by his Majesty's Palmyra on the Badjow 
 prahus, I must be permitted to refer to the 
 despatches containing an account of their cap- 
 ture, received from Captain F., by Vice- Ad- 
 miral Sir K. C, then commanding on theEastern 
 station; which were duly transmitted to the 
 Lords Commissioners of his Majesty's navy. 
 The treasure abstracted by one of his boats' 
 crews, on information afforded by the seaman 
 who had also apprized my uncle of my cap- 
 tivity, (the disappearance of which from the 
 mangrove swamp had caused me such mortal 
 concern,) was remitted to the survivors of 
 that unhappy expedition: — the share of my 
 parents being but a small repayment for the be- 
 nefit he had been the means of conferring on me. 
 
 All that remains for me to relate, on my own 
 account, is the visit paid by my uncle shortly 
 after I was folded in his arms, to the now de- 
 serted cemetery of Tanjoo. 
 
256 ADVENTURES 
 
 The village was gone. Nothing remained 
 in evidence of the scenes I was never weary 
 of describing to him, nor he of hearing 
 described, but a mass of ashes — half-con- 
 sumed rafters, and scorched stakes of bam- 
 boo, over which the rapid vegetation of 
 the country was already beginning to inter- 
 tangle its creeping plants; while blades of 
 padi and millet were sprouting in all direc- 
 tions, from the wantonly scattered grain. Even 
 the wood-pigeons had deserted the place. For 
 the betel and palm-trees, in which they had 
 been accustomed to roost, were leafless ; scathed 
 by the flames which had devastated the ill- 
 fated village. 
 
 On our way towards the burial-ground, 
 past the lonely but still brightly-gushing 
 stream, I plucked from the thicket one of those 
 favourite jessamine-blossoms of Acheena's, the 
 fragrance of which recalled her to my memory, 
 as though she were standing by my side : and, 
 placing it in my bosom, resolved to dry it and 
 preserve it for ever, as a token of aflection for 
 
IN BORNEO. 257 
 
 those to whom, alas ! it was no longer in my 
 power to demonstrate my gratitude. 
 
 I had not courage to cross the green plat- 
 form bordered by the feathery podada-trees : — 
 Its echoes and its empty tread 
 Had seemed like voices from the dead! 
 
 For, by comparison with the ferocious tribes, 
 in terror of whose cruelty I had lately been 
 abiding, the mild but merry Dyaks, from 
 whom, helpless as I was, I had never met 
 with a spurn or an angry word, recurred to 
 my memory as friends and benefactors. 
 
 My immediate object, meanwhile, was to 
 persuade my uncle to cause the remains of 
 my mother and sister to be disinterred from 
 the unhallowed ground in which they were 
 lying, to be committed to their native soil. 
 But on this point, he was wiser than I. He 
 would not hear of removal. He knew that, 
 by tbis time, the dust had consumed its 
 kindred dust; and that the heavenly spirits 
 which had escaped from their bonds of clay, 
 were dwelling in realms of eternal light. 
 
258 ADVENTURES 
 
 where the sodded grave and marble sepulchre 
 are of equal account. Even I, when I led 
 him to the spot where they were laid, and 
 beheld the two lily plants still flourishing in 
 the purity of their silvery whiteness — even / 
 could not wish them a monument more con- 
 sonant with their nature. 
 
 There did we kneel together, — there did we 
 weep together ; — and while he exacted a pro- 
 mise from me, on that memorable spot, that I 
 would endeavour to become as deserving his 
 affection, and as fondly attached to him as the 
 sister he had lost, he pledged himself, in his 
 turn, to supply the place of my parents. 
 
 And now, dear reader, you have probably 
 learned as much of me and my adventures as 
 you care to be acquainted with. At what 
 public school I was placed, as soon as my 
 savagery was a trifle worn off, it matters not 
 to tell ; or what profession I have since em- 
 braced, or what degree of prosperity I am 
 now enjoying. The memory of my parents is 
 honourably preserved by a cenotaph erected 
 
IN BORNEO. 259 
 
 soon after my uncle's return to England, in 
 the humble parish-church where their ac- 
 quaintance first commenced. But it is still 
 more warmly cherished in the hearts of the 
 son and brother, from whose tenderness they 
 were too early removed. 
 
 " But what could you expect, my boy !'^ 
 exclaimed old Colonel Nieuwenhuysen, (to 
 whom I introduced my new-found relative, 
 when we touched at the Cape on our return 
 to Old England, and who listened, with tears 
 streaming down his withered face, to the 
 grievous history of their fate and my cap- 
 tivity.) "Didn't I tell them no good would 
 come of their confidence in that obstinate old 
 Garvain? — Didn't I tell them they would live 
 to repent having embarked in the Kelso ? 
 You may talk of the will of Providence, 
 Charley — it becomes Parson Meredyth's son 
 so to do. But I shall always ascribe your cap- 
 tivity and sufferings in Borneo to your poor 
 father's obstinate adherence to that confounded 
 slaver ! — * Wilful would what wilful would P " 
 
260 ADVENTURES 
 
 But however grievous my personal remi- 
 niscences of the remote island which contains 
 the graves of my parents, the evil influence 
 which so long weighed down the destinies of 
 the spot, has happily disappeared. — Darkness 
 is no longer over the land. — The children of 
 the heathen are trained in the paths of holi- 
 ness. — "A star has appeared in the East!" 
 and, the Christian faith having deposited its 
 germs among the ruins of Tanjoo, the first 
 great lesson of Christianity, that " all men 
 are brethren," has been exemplified by the 
 total suppression of the slave-trade. 
 
 Under the auspices of one of the most ener- 
 getic and honourable adventurers of modern 
 times, a new territory has been colonized, 
 whither Commerce may steer, unmolested, her 
 richly-freighted fleets ; — secured by the trium- 
 phant authority of the British flag, from all 
 fear of a recurrence of those evils which sig- 
 nalized my own adventures in Borneo. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Savill & Edwards, Printers, 4, Chandos-street, Corent-garden. 
 
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