ns 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK; 
 
 SfotiressetJ to a (frjiltJ. 
 
 EMBRACING 
 
 vN ACCOUNT OF THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND RELIGION 01 
 
 THE INHABITANTS OF BORNEO; THE PROGRESS OF THE 
 
 CHURCH MISSION, AND INCIDENTS OF MISSIONAKY 
 
 LIFE AMONG THE NATIVES. 
 
 MRS. M c DOUGALL. 
 
 FOURTH THOUSAND, 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 LONDON : 
 GRANT AND GUI F F I T H, 
 
 (SUCCESSORS TO NEWBEHY AND HARRIS,) 
 
 CORNER OF ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD. 
 
 M.DCCC.MV.
 
 LO.NUOX: 
 
 J. WERTHE1MER AND CO., PRINTERS. 
 
 CIRCUS PLACE, FIXSBURY.
 
 3 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 All Parents whose fate separates them from their little 
 ones, during their early years, must feel anxious to lessen 
 the distance which parts them, by such familiar accounts 
 of their life and habits as shall give their children a vivid 
 interest in their parents' home. With this view the fol- 
 lowing letters were sent to my little boy, during the last 
 two years we were parted from him, when he was old 
 enough to understand their contents; but I am induced 
 to publish them at the instance of my friends, in order that 
 the Mission, in which we are engaged, may become bet- 
 ter known and more appreciated. 
 
 Sarawak has, for the last seven years, furnished a ro- 
 mance to the English Public, which, for a time, made its 
 Rajah a favourite hero; such a feeling, and the demon- 
 strations it called forth, were as creditable to them as just 
 to him ; for it is well that the people of England should 
 sympathize with their country man in his really great work 
 of civilising and humanising a nation, which has already 
 proved itself worthy of the effort. While, therefore, peace 
 and a good government ensure to the Malays and Dyaks 
 all the fruits of their industry — while they learn arts and 
 manufactures, and imbibe a taste for luxury and refine- 
 ment, let their kind friends in England join with their 
 Rajah at Sarawak in giving them also the gospel of 
 Christ's kingdom, through which alone all these acquire- 
 ments can be made effectual to their happiness.
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 The Mission at Sarawak was invited there by Sir 
 James Brooke, to assist him in his schemes of philanthropy 
 for Borneo. The funds at first furnished for its support, 
 in answer to his appeal, were raised by the exertions of a 
 few private individuals, with the assistance of grants from 
 the Christian Knowledge Society, and the Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel. After five years this money 
 was entirely expended ; and the Mission must have fallen 
 to the ground had not the Society for the Propagation of 
 the Gospel come forward to its support from the 1st Jan. 
 1853. But although the venerable Society has undertaken 
 this new work on its own reponsibiiity, its income is fully 
 pledged to existing Missions, and there being no surplus 
 fund, it must look entirely to the enlarged bounty of 
 Churchmen, to enable it so to increase the force, and 
 complete the organisation, of the Mission to Sarawak, 
 that the Church may be planted in the purity of Gospel 
 truth and the perfectness of Apostolic order in a land 
 where the glad news was never before made known. 
 Shall not England have the honour of building up this 
 young and vigorous nation of Sarawak in the faith, which 
 it is willins: to embrace, and thus be the means of en- 
 lightening and gathering the millions of Borneo, and the 
 adjacent islands, into Christ's Church ? 
 
 H. M'D. 
 
 London, December, 1853. 
 
 %* Subscriptions to a special fund for erecting a Bishopric, 
 founding a College, and sending more Missionaries to Borneo, 
 are received at the Society's Office, 79, Pall Mall.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Letter I. 
 Letter II. 
 Letter III. 
 Letter IV. 
 Letter V. 
 Letter VI. 
 Letter VII. 
 Letter VIII. 
 
 Letter 
 Letter 
 Letter 
 Letter 
 Letter 
 Letter 
 Letter 
 Letter 
 Letter 
 Letter 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 XVIL 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Voyage out 
 
 Singapore 
 
 Arrival at Sarawak 
 
 The Malays 
 
 The Religion of the Malays 
 
 The Productions of Borneo 
 
 The Dyaks— Their Religion 
 
 The Dyaks— Their History, Manners, 
 
 Customs 
 The Pirates 
 
 The Animals of Sarawak . 
 Life in the Court House 
 The Mission House and Church 
 The Chinese at Sarawak 
 Journal of a Trip up the Rejang 
 Continuation of Ditto 
 Conclusion of Ditto . 
 Malacca .... 
 Life of Sir James Brooke . 
 
 and 
 
 1 
 11 
 
 19 
 30 
 41 
 50 
 60 
 
 69 
 79 
 91 
 102 
 112 
 126 
 138 
 151 
 161 
 170 
 179
 
 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 THE VOYAGE OUT. 
 
 January, 1851. 
 
 My Dearest Charley, 
 
 I purpose, now that we are settled in our 
 Sarawak home, writing you a letter once a 
 month, which you must consider as coming from 
 both Papa and Mama, for we shall take an equal 
 interest in them, as going to our boy in England. 
 You are now no longer a baby, but are beginning 
 to enjoy life, to observe what you see and hear, 
 and to feel interested in the world in which you 
 live. You also know something of time and 
 space; and can understand, that, if it takes 
 
 nearly a whole day to travel from W to 
 
 London, although nearly all the way by steam 
 carriage, it must take six weeks' constant travel- 
 ling by steamboat, by the overland route, to 
 
 B
 
 2 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 reach the other side of the round earth, and four 
 months in a sailing vessel, which only goes on 
 when the wind blows. Papa, and I, and your 
 baby brother, Harry, embarked in the Mary 
 Louisa, a barque of 400 tons, on the 30th of 
 December, 1847, for Singapore, on our way to 
 Borneo. This barque was laden with coals and 
 gunpowder, and there were five passengers 
 besides ourselves. Sometimes, when storms of 
 lightning and thunder burst upon us in those 
 hot latitudes, where coals will even catch fire of 
 themselves, I could not help picturing to mysetf, 
 what a bonfire we might make on the open sea 
 if the lightning struck us !— how those casks of 
 gunpowder might send us, with one cry of horror 
 and agony, to our last home, without any witness 
 to our fate, except God Himself! But, in His 
 mercy, He kept us through all the dangers of 
 fire and water, and brought us to the " Haven 
 where we would be," after a five months' voyage. 
 
 I kept a journal of all that happened to us 
 during those five months ; and, on looking over 
 it, I see that we had many pleasures, although I 
 have since looked back on that time as the most 
 weary and monotonous of my life. A fortnight 
 after we left Gravesend we found ourselves sail-
 
 THE MEDUSA. 
 
 ing into pleasant summer weather, which, after 
 the cold winds and rough sea of the Channel, was 
 a delightful change. One night Papa brought 
 in, on his fish-hooks, some sea-weed, with phos- 
 phoric insects in it, which appeared to be little 
 transparent maggots, but in the dark, when 
 touched and excited, were like glittering green 
 flame. When the sea was rough these little 
 ocean-stars danced round our ships, sometimes 
 gleaming on the foam of the waves, and some- 
 times floating in the dark hollows of the water. 
 Some were as large as my fist, and their light 
 like a lamp. Now and then a shoal of porpoises 
 played games of leap-frog, and ran races within 
 sight, and amused us very much. In calm 
 weather curious little Medusae, which the Captain 
 called Portuguese men-of-war, with shells of a 
 dark blue colour, and feelers spread out, like 
 sails, to catch the air, floated about us; and I 
 have seen the pink Nautilus, too, from the 
 window of my cabin, scudding away just out of 
 reach, as if it laughed at me, when I brought my 
 net, and stretched out of the port-hole to catch 
 it. 
 
 One day the sailors caught a dolphin, and we 
 watched it change from one colour to another, as 
 
 b 2
 
 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 it died on the deck : it varied from green to blue, 
 from blue to pink, and, lastly, to silver, with 
 patches of dark blue. South of the Cape, we 
 fished up a bucket full of thick yellow looking 
 stuff, which had appeared like streaks on the 
 water for some days, and which Papa pronounced 
 to be the food of the whale, a mass of animalculae : 
 some were quite colourless, except a yellow spot 
 at the tail; others were blue, with horns, and 
 these carried bunches of eggs on either side of 
 their tails, which we could see without the help 
 of the microscope. While becalmed, off Java, a 
 great whale sported about us, amidst a shoal of 
 little fish, and a flock of men-of-war hawks kept 
 soaring overhead, looking out, doubtless, for a 
 tiny fish to snap up for their breakfast. 
 
 Besides fishes, we had visits from birds of 
 various kinds, when we were in the cold lati- 
 tudes, south of the Cape— the most notable of 
 which was the Albatross, a gigantic bird, mea- 
 suring ten feet and more from tip to tip of his 
 wings. On the water, with their long curved 
 wings outstretched, they looked as graceful as 
 swans : but, when drawn on deck by a line and 
 hook, baited with salt pork, they sat helpless and 
 clumsy, their enormous hooked bills being the
 
 THE ALBATROSS. 5 
 
 only formidable part of their appearance. If 
 one was shot and wounded, while following the 
 ship, his companions at once attacked him, and 
 killed him outright, uttering hoarse cries. Papa 
 preserved the head and feet of one he fished on 
 board, and the sailmaker ate his flesh, which our 
 nurse, Elizabeth, declared tasted like beef: but I 
 think she must have been very hungry, to taste 
 meat which smelt so rank. The head and breast 
 of the Albatross are snow white, as well as the 
 bill and feet, the upper part of the wings is of 
 a dark grey, white underneath. These birds, 
 with their greediness for lumps of salt pork, 
 furnished us with several days' entertainment; 
 and flocks of them, hovering, with their long 
 wings, over the rolling billows of that troubled 
 Southern Ocean, their white breasts rising and 
 falling with the billows, made many a picture 
 which an artist might have copied. Wha.t a 
 contrast to these great ferocious birds were the 
 little flying fish, which in sunnier latitudes 
 sported near us, sometimes making a grand mis- 
 take in falling on the deck, when we caught 
 them, and, after painting a copy of their bright 
 blue bodies and gauzy wings, had the barbarity
 
 LETTEES EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 to roast and eat them ! They were very delicate 
 morsels, but not often to be caught. 
 
 Notwithstanding these varieties, Charley, we 
 lived the most monotonous life on board the 
 Mary Louisa. "We breakfasted at eight, and at 
 ten all met together, to chant the Psalms for the 
 day, or, if it were a Saint's day, for divine ser- 
 vice. Part of the morning was occupied in 
 studying the Malay language, and I embroidered 
 some linen cloths for the Communion Service 
 during the voyage, setting myself a certain task 
 each day. At four we dined, and, when the 
 evening closed in, we sat on deck, either talking, 
 or singing hymns, in which the sailors would at 
 last join us. 
 
 "When it was moonlight, these evenings were 
 very pleasant. The moon is truly the Mariner's 
 delight. She plays at bo-peep with you behind 
 the towers of white sails, transforming the dull 
 decks into fairy land. The expanse of water 
 only looks vast when the moon, sailing among 
 clouds, varies its surface with long shadows and 
 lakes of light ; or when, on a cloudless night, the 
 stream of brilliancy, from the horizon to the 
 vessel, reminds you of Jacob's ladder, uniting the
 
 DIVINE SERVICE ON DECK. 7 
 
 sky and the little portion of earth which a ship 
 represents. When we reached the southern 
 hemisphere we busied ourselves with the new 
 stars, which gradually made our acquaintance — 
 one of our party, with a book and a dark lantern, 
 helping the rest of us to read Heaven's map out- 
 spread. The glorious star Sirius was always our 
 starting point. We were rather disappointed 
 with the Southern Cross, and fancied we saw 
 many a more regularly formed cross in other 
 constellations; yet, when you have once seen the 
 real Cross, you can never mistake it. On Sun- 
 days, if the weather allowed, we had divine 
 service on deck. A flag, spread over the cuddy 
 lisrht, made the reading-desk : all the sailors were 
 gathered together on the duck-coops, and we 
 passengers sat on the chicken-coops. Papa or 
 
 Mr. W , the other clergyman of our party, 
 
 preached. Papa and Mr. W- took great 
 
 pains in instructing the sailors during these five 
 months ; and, as Papa was also the physician to 
 their bodily ailments, they all looked up to him 
 with love and reverence; and we have found 
 since, that, with many, the memory of his good 
 advice did not pass away with the voyage. A 
 ship is a parish within the compass of a very
 
 8 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 short walk, and, although English sailors have 
 the character of being a most godless race, I be- 
 lieve that there are not many men more impres- 
 sible, more grateful for kindness, more open to 
 religious convictions. Their very superstitious 
 fancies show how firmly the belief of a spiritual 
 world works upon them ; and I have no doubt 
 that their comparative solitariness, during those 
 long night-watches, when they are all by turns 
 alone, as it were, with the sky and their own 
 consciences, makes this disposition inevitable in a 
 sailor. 
 
 My letter promises to be as long as our voy- 
 age ; but it is time it should conclude. So you 
 may now fancy us, on the third of May, 1848, 
 espying land, the coast of Java — not Java Head, 
 the point of land we ought to have made, but 
 far, far to the east, where we got into an unlucky 
 current, which set us back in the night, as far as 
 the light breeze took us on in the day, about 
 thirty-six miles. At first we were puzzled to 
 find that every morning the same high hill stood 
 before us, when we thought, as night closed in, 
 we had bidden it adieu ; and we named it " Hill 
 Difficulty," for it seemed as if we could not pass 
 it. But the current explained this. The heat,
 
 ANGER STRAITS. V 
 
 during the ten days we lay on this coast, was 
 very hard to bear. The land shut off the breeze ; 
 the sun poured down on our heads, and made the 
 decks too hot to touch ; the sky looked like a 
 brazen shield, under which the sea seemed to 
 sicken and die ; for there was not one ripple on 
 its surface, but a kind of scum, on which slimy 
 sea-snakes and unwholesome little creatures were 
 crawling. Every night the air seemed charged 
 with electric fluid. We had bright lightning and 
 heavy thunder ; but scarcely any rain came from 
 the shore, where the peak of Hill Difficulty was 
 lost in clouds. But on Friday, the 12th, we re- 
 joiced in a fine breeze, which carried us along 
 that odious coast, past Java Head, and into 
 Anger Straits, the same night. We passed along 
 a lovely coast of hills and forests, the gales so 
 scented with spicy fragrance, that all our senses 
 were delighted at once. We anchored off Anger, 
 and were soon surrounded with little boats, 
 bringing fowls, turtles, fruit, parrots, and Java 
 sparrows. Here the dark skinned Malay, so in- 
 teresting to us, was seen for the first time; and 
 the busy chattering Chinese, making always the 
 best bargain for his wares, amused us beyond 
 measure. Indeed, from that time, until we
 
 10 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 dropped anchor in Singapore harbour, on the 
 evening of the 23rd, we could scarcely sleep for 
 excitement. Every new island and coast in that 
 beautiful sea, to our delighted eyes, so long 
 accustomed to gaze on a blank of water, looked 
 lovely and romantic. The little huts, which 
 nestled among the trees, seemed the abode of 
 peace and luxury; and even the great flying 
 foxes, which passed us at night in troops, as they 
 flew from their hiding-places, to feast on the 
 fruit-trees of the jungle, had a friendly look to 
 our indulgent eyes. We did not leave the ship 
 until the morning of the 24th, and then — as we 
 rowed toward shore amidst the ships of all 
 nations lying in that harbour, from the English 
 man-of-war of 1200 tons, to the Chinese junk 
 with its great eye painted in the stern, to keep 
 it from evil chances — the hearty " one cheer 
 more for Mr. M'Dougall," fell on our ears like a 
 blessing, sending us on our way, with cheerful 
 hearts, to our new home, and untried work. 
 Good bye for the present, my little boy, 
 
 From your affectionate Mother, 
 
 H. M'D.
 
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 LETTER II. 
 
 SINGAPORE. 
 
 February, 1851. 
 
 My dearest Charley, 
 
 My last letter told you how gladly we 
 landed at Singapore, after our five months' voy- 
 age in the Mary Louisa. The island of Singa- 
 pore lies close to the Malayan Peninsula, and is 
 about twenty-seven miles long, and fifteen broad. 
 It commands a lovely view of sea and wooded 
 islets, with the hilly outline of the coast in the 
 distance. The ground rises in gentle hills from 
 the sea-shore; and these rising grounds are 
 covered with plantations and gardens, and 
 crowned with pretty English Bungalows — look- 
 ing so cool, with their white walls and green 
 verandahs, that the whole place seems a plea- 
 sure ground. You see two handsome churches 
 from the bay, as you approach : one is the 
 English, the other the Roman-Catholic Church. 
 In front of the sea is a carriage- drive and es- 
 planade, and a well-kept green enclosure, where
 
 12 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 there are cricket matches, and where the military- 
 band plays at certain times, when the regiment, 
 stationed in the Straits, is fortunate enough to 
 possess one. Handsome houses, with gardens 
 about them, overlook this esplanade, and a flag- 
 staff surmounts the Government Hill, in front of 
 the Bungalow where the Governor lives. 
 
 Singapore is certainly a pretty spot, and as, 
 during several visits there, Papa and I have met 
 with much kindness from many excellent people, 
 we regard it with affection, and as a little peep 
 into the busy world, now and then, from the 
 calm solitude of our Sarawak home. We had to 
 wait for a month at Singapore, until the schooner 
 Julia could take us to Sarawak, during which 
 time we lived at an hotel on the beach ; and it 
 was amusement enough to me to watch the 
 passers by, thronged, as Singapore is, by people 
 of all nations. First you may see some Chinese, 
 in their loose blue trousers, white jackets, and 
 white straw hats, with a long plaited tail of hair 
 hanging down behind — then some Parsees, in 
 flowing white dresses, and a curious cap on their 
 heads, shaped something like a bishop's mitre, 
 and looking as if it were made of oil-cloth. 
 Next comes a Bengalee, with his black skin, tall
 
 THE BAZAAR. 13 
 
 slight form, and white muslin garments, and a 
 great scarlet, or white, turban on his head. 
 After him may follow a Jew from Armenia, 
 richly dressed in fine shawl, turban, and sash, 
 with long robes, and with a form and face 
 equally handsome. Besides these, Portuguese, 
 Germans, French, and English, Malays, and wild 
 people called Orang Laut, who live in boats, and 
 wear scarcely any clothes at all, present them- 
 selves one after another. The Europeans dress 
 entirely in white, with pith hats, to shield them 
 from the sun, which, as Singapore is only eighty 
 miles from the equator, is the most dangerous 
 enemy to brains undefended by the thick skull 
 and thicker head-dresses of eastern nations. 
 
 There is a Chinese town, and a Kling, or 
 Indian, town. The shops on either side of the 
 streets are called the Bazaar. In one street you 
 see only vegetables and fruit for sale — in another, 
 pork — in another, cakes and sweetmeats, which 
 do not look at all tempting to English palates, 
 being more like cakes of yellow soap, or lumps 
 of dirt (or mud pies, Charley, such as you manu- 
 facture sometimes of Suffolk clay), than any- 
 thing fit to eat. They are compounded of rice- 
 flour, coarse sugar, cocoa-nuts, and oil. Some
 
 14 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 stalls are full of pine-apples, cut into curious 
 shapes and slices — great green water-melons, 
 with pink watery pulp, very pleasant to thirsty 
 people — Jack fruit, so large that a man cannot 
 carry more than two at a time, slung over his 
 shoulders, and the pulpy seeds of which are very 
 rich and high flavoured, but also very strong- 
 scented. These last are, however, delicate, com- 
 pared to the Durian, the famous fruit of the 
 Straits, which, Papa says, tastes like a mixture 
 of rotten eggs, sugar, and onions : I can only 
 say that it smells detestable, for I have never 
 tasted it. Far different is the Mangosteen, 
 another fruit peculiar to the Straits, which has a 
 purple rind, and a fruit lying inside, trans- 
 parent as a large opal, and as pleasant to the 
 taste as it is pretty. So much for the fruit- 
 market. There is also a bazaar for glass, crock- 
 ery, cottons, muslins, and silks, and where you 
 may see all sorts of odd things, more curious 
 than beautiful. Scattered here and there, 
 amongst these bazaars, you see little shabby 
 houses, with curtains hung before the windows, 
 and " Opium Shop " written over the door ! 
 These places are frequented chiefly by the Chi- 
 nese, who smoke opium till they are quite tipsy
 
 TIGERS. 15 
 
 or insensible. The more they smoke, the less 
 they care for anything else. They grow thin, 
 and have a care-worn, miserable look, which, if 
 they indulge much in this habit, you cannot 
 mistake, and it kills many of them at last. 
 
 The heat, noise, and bustle, of these bazaars 
 are not very pleasant. We were always glad to 
 escape from them, into the more airy roads out 
 of town, along which, if you drive far enough, 
 you get into the wild woods, which have not yet 
 been cut down and burnt, and may even chance 
 to see a tiger spring across the road. There are 
 many tigers in the island of Singapore, still 
 lurking in the jungle, or even in the copses near 
 English plantations* The poor convicts, who 
 work on the roads in the interior of the Island, 
 are often frightened, and sometimes carried off, 
 and eaten, by these savage beasts. The Malays 
 make deep pits with sharp sticks at the bottom, 
 to catch and impale tigers ; or they bait traps, 
 like cages, with a dog or monkey : for the Sing- 
 apore Government pays fifty dollars for a tiger's 
 head, and the merchants add fifty more, to in- 
 duce people to hunt and kill them. It is said 
 that 360 human lives are lost in the course of 
 the year, by the depredations of these monsters ;
 
 16 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 and many are the tales told of narrow escapes in 
 the jungle, where the Chinese clear ground, and 
 plant gardens of vegetables, sirih, coffee, or 
 gambier. During our last visit to Singapore, 
 two Chinamen cleared a space in the woods for a 
 garden ; but, being mightily afraid of tigers, one 
 worked, while the other beat a metal drum called 
 a gong, the noise of which they thought would 
 scare them away. One day the working man 
 heard the gong cease, and, looking up, he beheld 
 man and gong both carried off by a large tiger. 
 Papa, one day, joined a party of friends, in 
 climbing a hill called Bukit Timah before sunrise, 
 that they might see the view from thence. Papa 
 was a little behind the rest of the party on a 
 pony, when he smelt a tiger close to him. 
 Having no weapon in his hand, and the peons 
 with muskets being on before, Papa galloped 
 after them, and told them he was sure there was 
 a tiger in the thicket; which, indeed, was true 
 enough, for, as they returned, the marks of his 
 great paws \ere indented across the road, just 
 where Papa smelt him, and very close he must 
 have been, but he did not venture to show him- 
 self. 
 
 The country houses at Singapore are all sur-
 
 PLANTATIONS, 1 7 
 
 rounded by plantations of spice-trees, cloves, 
 cinnamon, and nutmegs, especially the latter. 
 The young plantation has a stiff formal appear- 
 ance, as the shrubs are planted at equal dis- 
 tances, with a little shed over each to protect 
 them from the weather; but, as the nutmegs 
 grow tall, the sheds are dispensed with, and then 
 I do not know a more beautiful shrub. It re- 
 sembles a laurel in its leaf, and the fruit hangs 
 in clusters like half-ripe apricots: the shell 
 cracks, and you see the bright red mace peeping 
 out, which holds the kernel wrapped up in its 
 folds. The cinnamon trees are of a paler green, 
 the new leaves soft pink and most fragrant ; and 
 the clove trees very nearly resemble the nutmeg, 
 except that they are smaller. Every day ser- 
 vants go round the plantations, picking up the 
 fallen nuts, which are very valuable. They dry 
 the mace in the sun, when it loses its bright red 
 colour; the shells are boiled down with sugar, 
 and make a fine jelly, which we eat, instead of 
 red-currant jelly, with roast mutton. These 
 spice plantations have made many fine fortunes in 
 the Straits: but it takes twelve years' outlay and 
 patience, before the trees begin to yield; and 
 meanwhile they require a great deal of care and 
 
 c
 
 18 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 labour bestowed upon them. They certainly 
 give the ground a very garden-like and culti- 
 vated appearance. I must not close my letter 
 about Singapore, without telling you that it was 
 first settled, as an English colony, by Sir Stam- 
 ford Raffles, in the year 1819, and by him made 
 a free port for the ships of all nations ; by which 
 I mean, that merchants pay no public customs or 
 taxes, for any kind of goods landed there. 
 This has made it such a favourite harbour for 
 merchant ships, and such a thriving trading 
 colony, that it has for many years past proved 
 the foresight and wisdom of the founder. 
 
 There is one little spot at Singapore, more 
 dear to Papa and me, than all the plain besides. 
 This is the English Cemetery, a beautiful garden 
 on the side of a hill, where was buried our dear 
 child Harry. He died at Singapore, at the age 
 of three years, in 1850. A cross of granite 
 marks the grave, and a jessamine bush, trans- 
 planted from our garden at Sarawak, grows 
 beside it. 
 
 Good bye, Charley, 
 
 From your loving Mama.
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 ARRIVAL AT SARAWAK. 
 tit ~„ . -d~ March, 1851. 
 
 My dear .Boy, 
 
 We embarked in a schooner called the 
 Julia, on the 19th of June, 1848; and, after ten 
 days' tedious sailing under a hot sun, we en- 
 tered the Marotabas river, which leads into the 
 Sarawak. You must now get the Atlas, and 
 find the great island of Borneo, the largest in 
 the Eastern Archipelago, and, indeed, in the 
 world, except Australia. Its area is larger than 
 that of France, and its shape is a kind of square. 
 You will perceive that, considering its size, there 
 are not many names of places marked on it, 
 except along the coasts. What is known of the 
 island is principally from ships visiting the 
 mouths of the rivers: for, although both the 
 English and Dutch have taken possession of 
 different parts of the coast, the English have not 
 ventured far inland, and the Dutch, who have 
 explored it more, have kept their discoveries 
 
 c 2
 
 20 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 very secret, lest the riches of the country should 
 excite the cupidity of others ; so that all which 
 is known of the interior, is from the accounts of 
 the natives themselves. They say that there are 
 beautiful lakes lying amongst the mountains, and 
 that the inhabitants are so numerous, that a man 
 may walk across the country, and sleep in a 
 fresh village every night. Perhaps you will 
 wonder why no European has yet tried to do 
 this ; and so used I to do, till I knew how im- 
 passable a new country is. If you ascend a high 
 hill, from which you can see for many mil6s 
 round, a great mass of forest stretches itself 
 below your feet. The tops of the trees, growing 
 close together, make one flat green mass without 
 a break; except where the rivers, like silver 
 threads, wind their way among the trees, and on 
 their banks you may spy ; here and there, clusters 
 of huts, or blue smoke curling up in the air, 
 which marks a human dwelling. The Dyaks, or 
 inhabitants of the country, do indeed make a 
 way through the jungle, from one village to 
 another, by laying down trunks of small trees, 
 and clearing away the boughs on either side of 
 this path : but it is very difficult walking for any 
 but native feet. The poles, which they lay
 
 DYAK BRIDGES. 21 
 
 down, are round and slippery; the path, thus 
 made, is not more than a foot wide, and often 
 there are gaps, so that it requires a succession of 
 jumps from one pole to another, rather than a 
 steady pace ; and, if you miss your footing, you 
 are very likely to go plump up to your waist in 
 the swampy ground on either side. The Dyaks 
 are so used to it, that they carry great weights 
 over these slippery paths without difficulty, and 
 over their bridges too, which are even worse 
 than the paths. Imagine a few canes of bamboo, 
 swinging in the air over a chasm, with perhaps 
 a torrent of water roaring beneath, and nothing 
 to ensure the safety of your footing, but, now 
 and then, a thin bamboo, fastened to the rocks or 
 trees, on either side, for a balustrade, to take 
 hold of — and you have a Dyak bridge. You 
 must walk across it with your feet well turned 
 out in the first position, and neither looking 
 down at the perils below, nor nervously grasping 
 your bamboo balustrade, which is not meant to 
 be pulled at, but only to give a more comfortable 
 look to the bridge. A Dyak would not think of 
 touching it ; his feet lay hold of the bamboos 
 like leather suckers, and he stalks across with a 
 heavy laden tambuk (native basket) on his back,
 
 22 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 laughing at the poor Englishman, in shoes and 
 stockings, behind him. 
 
 The readiest way of exploring such a country 
 as this is by ascending the rivers in boats. The 
 rivers are many of them so large, that ships of 
 great burthen might go up for many miles. In 
 some of them, nature has placed an obstacle to 
 this, by a great bar of sand, which stretches across 
 the mouth of the river, and over which a ship can 
 only float at high tide. In the Sakarran, Sa- 
 dong, and other rivers, there is another danger 
 to boats and small vessels, which we call the Bore, 
 and the natives, Benna. It is an enormous wave, 
 twelve feet high and more, which comes up with 
 the first flood tide, and, with irresistible force, 
 sweeps all before it. At Sakarran, there are only 
 two places of refuge from this great wave known 
 to the natives ; and it is highly dangerous for any 
 boat to go up without a guide. Many lives have 
 been lost, even amongst the Dyaks themselves, 
 from carelessness about the Bore and its follower, 
 a smaller wave, which they call Anak Benna, the 
 child of the Bore. Just before one of Papa's visits 
 to Sakarran, two Dyak boats, ascending the river, 
 were racing against one another. They had 
 waited until both the Benna and Anak Benna
 
 FORESTS IN BORNEO. 23 
 
 had passed by, and thought themselves quite safe. 
 But Dyak boats, paddled at racing pace, are very 
 swift, and, before they were aware of their danger, 
 both boats were hurried into the vortex of the 
 little Bore, and sucked under its waters, not one 
 of the twenty men, who were on board, escaping 
 with life. At the north of Borneo, we know 
 that there are fine open plains, with herds of wild 
 cattle on them. In another part Elephants have 
 been seen; the natives bring their tusks for 
 barter, which they find shed in the jungle. And, 
 no doubt, there are many wonders of nature in 
 parts where European foot never trod. There is 
 something sublime in the thought of wide forests, 
 plains, and rivers, where no human being lives — 
 where evil deeds never cursed the ground for 
 man's sake — and where the songs of birds, the 
 chirping of insects, the rush of waters, and the 
 sighing of the wind amongst the trees, are the 
 only sounds which have broken the stillness of the 
 air for hundreds of years, if not since the very cre- 
 ation of the world : even such nooks there may be 
 in this lar^e island. But how much better it would 
 be, if the voices of men, women, and children 
 made these solitudes echo with songs of praise, 
 or the longings of their hearts after Him who
 
 24 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 made them— rif words of kindness, and acts of 
 mercy made the angels of God rejoice over the 
 place ! Such blessings may one day dawn on the 
 vast land of Borneo, when good men, with the love 
 of God in their hearts, leave their Christian homes, 
 for the sake of extending Christ's Kingdom all 
 over the earth — when they teach the native tribes 
 to cultivate the good land which God has given 
 them, and to turn the jungle into fields, pastures, 
 and orchards, towns and villages, with churches 
 and school-houses amongst the trees. 
 
 "Well, as I said before, we entered the river of 
 Sarawak on the 29th of June. Papa and the 
 Captain of the Julia, got into a boat and rowed 
 immediately up to the town, leaving us in the 
 schooner to pursue our way more cautiously ; for 
 there are several ugly rocks to be avoided, and 
 the river winds so much, that it requires careful 
 navigation. In some parts the scenery was very 
 pretty. Trees grew down to the water's edge, 
 some in flower, some in fruit. Here and there 
 the trees were cut down, without the stumps 
 being rooted out, that paddy (rice in the husk) 
 might be planted. These clearings became more 
 frequent as we approached the town, and cottages, 
 built of wood and palm leaves, with plenty of
 
 THE FORT. 25 
 
 little dark-skinned children peeping out, looked 
 very snug by the river side. Then, over the trees, 
 blue hills would rise so high, that they wore a 
 nightcap of clouds, and lower wooded heights gave 
 us a pleasant idea of the undulations of the ground. 
 You may be sure our eyes strove to find beauties 
 as we approached our new home ; and I never felt 
 more contented, than when we turned the last 
 corner of the reach before the town, and there lay 
 Sarawak before us. 
 
 The first object is the Fort, a white building 
 with six formidable cannon, peeping out from the 
 port-holes ; and a soldier, pacing up and down the 
 gravel in front, hails every arriving boat. He 
 did not challenge us, however. We had been 
 long looked for, and, at that time, the schooner 
 'Julia' was the only means of regular monthly 
 communication between Sarawak and Singapore. 
 We were kindly welcomed at the house of Sir 
 James Brooke, our English Rajah, although he 
 was then at Singapore. How cool and airy the 
 rooms of that wooden Bungalow seemed, after 
 the hot close cabins of the schooner ! The roses 
 and jessamines, which grew luxuriantly under 
 the verandahs, perfumed the air, and the flights 
 of cooing blue and white pigeons, which had their
 
 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 dovecot near the house, gave us a gentle greet- 
 ing. 
 
 The town of Sarawak is so called after the main 
 river on which it stands : but its proper name is 
 Kuching, from a streamlet or feeder, which enters 
 the Sarawak just below the fort, and bears this 
 name Kuching, which in Malay means a cat — why, 
 I cannot say, except that the inhabitants are as 
 fond of fish as cats generally are. On one side of 
 the river is the Chinese Town, the Kling Bazaar, 
 the Mosques, or Mahometan houses of prayer, 
 the Court of justice, and most of the native dwell- 
 ing-houses. On two gentle rising grounds, farther 
 away from the river, now stand the Church and 
 the Mission-house; but these grounds were co- 
 vered with jungle, when we reached Kuching. On 
 the other side, amidst gardens, and fruit trees, 
 stands the Rajah's house, and several other pretty 
 Bungalows, belonging to English gentlemen, and 
 in the back ground is a fine belt of jungle, and 
 the blue hill of Santubong, nodding its head to 
 the Rajah's house. There is no bridge over the 
 river. Every body keeps boats, and every native 
 can paddle himself or herself up or down the ri- 
 ver, with their little short broad-shaped oars or 
 paddles. Even little children, smaller than you,
 
 BOAT-KACING. 27 
 
 can jump into a boat and paddle ; and, if the boat 
 upsets, which it often does, with restless boys in 
 it, the urchins swim by the side, until they can 
 turn the boat right-side up, bale the water out, 
 and jump in again. I hope you will learn to 
 swim one day : it is not only a healthful exercise, 
 but gives safety and confidence on the water. 
 
 While I am talking of boats, I may as well 
 give you an account of the annual boat-races 
 here. They take place on the 1st of January, 
 and are encouraged by the Rajah and all the 
 English, as a good amusement and exercise for 
 the Malays and Dyaks. For months before 
 they are busy building racing-boats. There are 
 always some new ones, but sometimes a boat 
 gets a reputation for being a winner, and then 
 she is in great request. Early in the morning, 
 on that day, you may see boats, newly painted, 
 with a few men in them, beating little gongs, 
 which are sounded to collect the rowers. The 
 largest boats are allowed to have any number of 
 rowers — sometimes as many as forty or fifty. 
 The man, who sits at the stern, uses his paddle 
 to steer with, as they have no rudder. By 
 eleven o'clock all the crews are collected. Each 
 Datu, or Officer of State, has his boat manned
 
 28 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 by his dependants, and those who live in his 
 campong (or cluster of houses) : but the great 
 men themselves are only spectators ; they do not 
 row in the boats. They are all arranged in line 
 abreast the Rajah's house, where a flag is flying, 
 and from which a cannon fired gives the signal 
 for starting. The distance is marked by a boat 
 decked with flags, moored off the fort, in the 
 middle of the river. Round this boat they have 
 to turn, and the goal is the Rajah's wharf. As 
 the clock strikes twelve the cannon is fired, and 
 off set the boats at a wonderful pace. The 
 paddles throw such a cloud of spray as to con- 
 ceal the rowers. The men shout ; the lookers-on 
 cry out, first to one, then to the other; some- 
 times a boat runs foul of another, which fills 
 with water, and you see thirty or forty men all 
 sprawling in the river ; but, though by this they 
 lose the race, they are soon all in the boat again, 
 and ready for another start. When the winning 
 boat arrives at the Rajah's steps for the prize- 
 money, the men all throw up their paddles in 
 the air, and yell ; I cannot call it a shout — it so 
 little resembles an English hurrah — but it means 
 the same thing. After this race of large boats 
 succeed many others, with smaller and smaller
 
 BOAT-RACING. 29 
 
 crews, until the last is a race of tiny sampans 
 
 with one man in each. The final one, however, 
 
 is another trial for all the big boats, which lost 
 
 the first race. One man will often pull in several 
 
 races; and, considering how little hard work a 
 
 Malay is capable of, it is plain that more skill 
 
 and dexterity, than strength, is employed in 
 
 paddling: but they use all they have on this 
 
 occasion. I have been twice present at these 
 
 races, and admired the perfect good humour 
 
 with which our Malays either win or lose; 
 
 although they esteem the credit of winning as 
 
 much as an English boat's crew would do. This 
 
 day's sport serves to talk of throughout the 
 
 year, and the winning boat is looked upon with 
 
 great respect. 
 
 Good bye, dear child,, 
 
 Your loving Mama, 
 
 H. M'D.
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 THE MALAYS. 
 ~ April, 1851. 
 
 My deaeest Chaeley, 
 
 Not many years ago, the very name of a 
 Malay suggested the idea of a bad, cruel, and 
 revengeful man, who, always wearing a sharp 
 knife, called a cris, at his girdle, did not scruple 
 to plunge it into the heart of any one who 
 offended him. That great and good man, Sir 
 Stamford Raffles, from his intimate knowledge of 
 the Malays of Java and Sumatra, may be con- 
 sidered as the first who set their character in a 
 just and true light; and our own Rajah, Sir 
 James Brooke, who treats all men, Malays, 
 Dyaks, or Europeans, as brothers, has taught 
 the world that a "Malay has as kind and suscep- 
 tible a heart as an Englishman, and that, when 
 well governed, and living at peace, they are 
 amiable, fond of children, courteous to strangers, 
 and grateful for kindness." It is true that they 
 have some cunning in their disposition, and
 
 NEGLECT OF CHILDREN. 31 
 
 that, occasionally, a Malay gives way to passion, 
 till he becomes almost mad; and then, seizing 
 any sword or cris that lies in his way, he will 
 rush from his house, and maim, or kill, as many 
 people as he meets. But this madness, which is 
 called Amok, or, in English, " running a muck," 
 is now very rare at Sarawak, since the Malays 
 have been well governed. Formerly, injustice 
 and oppression drove them to despair and des- 
 perate actions. There is also, I think, another 
 reason for this peculiar trait in the Malay cha- 
 racter. The Malays indulge their children ex- 
 cessively. I do not think they love them better 
 than other parents, for true love does not lead to 
 foolish indulgence: but they are an indolent 
 people, and will riot take the trouble of correct- 
 ing their little ones; so that, if a child has 
 naturally a violent temper, it is never checked, 
 and, growing worse and worse, becomes at times 
 a madness. I have seen a little Malay girl, in 
 her rage, twist her hands in her mother's long 
 hair, and pull it till the woman cried out with 
 pain : yet, when I released her, she did not 
 punish the naughty child, but kissed her, and 
 indulged the very whim which caused this out- 
 break of temper. Another day I saw a little
 
 32 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 boy in such a passion that he threw himself into 
 the river, and there kicked and screamed, till I 
 thought he would be drowned. But, when his 
 father at last persuaded him to get into a boat, he 
 did not rebuke him for his passion. Such chil- 
 dren as these, if they grow up to be men and 
 women, might be expected, if much offended, to 
 run a muck ; for they have never been taught 
 self-control. The Scripture says, " It is good for 
 a man to bear the yoke in his youth." Be 
 thankful, therefore, my dear child, that you are 
 under the wise and gentle restraints of a Chris- 
 tian education. 
 
 The Malays live in houses made of the leaves 
 of the nepa palm, and perched on poles, to take 
 them off the ground — or the water, for they are 
 very fond of building where the tide will run 
 under the house. This is one of their lazy 
 habits : for the flooring of their rooms is made 
 of an open lattice of laths, laid across beams 
 through which they can sweep all the dirt of the 
 house, and the tide, washing up, carries it away. 
 Some of the rich men's houses, however, are 
 better than these, since the Rajah has taught 
 them to build with planked walls, to use sub- 
 stantial posts instead of nibong palm stems, and 
 
 i
 
 HABITS OF THE MALAYS. 33 
 
 shingles of balean, or iron-wood, which look 
 something like English slates, instead of leaf- 
 roofs. But, inside, most of the houses are very 
 comfortable. You must not fancy that a house 
 in this country is wretched, because it is made of 
 leaves. On the contrary, it is cool and pleasant; 
 we want no shelter here, except from rain and 
 sun, and nepa attaps keep both these out. The 
 Malays use no heavy furniture : tables, chairs, 
 bookcases, or bedsteads, are unknown wants to 
 
 them. Nice white mats, spread on the floor 
 
 piles of cushions to sit and lie on — a few shelves 
 perhaps— and a great calico mosquito curtain, 
 with very gay trimmings round the top, to sleep 
 under— are the extent of their wants. They 
 have boxes to keep their clothes and treasures in 
 --wooden and brass trays, with lids gaily painted, 
 to carry food — pieces of bamboo to carry water. 
 The bamboo is a large hollow cane, with a di- 
 vision at every joint ; so that it has only to be 
 cut into lengths, to make all sorts of useful 
 things. 
 
 Round their houses, the Malays plant a few 
 cocoa-nut trees, and Pinang or Betel nuts. The 
 Cocoa-nut gives them oil and milk. If they want 
 milk from it, they grate the nut and mix it up 
 
 D
 
 34 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 with water, until the water has a white milky 
 appearance; if oil, they boil this milk until the 
 oil rises to the top, when they skim it off. This 
 oil they burn for light, and fry their fish and 
 cakes in it : they also steep sweet-scented flowers 
 in it, to anoint their hair and their skins. Before 
 the nut is ripe, and the kernel formed, it is 
 full of a sparkling and most refreshing water, 
 which all people, whether Malays or English, 
 enjoy, as a cooling draught, on a hot day. The 
 Betel Nut, which is a very tall and graceful 
 palm, has a great bunch of yellow-husked nuts 
 under its crown of leaves. The natives chew 
 these nuts with lime, tobacco, and a hot aromatic 
 leaf, called Sirih, which mixture turns their 
 mouths of a bright red colour, like blood. It 
 has a strong smell, but, I believe, a very sooth- 
 ing effect ; and it is the occupation of all their 
 leisure time, and the amusement of all their 
 social parties, to chew it. But it is a nasty 
 habit ; for a Malay, chewing Sirih, is constantly 
 squirting red juice out of his mouth, and his 
 upper lip is pushed out of shape by a lump of 
 tobacco — all which, added to a curious custom 
 they have, of filing their teeth very short, and 
 staining them black, makes his mouth as dis-,
 
 MALAY FISHERMEN. 35 
 
 agreeable a feature as it can well be. They like 
 smoking tobacco, too, rolling it up in a strip of 
 palm leaf; but they never drink wine, beer, or 
 spirits. They are very moderate and simple in 
 their food, living on rice, fish, vegetables, and 
 fruits. Wild leaves out of the jungle furnish 
 them with acid, or bitter salads, which they like : 
 but the flesh of deer, goats, or chickens, is only 
 an occasional delicacy. Pigs, ducks, and all 
 creatures which the Jews were taught to con- 
 sider unclean, are their abhorrence : if they wish 
 to taunt another, they say, " He eats pork;" and 
 to be called a pig is a great insult to them. 
 
 As the Malays live so much on fish, you may 
 be sure they are clever fishermen. In the river 
 they use a casting-net for this purpose. I have 
 often watched them engaged in this graceful 
 exercise. One man paddles the boat, while 
 another stands at the prow, with the large fine 
 net gathered in his hands. When he comes to a 
 likely place in the river he poises himself so as 
 to keep a firm footing, and throws the net, which 
 falls in a wide circle on the water, and entangles 
 everything within its space. Then he immediately 
 begins to draw it in again, picking out the fish, 
 or prawns, as he meets with them. Out at the 
 
 d 2
 
 36 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 mouth of the river the Malays erect fishing- 
 stakes, which they visit at every low tide, to take 
 the fish caught in the net of rattan, which is 
 spread between them. But, about twice in the 
 year, there is a kind of fishing festival, which 
 the Malays enjoy beyond everything, and in 
 which the English do not hesitate to partake: 
 this is called a tuba fishing. 
 
 Tuba is the root of a climbing plant, which 
 has a narcotic, stupifying property. The Malays 
 collect a quantity of this root, and take it in 
 their boats to the mouth of some river, two or 
 three days before full moon, when there is a 
 spring tide, that is to say, when there is the 
 lowest and highest tide in the month. While 
 the tide is ebbing, they are very busy mashing 
 the tuba root in water, at the bottom of their 
 boats. It makes a milky-looking fluid, which, 
 just before the tide turns, they throw into the 
 river. The flowing tide, bringing up the fish 
 from the sea into the river, meets this strong 
 dose of opiate, and the little fishes immediately 
 float, stupified, on the surface of the water. 
 Gradually the tuba sends the larger fish also into 
 a trance ; and, as soon as they float, the Malays 
 dart upon them with long spears, transfix them v
 
 MALAY CLOTHING. 37 
 
 and throw them into their boats. This causes a 
 most animated scene. The fish, feeling the 
 wound of the spear, half wakes out of its 
 lethargy, and plunges along the water, sometimes 
 dragging the man out of his boat. Little boys, 
 as small as you, Charley, are active in this sport ; 
 and Papa saw a child run his spear at so large 
 a fish, that he could not draw it into his boat ; 
 but, after a grand battle, he jumped into the 
 water, fairly clasped the big fish in his arms, and 
 carried it off. A Malay will often catch from 
 thirty to fifty good-sized fishes, besides smaller 
 ones of all sorts, as one boat's prize; and, as 
 there may be seventy boats at one fishing, you 
 may imagine the number caught. The little 
 ones are brought up in baskets full, and not 
 counted. Then ensues a grand salting and dry- 
 ing of fish in the sun. Their dose of tuba does 
 not make them in the least unwholesome as 
 food. 
 
 The clothes worn by the Malay men and women 
 are very graceful, and suitable to the climate. 
 The men use a handkerchief of some dark colour, 
 edged with gold lace or fringe, twisted into a tur- 
 ban, round their heads — loose trousers, of striped 
 cotton or silk, according to the wealth of the
 
 38 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 wearer — a white calico or silk jacket — and a sa- 
 rong or long scarf, sewn together at the ends, 
 which the Malay women weave in pretty checks 
 or tartans, gathered in graceful folds round the 
 waist — and, sticking up from this last, is the cris, 
 without which no Malay gentleman would con- 
 sider himself dressed, though the poorer sort 
 sometimes wear a parang or long knife, for cut- 
 ting jungle, in its stead. They use neither shoes 
 nor stockings, nor feel the want of them in this 
 warm climate; for the soles of their feet get as 
 thick as the soles of our shoes, from continually 
 walking on them. I have often envied them the 
 ease, with which they go with bare feet over 
 slippery places, holding on with their toes, which 
 are like another set of fingers to them. Never- 
 theless, I must confess, that the exposure of the 
 feet to rough walking sometimes gives them sad 
 cracks in the thick-skinned sole and heel, which 
 are very tedious to cure, and painful, too, to bear. 
 So, after all, our civilised ways are best. 
 
 The Malay women often wear very gay dresses 
 of purple satin, and bright silk sarongs inter- 
 woven with gold thread. Their jackets are 
 almost covered in front with gold ornaments, and 
 the sleeves with gold buttons, made like flowers.
 
 APPEARANCE OF THE MALAYS. 39 
 
 As for the children, until they are five or six 
 years of age, they only wear clothes on great oc- 
 casions, unless a string of silver coins, or silver 
 anklets, can be called clothes. However, a little 
 girl is quite dressed enough, if she has a sarong 
 fastened round her waist ; and a boy, if he wears 
 cotton trousers. This light clothing, so suitable 
 to the climate, saves them a great deal of trouble. 
 They constantly jump into the water, and have a 
 swim or game of fun, without fear of spoiling 
 what they wear. Men, women, and children, are 
 all great bathers ; some of their prayers are re- 
 peated, as they stand in the river, washing their 
 faces, noses, teeth, &c. : for by this means Maho- 
 met, their Lawgiver and Prophet, ensured the 
 cleanliness of his disciples, which is even more 
 necessary in a warm country than in England. 
 
 In appearance, the Malays are not much fa- 
 voured by nature. I remember thinking them 
 very ugly when I first arrived at Sarawak ; and 
 that the Orang-Utans, of whom they are so fond, 
 must be first cousins of theirs, from their resem- 
 blance. However, I wronged the Malays; for 
 they have nearly all well-shaped heads, and wide 
 foreheads, which no kind of monkey can possess. 
 They have also a gentle and intelligent expres-
 
 40 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 sion ; their noses are rather flat and too small, 
 and the lower jaw advances, which gives them 
 somewhat of the Orang-Utan look. Their figures 
 are slight, but they walk well, and the higher 
 classes are graceful and dignified in their move- 
 ments : indeed, the manners of all are free from 
 rudeness, and even the poorest boatmen or fisher- 
 men are as light-hearted and merry as children. 
 They enjoy a joke, and, being all in easy circum- 
 stances, with all the necessaries and some of the 
 luxuries of life, and no hard toil either for their 
 heads or their hands, I think we may consider 
 them a happy people. In my next, I will tell 
 you about their religion.
 
 L E T T E R Y. 
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE MALAYS. 
 
 May, 1851. 
 My Dearest Charley, 
 
 The Malays are by religion Mahometans. 
 A Mahometan believes in the one True and Great 
 God ; but he thinks that our Saviour Jesus Christ 
 was only a Prophet, like Daniel or Isaiah, and 
 that Mahomet was the last and greatest of all 
 Prophets, who wrote a book, called the Koran, 
 which they read and believe, as we do the Bible. 
 Mahomet gave them a great many laws in the 
 Koran, some good, some bad — amongst others, 
 the directions about food, drink, and bathing, 
 which I mentioned in a former letter : these were 
 certainly good on the whole, for strong drinks, 
 and indulgence in eating, are very unhealthy, es- 
 pecially in a warm climate, such as Arabia, where 
 Mahomet lived, or Sarawak, where we live. The 
 Malays have a house of prayer, or Mosque, at 
 Sarawak, and the Klings, who are Mahometans 
 of another sect, have one also. They are much
 
 42 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 more attentive to their religion, since we came 
 here, than they used to be before. Some years 
 ago, the Mosque had almost fallen to decay, and 
 the people were not at all disposed to give money 
 to build it up again ; but now the Mosque is quite 
 a good-looking building, and they have lately 
 surmounted it with a great brass ball, which 
 glitters in the sun, and draws all eyes to it. Since 
 our church-bell has called the few Christians in 
 the place twice every day to public worship, the 
 Hadjis, or Priests, have insisted on their people 
 also attending daily service in the Mosque, and 
 fined them in rice and fowls, if they failed in the 
 due observance of their stated hours of prayer; 
 and now you hear, before and after sunrise, and 
 before and after sunset, a man calling from the 
 top of the Mosque, in Arabic — ' It is the hour of 
 prayer : there is but one God, and Mahomet is 
 His Prophet.' This is their confession of faith, as 
 the Apostles' Creed is ours. 
 
 At sunset, you may see the Malays, who hap- 
 pen to be on the river at the time, praying in their 
 boats, kneeling down on their praying-mats, pros- 
 trating their foreheads, and rising again several 
 times, their faces turned towards Mecca, where 
 is the sacred tomb of their prophet. Meanwhile, 

 
 RELIGION OF THE MALAYS. 43 
 
 they repeat Arabic prayers, which by the bye, 
 they do not understand, nor the Koran either, 
 except such parts as the Hadjis have learnt to ex- 
 plain to them ; for it was one of Mahomet's laws, 
 that the Koran, being written in the purest Ara- 
 bic, could not be translated into other languages, 
 without being spoilt. What a contrast to our 
 Holy Scriptures, which are, perhaps, the only 
 Book in the world, which is beautiful in all lan- 
 guages, and applicable to every nation of man- 
 kind, as we might expect God's message to be ! 
 Mahomet taught his religion first to his own peo- 
 ple, the Arabians ; but he told them not to keep 
 it to themselves, but to become missionaries all 
 over the earth. So, after his death, as they were 
 a very strong and warlike people, they over-ran 
 all the neighbouring countries, and obliged their 
 inhabitants, whom they overcame in battle, to 
 embrace their religion, at the edge of their sharp 
 swords. Their prisoners only escaped with their 
 lives, by becoming converts to their faith — 'There 
 is one God, and Mahomet is His Prophet.' 
 
 Any man, who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca, 
 a city in Arabia where Mahomet lived, and has 
 there learnt certain forms of prayer and passages 
 of the Koran, becomes a Priest, or Hadji, and so
 
 44 LETTEKS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 the teachers are often nearly as ignorant as the 
 scholars. This pilgrimage to Mecca is another 
 of Mahomet's laws, which he intended to be uni- 
 versal ; but it is easy to see, that, when countries 
 far from Arabia embraced his faith, the in- 
 habitants could not all make such a distant and 
 fatiguing journey : the poor would want money, 
 the sickly strength, to perform it, and the occupa- 
 tions of many would prevent so long an absence. 
 Thus when men make laws in religious matters, 
 they are sure to become hard and painful 
 penances; but God's 'yoke is easy and His burden 
 light.' Mecca was, even before Mahomet's time, 
 considered a holy place, and had a Caaba, or 
 temple, in it, which was said to have been built 
 by Abraham and his son Ishmael. There is a 
 black stone in this temple, on which they pretend 
 to show the print of Abraham's foot, and here too, 
 they say, Abraham offered his son as a sacrifice, 
 in obedience to God's command : only they think 
 that Ishmael, not Isaac, was the beloved son 
 offered. This tradition arises from their being 
 descendants of Ishmael, and therefore wishing 
 to do him honour. It is astonishing how many poor 
 Mahometans manage to make the pilgrimage to 
 Mecca. They endure the greatest hardships 

 
 RELIGIOUS FASTING. 45 
 
 from heat and starvation, in little wretched ves- 
 sels, to reach this blessed place. Many of them 
 die of want or disease : but those, who live to re- 
 turn to their own land, are treated with respect, 
 and constitute, as I said before, the schoolmasters 
 of the children, and teachers of their religion. 
 They marry, bury, and circumcise, as our clergy- 
 men marry, bury, and baptize. They conduct 
 the prayer-meetings, and preside at the great 
 feast, which takes place once a year, when the 
 month of fasting is over. This holy month of 
 fasting and prayer is one of the most important 
 rites of the Mahometan religion, and very strictly 
 observed : no person, arrived at man's estate, is 
 allowed to taste food or drink, while the sun is 
 
 above the horizon. 
 
 At Sarawak, the sun rises at six o'clock and 
 
 sets at six o'clock, with only a few minutes' va- 
 riation throughout the year. We have no long 
 and short days, no hours of twilight, as you have 
 in England ; because we live just at the middle, 
 or broadest part of the earth, which always shows 
 the same face to the sun. ( You will understand, 
 one day, what is meant by living near the Equa- 
 tor. ) For these twelve hours, from six to six, 
 our Malays eat nothing, nor drink even water,
 
 46 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 nor chew their favourite Betel-nut and Sirih, nor 
 smoke. How they watch for the sunset, you 
 may fancy ! Last summer, Papa, some friends, 
 and I, went an excursion up the river during 
 the fasting month. We had two boats, one 
 pulled by nine boys, the other by seven men. 
 The boys did not fast, but ate fruit, and drank, 
 when they were thirsty ; but the crew of men 
 tasted nothing, and, by the time we reached the 
 Battu Tikus (rat stones) by the river's side, where 
 we staid the night, these poor fellows were quite 
 exhausted. They began to get their food ready 
 long before they might eat it ; and, when the pots 
 of rice were cooked, and the fish, and little 
 messes they ate with it, all prepared, they sat on 
 their heels round the feast, watching the sun. I 
 was also sitting with my watch in my hand, 
 ready to call out when it told six; and it was a 
 pleasure to see them eat their meal, having, as 
 they thought, fulfilled the day's painful duty. 
 They rose again before the sun, to eat another 
 slight meal, and so get through the next day. 
 But you may always see that the men get thin- 
 ner and paler, even through their dark skins, at 
 the end of the fasting month ; and Papa says that 
 at that time many come to him for physic, whose
 
 MALAY PRAYER MEETING. 47 
 
 ailments are entirely owing to their rigorous fast- 
 ing. Besides fasting, during this month, they 
 have frequent prayer-meetings at night. The 
 men all stand round the room or mosque, where- 
 in the meeting takes place; the Hadji stands in 
 the middle. Then he begins to say slowly, in 
 Arabic, the name of God— "Allah -il- Allah." The 
 men all repeat with him, but they gradually say 
 it faster and faster, till, at last, the words are not 
 audible, only a kind of jerk in their voice : they 
 never stop, until quite exhausted, and some even 
 fall on the floor insensible from fatigue. What 
 senseless prayer is this ! It reminds one of the 
 priests of Baal, in Elijah's time, who called upon 
 the name of their God, from morning until even- 
 ing ; and in their excitement cut themselves with 
 knives, so that the blood gushed out upon them : 
 "but none answered" nor can we think that such 
 prayers are pleasing to God, who looks at our 
 hearts. 
 
 There is one more peculiarity in the Mahome- 
 tan religion, which I must mention, because it 
 influences their character very much. They be- 
 lieve that every thing that happens to them, 
 sickness or sorrow, good or bad fortune, was 
 decreed before the world was made, and that
 
 48 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 nothing that they can do will change it. This 
 makes them consider all exertion, or painstaking, 
 useless; and their whole religion only a submis- 
 sion to God's unbending will. The other day, 
 one of the Datu's children was taken ill in the 
 night, and in a few hours it died. The Datu 
 was very grieved ; but when he was asked, why 
 he did not take the child to the doctor, or try 
 any remedies for it, he said, "What was the use? 
 no doubt God had called the child, and he must 
 go." It is, indeed, true, that God orders all that 
 happens to us, of joy and grief. But He does so, 
 to make us act for ourselves, that by our exer- 
 tions, our prayers, our faith in Him, we may 
 turn our sorrows to blessings, and wake our slow 
 hearts from the sleep of selfishness to the ac- 
 tivity of love. The Mahometans repeat prayers 
 five times in a day. One of these prayers is 
 called the "prayer of Jesus," but it is not what we 
 call the Lord's Prayer. They say that Christ is 
 to come again at the end of the world, and judge 
 all men, and that, after the judgment, all man- 
 kind will believe the true religion, or Islam. 
 Here we see a glimmering of truth ; for we are 
 told in the Bible, that the time will come, when
 
 RELIGIOUS FASTING. 49 
 
 'the Earth shall be full of the knowledge of the 
 Lord as the waters cover the sea'. 
 
 Before I close this letter, I must tell you how 
 the Mahometans may become examples to us. 
 I think we must admire — 1st, their constant re- 
 collection of God in frequent prayer; — 2nd, their 
 self denial in the Fasting Month; — 3rd, their 
 charity, for they consider it a great duty to give 
 alms to the poor. Mahometans have often had 
 cause to say of Christians living amongst them. 
 4 These men neither pray nor fast; such duties 
 are evidently no part of their religion.' I trust 
 this will never be said at Sarawak. We have 
 now a beautiful Church, and the bell calls us 
 there, to worship God, at six o'clock every morn- 
 ing, and at five every evening. Neither is there 
 anything, in this quiet happy place, to prevent 
 us from thus living in God's presence ; for we are 
 out of the hurry and bustle of the world, and 
 can so apportion our time, as not to be overbur- 
 dened by the cares, or the pleasures, of this life. 
 When you are older, you will like to read the life 
 of Mahomet, and the history of his followers, 
 who were great warriors, and some of them great 
 and noble men.
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 THE PRODUCTIONS OF BORNEO. 
 
 July, 1851. 
 
 My dearest Charley, 
 
 Borneo is a country rich in some of the 
 most valuable productions of nature. In the 
 hills there are mines of iron, tin, and antimony- 
 ore, a valuable and scarce mineral, used chiefly 
 in the manufacture of type for printing. There 
 are, no doubt, stores of gold, too, in the hills; 
 for the mountain-streams wash down gold-dust, 
 and small fragments of the pure metal, into the 
 plains, where the Chinese collect it, by washing 
 the soil in little ditches, which carry off the 
 lighter earth, and leave the gold at the bottom 
 of the ditch. 
 
 Diamonds are constantly found. Most Malays 
 wear diamond rings on their fingers, and the 
 rich men present their wives with a set of dia- 
 mond studs for their jackets, or with earrings 
 made like studs, to fasten into the ear by a little 
 screw nut. A favorite mode of borrowing money 
 amongst the Malays, is to pawn their wives' gold
 
 TREES OF BORNEO. 51 
 
 and diamond ornaments, which they redeem 
 when the trading venture proves successful. 
 They constantly pay for goods in gold-dust in- 
 stead of money. The mode some Dyaks adopt 
 of measuring an amas of dust, value one dollar, 
 is by stuffing one nostril with it, which they 
 then dexterously blow out again; their wide 
 open nostrils make this an easier operation than 
 we should find it. 
 
 Besides these valuable minerals Borneo fur- 
 nishes a peculiar kind of camphor, which is use- 
 ful in medicine. It is found in the stem of a 
 large forest tree, and the Chinese are willing to 
 pay an enormous price for it. The rattan, which 
 makes the bottoms of chairs and sofas, is a 
 climbing palm, growing in Bornean forests, and 
 sent by ship-loads to Europe. But the king of 
 the jungle is the tapang tree: its magnificent 
 stem is often more than 150 feet high, before it 
 branches; and the natural buttresses, at the 
 
 \ bottom of the stem, are thick enough to furnish 
 planks of sufficient size to make a billiard table. 
 
 Mr. C has a table, made out of one of these 
 
 planks, which will dine fourteen people comfort- 
 
 : ably. The wood is like dark old oak, and takes 
 a high polish.
 
 52 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 The Dyaks, however, do not often fell the 
 tapang trees ; for on their summits the wild bees 
 build their nests : from whence they can overlook 
 the fields of flowers, which the lower trees of 
 the jungle spread before them continually, and 
 which help them to make, I think, the finest fla- 
 voured honey in the world, and this honey, and 
 the bees-wax, are great articles of commerce. The 
 Dyaks mount these enormous tapang trees, and 
 rob the nests of honey and wax— quite regard- 
 less of the stings they get in the operation. 
 Indeed, it is considered a good exercise for the 
 courage and endurance of the Dyak boys, who 
 are as proud as little Spartans of bearing the 
 pain without complaint. Before they ascend the 
 tree they make a blazing fire underneath; for, 
 say they, " the bee is fond of gold, and, when he 
 espies the flames and sparks, he thinks a hoard 
 of treasure is beneath the tree, and leaves his 
 nest to fetch it." Doubtless, the wood smoke 
 drives the bees out of their nest. 
 
 Large quantities of bees-wax are exported 
 from Borneo every year, passing from the hands 
 of the Dyaks to the Malays, who give them in 
 exchange salt, or brass rings, gongs, etc. The 
 Sago Palm, which grows luxuriantly in the
 
 GUTTA PERCH A. 53 
 
 forests, furnishes us with wholesome food. Sago 
 is the pith of this tree, taken out before it 
 flowers and fruits ; for the flower exhausts the 
 nourishing pith, and the tree decays when the 
 fruit is ripe. Having cut out the pith, and 
 washed it, the natives pack it up in little pottle- 
 shaped parcels, and bury them in the mud by 
 the sides of the rivers. Here it undergoes a 
 process of fermentation, which would make most 
 people, who smelt it, fancy it was no longer fit 
 for use. Not so, however. After a time the 
 packets of sago are sent to Singapore, where 
 they are thrown into troughs of water, and 
 washed over and over again, until the seemingly 
 rotten mass becomes a pure powder, which is 
 then forced through sieves, and falls into the 
 little round grains, which are called Pearl Sago, 
 and which often make you a nice pudding. Some 
 Pyak tribes, in the interior of the country, live 
 on cakes made of sago, in preference to rice. 
 
 Gutta Percha, which is useful in making 
 waterproof pipes, surgical splints, picture frames, 
 and all sorts of ornamental furniture, is the gum 
 of a fine forest tree in Borneo. The tree is 
 obliged to be cut down, to get at the Gutta, 
 which is inside. When the hill was cleared, on
 
 54 LETTEES FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 which our church now stands, one of these beau- 
 tiful trees was left for a time ; it took five people, 
 with their arms spread out, to encircle its trunk ; 
 and I hoped we might make a seat around it, 
 whence we could watch the carpenters building. 
 One evening, after Papa and I had been walking 
 round our favourite tree, and considering whether 
 it would endanger the people working at the 
 church, a fearful storm of lightning came on, 
 and, as we stood admiring the bright flashes, we 
 saw one strike the Gutta Percha tree, making a 
 cleft in it all down the stem. After this, we 
 dared not leave it standing so near the church, 
 lest another storm should bring it down on the 
 building; so we had it felled. Its downfall dis- 
 turbed a number of curious bats, with little 
 trunks like elephants, who lived in a hollow part 
 of it. It was well we cut it down, for the inside 
 was much decayed, and it could not have stood 
 long. 
 
 Tortoise Shell is another article of commerce, 
 which Europeans value, and which is found on 
 our coasts. But, besides these things, there 
 are some treasures in Borneo, which are only 
 esteemed by the Chinese, but which are no less 
 articles of commerce for our Malays. Such is 

 
 EDIBLE NESTS. 55 
 
 the edible swallow's nest, which the Chinese buy 
 for its weight in silver or twenty dollars a catty 
 (pound and a quarter). These little birds build 
 in large communities in the interior of caves. 
 Their nests are fastened against the walls of the 
 caves, and are collected by the Dyaks twice a 
 year. They are like woven isinglass; some al- 
 most as clear and transparent looking, which are 
 then termed white nests — others more dirty and 
 mixed with tiny feathers, which are less valuable 
 and called black nests. You remember, Charley, 
 my sending you one of these delicate little nests, 
 in a letter ; but I fear it did not reach you in 
 good preservation. The Chinese make them into 
 soup, which they imagine to be more strengthen- 
 ing than any other food : but, as it has no fla- 
 vour, it is not especially prized by the English. 
 
 There is also a certain sea-slug, called trepang 
 which the natives collect, and sell to the Chinese 
 for soups. And another favourite article of com- 
 merce is blacham, a condiment, which both Chi- 
 nese and Indians esteem as a flavouring for their 
 meals of rice, and which consists of shrimps and 
 small fish, dried in the sun, and mashed in a 
 mortar to a paste. It tastes like the strong 
 caviare, which the Greeks are so fond of. Our
 
 56 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 Malays buy all these precious things, and many 
 others, which I cannot remember, of the country 
 people, or Dyaks. They then freight their ves- 
 sels, and carry them to Singapore, or Java, or 
 Bruni, and bring back, in exchange, china, glass, 
 brass vessels, gongs, and musical instruments, for 
 which the Javanese are famous. 
 
 Indeed, the Malays have quite a genius for 
 trading. Two or three Nakodas, as the mer- 
 chants are called, join together to build a large 
 boat. When finished, a great many of their 
 friends volunteer to accompany them, in a tra- 
 ding voyage; each man brings some goods, or 
 gold dust, which he wants to barter or sell, until 
 a sufficient cargo is collected. For the privilege 
 of trading in her, the men give their services as 
 sailors, and bring their provisions for the voyage ; 
 so that the owners have no expenses of manning 
 or victualling their ship. Every Malay knows 
 something of the sea, and the simple manage- 
 ment of their mat sails. They seldom venture 
 far out of sight of land. The seas are dotted 
 witli islands ; and these, and the stars, serve as 
 guides for their voyage. 
 
 The first year we lived at Sarawak, two Xako- 
 das built a larger vessel, than had yet been at-
 
 THE S'REE SARAWAK. 57 
 
 tempted by native workmen. She was called the 
 .'Beauty of Sarawak,' (S'ree Sarawak,) and Papa 
 often paid her a visit, while building — giving the 
 Malays the benefit of his advice and criticism. 
 When she was finished, the Nakodas made a 
 feast, and invited the English of Sarawak on 
 board, where they were entertained with cakes 
 and sweetmeats ; as I did not go, they sent me a 
 tray of sweetmeats afterwards. Papa made 
 Nakocla Mahomet, and Nakoda Sie a present of a 
 telescope ; and I copied them a map of the coast 
 of Java, whither they directed their first voyage. 
 "We were much interested in the success of this 
 vessel, which has since made the fortunes of these 
 two merchants. But there are now many others, 
 even better built and larger, — (the S'ree was about 
 150 tons burthen,) — for Sarawak is becoming a 
 thriving place. Last year the value of its exports 
 amounted to 150,125 dollars; and vessels from 
 Singapore, the Natunas Islands, (whence we get- 
 Cocoa Nuts and oil,) the Dutch Settlements of 
 Sambas, Pontianak, Java, Bali, the North-west 
 coast of Borneo, Labuan, Rhio, and Tringanu, 
 imported, to Sarawak, goods to the value of 
 197,166 dollars, under British, Dutch, Native 
 and Sarawakian flags.
 
 58 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 The Sarawak flag is a red and purple cross, 
 out of Sir James Brooke's armorial shield, on a 
 yellow ground, yellow being the royal colour of 
 Borneo. It was given by the Rajah to his people, 
 on his return from England, in 1848, and I re- 
 member well, what a grand occasion it was. 
 H. M. S. Meander was at Sarawak at the time, 
 and their band played 'God Save the Queen/ as 
 the flag was, for the first time, hoisted on the 
 flag-staff before the Rajah's house. All the 
 English were assembled there, and a great crowd 
 of natives, Malays and Dyaks, whom the Rajah 
 addressed in the Malay language, telling them 
 that the flag, which he had that day given them, 
 would, he hoped, be their glory and protection, 
 as the flag of England had long been hers. He 
 said that, by the help of his native country, he 
 would engage to clear the seas of the Archipe- 
 lago of the pirates, who prevented their trading 
 vessels from venturing along the coasts, and, 
 when this was accomplished, he trusted to see 
 Sarawak become a rich and thriving place, with 
 all the blessings of peace, civilisation, and re- 
 ligion. A great deal more than this, and much 
 more to the purpose than I can remember, our 
 Rajah said that day to his people ; for his heart
 
 PIRATES. 59 
 
 was full of desires for their welfare, and hope 
 and trust in the English Government, to aid 
 him in the accomplishment of his designs. The 
 Malays listened with love and reverence to his 
 words, and, from my house across the river, I 
 could hear their acclamations. Since then, the 
 Sarawak flag flies, not only at the Fort at the 
 entrance of the town, but at the mast of many 
 a vessel, laden with Bornean treasures, on all the 
 coasts of the Archipelago. I must tell you in a 
 future letter about the pirates, who, in 1848, 
 were a constant terror to our little trading ves- 
 sels, and to those of all other native states, and 
 how the Rajah fulfilled his promise to his people, 
 of punishing these sea robbers, and forcing them 
 to live at peace with their neighbours. 
 
 For to day, good bye.
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 THE DYAKS — THEIR RELIGION. 
 
 August 1851. 
 
 : My dearest Child, 
 
 You know as well as I do, that God made 
 all men, as well as all creatures and things. We 
 should feel sure of this, even if the Bible had 
 not told us all about it ; because our common 
 sense assures us that nothing can make itself, so 
 that, what men are not wise and strong enough 
 to make, must have been created by some Person 
 more wise and powerful than any man. You 
 know that " to create," means " to make some- 
 thing out of nothing ;" and that is what no man 
 can do. . He may join created things together, 
 or he may even discover some new substance by 
 doing so ; as, for instance, clear transparent glass 
 is made by melting sand, flint, and the ashes of 
 sea- weed (potash), in a hot fire; and so, too, 
 paper is made by washing old rags in water : but 
 without the sand, flint, and potash, no man could 
 make glass ; and without the rags, or something 
 like them, paper could not be made. 
 
 We may also find out, that some things in the 
 earth are made, as it were, by other things.
 
 DYAK RELIGION. 61 
 
 Thus, coal is known to be old forests, which 
 have been covered with water for many ages. 
 Sand is the dust of stone, worn by the action of 
 the water. The fine black mould, which lies on 
 the surface of the earth, and nourishes the roots 
 of trees, flowers, and grasses, is made by a mix- 
 ture of all sorts of dead vegetables and animal 
 matter, and the effects of sun, rain, and air 
 upon them. But, though I might add to these 
 many other things, which Nature makes and 
 man cannot, there must always remain some, 
 which have been created, some time or other, by 
 God. Such are light, heat, air, water, all living 
 creatures, and man. 
 
 Savage nations, who have no learning, and 
 never heard of the Bible, know this, and they 
 call God M The Great Spirit," " The Creator," or 
 by some other word, which means that He made 
 them, and all they see. The Bible explains this 
 to us ; for it says that, when God made man, 
 " He breathed into him, and man became a 
 living soul." The voice of God's Spirit speaks 
 of Him, to the soul of every one : so that, if we 
 lived in a wild country, without a book to teach 
 us, we should sometimes feel obliged to look up 
 to Heaven, and worship our Maker: we should 
 feel that, as He made us, He can take care of us,
 
 62 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 and do us good or harm as He wills ; and these 
 feelings we call natural religion, because Nature 
 without, and God's voice within, teach it to us. 
 
 The religion of the Dyaks, by which name we 
 call the numerous tribes of people, who inhabit 
 this island, and about whom I now intend to 
 write to you, is chiefly this. They know that 
 some great Spirit made them, and the country 
 they live in ; they feel sure that the rice, fruit, 
 fish, and animals, which form their food, are 
 His gifts ; therefore they pray for His blessing 
 when they sow the seed in their Paddy fields. 
 They call God Tuppa, Jeroang, or Dewatah, 
 which is a very old word belonging to the San- 
 scrit language — a language so ancient, that it is 
 no longer spoken by any nation in the world, 
 except that some learned people of India use it 
 in arguing, as formerly learned Europeans did 
 the Latin language. But there are still many 
 books to be found written in Sanscrit, and from 
 it most eastern languages are derived. 
 
 Thus far the religion of the Dyaks is right, 
 and even farther; for they have a firm belief in 
 evil spirits (antoos), to whom they ascribe all 
 the sickness and misfortune which happen to 
 them. But at this point they depart from the 
 truth, and become superstitious : for they do not 

 
 
 HEAD -TAKING. 63 
 
 know that God is stronger than the devil; so 
 they make offerings and prayers to the antoos, to 
 avert their wrath, and keep them in good temper. 
 From this false, cowardly, fear of evil spirits or 
 devils, no doubt arises the Dyak custom of head- 
 taking. If a man loses his wife or child, he 
 puts on a kind of mourning, of common coarse 
 clothes, and sets out to take as many human 
 heads as he thinks an equivalent for his misfor- 
 tune ; thus he hopes to propitiate the evil spirit 
 of death. Before he has sown the seed in his 
 farm he seeks more heads, which he brings home, 
 fastened about his own neck, to rejoice over 
 when his harvest is reaped. The evil spirits 
 they think are pleased with blood. When a 
 journey or any enterprise is to be undertaken, a 
 fowl is killed, and all those to be engaged in it 
 are touched with the blood of the sacrifice. At 
 a feast, the white fowl's blood is sprinkled on the 
 posts of the house, reminding one of the houses 
 of the Israelites, which the avenging angel passed 
 over, when sprinkled with the blood of the 
 Paschal Lamb. 
 
 When the Dyaks build a new house, the first 
 post to support it is driven through the body of 
 a live fowl, and they say that, some generations 
 back, a young girl was thus horribly empaled
 
 64 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 instead of a chicken, to insure the prosperity of 
 the new house and its inmates. As I said before^ 
 the custom of head-taking was, no doubt, derived 
 from the notion of propitiating the evil spirits 
 by blood. But now the Dyaks consider a head 
 taker in the same glorious light* with which we 
 regard a successful warrior. This ghastly pre- 
 sent of a human head, is the favourite love J 
 token which a young man lays at the girl's feet 
 whom he desires to marry, and which she accepts 
 with favour: for an old legend of the Sakarrans 
 tells her, that the daughter of their great ances- 
 tor, who resides in heaven, near the Evening 
 Star, refused to marry until her betrothed 
 brought her a present worth her acceptance* 
 The man went into the jungle and killed a deer, 
 which he presented to her; but the fair lady 
 turned away in disdain. He went again, and 
 returned with a mias, the great monkey who 
 haunts the forest ; but this present was not more 
 to her taste. Then, in a fit of despair, the lover 
 went abroad, and killed the first man that he 
 met, and throwing his victim's head at the 
 maiden's feet, he exclaimed at the cruelty she 
 had made him guilty of; but, to his surprise, she 

 
 DYAK WEDDING CUSTOM. 65 
 
 smiled, and said, that now he had discovered the 
 only gift worthy of herself. 
 
 To this day the women of this tribe incite the 
 men to this horrible practice. It matters not 
 whether the head be of man, woman, or child, 
 enemy or stranger; but a head they must have 
 for a wedding present. You see, my child, how 
 far astray from goodness, gentleness, and mercy, 
 mankind have wandered when they have for- 
 gotten the Great God their Maker, and wor- 
 shipped Evil instead of Good. 
 
 Not long ago Papa paid a visit to the Lundu 
 Dyaks, whom we consider the most intelligent of 
 the Sarawak tribes. The wife of the Orang 
 Kaya's (chief's) son was very ill, and both she 
 and her little infant were in great danger of 
 dying. Papa told Kalong, her husband, that he 
 could relieve her, and give her physic : but the 
 old women, who seem to be the doctors of the 
 tribe, said, "they must drive the antoos away 
 first." So they commenced a horrible noise 
 with gongs and drums, shrieks and yells; they 
 then rushed on the roof of the house, to drive, 
 as they said, the antoos off the premises ; and it 
 was not until the baby died, and the poor mother 
 grew worse and worse, and exhausted by the din 
 
 F
 
 66 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 they made, that they admitted Papa to give her 
 any assistance. Besides these antoos Papa has 
 heard the Dyaks talk of spirits they call Triu, 
 who, they fancy, inhabit the jungle, and espe- 
 cially the summits of the hills and mountains. 
 If an Englishman wishes to make an excursion 
 to the top of a high hill, he has great difficulty 
 in persuading a Dyak to accompany him. Should 
 he consent to go, however, he will not help to 
 cut down trees there, nor cook food, nor throw 
 stones down the hill, lest he should offend the 
 spirits, who, he believes, live there, and who, he 
 vainly imagines, will assist him in war, if he 
 does not disturb them, by appearing in the shape 
 of Dyak men, and fighting at his side. Mingled 
 with these Triu, they suppose, are savage, malig- 
 nant spirits, called by them Kamang, who also 
 accompany them to their wars, for the purpose 
 of enjoying the carriage. They are believed to 
 drink human blood, and to inspire those who 
 worship them with desperate valour. These 
 Kamang are, however, enemies of the Triu. 
 
 Beside these, the Dyaks have endless super- 
 stitions about charms and magic. They will not 
 sow their paddy until the voice of a certain bird 
 is heard in the woods ; and, when they go on any
 
 DYAK SUPERSTITIONS. 67 
 
 expedition, if one of these omen birds sings 
 behind them, they return, convinced that misfor- 
 tune will overtake them if they proceed. On 
 each of their farms they cultivate a certain white 
 lily, over which they build a shed, and to which, 
 as to something sacred, they present offerings of 
 fruit, rice, etc., fancying that their paddy will 
 not grow well unless they do so. They can give 
 no reason for this, and many other foolish cus- 
 toms, except that " such was the custom of their 
 ancestors." Notwithstanding all these ignorant 
 fancies, the Dyaks retain their belief in one 
 Great God and Father of all men ; they acknow- 
 ledge that they are foolish and ignorant, and 
 that the religion of the white men, as they call 
 Christianity, is a truer and better one than their 
 own. They are, with the exception of the pirate 
 tribes, a gentle, kindly people, simple as children, 
 and inclined to love and reverence all men whom 
 they see to be wiser and more civilised than 
 themselves. I will tell you, in my next letter, 
 something of their houses, dress, and manners. 
 
 f 2
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 THE DYAKS — THEIR HISTORY, MANNERS, AND 
 
 CUSTOMS. 
 
 September, 1851. 
 
 My dearest Boy, 
 
 The Dyaks are supposed to be the Abori- 
 gines, or first inhabitants, of Borneo ; when they 
 came there they do not know, nor from whence. 
 They have, doubtless, for many generations past, 
 followed exactly the same manners and customs ; 
 for they have a great reverence for their ances- 
 tors, and consider it reason enough for many a 
 foolish habit, that such was the custom of their 
 forefathers. We generally divide the Dyaks into 
 Land and Sea tribes, but the Orang-Laut (people 
 of the sea), do not allow that they are Dyaks at 
 all, by this name designating only the inland
 
 DYAK COSTUMES. G9 
 
 tribes. Besides this distinction they must be 
 divided into tribes, according to the locality in 
 which they live. Thus the country of Sarawak 
 possesses as many as thirty-two tribes of Dyaks, 
 each tribe having a chief, or rich man, as the 
 title Orang-Kaya signifies. This chief is elected 
 by his people, and, although the dignity is gene- 
 rally hereditary, he may be deposed, if such is 
 the will of the tribe. Each tribe has its own 
 territory and particular farms, which they culti- 
 vate by turns, allowing them to lie fallow in the 
 intervening years: for in that country, where 
 there is room and to spare for the inhabitants, 
 they know nothing of the rotation of crops. 
 
 Rice is the food of all, and a little Indian corn, 
 or millet, may be added by way of luxury 
 Some of them grow tobacco, of which they an 
 very fond; and cotton, which they dye, and 
 weave into the thick jackets and scarfs of which 
 their dress consists. A Dyak man's working 
 dress is only a long scarf of this cotton, or the 
 bark of a tree, beaten into a kind of cloth, 
 wound about his body. On his head another 
 piece of bark-cloth is twisted, sticking up on 
 either side like ears. The scarf hangs down like 
 a tail before and behind, so that I have no doubt
 
 70 LETTEES FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 old stories of wild men with tails, which may be 
 found in some travels, have originated from this 
 costume. These two articles of clothing are 
 common to all Dyaks ; but the various tribes are 
 distinguishable by their different ornaments. 
 Thus the Sakarrans wear a bracelet of white 
 shell round the upper part of the arm; the 
 Sarebas, a great number of brass rings along the 
 shell of their ears; our Sarawak tribes value 
 white beads as necklaces ; some wear brass rings 
 all the way up both the arm and leg, leaving 
 only the elbow free; others have many twists of 
 rattan, stained black or red, round their waists ; 
 the women a kind of basket-stays of this mate- 
 rial. The inland tribes are many of them tat- 
 tooed. Their war dresses consist of a jacket of 
 the native thick cotton, closely wadded, a head- 
 dress of feathers of the rhinoceros hornbill, and 
 tufts of hair dyed, of various colours, which are 
 set in a kind of coronet of beads. They use, as 
 weapons of war, spears, the points of which are 
 hardened by fire; swords, made some for the 
 riffht, and some for the left hand; and the sum- 
 pitan, a long blow pipe of wood, which throws 
 poisoned darts, to a distance of thirty or forty 
 yards. They also carry wooden shields to de-
 
 HOUSES OF THE DYAKS. 
 
 71 
 
 fend themselves from the spears of their ene- 
 mies. 
 
 DYAK BLOWING SUMPITAN. 
 
 When I simd you Papa's journal of his trip 
 up the Rejang river, you will there find more 
 minute descriptions of the costumes of the Dyaks. 
 They do not live in cottages, or separate houses, 
 but as many as fifty or a hundred families in one 
 house, or rather barrack. These houses are 
 built on long poles, with a very deep verandah 
 in front, on which all the business of the day is 
 transacted — the cooking, mat and basket making,
 
 72 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 «fec, in which men and women are employed. 
 Under the house reside the pigs, and their food 
 is thrown to them through the floor. This is 
 certainly an improvement on the Irish custom, 
 of having the pigs in the same apartment : still 
 it is not very sweet. In the interior of the 
 house, are the sleepiug rooms of the married peo- 
 ple, and women and children : but the unmarried 
 men sleep all together, in a house which is also 
 used to keep the dried heads of their enemies. 
 The heads hang from the roof, the bachelors sleep 
 on the floor, and, if any visitors come to the 
 tribe, this house is generally appointed for their 
 quarters. But I am happy to say that, with 
 our Sarawak Dyaks, the head-house is no longer 
 such an important place, as it used to be : this 
 vile custom is against the laws of our Rajah's 
 Government, and will die out by degrees, as the 
 people learn better habits, and the Christian law 
 of love. 
 
 Both Dyak men and women are better looking 
 than the Malays. The tribes vary in appearance. 
 Some, that have been much oppressed, either by 
 their Malay masters, or the piratical Dyak tribes, 
 are stunted in figure, and very subject to a skin 
 disease, which looks disagreeable, and causes
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF THE DYAKS. 73 
 
 them much discomfort — no doubt arising from 
 exposure to the weather, and want of proper food. 
 But, when the tribe is well off, and enjoying the 
 blessings of peace, they are fine well-proportioned 
 men, with fairer skins than the Malays, and finer 
 features. Their eyes are particularly bright and 
 intelligent. The women are rather small, but 
 often pretty when young, although the hard work, 
 which they do in the rice-fields, makes them 
 old-looking at an early age. I have seen little 
 Dyak children as fair and pretty as English 
 children. In my school, I have a little Sarebas 
 Dyak girl, who, when brought to me, was quite 
 an infant. Her father was killed in battle, and 
 her mother had cast the baby into the long grass, 
 and fled into the jungle. The poor orphan was 
 brought to Sarawak, and given to me. She had 
 long golden hair, and large brown eyes. I 
 thought her as sweet a baby as I had ever seen. 
 She is now nearly five years old; but I cannot 
 say that she is any longer pretty, although she 
 is a gentle nice child, and sings like a little bird. 
 The Dyaks are fond of pork, but they will eat 
 monkeys, squirrels, and, in fact, any thing they 
 can catch in the jungle, except deer, and this 
 some tribes object to, as a meat likely to make
 
 74 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 them timid and faint-hearted, and therefore only 
 allowable to women and children. This is an 
 old tradition of their forefathers ; and I think the 
 Malays do not discourage it, as they are very 
 fond of venison, and like to keep the game 
 for themselves. 
 
 There is a certain slimy clay, which the Sakar- 
 ran Dyaks always provide themselves with, when 
 they make their excursions in their boats, and 
 which they suck when their stock of rice is ex- 
 hausted : they say it is very nutritious. Twice 
 a year, when the rice-harvest is gathered in, the 
 Dyaks make a great public feast. Papa hap- 
 pened to visit the Miradang tribe once, just as 
 their harvest-home feast was being ended. As 
 the tribe all live in two or three great houses, 
 there was no difficulty in collecting them to- 
 gether. Being all assembled, they feasted for 
 three days, during which they consumed 700 
 fowls, 500 bushels (pasus) of rice, 300 pasus of 
 cakes, made of rice, flour, and sugar, rolled as 
 fine as vermicelli, and fried in cocoa nut oil, and 
 70 jars of arrack, with which they made them- 
 selves very tipsy. It is only on such occasions 
 they get tipsy; but they have not yet learnt, 
 that it is a shame and disgrace to be so. This
 
 THE SUNTAH DYAKS. 75 
 
 tribe numbers at least 2000 men, women, and 
 children. I do not remember how many pigs 
 they ate at this feast — a great many, of course. 
 Besides eating and drinking, they had public 
 games, a greased pole to climb, surmounted by a 
 brass ball, and with two arms of wood, from 
 which depended the prizes of fowls, which be- 
 longed to whoever could reach them. On the 
 pole, were carved images of lizards, and croco- 
 diles, to measure how high each man could as- 
 cend. This tribe, living on the Quop river, is 
 very prosperous. 
 
 Last year, Papa accompanied the Rajah, in a 
 visit to the Suntah Dyaks. This tribe used to 
 be a prey to the Sakarran and Sarebas pirates, 
 who had so often destroyed their houses, and 
 farms, and stolen their wives, children, and 
 goods, that, when Sir James Brooke first lived 
 at Sarawak, they were reduced to a very small 
 number, and robbed of their possessions. The 
 chief appealed to Sir James for protection, and, 
 since then, they have lived securely, and cultiva- 
 ted their paddy-farms in peace, growing richer 
 from year to year; as they sell the paddy they 
 do not want to eat, to purchase clothes, gongs, 
 brazen vessels, and other things they value.
 
 76 LETTEES EEOM SAEAWAK. 
 
 
 They were delighted to receive a visit from the 
 Kajah, to whom they owed so much. The chief 
 walked down the hill, on which they lived, to 
 meet him, and as they entered the principal 
 house, guns were fired off as a salute. The old 
 women of the tribe stood ready to receive them, 
 dressed in curious long jackets, embroidered 
 with figures of lizards, crocodiles, and other hid- 
 eous monsters, made of small shells called cowries. 
 These old women made yells of welcome, and 
 stroked their visitors' arms and legs ; for they 
 fancy there is some goodness or virtue to be rub- 
 bed out of white people. They then washed their 
 feet in cocoa-nut water, and set aside the water 
 to steep their seed paddy in, imagining it would 
 help it to grow. At night, when, tired with 
 their long walk, the Rajah and Papa laid them- 
 selves down to sleep on the floor, the Dyaks 
 feasted and drank in honour of their visit ; and 
 these silly old women stood over Papa, whom 
 they knew to be a Doctor, and constantly woke 
 him, by stroking his limbs, and swaying their 
 arms about, close to his face. They thought 
 him a very reverend person, no doubt, but I 
 think he could gladly have dispensed with so 
 much attention. 

 
 CUSTOMS OF THE DYAKS. 77 
 
 Another custom of theirs is almost too nasty 
 to speak of. They brought portions of cooked 
 rice on leaves, and begged the Englishmen to 
 spit into them, after which they ate them up, 
 thinking they should be the better for it. The 
 day will come, I trust, when these simple people 
 will know that " God made man of one flesh, in 
 all the nations upon earth ;" and will regard the 
 white men as His ambassadors, to teach them 
 heavenly wisdom. This is the only light in 
 which our Rajah, or Papa, would wish to be 
 reverenced. But we cannot wonder at their 
 superstitious love of the Rajah. He has deli- 
 vered them from the exactions of the Malays, 
 and the dread of the pirates, who made them the 
 poorest, and the most miserable, of human beings, 
 and kept them in constant fear of death for 
 themselves, and starving for their wives and 
 children. 
 
 It is time that I should tell you something 
 about these pirate tribes, as I have so often men- 
 tioned them in my letters ; but I will not begin 
 to-day, as my sheet is full.
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 THE PIRATES. 
 
 October, 1851. 
 
 My dearest Charley, 
 
 When your little cousin Harriette was 
 asked "what is a pirate?" she said, " a great 
 rogue of the sea;" and perhaps I could not give 
 you a better definition of these bad men, who 
 have, for centuries past, been the terror of all 
 native trading vessels, in the seas of the Eastern 
 Archipelago. " It is in the Malay's nature," 
 says a Dutch writer, " to rove on the seas in his 
 prahu, as it is in that of the Arab to wander 
 with his steed on the sands of the desert." Be- 
 fore the English and the Dutch governments 
 exerted themselves to put down piracy in this 
 part of the world, there were communities of 
 these Malays, settled on various parts of the 
 coast of Borneo, who made it the business of 
 their lives to rob and destroy all the vessels they 
 could meet with, either killing the crews, or 
 reducing them to slavery. For this purpose,
 
 THE PIRATES. 79 
 
 many still go out in fleets, of from ten to thirty 
 war boats or prahus. These boats are about 
 ninety feet long ; they carry a large cannon in 
 the bow of the vessel, and from three to four 
 lelas (smaller brass cannon), on each broadside, 
 besides about twenty or thirty rifles or muskets. 
 Each prahu is rowed by sixty or eighty oars, in 
 two tiers, and will carry from eighty to a hun- 
 dred men. Over the rowers, and extending the 
 whole length of the vessel, is a light, flat roof, 
 made of split bamboo and covered with mats : 
 this protects their ammunition and provisions 
 from the rain, and serves as a platform on which 
 they mount to fight, and from which they fire 
 their muskets, and hurl their spears. These 
 formidable boats skulk about, in the sheltered 
 bays of the coast, at the season of the year 
 when they know that merchant vessels will be 
 passing laden with rich cargoes for the ports of 
 Singapore, Penang, or to and from China. A 
 scout boat, with but few men in it, which would 
 not excite suspicion, goes out to spy for sails. 
 They do not generally attack well armed large 
 vessels, though many a Dutch and English brig, 
 which has been becalmed, or enticed by them 
 into dangerous and shallow water, has been over-
 
 80 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 powered by their superior numbers. But it is, 
 usually, the small unarmed vessels they fall upon, 
 with fearful yells, binding those they do not kill, 
 and, when they have robbed them, burning the 
 vessels, to avoid detection. They then carry 
 their prisoners to some Malay town, whose inha- 
 bitants, or, at any rate, the rulers and great men, 
 connive at their wickedness, and buy their booty 
 and slaves. While the fair wind, or south-west 
 monsoon blows, the pirates do not return to their 
 homes, but lurk about in uninhabited bays and 
 creeks, until the trading season is over. But 
 when the north-east wind begins to blow they go 
 back to their settlements, often rich in booty, and 
 with blood on their hands, only to rejoice over 
 the past, and prepare themselves for another ex- 
 cursion. 
 
 There are still nests of pirates, in the north of 
 Borneo, who are as yet unsubdued by the forces 
 which English, Dutch, and Spaniards have sent 
 against them. But the Malay towns in the 
 Straits which used to encourage the pirates, by 
 buying their slaves, etc., do not now dare to 
 deal with them so openly; as the Europeans 
 have made them promise to assist them in extir- 
 pating this great evil. This is the case at Bruni,
 
 SUPPORT OF THE PIRATES. 81 
 
 the capital of the Malay power, on the north of 
 Borneo, where the Sultan lives. The Sultan is 
 a bad man, and used to enrich himself by allow- 
 ing the pirates, from the countries and islands 
 further north, to trade with him and his Pange- 
 rans (nobles), and to pay him tribute in slaves 
 and presents for the permission. The Sultan of 
 Sooloo, has also been obliged to withdraw his 
 countenance from the pirates who infest the 
 groups of islands to the north of Borneo. 
 
 When Sir James Brooke first visited Sarawak 
 the Malay nobles there, who were subjects of the 
 Sultan of Bruni, used to follow the evil example 
 of their master, and encourage the piratical 
 Dyaks of Sarebas and Sakarran to pay them 
 tribute, for allowing their raids on the defenceless 
 inhabitants of the coasts, thus impoverishing the 
 very country they ruled, and preventing all 
 native trade, for their own individual profit — a 
 very short-sighted, as well as wicked policy. 
 But now the state of things is altered at Sarawak; 
 and no pirate boat dares to lurk near the duell- 
 ing of an English rajah, who is their determined 
 foe, and who, by teaching his subjects the benefits 
 of a £ood government, and the certain riches of 
 industry, has made them as averse to piracy as 
 
 G
 
 82 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 himself. The Dyaks of Sarebas and Sakarran 
 have been taught piracy by the Malays, who 
 have settled amongst them. They were always 
 head-hunters, and used to pull the oars in the 
 Malay prahus, for the sake of the heads of the 
 slain, which were alone valuable to them, where- 
 as the Malays coveted the booty ; thus the Malays 
 made use of them at first, as the monkey used 
 the cat's paw, to take the roasted chestnuts off 
 the fire. But, in course of time, the Dyaks 
 became expert seamen. They built boats, which 
 they called bangkongs ; and went out with the 
 Malays, in fleets of 100 war-boats, devastating 
 the coast, and killing Malays, Chinese, Dyaks, or 
 Europeans, wherever they could get them. The 
 Dyak bangkong, or war-boat, draws very little 
 water, and is both lighter and faster than the 
 Malay prahu; it is 100 feet long and nine or ten 
 broad. Sixty or eighty men, with paddles, make 
 her skim through the water as swiftly as a 
 London race-boat. She moves without noise, 
 and surprises and overwhelms her victims with 
 showers of spears, in the dead of the night; 
 neither can any vessel, except a steamer, catch a 
 Dyak bangkong, if the crew deem it necessary to 
 fly. These boats can be easily taken to pieces;
 
 CRUELTY OF THE PIRATES. 83 
 
 for the planks are not fastened with nails, but 
 laced together with rattans, and caulked with 
 bark, which swells when wet : so that, if they 
 wish to hide their retreat in the jungle, they can 
 quickly unlace their boats, carry them on their 
 shoulders into the woods, and put them together 
 again, when they want them. 
 
 When we first lived at Sarawak no merchant 
 boat dared go out of the river alone, and un- 
 armed; and we were constantly shocked with 
 dreadful accounts of villages on the coast, or 
 boats at the entrance, being surprised, and men, 
 women, and children, barbarously murdered by 
 these wretches. I remember once a boat being 
 found with only three fingers of a man in it, and 
 a bloody mark at the side, where the heads of 
 those to whom the boat belonged had been cut 
 off. Sometimes the pirates would wait until 
 they knew the men of a village were all away, 
 working at their paddy-farms, and then they 
 would fall suddenly upon the poor defenceless 
 women and children, kill some, make slaves of 
 the rest, and rob their houses. Sometimes, 
 having destroyed a village and its inhabitants, 
 they would dress themselves in the clothes of 
 the slain, and proceeding to another place, would
 
 84 LETTERS PROM SARAWAK. 
 
 call out to the women, " The Sarebas are coming, 
 but, if you bring down your valuables to us, we 
 will defend you, and your property ;" and many 
 of the poor women fell into the snare, and be- 
 came a prey to their enemies. 
 
 There is no action too cruel for a pirate. If 
 they attack a house when the men are at home it 
 is in the night. They pull stealthily up the 
 river in their boats, and, landing under cover of 
 their shields, they creep under the house, which 
 you know stands on very tall poles. They then 
 set fire to dry wood, and a quantity of chillies 
 which they bring with them for the purpose: 
 this makes a suffocating smoke which hinders 
 the inmates of the house from coming out to 
 defend themselves. They commence cutting 
 down the posts of the house, which falls, with 
 all it contains, into their ruthless hands. 
 
 In the year 1849 the atrocities of the piratical 
 Dyaks were so frequent that the Rajah applied 
 to the English Admiral in the Straits, for some 
 men-of-war to assist him in destroying them. 
 Remonstrances and threats had been tried again 
 and again. The pirates would always promise 
 good behaviour for the future, to avert a present 
 danger; but they never kept these promises
 
 EXPEDITION AGAINST THE PIRATES. 85 
 
 when an opportunity offered for breaking them 
 with impunity. There is no good faith in bad 
 men, and cruelty and falsehood are generally to 
 be found together. In consequence of Sir James 
 Brooke's application, H. M. S. Albatross, com- 
 manded by Captain Farquhar, H. M. sloop 
 Royalist, Commander Lieutenant Everest, and 
 H. E. I. C. steamer Nemesis, Commander Cap- 
 tain Wallage, were sent by Admiral Collyer to 
 Sarawak. Then the Rajah had all his war-boats 
 got ready to join the English forces. There was 
 the Lion King, the Royal Eagle, the Tiger, the 
 Big Snake, the Little Snake, the Frog, the Alli- 
 gator, and many others, belonging to the Datus, 
 who, on occasions like these, are bound to call on 
 their servants, and a certain number of able- 
 bodied men, in their campongs, to man and fight 
 in their boats : this is their service to Govern- 
 ment, instead of paying taxes, as English people 
 do. The Rajah supplies the whole force with 
 rice for the expedition, and a certain number of 
 muskets. The English ships were left, the 
 Albatross at Sarawak, and the Royalist to guard 
 the entrance of the Batang Lupar river; but 
 their boats, and nearly all the officers, accom- 
 panied the fleet, and the steamer Nemesis went
 
 86 LETTEES EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 also. On the 24th of July they left us, as many 
 as eighteen Malay prahus, manned by from twenty 
 to seventy men in a boat, and decorated with 
 flags, and streamers innumerable, of the bright- 
 est colours, the Sarawak flag always at the stern. 
 For the Tiger I made a flag, with a tiger's head 
 painted on it, looking wonderfully ferocious. It 
 was an exciting time, with gongs and drums, 
 Malay yells and English hurrahs ; and our fer- 
 vent prayers, for their safety and success, accom- 
 panied them that night, as they dropped down 
 the river in gay procession. They were after- 
 wards joined by bangkongs of friendly Dyaks, 
 300 men from Lundu, 800 from Linga, some 
 from Samarakan, Sadong, and various places 
 which had suffered from the pirates, and were 
 anxious to assist in giving them a lesson. We 
 heard nothing of the fleet until the 2nd of Au- 
 gust, when I received a little note from the Rajah, 
 written in pencil, on a scrap of paper, on the night 
 of the 31st of July, and giving us an account of 
 how they fell in with a great balla (war fleet), 
 of Sarebas and Sakarran pirates, consisting of 
 150 bangkongs, and caught them returning to 
 their homes, with plunder and captives in their 
 boats. The pirates found all the entrances to
 
 DEFEAT OF THE PIRATES. 87 
 
 the river occupied by their enemies — the English, 
 Malay, and Dyak forces, being placed in three 
 detachments, and the Nemesis all ready to help 
 whenever the attack should begin. The Singha 
 Rajah sent up a rocket when she espied the 
 pirate fleet, to apprise the rest of their approach. 
 Then there was a dead silence, broken only by 
 three strokes of a gong, which called the pirates 
 to a council of war. A few minutes afterwards 
 a fearful yell gave notice of their advance, and 
 the fleet approached in two divisions. But, 
 when they sighted the steamer, they became 
 aware of the odds against them, and again 
 called a council by beat of gong : after another 
 pause a second yell of defiance showed that they 
 had decided upon giving battle. 
 
 Then, in the dead of the night, ensued a fearful 
 scene. The pirates fought bravely, but could 
 not withstand the superior forces of their ene- 
 mies. Their boats were upset by the paddles of 
 the steamer; they were hemmed in on every 
 side, and five hundred men were killed sword in 
 hand ; while two thousand five hundred escaped 
 to the jungle. The boats were broken to pieces, 
 or deserted on the beach by their crews ; and the 
 morning light shewed a sad spectacle of ruin and
 
 88 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 defeat. Upwards of eighty prahus and bang- 
 kongs were captured, many from sixty to eighty 
 feet long, with nine or ten feet of beam. 
 
 The English officers, on that night, offered 
 prizes to all who should bring in captives alive : 
 but the pirates would take no quarter; in the 
 water they still fought without surrender, for 
 they could not understand a mercy which they 
 never extended to their enemies. Consequently, 
 the prisoners were very few, and the darkness of 
 the night favoured their escape to the jungle. 
 The peninsula, to which they escaped, could' 
 easily have been so surrounded by the Dyak and 
 Malay forces, that not one man of that pirate 
 fleet could have left it alive. This blockade the 
 Malays entreated the Rajah to make; but he 
 refused, saying, that he hoped they had already 
 received a sufficiently severe lesson, and would 
 return to their homes humbled and corrected. 
 Our Rajah has always endeavoured to teach his 
 people that a great warrior is as merciful as he is 
 brave. He, therefore, ordered his fleet to pro- 
 ceed up the river, and the pirates returned to 
 their homes. 
 
 After this the Rajah hoped that the Sarebas 
 and Sakarran tribes would forswear piracy for
 
 THE SAKARRANS. 89 
 
 the future. They have indeed made many pro- 
 mises of amendment, and the Sakarrans have 
 suffered an English gentleman, Mr. Brereton, to 
 live amongst them for two years, and to build a 
 fort on the bank of the river, to prevent armed 
 boats from going out. He has sought to govern 
 them with gentleness and kindness, and to in- 
 duce them to turn their attention to trade and 
 agriculture, leaving their former evil habits ; and 
 they have consented to receive a missionary, 
 Mr. Chambers, as their teacher. Let us hope 
 that this change for the better will ripen into a 
 lasting peace, and lead to the dawn of Chris- 
 tianity amongst them. But I have little faith in 
 them, Charley, unless the English men-of-war in 
 the Straits pay them an occasional visit, to re- 
 mind them of the past. 
 
 This is a long letter : so adieu until the next 
 mail. 
 
 Note. A Sakarran Dyak told Papa, since this letter was 
 written, that he led a detachment of the pirate hoats on the 
 night of the 31st of July, sent by the fleet to board the 
 Nemesis. " We thought," said he, " that it was a long gun 
 boat we saw on the water, and had she not been a steamer, 
 and overturned us with her paddles, we should have taken 
 her in five minutes, and had every head on board."
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 THE ANIMALS OF SARAWAK. 
 
 November, 1851. 
 
 My dearest Charley, 
 
 Papa and I have just returned from a 
 pleasant row down the river to Tanah Puteh 
 (white earth). I wish you had been with us, 
 for there are some fruit trees now in bearing by 
 the water's edge, and a number of monkeys were 
 running up and down the boughs, getting their 
 supper. What a chattering they made, and how 
 they swung themselves from branch to branch, 
 making the trees quiver and bend, as if they 
 would snap in two ! They did not heed us in 
 the least, though our boat lay close to shore, and 
 Papa landed to look for some wood he wanted 
 for building. The Malays get a fine clay from 
 this place, with which they make tiles, and jars, 
 and pots {chatties as they call them), to cook 
 their food in. But to return to the monkeys, 
 at Tanah Puteh; we call them long-nosed mon- 
 keys ; they grow to a great size ; and have more 

 
 ANIMALS OF SARAWAK. 91 
 
 human features than any other animal. The 
 
 other day Mr. C caught one and brought it 
 
 home. He soon became tame, and I paid him 
 several visits. " Nosey," as we named him, stood 
 more than four feet high, and his limbs were 
 wonderfully strong ; his face was free from hair, 
 his eyes hazel, his nose hung down over his 
 upper lip ; round his neck nature had given him 
 a fine fur tippet of light brown, and round his 
 waist the hair was white, so that he had quite a 
 clothed appearance. He was very amiable, and 
 allowed any one to pull his marvellous nose: 
 but he did not live long in captivity ; his appe- 
 tite was enormous, and he devoured so much 
 curry and rice, that it brought on an inflamma- 
 tion of which he died. Papa sent his skin to 
 England. I have seen many of this species of 
 monkey since, but their noses were more turned 
 up, and not so long as " Nosey's." Monkeys are 
 not favourite pets of mine, or I might indulge 
 myself with several interesting varieties which 
 are common at Sarawak. 
 
 Here is the Wawa or long-armed ape, which 
 makes a melodious noise in the jungle early in 
 the morning, like the bubbling of water out of a 
 long necked bottle. It is a gentle creature,
 
 92 LETTERS FROM SARx^WAK. 
 
 black with a white face. But the monkey, which 
 is most esteemed, is the Mias or Orang-Utan 
 (wild man of the woods). These are very large, 
 and disgustingly like human beings : they have a 
 melancholy expression and manner, and get very 
 fond of their owners. A large female monkey of 
 this kind, which we called Jemima, and which 
 
 lived a long time at Mr. R 's, was quite fond 
 
 of Papa, would kiss his hands, and fret if he did 
 not notice her. There is a Mias in the Zoologi- 
 cal Gardens, which came from Sarawak. 
 
 I am thankful to say that we are not troubled 
 with the fear of wild beasts at Sarawak. No 
 lions or tigers roar in our jungles; the worst 
 enemy you are likely to meet, if you walk into 
 the depths of the forest, is a small bear, who 
 would be more afraid of you, than you need be 
 of it. We have kept several of these bears. 
 They are black with a patch of white or tan, co- 
 lour on their chest; their heads and feet are 
 large in proportion to their bodies, which are no 
 bigger than that of your Skye terrier. But they 
 are the most ill-tempered creatures imaginable. 
 The first we had would never eat his rice with- 
 out sugar. One day on my offering him his din- 
 ner without the sweet sauce, he went into a great
 
 ANIMALS OF SARAWAK. 93 
 
 rage, and, seizing a knife on the ground between 
 his teeth, he cut his mouth with it. After this, 
 he would not touch food of any kind, but sulked 
 until he died. Mr. Brereton kept one of these 
 bears in the fort at Sakarran ; it used to run 
 about the house like a dog, and was quite tame. 
 One day it made its way into the store-room, 
 where stood a tall jar, full of brown sugar, with 
 rather a narrow mouth. Bruin dipped his paws 
 into the jar, and ate all he could get at ; then, find- 
 ing there was still a great deal in the jar beyond 
 his reach, he proceeded to let himself down into 
 it. For four days no one could imagine what 
 was become of the bear; they began to fear he 
 had strayed into the jungle, when some one, 
 opening the store-room door, heard curious 
 grumbling sounds issuing from the sugar jar; 
 and there sat Bruin on his hind legs, having 
 eaten all the sugar, and thus having let himself 
 down too deep to be able to get out again. These 
 bears live very much on honey in the jungle. 
 
 Soon after our arrival at Sarawak, I had a 
 beautiful little snake brought me, which is called 
 the Flower snake. It was of a bright green co- 
 lour, with a delicate stripe of lilac down each 
 side. The Malay man, who sold it to me, said
 
 94: LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 that he had taken out its poisonous fangs ; but I 
 do not believe it ever had any. It was quite 
 harmless, and looked very pretty, twining itself 
 round the furniture in the room, and climbing 
 about to catch flies. One day it coiled itself on 
 the top of a very high door, and, the wind mov- 
 ing the door on its hinges,' the snake fell suddenly 
 to the ground and broke its back— which soon 
 
 killed it. 
 
 My pets generally come to some sad end. The 
 merriest I ever had was a squirrel, of which I 
 sent you a little picture. He was a very hand- 
 some fellow, and used to tumble head-over-heels 
 by the half-hour together, as if he had been 
 taught to turn a whirl-a-gig; but it was pure 
 fun on his part. I kept him in a cage, but let 
 him out now and then, as he only ran up and 
 down my arms, over my neck, and then into his 
 cage again. Once he ran away — a large bird of 
 the Parrot kind was put into his cage, and he 
 was so frightened, that he jumped out over the 
 roof of a house below, and into the river, in a 
 
 minute. I thought he was lost, but Mr. P 
 
 got into a boat and went after him ; and, when 
 he was tired of swimming, he ran up the oar into 
 the boat, and so came home again. Perhaps thi3
 
 ANIMALS OF SARAWAK. 95 
 
 little trip gave him a taste for liberty ; as, soon 
 after, when we moved to our new house on the 
 hill, he escaped to the jungle, and I never saw 
 him again. 
 
 After the squirrel was gone, I had a Malacca 
 thrush, a bird with a very fine voice, who learnt 
 to whistle any tune it was taught. It could ac- 
 complish 'Highland Laddie,' and part of 'the Bri- 
 tish Grenadiers,' before it died, and would have 
 sung more, if I could have whistled to it ; but I 
 liked its natural notes best. It lived on grass- 
 hoppers or flies, which I dare say, in its wild 
 state, it caught flying, for it had a wide mouth, 
 rather like a goat-sucker. This bird is common 
 in our jungles : the Malays call it Burong Boya, 
 or the alligator-bird, and tell this story about it. 
 The ancestors of the Burong Boya owe a large 
 debt to the alligator; and every year the alliga- 
 tor comes, and asks the bird to pay this old debt. 
 Then the bird, perching itself on a high branch, 
 shakes its wings and sings, 'How can I pay ? I've 
 nothing but my feathers, nothing but my fea- 
 thers :' so the alligator is obliged to go away till 
 next year. This Malay story arises from the 
 thrush always shaking his wings when he is in 
 full song. Poor Dick died just before I left
 
 96 LETTEES EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 Sarawak last year. My school-children were very 
 sorry; they used to find him grasshoppers in the 
 grass about the house, and the Rajah used to 
 send them bottles of sugar plums, which I dealt 
 out, in exchange for the grasshoppers. 
 
 The birds at Sarawak are very beautiful — 
 bright parroquets, green and pink— pigeons of 
 many varieties, one of which they call the 
 wounded heart, because it is white, with a rose 
 coloured stain on its breast. Little delicate doves 
 of sober colours, which live in nutmeg trees, and 
 are therefore called nutmeg doves, are very 
 plentiful. There are also tiny birds with long 
 tongues, who eat the honey from the flowers like 
 bees, and are not many times larger. Some of 
 these are of brilliant colours. The boys kill 
 them with a little sumpitan or blow-pipe, which 
 throws a tiny dart ; for they are easily knocked 
 down, and shot would spoil their plumage. 
 
 There are beautiful fire-back pheasants, often 
 caught in the snares the Malays set in the jungle 
 — so called on account of the bright flame co- 
 loured feathers on their backs ; and the cryptonix, 
 or jungle partridge is a pretty bird, the male a 
 dark purple with a fine red crest on his head, 
 the female green and without a crest. But it 

 
 ANIMALS OF SARAWAK. 97 
 
 would take more time than I have to spare, to 
 describe all the wonders and beauties, which 
 have their homes in our woods ; neither could I 
 tell you the names of many, as the natives have 
 given them none. I had for some time a little 
 mouse deer (Plandok), which grew tame in the 
 chicken-house. This tiny creature is smaller 
 than an Italian greyhound; it has large dark 
 eyes, like all the gazelle tribe, and its legs are as 
 thin as your little finger. It eats the buds and 
 flowers of the Paga-shrub ; and you may fancy 
 how small and delicate a creature it is, when I 
 tell you that it died in consequence of a chicken 
 pecking its head. There are much larger kinds 
 of deer to be found in the country — the Kejang, 
 or roebuck, and the Rusa, a fine large deer — but 
 these are not easily tamed, nor often met with 
 near the town. Wild pigs abound. 
 
 Sometimes we have an unwelcome visitant in 
 a cobra snake, whose bite is certain death ; but 
 they cannot be very numerous, as I have not 
 heard of one person being bitten, since we lived 
 at Sarawak. AVhen we first occupied our present 
 house, the ground had been newly cleared, and 
 the snakes, I suppose, missed their former hiding 
 places: so they walked into the house to look 
 
 H
 
 98 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 for them, and got knocked on the head for their 
 
 Pa One day Papa was walking up the hill which 
 led to the church. He had a book in his hand, 
 and was reading as he went along, when suddenly 
 he heard a loud hissing, and, looking up, saw 
 one of these black cobras standing on the path 
 before him, with his hood puffed out (for they 
 innate a hood of loose skin over their heads 
 when angry). Papa had no stick in his hand, 
 so he stood still, with his eyes fixed on the snake, 
 and called to the carpenters at work in the 
 church to come with some sharp tools to his 
 help, which they did, and despatched the snake. 
 But I think Papa owed his escape to his presence 
 of mind; for, had he attempted to run away, 
 the creature would have darted at him. There 
 are many other kinds of snakes ; the natives are 
 fond of telling wonderful stories of their adven- 
 tures with them in the jungle ; but I do not 
 believe all they say. No doubt, however, there 
 are large boa constrictors to be met with some- 
 times. ° A Malay man, whose word I can rely 
 on, once told me, that he was in the jungle cut- 
 ting wood, and, being tired, was going to sit 
 down on what he took for part of the twisted
 
 ANIMALS OF SARAWAK. 99 
 
 roots of a great tree ; as he looked at it, it began 
 to move, and then he saw it was a huge snake, 
 partly coiled on the ground, and partly up the 
 tree. He immediately assailed it with his parang, 
 and cut it in two ; it was quite inert and stupid, 
 for inside he found a large deer which it had 
 swallowed, and which he affirmed to be as large 
 as an ox— as, if it was a Rusa, it doubtless was. 
 One more creature I must tell you about, though 
 my paper is nearly full. We have, as in all 
 warm countries, plenty of lizards, from the little 
 Chic-chak, which runs on the ceiling catching 
 mosquitoes, and sometimes falls down plump into 
 your plate at dinner, leaving his tail in the gravy, 
 to the land crocodile or iguana, which eats the 
 chickens and ducks in the farm yard. When we 
 were building our Mission House, a certain kind 
 of lizard, called a Tokay, got into the roof 
 between the timbers. There he lived and made 
 a most disagreeable noise, like the bark of a little 
 hoarse dog. He settled himself over the library, 
 and it was impossible to read or think, with the 
 creature yapping close over your head ; your little 
 brother Harry was quite frightened at a noise 
 for which he could see no living cause. At last 
 Papa offered two dollars to any one who would 
 
 H 2
 
 100 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 kill it, and the carpenter managed to shoot it 
 with a pistol. It was rather more than a foot 
 long, of a dark grey, with a loose skin; its back 
 was arched and furnished with a saw-like edge, 
 and the natives say it bites fiercely. The Sia- 
 mese have a legend about the Tokay. They say 
 that he was once set as a sentinel to guard the 
 gates of a paradise, belonging to one of their 
 heroes, named Ismara. Nontheak, an enemy of 
 Ismara, taking advantage of his absence, one day 
 presented himself at the gate ; there he found 
 Tokay, who told him that he could not enter 
 without learning certain magic words. How- 
 ever, Nontheak flattered and threatened the lizard 
 till he taught him the magic words; and, when 
 Ismara returned to his paradise, he found his 
 enemy in possession. He managed to turn him 
 out, being the more powerful of the two ; and 
 then, to punish the lizard, he doomed him to 
 a perpetual liver complaint, and an occasional 
 visit from a little green lizard, who was to run 
 down his throat, eat up his heart and liver, and 
 run out again. 
 
 What child's tales ! You must not believe them, 
 
 Charley.
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 LIFE IN THE COURT HOUSE. 
 
 December, 1851. 
 
 My Dearest Charley, 
 
 After we had spent a week at the Rajah's 
 house, on our first landing at Sarawak, the 
 30th June, 1848, we removed to the Court 
 House, just across the river. This house was 
 built by a German Missionary, the year before. 
 He intended to have a day school in the rooms 
 below, and to live in the upper story; but 
 before he had finished the house, he was 
 recalled to Germany, and the Rajah converted 
 his school-rooms into a Hall, for the adminis- 
 tration of Justice, and allowed us to live in 
 the upper rooms, until we could build a Mission 
 House on the land, which he gave us for the 
 purpose. In the Court-House, therefore, we re- 
 mained rather more than a year. It had, like 
 most other places, its pleasures and disagreeable 
 points : I liked it for being in the town, and on 
 the river, where I could see and hear all that
 
 102 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 went on, and, even at night, did not feel lonely, 
 as the fishermen in their boats, under our win- 
 dows, kept up a perpetual talking. We were so 
 surrounded by the Malays, too, who were always 
 in and about the house, that we had better oppor- 
 tunities of learning their language, than if we 
 had lived in a more retired spot. The first step 
 towards gaining influence with a foreign people 
 is to become acquainted with their language, 
 manners, and customs, that you may not only 
 know how to talk to them, but may avoid offend- 
 ing any of their national peculiarities. Papa 
 was soon at home with the Malays ; he studied 
 the language during his voyage from England, 
 and quickly caught the pronunciation. In a 
 little room, next the Hall of Justice, he had a 
 dispensary for medicine, and the people soon 
 learnt to value the physic and medical aid, which 
 was there given to them. This little room was 
 often crowded with patients and visitors ; and I, 
 sitting overhead, could hear a great deal of talk- 
 ing and laughter going on beneath. Then Papa 
 would bring his visitors up to me, to hear a little 
 music, and look at the pictures we brought from 
 England with us, especially those of the Queen 
 and Prince Albert, which interested them exceed-
 
 LADIES OF SARAWAK. 103 
 
 ingly; but they were rather puzzled to under- 
 stand how Prince Albert could be the Queen's 
 husband without being the King. 
 
 The Malays have not as yet learnt to give 
 women their right place in society. They are 
 still in a measure their slaves, or at best their 
 dolls, whom they like to see handsomely dressed, 
 and employed in embroidery and cooking. Until 
 I went to live at Sarawak, and the Rajah en- 
 couraged the chief men of the place to allow 
 their wives and daughters to receive European 
 visitors, they were scarcely ever seen out of their 
 own apartments. The higher their rank, the 
 less they were allowed to appear in public, and, 
 consequently, they were as silly and ignorant as 
 children, and did not consider themselves capable 
 of learning anything. They are, however, not 
 at all deficient in quickness and intelligence; 
 many of them can read and write Malay ; they 
 weave and embroider very cleverly, and are inge- 
 nious confectioners. I think they would gladly 
 welcome an English lady who would visit them 
 in their homes, and teach them geography, his- 
 tory, and general knowledge, music and singing; 
 these they would like to learn : and the respect 
 with which they listen to a white lady would
 
 104 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 gain their attention to any lessons on morality 
 and religion, which she might give them. I have 
 never had either health or leisure to devote 
 myself to the Malay ladies ; yet many of them 
 are my friends, and pay me frequent visits, 
 often following my advice, with a docility which 
 surprises me, as it is contrary to their long-esta- 
 blished superstitions and customs. They like to 
 visit me in the evening, as they are then less 
 seen on their way to and from the house. Ac- 
 cordingly the head of the family enquires the 
 day before* whether he may bring his wife to see 
 Mem Padre. Of course I consent, and some- 
 times have the magic lantern prepared for their 
 amusement, and some little presents of orna- 
 ments, needle-books, or work-bags, ready for 
 them. About seven o'clock I see a long pro- 
 cession, by torch-light, approaching the house. 
 They generally choose moonlight nights, but the 
 torches are carried partly for ceremony. First, 
 the master of the house walks in, and after him 
 come his wife, and his children, and as many of 
 her relations, dependents, and slaves, as can be 
 mustered for the occasion. There are often as 
 many as fifty women, all drest in their best, or 
 they borrow fine garments for the night. Their
 
 LADIES OF SARAWAK. 105 
 
 hair is decorated with white or yellow flowers, 
 which they pick without the stalks, and string 
 into garlands on thread; they are constantly 
 arranging their dress or hair, which they like you 
 to admire and notice. I do not attempt to talk 
 to all my visitors. The Datu, or whoever the 
 husband may be, introduces his wife to me, and 
 she calls the slave to bring the children, who are 
 always carried on the servants' backs, and are 
 generally very shy, and begin to cry, till I give 
 them sweetmeats, or toys, to reassure them. 
 The principal women sit on chairs, and the rest 
 on the floor, which is their usual custom, and 
 therefore more comfortable to them. Sometimes 
 they like to play at chess. The pieces being 
 arranged on the board, they divide themselves 
 into two parties, and each party consults together 
 what the move shall be. Their game very nearly 
 resembles ours. I never saw them lose their 
 temper over it, yet they play very well, and like 
 to win. Sometimes they ask me to shew them, 
 on the terrestrial globe, where England is, and 
 Sarawak, and Mecca, and " Room," as they call 
 Constantinople. This is the extent of their 
 geography. They generally petition me for soap, 
 or whatever I use to make my skin white, as
 
 106 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 they would like to be fair also. I assure them 
 that God made our skins of different colours, 
 and that their dark skin is quite as pretty as 
 mine; but I generally give them some soap, as I 
 should like them to learn how useful it is for 
 
 cleanliness. 
 
 They are never tired of hearing me sing and 
 play, and are especially amused to see that I read 
 the music from a book, and that I stop if they 
 shut it up. They are a merry set, and always 
 make me wish I could see more of them, and 
 know them better when they visit me. I hope 
 that one day they will become intelligent wives 
 and mothers, and a blessing to their country. 
 This will scarcely be while the men buy their 
 wives for money, and are allowed to have more 
 than one. I cannot say that this is very common 
 unless a man is rich ; still it is permitted by their 
 religion and customs; therefore the wife does 
 not°feel herself the friend and companion of her 
 husband, but his property and household furni- 
 ture. Our Datu Patinghi, or head magistrate, 
 has two wives : they have separate houses and 
 establishments, which he often complains of, as a 
 heavy expense to him. One of these wives is 
 said to be the favourite. After the Rajah had
 
 school. 107 
 
 built himself a wooden Bungalow, the Datu had 
 a new house built, in imitation of the Rajah's, 
 for this wife, Mina. Then the other wife and her 
 daughter Fatima said to the Datu, " We must 
 also have a new wooden house like Mina's, why 
 should she be better off than we are?" "I 
 cannot afford," said the Datu, "to build two 
 new houses: my purse is empty; you must wait 
 until it is refilled." " No, no ! we will not wait; 
 we will give you no peace till you begin a new 
 house for us. See, we will take a parang, and 
 chop down a post of this old tumble-down house 
 every day; then in time it will fall, and you 
 must give us another." So the Datu, shrugging 
 up his shoulders at the expense and trouble of 
 having two wives, was forced to build another 
 wooden house ; but he now always recommends 
 the Malays to be content with one wife. 
 
 While we lived at the Court-House, Papa esta- 
 blished a day-school for the Malays, where I 
 used to go for two hours in the morning to teach 
 any girls or women who presented themselves, 
 while a schoolmaster in another room taught the 
 boys and men. Sometimes there were a good 
 many scholars, sometimes scarcely any; the 
 women liked to bring their bajus, and sew,
 
 108 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 chatting to me meanwhile; but I soon found 
 that the poorest and least respectable women 
 came, and that it was mere curiosity on their 
 part to see the English Mem, by which I did not 
 gain in the opinion of the better sort, so I gave 
 up the women's department. At this time, how- 
 ever, we took four little orphan children, two 
 boys and two girls, to live with us, and they 
 were my constant scholars. They were baptized 
 by Papa on Advent Sunday, 1848. Peter was 
 the eldest, five years old ; Mary and Julia, five 
 and four; Tommy, two and a half. They were 
 very pleased to have pretty new frocks, and sit 
 by me in church that day on a cushion on the 
 floor. " What beautiful praying dresses these 
 are," said Julia, when she saw them making. 
 They soon learnt their letters : I used to take a 
 picture alphabet to school, and, strewing some 
 letters on the floor, say, " Who will bring me 
 A B " etc. ; so they all ran and looked for them. 
 One ' Sunday, little Tommy, sitting by me in 
 church and peeping over my book, called out, 
 " Ah there's great A"— however they were very 
 good and quiet during the service. Of course 
 they knew nothing when they first came to us : 
 I had to teach them that God made them and all
 
 MALAY CHILDREN. 109 
 
 things. One day I took them some pine apple 
 tartlets, saying, " Who was so kind as to make 
 these tarts for my children?" Little Mary look- 
 ing very grave, said, " Perhaps God in heaven ;" 
 but they soon knew better than this. We after- 
 wards took another boy, a little older, whose 
 father was a Portuguese, his mother a Malay. 
 Dominick was the boy's name, his age about 
 seven. I asked him how old he was the day he 
 came, and he answered, " About a hundred." 
 To these children were soon added little Dyak 
 Polly, the Sarebas baby I told you of, and a little 
 Malay boy, son of Pangeran Dout, a Malay 
 nobleman, who had fallen into poverty from his 
 habit of gambling; and having more children 
 than he knew how to feed, was glad to give me 
 one. John Dout was a pretty child with a 
 round moon -like face and fine black eyes; he had 
 a sweet voice and good ear for music, so that 
 when I taught the children to sing hymns and 
 little songs, John was always the leader. It 
 was a great pleasure to these children to sit of 
 an evening on the steps of the verandah, and 
 sing " Twinkle, twinkle, little star," as the sky 
 darkened and the stars peeped out one by one. 
 But all this was later than when we lived in
 
 110 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 the Court House. I must go back to that time, 
 
 to tell you how Papa had the jungle cleared from 
 
 the hill on which our Mission House was to be 
 
 built, and then the top of the hill levelled for 
 
 the foundation. Malays and Chinese were the 
 
 labourers j but the Chinese, although they worked 
 
 harder than the Malays, liked to do it their own 
 
 way. They could not be persuaded to make use 
 
 of wheelbarrows, but carried the earth from the 
 
 hill in little baskets slung over their shoulders ; 
 
 and as these baskets hold not a quarter as much 
 
 as a wheelbarrow, and they had to carry the 
 
 earth some distance, their work was very slow. 
 
 Nevertheless, in time the foundation was ready. 
 
 Meanwhile, the timbers were squared and fitted 
 
 by the Chinese carpenters, in a field near the 
 
 Court House. A wooden house is joiners' work: 
 
 all the great sleepers, as they call the foundation 
 
 timbers, are fitted into one another, and the posts 
 
 stand in them like the bottom and posts of a 
 
 great bed ; so that all the skeleton of the house 
 
 can be made, and laid by ready, and set up so 
 
 quickly, that it seems to rise out of the earth 
 
 like a fairy palace. Every evening I and my 
 
 children used to walk up the hill to see how the 
 
 house progressed; we sat down on the great
 
 VIEW FROM THE HILL. 
 
 Ill 
 
 timbers, and drew the letters of the alphabet on 
 the glistening white sand, which covered the hill. 
 Sometimes we took flowers, seeds, and cuttings 
 of roses, and jessamines, or young fruit trees, 
 and planted about the house, that they mio-ht 
 grow to a good size by the time the building was 
 finished. The view is so lovely from thence ; the 
 winding river, the busy town, the pretty English 
 Bungalows, with their fine back-ground of 
 jungle trees, and the blue mountains on either 
 side, make as pleasant a medley of nature's re- 
 pose and man's activity as can well be fancied.
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 THE MISSION HOUSE AND CHURCH. 
 
 January, 1852. 
 
 My dearest Charley, 
 
 The first week in August, 1848, our new 
 house on the hill, " College Hill " as we called 
 it, was sufficiently completed for us to remove 
 there; and Sunday, the 12th, we had divine ser- 
 vice in our large dining-hall, instead of in the 
 lower room of the Court House. A wide stair- 
 case outside the front of the house, with a pretty 
 little porch at the top, leads to this hall. Over 
 the porch hangs a great bell, which rings at cer- 
 tain hours of the day to set us all to our various 
 employments ; it calls the Malays to their work 
 at six; the Chinese at seven; at eleven it rings 
 for their two hours to rest ; at one that they may 
 be°in work again ; at five to say that work is 
 over for the day. At one time, when we had no 
 longer workmen in our employ, I thought the 
 bell, and our ears too, might have a little rest 
 from its frequent ding-dong, but the townspeople
 
 vV ' ' 
 
 
 s 
 
 < 
 a: 
 
 < 
 
 DO 

 

 
 DYAK HOSTAGES. ]]3 
 
 petitioned it might go n as usual, for they were 
 so accustomed to time their hours by it, that 
 they should feel quite at a loss without it. ' 
 
 While we were removing to the Mission House, 
 the Rajah, and nearly all the English were away 
 on the expedition up the pirate rivers, which I 
 told you about some time ago. On the 24th of 
 August, however, they returned, and a great 
 rejoicing took place; our house was filled in 
 every corner with officers from the ships of war, 
 who enjoyed a few nights on shore, and espe- 
 cially on our cool breezy hill. 
 
 On the evening of the 26th, six Dyak women 
 who had been made captives, and were kept and 
 brought to Sarawak, as hostages for their hus- 
 bands' good behaviour, arrived, and the Rajah 
 asked me to take care of them; he wished to 
 shew them how differently Christian people treat 
 their prisoners to what pirates do, consequently 
 these poor women were astonished to receive new 
 clothes, and plenty of good food, and anything 
 they desired. There were several children with 
 them, and I tried hard to persuade them to give 
 me these little girls to bring up, but they would 
 not hear of such a thing. In vain I displayed a 
 pretty pink frock and white cap, which should
 
 114 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 belong to the little girl who would come to school ; 
 I do °not know whether they took me for an 
 ogress, but at last they went to the Rajah, and 
 made him promise them I should not have the 
 children. I was glad to see how fond they were 
 of their little ones, though they little knew the 
 blessings they refused for them. These women 
 were sent back to their country when the Sare- 
 bas and Sakarran people submitted, laden with 
 presents, except one, who chose to marry a China- 
 man and settle at Sarawak. 
 
 As soon as we had removed to College Hill 
 Papa began to build the church. On the 28th 
 of August the summit of the next rising ground, 
 near the house, having been cleared and levelled, 
 a large shed was built over the ground, which 
 the "Albatross" sailors and our workmen 
 adorned with gay flags and green boughs. The 
 Rajah walked there from our house, dressed in 
 full uniform, as Governor of Labuan; then 
 came Papa, the English residents, the Naval 
 officers, and a number of Malays and Chinese, to 
 witness the ceremony of laying the first great 
 block of wood in the foundation of the Church 
 of St. Thomas, Sarawak. A little hollow place 
 in the block had some silver coins put into it,
 
 CHURCH AT SARAWAK. 115 
 
 and your brother Harry added a new silver four- 
 pence his aunt Sophy had sent him ; then, after 
 some prayers had been read by Papa, the Rajah 
 lowered the wooden block into its place, and we 
 all returned home. From that day the church 
 began to rise out of the earth with the same 
 seeming magic as the house had done, for the 
 great timbers were already prepared. It was 
 most interesting to us— every arch, every mould- 
 ing, each pillar in that church, was a subject of 
 thought and discussion. I had to draw sketches 
 of every part, and. Papa often to make models of 
 them for the Chinese carpenters, before they 
 could understand. We had a German overseer 
 for the Chinese ; he was ship carpenter in the 
 Mary Louisa, and followed us to Sarawak, when 
 she was wrecked, because he hoped Papa would 
 employ him for the house and church, which in- 
 deed we were very glad to do. 
 
 When we were at Singapore during the winter 
 of 1849, Papa had a pulpit and reading-desk, 
 chairs, and a painted glass east window, made 
 with the cross of the Sarawak flag, deep blue 
 and red, on a yellow ground, for the centre light. 
 These pleased the Malays; indeed they admire 
 our house and church immensely, and always 
 
 i 2
 
 116 
 
 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 assure us, as do the Dyaks also, that they know 
 we could not have built either, unless spirits, or 
 genii (antoos), had helped us. Well, God gave 
 "wisdom and understanding to Bezaleel and 
 Aholiab, and every wise-hearted man " among 
 the Jews when the tabernacle was to be made; 
 and so, doubtless, it is His good Spirit which in- 
 spires men with all knowledge, and the skill of 
 the craftsman, for " every good and perfect gift 
 comes from above." The baptismal font in our 
 
 CHURCH AND MISSION HOUSE, SARAWAK. 
 
 church is, I think, particularly pretty. It is a 
 very large white shell ; so large that a baby could 
 be dipped into it if need be. It stands on a
 
 CHINESE. 117 
 
 wooden pedestal, which I meant should be carved 
 like a branch of coral, but the carpenters could 
 not manage it, so it is only a fluted column ; but 
 it was Papa's idea to put old father ocean to 
 contribution. The church was not finished until 
 January, 1851, when the Bishop of Calcutta 
 paid us a visit, and consecrated it ; but a great 
 many events happened in the meanwhile. 
 
 In August, 1850, there was a war at Sambas, 
 between the Chinese, who were friendly to the 
 Dutch, and who were settled at Penankat, and the 
 Montrado Chinese (with the Dyaks of the country, 
 to help them,) who rebelled against the Dutch 
 Government. The Montrados beat the Penankat 
 Chinese, and they fled from the place, carrying 
 with them their wives and children, and what- 
 ever goods and property they could cram into 
 their boats. The boats were overladen, and 
 many of them perished at sea, but some reached 
 Tanjong Datu. On the 26th of August, 400 of 
 these poor creatures arrived at Sarawak, saying 
 there were 3000 more starving on the sands at 
 Datu, who would follow as soon as they could; 
 and, in course of time, most of them did find 
 their way up the river, though Papa and the 
 magistrates in charge of the government at
 
 118 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 Sarawak, did their best to persuade them to 
 make a town at Santubong, the entrance of the 
 Sarawak river, and settle there; but the gold 
 workings up the river were too great a tempta- 
 tion to them, and every day brought boats, full 
 of Chinamen, into the place. Our Rajah fed 
 these poor people for months with rice, and gave 
 them tools that they might clear the ground, and 
 make gardens in the jungle. At first, before 
 they could build themselves houses, the whole 
 place seemed upset by them, many lived in their 
 boats, every shed and workshop in the town was 
 full. One night Papa walked into the church, 
 then unfinished, to see that all was safe there, 
 for it was a great temptation to these poor people 
 to steal the planks, which were piled ready for 
 building. All was quiet; but, by a stray moon- 
 beam, Papa perceived that the boarded east end 
 of the church was full of mosquito curtains, and 
 they as full of sleeping Chinamen. Such a 
 thing could not be allowed— nails knocked into 
 the polished walls, to tie the curtains to ; tobacco 
 perfuming the place, sirih juice squirted about, 
 to say nothing of a considerable allowance of 
 bugs, which Chinese people always carry about 
 with them. Papa jumped straight into the 

 
 INFLUX OF CHINESE. 119 
 
 middle of the canvass curtains, with a shout, 
 and, amidst a hubbub of Chinese tongues, yaw, 
 yaw, and laughter, bundled them all out into 
 the workmen's shed, close by, where they could 
 sleep safely amongst the shavings, and do no 
 damage. Even walking in the main strait of the 
 town, at that time, I have seen mosquito curtains 
 set out in the open air, so full to overflowing 
 were the houses. Of course amongst such a 
 number of people, who had undergone so many 
 hardships, there was a great deal of sickness. 
 Papa had so many patients that he asked the 
 Rajah to build a hospital, which he did, a tem- 
 porary place at first, and afterwards the upper 
 part of the fort was appropriated to this purpose. 
 Our good Rajah supplies all the medicines for 
 the inmates of the hospital, as well as for all the 
 sick in the place; he allows them food, and a 
 servant to wait on them; Papa is their doctor, 
 and teaches the missionaries to assist him. The 
 first day the hospital was opened twenty beds 
 were occupied. It will hold twenty-eight, and 
 these have all been filled sometimes. It occurred 
 to Papa, when all these Chinese strangers came 
 to Sarawak, that some of them would be glad to 
 have their children brought up with our seven
 
 120 LETTERS EEOM SARAWAK. 
 
 little orphans. He went therefore to Aboo, the 
 Chinese magistrate, and offered to take ten chil- 
 dren into our house, to be brought up as Chris- 
 tian children, baptized and educated for ten 
 years. 
 
 The Chinese know something of the value of 
 education, and were very glad to give them to 
 us. I shall never forget sitting in the porch one 
 morning to receive my new family. Often neither 
 parents nor children could speak any Malay; 
 they walked up the steps leading a little boy or 
 girl, nodded and smiled at me, then put the 
 child's hand into mine, as much as to say " there 
 take it;" then I called one of my Chinese ser- 
 vants who could interpret to me in Malay, and 
 made him tell the Papa and Mama what I would 
 do for their child, and how, if I took it, it must 
 be really mine, until it was grown up. In this 
 way we took Sunfoon, and Salion, Chinzu, Quy- 
 fat, Assin, Umque, Achim, boys; Achong, Mok- 
 moy, Poingzu, girls. None of them could speak 
 any language except Chinese. When they came 
 to us it was necessary to have a Chinese servant 
 always with them, to tell us what they said and 
 wanted. Then the Chinese tailor, and Elizabeth 
 and I, were all busy making them new clothes
 
 SCHOOL AT SARAWAK. 121 
 
 and mosquito curtains. In the course of a week 
 they were all clean and neat— their heads nicely 
 shaved, with their long tail of hair plaited 
 smoothly behind, and tied with red and black 
 silk ; wide blue cotton trousers fastened round 
 their waists; and blue jackets, adorned down the 
 front and at the wrist with little ball brass 
 buttons. The girls dressed just like the boys, 
 except that their jackets reached to the knee. 
 
 On Sunday they had white jackets to wear at 
 church, and every evening to walk out in, and 
 round wide straw hats fastened under the chin, 
 with a string of beads, the colour of which tells 
 which child it belongs to. These ten children 
 soon learnt to talk Malay: then we took five 
 more, and after that, one now and then, until our 
 school numbered twenty-seven with our seven 
 little orphans. I scarcely think twenty-seven 
 English children would have been so soon and 
 easily reduced to order as our little foreigners; 
 their ages varied from eighteen months to twelve 
 years ; only six were girls, yet they were docile 
 and obedient, and followed each other like a flock 
 of sheep. And now I will tell you how my 
 children spend their day — they rise at half-past 
 five, which is as soon as the day dawns : the little
 
 122 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 boys, with their towels and soap in their hands, 
 go down to a little stream, about a hundred 
 yards below the house in the jungle, and bathe. 
 They have a servant with them, who sees that 
 they wash themselves properly. The little girls 
 bathe in Elizabeth's bath-room in the house. 
 Then the great boys run to church, and, when 
 the bell in the porch gives them notice, they 
 ring the church bell for early service. It goes 
 for ten minutes ; and then, all the rest of the 
 children having eaten a great slice of cold rice 
 pudding for their early breakfast, attend the 
 short morning service. It takes about twenty 
 minutes, when they sometimes have a walk, if I 
 am with them, and the morning is not too hot ; 
 but more often they return home, and sit down 
 to learn their lessons. By seven o'clock there is 
 quite a buzzing of conning lessons down stairs at 
 the long table of the school-room, which goes on 
 till half-past eight, when the cook brings in an 
 immense red earthern jar of boiled rice, and 
 another smaller jar of fish, and vegetables cur- 
 ried ; a pile of plates and spoons, and little tin 
 mugs and a teapot. The books are all cleared 
 away, and two boys (they all take it by turns), 
 set the breakfast, the plates and spoons all down
 
 MEALS OF THE SCHOOL. 123 
 
 the table, and the tin mugs, and the children in 
 their places before them. Elizabeth then comes 
 in, and the two boys bring her the plates to be 
 filled with rice, and have a proper quantity of 
 curry juice, fish, and vegetables put over it. No 
 one begins till all are served, then they sing a 
 grace — " We thank the Lord who gives us food, 
 and all things else we have of good." A great 
 clatter of spoons follows, and there used to be a 
 great deal of talking, until I made a point of 
 going down when I heard the grace sung, and 
 sitting at the head of the table, when, if any 
 little tongue began, I took up the plate, and 
 threatened to remove it; once or twice I really 
 took it away, and they soon learnt that a good 
 breakfast was better than empty talk. 
 
 When all have finished they repeat a thanks- 
 giving grace, the fragments are collected on one 
 plate for the dogs, and two boys sweep the room 
 out for school. From ten to one they are at 
 lessons; the three eldest girls come up to me, 
 the boys and little ones have an English school- 
 master, and two Chinese masters, to teach them 
 English and Chinese reading, writing, arithmetic, 
 and geography. At one they have some more 
 rice pudding and a little play. From two to
 
 124 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 four lessons again, and the girls sewing; half- 
 past four dinner, which is a repetition of the 
 breakfast, only that they have sometimes fowls 
 or pork curried, and sometimes eggs; at five 
 they go to church for afternoon service, and, 
 when that is over, I give them a singing lesson 
 to the harmonium, which they like very much ; 
 they have learnt many simple chants and hymns, 
 and sing in good tune, now they have learnt 
 some time, but the Chinese are not a musical 
 people. The lesson over they take a walk two 
 and two in the public road, and when they meet 
 the Rajah or Captain Brooke, off go all the hats, 
 and they all cry out, " Good evening, Sir." 
 The Rajah takes the kindest interest in these 
 children : he always stops to speak to them, and 
 sometimes he comes to the house to hear them 
 sino- ; at others he sends for them all to come 
 across the river to his house, and gives them a 
 feast of fruit and cakes, and lets them play in 
 his garden ; he is constantly making presents to 
 the school, and gives the children all the rice 
 they eat, which is not a little. 
 
 On Sundays the children put on their best 
 clothes, they learn their catechism in Malay and 
 Chinese, and English hymns. After morning
 
 SCHOOL-HOURS. 125 
 
 church they have a luncheon of cakes, made of 
 rice flour, and cocoa-nut, and sugar, and often 
 fruit, pine apples and plantains; then they come 
 up to me, and I let them have picture books to 
 look at in the verandah and dining-hall. Their 
 dinner is always curried fowls, which they like 
 best, and they have a long walk in the evening 
 after Malay service is over in church. At half- 
 past seven they all stand round Elizabeth, and 
 sing the Evening Hymn, then they kneel down, 
 and the Chinese children say the Lord's Prayer 
 in Chinese, the Malay children repeat the same 
 in Malay : then altogether they say a little prayer 
 I taught them in English. The little ones then 
 go to bed, and the eldest boys soon follow; the 
 little boj'S sleep in one long room, with a row of 
 little beds in it, the eldest boys in a smaller room, 
 the girls in a room out of Elizabeth's, on a great 
 platform, made into a tent, by a mosquito cur- 
 tain, and the youngest in a little crib beside it. 
 What peace reigns in the house when they are 
 all asleep.
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 THE CHINESE AT SARAWAK. 
 
 February 1852. 
 
 My dearest Charley, 
 
 After all I told you about our family of 
 twenty-seven children, in my last letter, you will 
 see that ours is a busy household. There is not 
 much inducement to lie in bed in the morning, 
 in a climate where the early hours are the freshr 
 est, most cheerful part of the day : consequently 
 we rise, not with the lark, for larks we have 
 none, but with the wawas and wood pigeons, 
 whose soft voices are heard with the dawn, and, 
 after a cup of tea, we go to church. Our short 
 service over the bell rings again to call the 
 Chinese congregation. When I left Sarawak 
 there were twenty Chinese adult converts bap- 
 tized, and received into our Church. I think 
 their attention was first turned to Christianity 
 by their children being taken into our school ; 
 then Papa sent for a Christian Chinese teacher 
 for the school, from Penang, and twice a week in 
 the village, and twice a week at the hospital, 
 gave public instruction to any Chinese who came
 
 CHINESE. 127 
 
 to hear Ayoon translating into Chinese what 
 Papa said in English or Malay. When Mr. Fox 
 came from Calcutta to help Papa these lectures 
 fell to his share, and he is learning Chinese, that 
 he may be more independent of Ayoon's transla- 
 tion. Soon after this a learned Chinese came 
 from Sarebas, to set up a school at Sarawak. 
 Papa engaged him to teach our children Chinese 
 reading and writing, and employed him also to 
 help Ayoon to translate some prayers into Chi- 
 nese for our Christians. This led to many con- 
 versations with Singsong, as he is called, which 
 ended in his desiring to be a Christian himself, 
 and having his two little children baptized, and 
 his wife instructed in Christianity. 
 
 Our Chinese converts increased, and their 
 heathen neighbours began to mock at them, 
 which is generally a good sign that the Devil is 
 angry at not having all his own way. At that 
 time Papa was very lame with rheumatism in 
 his knee, and was obliged to use crutches ; the 
 Chinese carpenters told one of their Christian 
 companions that it was a punishment inflicted 
 upon Mr. M'Dougall by the Chinese gods, for 
 interfering with their religion. " He is no longer 
 a man," said they, " but obliged to go on four 
 legs, like a beast."
 
 128 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 The Chinese religion is not very well under- 
 stood by the people at Sarawak. They think 
 there is a Great God, " Lord of Heaven," who, 
 having made the world, takes no further notice 
 of it. But there are inferior deities, and evil 
 spirits innumerable ; they also worship their an- 
 cestors, and once a year make a great feast, 
 which they spread out of doors before the Joss- 
 house (place of worship), and a number of gar- 
 ments cut out of coloured paper, trousers and 
 jackets, which they present to the ghosts of their 
 forefathers, to wear till the day comes round 
 ao-ain : I have often asked how it was that the 
 ghosts never came either to eat the feast or 
 claim the paper clothes, although they were called 
 by a stunning noise of gongs and drums, and a 
 kind of clashing cymbal, which is deafening to 
 mortal ear. " Well, they do not come, so we eat 
 the feast ourselves." This, I suspect, is the rea- 
 son why it is still offered. The dishes are most 
 curious— sucking pigs baked and standing in the 
 dish on their four legs, with a lime in their 
 mouths; fowls and ducks roasted, and their 
 feathers stuck on again, placed in every imagin- 
 able attitude. The Chinese in reality worship 
 their stomachs, or, as a man once said to me, 

 
 CHINESE FESTIVALS. r 129 
 
 " their God likes to see them eat." One curious 
 
 notion they have, which shows their consciences 
 
 are still awake. In every house stands an altar 
 
 —a table gaily decorated with coloured paper, 
 
 and tinsel, and on which perfumed sticks are 
 
 burnt every day, and prayers offered. A god, 
 
 they say, on this altar listens to, and records, all 
 
 that is done in the house, and just before the 
 
 new year he goes up to give his account to a 
 
 greater Deity in heaven; he stays some days 
 
 away, and if the Chinese think that he has not 
 
 returned on the right day, they call him with 
 
 their noisy music, and, taking a little image of 
 
 him into the street, they throw dirt at it, and 
 
 abuse him for neglecting his duties. 
 
 The new year is the grand festival of the 
 Chinese, it falls in February. They are obliged 
 to pay up all their debts on that day, and so 
 great is the disgrace incurred, if they do not, 
 that they sometimes take a strange way of doino- 
 it, by breaking into other people's houses, and 
 committing most daring robberies; so as the 
 debts are paid, it matters not where the money 
 comes from. The English at Singapore, where 
 the Chinese are numerous, are obliged to be very 
 watchful over their property about the time of 
 
 K
 
 130 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 the new year. A lady there told me, that as 
 she was sitting in her drawing-room one morn- 
 ing, a Chinaman walked in, took the French 
 clock off the side table, tucked it under his arm, 
 and walked out again. She was so astonished at 
 his audacity, and .the quickness with which he 
 did it, that before she could call to the servants, 
 thief and clock had both vanished out of the 
 compound, and she never saw them again. They 
 are clever thieves; a natural cool impudence and 
 great ingenuity fits them for this accomplishment. 
 The last time I was at Singapore, the Chinese 
 of the place built a new Joss-house, and con- 
 secrated it by a wonderful procession, which cost 
 them 40,000 dollars, nearly £9000. I believe 
 there was not a poor Chinaman, however low 
 his wages, or wretched his condition, who did 
 not subscribe towards it. 
 
 The procession was at night, by torchlight, 
 and passed all through the town. I sat outside 
 the shop of one of the principal Chinese mer- 
 chants, with many other ladies, and saw it to 
 advantage, for, out of respect to this merchant, 
 every curious or beautiful thing made a pause 
 before his door. It took two hours walking past, 
 and was a complete masquerade ; birds, beasts, 
 fishes, butterflies, and flowers, were all repre-
 
 CHINESE PROCESSION. 131 
 
 sented; some as lamps, most delicately made and 
 painted, some alive and in motion. The most 
 striking was an enormous sea-serpent, ingeniously 
 contrived by drapery thrown over cushions j un- 
 der each cushion walked a man, concealed by the 
 hanging cloth, who managed to move the cushion, 
 so as to resemble the spinal bone of an immense 
 serpent undulating in mid-air; the head, with 
 huge open jaws, and a great red tongue lolling 
 out, was carried by a man who flourished it from 
 side to side of the crowded street, as if it would 
 devour the bystanders, while another man walk- 
 ing backwards, held a long spear, with which he 
 pretended to attack the monster, and deter him 
 in every dash he made at the populace. This 
 serpent extended the whole length ;of two long 
 streets, and was the most striking feature of the 
 procession. There was also a monster elephant, 
 but not so well made. Numbers of young chil- 
 dren, dressed in the richest costumes, and with 
 their faces painted, acted pantomimes on stages 
 carried by porters, some were on horseback. No 
 one could explain this procession to me, but I 
 think all the ranks and grades in China, and every 
 profession and calling, down to the humblest 
 water-carrier, was there represented as taking 
 » k 2
 
 132 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 part in the homage to the god of the new Joss- 
 house. There were Mandarins of all sorts of 
 buttons, designating their various ranks ; military 
 and civil officers, trades, manufacturers, and ar- 
 tizans, fine ladies and poor women, and even mad 
 people and idiots imitated by the most clever 
 pantomime. The embroidered banners were 
 beautiful pieces of work; indeed, the procession 
 must have cost the labour of months, as well as 
 the outlay of a great sum of money. When will 
 our English people show such an unanimous zeal 
 for their religion? "When will all ranks and 
 classes of men, high and low, join together to do 
 homage to the God who pours His benefits upon 
 them? When they all know and feel that their 
 happiness and peace of mind in this world de- 
 pends upon their consecrating all they have to 
 God's service. There is no station in life so 
 high that it is not ennobled by devotion to God, 
 nor any so mean, that He will not accept its con- 
 secration to Him. I thought so when I saw the 
 barbers, the carpenters, the water-carriers, and 
 lamp-lighters, in the procession of the Singapore 
 Joss : yet it must be a great change for a China- 
 man to give up this gaudy, noisy, sensual reli- 
 gion, for the heart-worship of Christianity. ^ It 
 delightful to see our poor Chinese foming 
 
 is
 
 DYAK CHINESE. 13 
 
 1 
 
 twice a day, after morning and evening service 
 to say their prayers in church. On Sunday, 
 besides the usual prayers, they have a lecture on 
 the gospel for the day, or some portion of scrip- 
 ture from Papa, translated into Chinese by Sing- 
 song, sentence by sentence. 
 
 The population in China is so numerous that 
 the men are obliged to emigrate in large numbers 
 to other countries ; it is, however, contrary to 
 the law of the land, that any woman should 
 accompany them ; so the poorest men leave their 
 wives, to make their fortunes elsewhere, hopino- 
 always to return some day to their families, and 
 meanwhile sending all the gold they acquire to 
 their mother country. But though this is gene- 
 rally the plan, there are exceptions. The Chi- 
 nese who originally settled in the Dutch territo- 
 ries of Borneo married Dyak women, and their 
 children again grew up and married Chinese, 
 until there is a sturdy race of Dyak-Chinese in 
 the country. Many of these people are now 
 settled at Sarawak, and, as they are very indus- 
 trious, being the gardeners, carpenters, and 
 smiths of the place, we are very anxious that 
 they should become Christians, and carry the 
 good news of the gospel with them, should they 
 ever return to their own country.
 
 134 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 There are now three clergymen besides Papa 
 at Sarawak, or rather one resides there, and the 
 other two are teaching the Dyaks at Lundu and 
 Linga; so that Papa can often leave the place 
 for a time, and visit the Dyaks up diiferent 
 rivers, without the church services or duties at 
 Kuching being stopped, during his absence, on 
 these occasions. Papa takes a medicine chest 
 well stored, with him, a box of tobacco, and 
 various presents for his wild friends ; a few pairs 
 of spectacles, generally, among the number; for 
 they think so much of the Englishman's eye 
 physic — indeed, the difficulty is to persuade 
 them that there is any illness Papa cannot cure 
 if he tries. I have often heard him say to old 
 people, whose sight is gone from age, or who, for 
 the same reason, are cramped with rheumatism, 
 " Your ailment is age, I cannot cure it." " Very 
 true," say they ; " but God will let you make us 
 better if you try." 
 
 I am now going to send you in the next few 
 letters extracts from Papa's Journal, during a 
 month's excursion he took, with Captain Brooke, 
 up the Sakarran and Kejang rivers. Papa was 
 ill and lame at the time, but he thought the 
 change of air would do him good, and that, 
 meanwhile, he could be doing good to others.
 
 RESTRAINTS ON THE PIRATES. 135 
 
 He had a large boat, paddled by thirty men, and 
 a little room built in it, shaped like a tent, and 
 painted blue and white. This room just held a 
 little couch, for Papa to lie on, and his clothes 
 and stores. The expedition was undertaken to 
 make peace between certain principal Dyak tribes 
 who had long been at war, and to build a fort on 
 the Rejang river, similar to the one at Sakarran, 
 where an Englishman, Mr. Steel, and some Malays 
 were to live, and prevent the neighbouring tribes 
 from going past with pirate fleets. These rivers 
 do not belong to our Rajah, as do the rivers of 
 Sarawak, Lundu, and Samarahan. But, by 
 means of his great influence with the natives, 
 and the wholesome fear of an English steamer, 
 he has hitherto been able, since the last punish- 
 ment at Sarebas, to restrain these people from 
 piracy, and induce the well-disposed amongst 
 them to assist him in so doing. These expedi- 
 tions, the building of forts, and storing them 
 with arms and ammunition, is a great expense to 
 the Rajah; but he has always devoted himself 
 and all he has to the good of those within his 
 influence, and would think himself richly re- 
 warded for all his outlay, if he could see these 
 wild people laying aside their fierce, bad habits,
 
 13.6 . LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 and becoming as happy and peaceful as his own 
 subjects at Sarawak. 
 
 On the 17th of April, 1851, Captain Brooke, 
 the Rajah's nephew, and representative in his 
 absence, accompanied by Mr. St. John and Papa, 
 set off for Sakarran, on their way to the Rejang, 
 and two of the Malay Datus, in their large war- 
 boats, went also. Captain Brooke was in the 
 h Jolly Bachelor," the Rajah's gun boat. Papa 
 in the Layang (Swallow) ; there was also a cook- 
 ing-boat, under the command of Cassim, a Malay. 
 The little fleet only got part of the way down 
 the river the first day. They stopped at a vil- 
 lage to have the sides of their boats raised,- by 
 the addition of attajys, or mats made from the 
 Nepa Palm, which grows all along the banks of 
 the rivers, near their mouths, where the salt tide 
 comes up from the sea. We will leave them 
 there while I tell you all the uses this palm is to 
 the natives. The leaves make the thatch of 
 their houses, and also the walls, when they are 
 sewn together with split rattans. From the 
 juice of the tree they make a fermented drink, 
 something like sweet beer, and also good brown 
 suo-ar. The voung shoots are eaten in curries 
 and salads. The fruit makes a good preserve and 
 pickle. But the most valuable production of a
 
 KEPA-SALT. 137 
 
 Nepa Palm to a Dyak is the salt they make from 
 the ashes of the leaves : to obtain this they first 
 burn the leaves and stem of the tree, and care- 
 fully wash the burnt ashes in water; this water 
 is then boiled until it is evaporated, and the salt 
 it has washed out of the Nepa leaves remains at 
 the bottom of the pot. It is nasty black-looking 
 stuff, and has a bitter taste, but the Dyaks 
 esteem it far superior to bright white sea-salt ; 
 and will pay a great price for it. If you ask 
 them why they like it, they say, " it is a fat salt." 
 Papa visited an establishment for the making of 
 this salt, at a village called Sibow, on the Rejang 
 river.
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 JOURNAL OF A TRIP UP THE REJANG. 
 
 March, 1852. 
 
 My darling Boy, 
 
 Papa's boat was so deeply laden, and the 
 sea so high outside the mouth of the Sarawak, 
 that he determined to remove to the Jolly 
 Bachelor, until they were in still water again. 
 So they ran out to sea, and a fine wind carried 
 them into the Batang Lupar, a beautiful river, 
 which, fifteen miles from the mouth, is four 
 miles across, with pretty wooded islands, standing 
 here and there in the deep stream. Just before 
 they anchored, seven bold pigs swam by, crossing 
 the river. These pigs live in great numbers in 
 the jungle, and think nothing of a swim of four 
 miles to the places where they know there are 
 trees laden with ripe fruit. Papa says, " About 
 sunset a sow and family of wild pigs passed us ; 
 we jumped into a boat and gave chase: hard 
 work we had of it, with five fellows paddling, to 
 come up to them, they swim so very fast. We 
 speared and sabred six, one an enormous brute.
 
 SERVICE IN THE BOATS. 139 
 
 The Lingas say, that within these last two months 
 they have taken three hundred pigs." They cer- 
 tainly are a different species from the Indian hog 
 or European boar: they have enormous heads, 
 and are capital jumpers; I have known them at 
 Sarawak leap a fence nearly six feet high : they 
 stand high on their legs, and the males are very 
 shaggy on the head and neck : some are black, 
 and some are white. 
 
 At Linga they anchored about sunset, and 
 found Mr. Brereton and a party of Sakarrans, 
 who were come on purpose to agree with the 
 Lingas about their treaty of peace. The next 
 day was Sunday. Papa had service on board the 
 " Jolly," and preached to his little congregation 
 of five Englishmen. The Sakarran chief, Gila 
 Brani, and many of his followers sat on deck, 
 watching in respectful silence the progress of the 
 service ; they were much struck with Papa's cas- 
 sock, and the responses made by the English. 
 Papa adds, " I am sure our daily prayers and 
 services, while on these excursions in our boats, 
 which are necessarily in public, have a great and 
 good effect upon ourselves and upon the native 
 mind ; and I am most thankful that all our Eng- 
 lish, at Sarawak, are always ready to join and 
 assist in them.
 
 140 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 " Last night I had one of those remarkable 
 escapes which have once and again, in the course 
 of my life, plainly shewn the preserving hand of 
 my Heavenly Father in saving me from death. 
 I came upon deck about one in the morning, and 
 was sitting over the stern enjoying the moonlight, 
 and watching the rushing of the fearfully rapid 
 tide, when the crutch of the boom, to which I 
 was trusting for support, gave way, and over the 
 stern I. went, expecting to be carried under the 
 boats and drowned. Though a good swimmer, I 
 should have had very little chance in such a race 
 of water; while, had I managed to escape that 
 danger, I might have been taken by some shark 
 or alligator, with which the river abounds. I 
 had seen a large shark swimming round us that 
 morning during service. But God, in His mercy, 
 ordered better for me ; the swing of the vessel, 
 at the moment I fell, brought the dingy or 
 schooner's boat, which, a few minutes before, was 
 distant the whole length of its painter or rope, 
 close under the stern, so that I fell across her 
 bows, and received no injury except a bruise on 
 the arm from the keel on which I fell, and by 
 which I hauled myself into the boat. * Praise 
 the Lord, my soul, and forget not all His 
 benefits ; who redeemeth thy life from destruc-
 
 JAES OF PEACE. 141 
 
 tion ; and crowneth thee with mercy and loving- 
 kindness.' " 
 
 The fleet had to wait in the Linga river for 
 several clays, until the Balow Dyaks could fetch 
 the jars they meant to exchange with the Sakar- 
 rans as a sign of peace. I do not remember 
 having told you anything about these jars. Every 
 Dyak tribe possesses some, according to their 
 riches and importance. They are large brown 
 coloured jars, with handles at the sides, and 
 sometimes figures of dragons on them. No one 
 would suppose, from their appearance, that they 
 were worth more than the common earthen water- 
 pots we use in our bath-houses, but to the Dyaks 
 they have, the value of remote antiquity. They 
 say their ancestors bequeathed them to them, as 
 the property of the tribe, therefore they never 
 part with them, except by exchange for similar 
 ones, as tokens of amity with other tribes. The 
 Chinese have often had jars made so closely to 
 imitate them, that they have hoped to sell them 
 to the Dyaks for large sums; but they have 
 never yet deceived them. They detect a difference 
 where no European or Chinese eye can, and at 
 once pronounce them of no value; yet forty dol- 
 lars is the price they put upon their least esteemed 
 tajows, and the more rare ones could not be pur-
 
 142 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 chased for hundreds of dollars. These jars 
 remind me of a story of a little Dyak child, who 
 was taken prisoner in the expedition of 1849, 
 against the Sarehas pirates. His father was 
 killed, and the boy, who was about eight years 
 old, was brought to the Rajah. For several days 
 the little fellow seemed happy in his captivity; 
 but then he begged to speak to the " Tuan Rajah," 
 and told him confidentially that he knew a place 
 in the jungle where certain valuable tajows, be- 
 longing to his tribe, were secreted, and, if he 
 would laud him with a party of Malays, he would 
 point out the place. The Rajah believed the 
 child, the jars were found, and taken on board 
 the boat ; then the boy again went to the Rajah, 
 and bursting into tears, he said, " I have given 
 you the riches of my tribe, and now in return, 
 give me my liberty, set me down in a path I will 
 shew you in the jungle, give me some food, and 
 in two days I shall reach my home and find my 
 mother." The Rajah answered, " My poor child, 
 I would willingly do as you ask me, but I fear 
 you will be lost in the jungle, and will die before 
 you reach your home ; for how can such a child 
 as you know the way?" However, the boy per- 
 sisted, and the Rajah gave him whatever he 
 wished for — a china cup, a glass tumbler, a gay
 
 
 TAILED-MEN. 143 
 
 sarong, and some food, and the little fellow 
 set off, on the jungle path, with his bundle 
 on his back, joyful enough; and, as we after- 
 wards heard, rejoined his mother and friends in 
 safety. 
 
 Now some more of Papa's Journal. " While 
 at breakfast this morning, one of the men told 
 me he had seen the people with tails, who are so 
 much the objects of curiosity with us. They live 
 fifteen days up a river in the interior of Bruni 
 (a Malay or Dyak always measures distances by 
 so many days' journey, as we find distances 
 measured in the Old Testament). It is a large 
 river, but in some places runs through caverns, 
 where they can only pass on small rafts. He 
 was sent there by Pangeran Mumeem to get 
 goats, as these tailed gentry keep a great many 
 of them. He says their tails are as long as the 
 two lower joints of his middle finger, fleshy and 
 stiff. They must be very inconvenient, for they 
 are obliged either to sit on little logs of wood 
 made on purpose, or to make a hole in the earth 
 to accommodate their tails, before they can sit 
 down. These people do not eat rice, like most 
 Dyaks, but sago cakes baked in an iron pot. In 
 their country, he says, is a great stone fort, with 
 nine large iron guns, of which the people can
 
 144 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 give no account, not knowing when or by whom 
 it was built. 
 
 " After dinner, when the men sit round me, 
 and smoke cigars which I give them, they soon 
 enter into conversation; without this sign of 
 friendship and good will, they would not open 
 their mouths, but sit round like mutes. We 
 spoke a good deal to-day on the subject of re- 
 ligion, the difference between Christianity and 
 Mahometanism, and above all, the absurdity of 
 their repeating the Koran like so many parrots, 
 without understanding one word of what they 
 say, and the real irreverence of addressing God 
 in words they do not understand, and in which 
 their hearts and feelings can take no part. They 
 asreed with me, that it would be desirable to 
 understand God's law for themselves, and not 
 trust merely to the Hadjis, who are often as 
 ignorant as they are. A respectable old Bruni 
 man, in speaking of the separate races of people, 
 white, black, and yellow men, all coming from 
 one parent, said that he had visited a tribe of 
 white people, who lived on a high hill, a few days 
 in the interior of Bruni, and had seen them many 
 times ; they are very white, the women beautiful, 
 with light hair, and the blue veins shewing in 
 their skin. The men wear a chawat (waist cloth)
 
 DYAK FABLE. 145 
 
 like the Dyaks ; the women, a long black robe, 
 tight at the waist and puffed out at the shoulders. 
 The tradition of their origin, which he learnt 
 from them, is as follows :— A long time ago, an 
 old man, who lived on this mountain, lost' him- 
 self in the jungle at the foot of it, and at night, 
 being tired and afraid of snakes and the evil 
 spirits of the wood, he got up into a tree and fell 
 asleep. He was awoke by a noise of ravishing 
 music, the sweetest gongs and chanangs and 
 voices, over his head ; the music came nearer and 
 nearer to the place where he was, until he heard 
 the sound of those sweet voices under the tree 
 and looking down, he beheld a large clear foun- 
 tain opened beneath it, and seven beautiful white 
 females bathing. They were all of different sizes, 
 like fingers on a man's hand, all naked, and they 
 sang and sported in the moonlight. He watched 
 them a long time, and thought how much he 
 should like to get one of them as a wife for his 
 only son ; but being afraid of descending amongst 
 them, he made a noose with a long rattan, lowered 
 it gently, and slipping it over one of them, drew 
 her up into the tree. She cried out, and all the 
 rest disappeared with a whirring noise. The 
 girl he caught was very young, and cried sadly 
 
 L
 
 146 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 because she had no clothes on. Nothing would 
 quiet her, until he rolled her in his chawat, she 
 was then still; and he immediately heard the 
 gongs at his own house, which he had thought 
 was a long way off, so he got down and carried 
 his prize home. He and his wife took the greatest 
 care of the girl, and brought her up as a daughter, 
 until she was old enough to marry their son. 
 She was very good and sweet-tempered, and 
 everybody loved her. In course of time she had 
 a son, white like herself. One day her husband 
 was in a very violent temper, and beat her ; she 
 besought him not to make her cry, or she should 
 be taken away from him and her child, but he 
 did not heed her, and at last pulled off her jacket 
 to beat her; immediately another jacket was 
 dropped with a great noise from the sky upon 
 their house; she put it on, and then vanished 
 upwards, leaving her child, who was the ancestor 
 of the present tribe. — Who would have thought 
 of a Dyak Undine?" 
 
 While the Malay was telling Papa this story 
 they were waiting in a sheltered nook of the 
 Sakarran river for the bore to pass, before they 
 dare venture up to the fort. They listened for 
 its rushing, with thrilling interest, and then, fol-
 
 CONFERENCE. 147 
 
 lowing in its wake, got up to the fort about 
 eleven o'clock at night. " Found," Papa writes, 
 ^Brereton in council with his Dyaks. These 
 Sakarrans are fine fellows, and will, I think, 
 really reform when peace is concluded, and if 
 we can place a missionary in these rivers, o-ood- 
 will and Christianity may be established among 
 them." 
 
 The next few days were taken up with hearing 
 all the Sakarrans and Lingas had to say about 
 their claims on one another. They had long 
 been at war; and six years before, when the 
 Rajah prevailed on them to make peace, they 
 made and broke it the same day, each finding 
 fault with the other on the occasion. But there 
 could be no comfort for either tribe, until they 
 left off taking each other's heads; the Lingas, 
 lying lower down the river, could cut off the 
 Sakarran trading boats, one by one, and the 
 Lingas dare not venture up the river for the 
 same reason. At last matters were arranged, 
 and a platform being made under a spreading 
 banyan tree, on a piece of neutral ground, Cap- 
 tain Brooke and the English Avho were with him, 
 the Malay Datus and the Dyak chiefs assembled 
 there, and Captain Brooke made a speech to 
 
 l 2
 
 148 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 them and the multitude who stood around. He 
 described the evils of piracy and war, and said 
 he had come from the Rajah to make them 
 brothers, and that, when peace was made, who- 
 ever broke it should be accounted the enemy of 
 the Rajah, as well as of the offended tribe. He 
 then presented the chief of each tribe with a jar 
 a spear, and a Sarawak flag, as a present from 
 the Sarawak Government, and a witness of their 
 good-will to one another. Papa adds : " Nothing 
 could be more picturesque than the whole scene, 
 the surface of the river dotted all over with the 
 formidable, sea-serpent-like banghmgs, gaily 
 painted, and adorned with streamers and flags of 
 all colours, contrasting with the solemn jungle 
 back-ground. A hopeful sight it was to behold 
 these wild children of nature, to whom piracy 
 and war has been hitherto a glory, almost a vir- 
 tue, throwing aside revenge and mutual hatred, 
 and, against all their customs and all the prompt- 
 ings of their evil natures, listening to the few 
 words of the Englishman, and then determining 
 to live henceforth in peace. Gassim and Gila, on 
 the part of Sakarran, and Tongat Langit (Staff 
 of heaven), the Linga chief, joined hands, and 
 each tribe killed a pig with great ceremony, the
 
 VISIT TO A CHIEF. 149 
 
 necessary feat being to strike the head off at one 
 blow. Then they feasted and rejoiced together." 
 " Thursday, April 24th. Started early in the 
 morning to visit Gassim, at his farm-house, where 
 we breakfasted. Captain Brooke dispensed pre- 
 sents of looking-glasses, etc., to the women, and 
 I physic to the sick. The house had about 
 twenty doors (which means that twenty families 
 were living in it), and all the people look well- 
 fed and contented, and more or less good-looking; 
 their houses clean and comfortable, furnished 
 with beautiful mats. They all seem well-off, 
 easy, independent people, frank and manly in 
 their demeanour. I saw no heads, but I did not 
 ask for any. A raised seat was made for Cap- 
 tain Brooke, and we sat round it. Gassim's 
 house must be seventy or eighty miles from the 
 sea. The river here is about as wide as the 
 Thames at Chertsey. After staying as long as 
 we could, on account of the tide, the people 
 followed us down to the boat, expressing their 
 disappointment at our leaving so soon. The 
 main body of the tribe live two days and a half 
 higher up the river. Still farther in the interior 
 are a race of men who build no houses, but live 
 in trees, and subsist by the chase. I hope to
 
 150 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 visit them some day. Both Gassim and Gila, on 
 my leaving, represented to me their desire of 
 following Tuan Padre's brother (the missionary 
 who was promised them) ; when he came, they 
 said, they would build him a house, and take 
 care of him, and make their children and people 
 learn what he would teach them. On our way 
 down the river we stopped for a time at the fort, 
 then bade adieu to Willie Brereton, whom may 
 God preserve, and give a right judgment in all 
 things in his important charge." We will leave 
 Papa on his way from the Sakarran river to the 
 Rejang, -where we shall hope to follow him in 
 our next letter.
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE JOURNAL OF A TRIP UP 
 THE REJANG. 
 
 April, 1852. 
 
 My Dearest Charley, 
 
 Captain Brooke, and his little fleet, pro- 
 ceeded down the Sakarran river into the Batans: 
 
 T o 
 
 Lupar again, and from thence to the Rejang, a 
 magnificent river, thirteen fathoms deep close to 
 the bank, and not troubled with a bore. The 
 boats' crews paddled at the rate of from twenty- 
 five to thirty miles a day ; and they were four 
 days getting as far as the Kenowit river, on the 
 banks of which, at its junction with the Rejang, 
 the new fort was to be built. Papa describes 
 the scenery of the Rejang, during these four 
 days, as follows : — 
 
 "April 28th. Brought up in a magnificent 
 reach of the river, which is here eighty miles 
 from the sea, half a mile broad, and very deep 
 up to the banks; wild nutmegs and a great num- 
 ber of jungle fruit-trees grow on either side, and 
 greatly excite my men as we pass by. They are 
 like boys in England coveting apples, and when
 
 152 LETTEES FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 I do let them land, they yell and screech for joy. 
 They scramble up the trees like monkeys, and in 
 an incredibly short time, every fruit-bearing 
 bough is lopped off by theparangs of the climbers ; 
 while those beneath gather the fruit as it comes 
 down. They are most destructive to the trees, 
 and rather than lose an inaccessible morsel, down 
 comes the whole tree in no time. They brought 
 me, this afternoon, a fruit in colour, size, and 
 shape like an Orleans plum, but tasting just like 
 a mango— buahrowa they call it, and another 
 green fruit, with a thick fleshy skin, tasting like 
 a green almond ; they eat both skin and kernel, 
 but say that if given to a dog or cat, it kills them. 
 We saw some beautiful orchideous and other 
 flowers to-day, indeed, these banks are enchant- 
 ing. Earth, water, an'd air seem to have com- 
 bined together to bring forth the greatest variety 
 of the grand, elegant, and fantastic in form, 
 fashion, and colour, that vegetable nature can 
 produce ; from the finest grasses to the graceful 
 ivaringa, and lordly tapang trees ; and the ear 
 and smell are as much pleased as the sight, by 
 the full joyous note of the burong boya, and the 
 delicious fragrance of the flowering trees and 
 plants." 
 
 Again, on the 29th, when they were at Sibow,
 
 SUGAR-CANES. 153 
 
 the Nepa salt manufactory — " The soil here and 
 all along the river is magnificent. The vegetables 
 and fruit growing in the gardens at this place, 
 which have no culture, but are left entirely to 
 themselves when planted, are most luxurious. 
 A man in the next boat is sucking a stick of 
 sugar-cane, which cannot be less than two inches 
 and a half in diameter. There could not be a 
 finer country for growing sugar and cotton." Do 
 you know, Charley, we Sarawak folks are as fond 
 of sucking sugar-cane, as a little boy I know is of 
 sugar-candy. When my children walk out of an 
 evening, some kind Chinaman often cuts them a 
 bundle of canes to take home ; then we cut them 
 into short lengths, pare the skin off, and sit down 
 to our feast, which I confess is rather a mess, 
 for the juice runs down your fingers faster than 
 you can swallow it, and all the stringy texture of 
 the cane has to be put out of your mouth again : 
 but it is very pleasant and refreshing when you 
 are thirsty. 
 
 To return to Papa. " The whole of our way 
 to day, the river was like a lake, often a mile or 
 more broad, with a succession of beautiful islands. 
 Ships of the largest, burden might sail up and 
 down this river for more than one hundred miles, 
 without a single danger, and small vessels very
 
 154 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 much farther. To day I shot a beautiful crested 
 falcon. 
 
 " May 1st. Arrived at Kenowit. A tribe of 
 Milanows have been induced to come here and 
 settle quite lately by the Rajah. Within the last 
 few weeks they have built two long and substan- 
 tial houses, raised thirty feet from the ground, 
 on trunks of trees, some two feet in diameter. 
 There are in all sixty doors or houses. The 
 tribe furnishes three hundred fighting men, and 
 numbers from fifteen hundred to two thousand. 
 The bachelors, as with the Dyaks, have a separate 
 dwelling. Tanee's tribe, who are returning to 
 Sibow on the Rajah's promise of a fort at Ke- 
 nowit, are of the same tribe, and number about 
 three hundred men. They speak the Milanow 
 language, and have the same customs of burial. 
 The men and some of the women are tattooed in 
 the most complicated and grotesque patterns. 
 •When you look at them closely, the invention 
 displayed in them is truly remarkable ; but at a 
 distance, they give a dusky, dingy appearance to 
 the men, as if they were daubed with an inky 
 sponge. Nature having denied them beards, 
 they try to make up for the deficiency by the 
 quaintest serpentine curly locks tattooed along 
 their faces, and always bordered by a Vandyke
 
 KENOWIT CHIEF. 155 
 
 fringe, which must task their utmost ingenuity. 
 The common dress of the men is like the Dyaks ; 
 but instead of a number of small rinjrs in their 
 ears, the lobe of the ear is itself stretched into a 
 ring, so as in many cases to reach the shoulders, 
 and to this the women hang large heavy brass or 
 tin ornaments. The poor little infants' faces are 
 horribly distorted by the discomfort and weight 
 of these masses of metal, which they are obliged 
 to wear at the earliest age, or their ears would 
 never arrive at the desirable state of deformity 
 so much admired by their parents. Tanee, who 
 has followed us with some of the warriors of his 
 tribe, is the very exquisite of a Kenowit. He is 
 made like a Hercules, and is proud of shewing 
 his strength and agility, whenever an opportunity 
 offers. He piques himself upon having the best 
 sword, of fine Kyan make and native metal, and 
 the strongest arm in his tribe. He sits most of 
 the day sharpening one or another of these* 
 swords, feeling and looking along its edge, to see 
 that the weapon is in perfect order, then to prove 
 it he seeks for a suitable block of wood, as thick 
 as his arm, severs it with a single blow, gives a 
 yell, and with a grin of delight returns the 
 weapon to its sheath. His jacket is of scarlet 
 satin, his long hair is confined by a gold em-
 
 156 LETTEES FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 broidered handkerchief; his chawat is of fine 
 white cloth, very long, and richly embroidered, 
 the ends of which hang down to his knees. He 
 wears behind an apron of panther's skin, trimmed 
 with red cloth and alligator's teeth, and other 
 charms ; this hangs from his loins to his knees, 
 and always affords him a dry seat. Most of the 
 Dyaks here wear mat aprons of like sort ; they 
 say they are a great comfort in paddling. 
 
 Tanee's boat is a long tamooee, made out of 
 one tree, like out river canoes, but much lighter 
 and faster. His cabin is a raised platform, in 
 the centre of the boat, covered with a mat, which 
 is hung all round with weapons and trophies of 
 war, Kyan fighting coats of bear and buffalo 
 hides, having bead or shell head-pieces attached, 
 shields, and spears, all gaily decked with argus 
 feathers, or human hair dyed red." All the time 
 Papa was travelling in his boat from one Dyak vil- 
 lage to another, he was busily employed as a doctor. 
 " Had a young man brought to me, with a deep 
 cut about four inches above his ancle. I strapped 
 and bandaged him, and he appeared very grate- 
 ful." Another day, "as usual, held my levee ; for, 
 as soon as the people see I am up and have bathed, 
 without waiting for me to dress, they come with 
 the sick and ailing, and much impede the. pro-
 
 RELIGION. 157 
 
 gress of ray toilet. May 1st. I remained in my 
 boat most of the day, and had plenty to do in 
 administering to the sick, who came to me in 
 boat-loads. Finding myself so beset with patients 
 in my boat, that I could get no peace, I told the 
 chief of the Kenowit village, Sikali, that he might 
 come for me in the afternoon, and I would see 
 the sick at his house. Accordingly T went, took 
 my medicine chest, and had an afternoon's hard 
 work at dispensing. 
 
 " Sunday, 4th. Brooke, St. John and I, landed 
 from our boats, and took up our abode at Pala- 
 bun's house, at one end of the verandah. After 
 breakfast I physicked the people, and then we 
 had the morning service, much to the surprise of 
 the natives, who, however, did not disturb us. 
 They sit round us all day, hearing and asking us 
 questions. I had a long talk with Sikali about 
 religion. It is plain that neither he nor his 
 people have any. They seem to be a mixed race, 
 between the Kyans and Milanows, speaking the 
 Milanow language, and using the dress, arms, 
 tattooing, and boats of the Kyans. 
 
 " The Kyans of the interior are just now in 
 great dread of the small pox. Cum Nipa, a 
 great Kyan chief, whom we hoped to visit during 
 this excursion, and who has sent messages of
 
 158 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 friendship and presents to the Rajah, has, we 
 hear, lost two of his children by this fatal disease; 
 and he and his tribe have left their houses, and 
 taken to the jungle, until it abates. It will pro- 
 bably kill half of them." Since this was written, 
 Papa has sent vaccine to Mr. Steel, who has been 
 in charge of the fort at Kenowit, and he has vac- 
 cinated numbers of the natives, a blessing they 
 can well appreciate, for the terror with which they 
 regard small pox makes them neglect everything 
 when it appears amongst them ; their crops are 
 unsown or unreaped, their occupations discon- 
 tinued, even the sick are neglected, and they live 
 on what roots or fruit they find in the jungle, 
 until it has passed away. 
 
 a Cum Nipa's people live much further up the 
 river ; they say it would take us six days to get 
 there in a fast Kyan boat, and at least ten in our 
 own, as there is a heavy fresh down the river at 
 this time. The river there, they tell us, is as 
 large as the Sarawak at Kuching. The Kyan 
 houses are planked, and roofed with balean attaps, 
 and have raised seats of polished wood round the 
 rooms ; this is a great improvement on a common 
 Dyak house, with mat walls and open lath floors, 
 on which you must sit cross-legged. Palabun's 
 people are larger than the Dyaks, with straighter
 
 RESPECT TOWARDS THE RAJAH. 159 
 
 noses, and look very like wild Irishmen; the 
 women have peculiar long oval eyes, and are tall 
 and well made, but, like the men, dirty and dingy 
 looking, and by no means so prepossessing as the 
 sleek, shiny skinned, upright, agile Sakarrans. 
 
 " Our old friend Pa Jenna, the Dyak Orang 
 Kaya of Poe, who was kept a prisoner at Sara- 
 wak, to frighten him and his tribe from piracy, 
 came down to see us; he has evidently a great 
 liking for us, and does not forget that, instead of 
 being killed for a pirate when he was taken pri- 
 soner, as he expected, he was well and kindly 
 treated at Sarawak. This has had a very good 
 effect ; he has now the greatest confidence in us, 
 and says he will follow the Rajah in all things, 
 and gladly learn our religion, if we will send 
 some one to teach him, as he and his people know 
 nothing of God." 
 
 Pa Jenna paid me a visit at Sarawak, soon 
 after this. The Rajah was in England, but Pa 
 Jenna coming into my sitting room, immediately 
 espied his picture hanging against the wall. I 
 was much struck with the expression of involun- 
 tary respect, which both the face and attitude of 
 this untutored savage assumed as he stood before 
 the Rajah's picture : he raised the handkerchief 
 from his head, and saluting the picture with a
 
 160 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 bow, such as a Roman Catholic would make to 
 his patron saint's altar, he whispered to himself, 
 < Our great Rajah.' This is not the only time, 
 Charley, that I have seen how deep, in the hearts 
 of the natives, lie love and reverence for Sir 
 James Brooke— the least occasion calls it out. 
 
 When our Rajah last left us to spend a year 
 in England, we established a custom of invari- 
 ably seasoning our glass of wine after dinner, 
 with a wish for his welfare and speedy return to 
 us. One day the old Orang Kaya of Lundu 
 came in with his followers just before our usual 
 toast, and we gave him a glass of wine, saying, 
 « To the Rajah "—he raised the glass in both 
 hands, "Peace to our Rajah," said he— then, 
 tossing off the wine, he continued, with folded 
 hands and bowed head, to pray that 'God 
 would be with him and bless him in all his ways." 
 It was a heartfelt prayer and solemn blessing on 
 one who had indeed been his friend and bene- 
 factor, but there was not a person in the room 
 nor in Sarawak who would not heartily have 
 said '•' Amen."
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 THE CONCLUSION OF THE JOURNAL OF A TRIP UP 
 
 THE RE JANG. 
 
 May, 1852. 
 
 My Dearest Charley, 
 
 I will now continue Papa's Journal. 
 " At the junction of Kenowit with the Rejang is 
 a point of land commanding both rivers; this 
 was the building site for the fort which is to 
 prevent the Dyak fleets coming down the Ke- 
 nowit, for piratical excursions, and to protect 
 the Kenowits and all peaceable traders. The 
 men of our flotilla of twenty boats, from seven 
 to eight hundred, have all landed to pull down 
 the temporary fort already erected by the Ke- 
 nowits, and to cut wood to build it on a larger 
 scale. It is to have four guns, besides swivels, 
 on the turrets or parapet, and is to contain a 
 house within for Abong Duraup, the present 
 commandant, our Patinghi's brother and his men, 
 and a powder magazine. It is to be built chiefly 
 of balean, and roofed with balean attaps. SerifF 
 
 M
 
 162 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 Messour with five prahus, came from Serrekei to 
 help to build the fort: he says he reads the 
 Malay Bible I gave him last year, and likes it. 
 
 Monday 5th. Captain Brooke called a coun- 
 cil to-day, at which the Orang Kayas that had 
 come to meet us were present— Garingei, Lang, 
 Nawi, Pa Jenna, Palabun and Sikali. They were 
 told that the fort was building for their good, to 
 prevent their fighting with each other, or going 
 out in fleets to pirate, but now they could trade in 
 safety, get their salt and all things cheaper; and 
 if they lived at peace and encouraged trade^ 
 they would become rich and comfortable, and 
 their countries full of people. In the afternoon 
 there was a great commotion in the house, and 
 all the women set up the most dismal howlings 
 imaginable, news having arrived that Palabun's 
 brother, who had left two years ago with a party 
 of fourteen, to visit a friendly tribe in the inte- 
 rior, near the Pontianak waters, had been killed, 
 with six of his companions, in a most treacherous 
 way ; the people that he and these six men lived 
 with asked them to go out in the war path to 
 take some heads, and while they were out, for 
 whatever reason, they killed the whole party: 
 perhaps they could get no heads, and rather than
 
 MOURNING FOR A CHIEF. 1G3 
 
 return without any, took those of their friends! 
 or, what is more likely, they quarrelled among 
 themselves. Palabun's brother is said to have 
 been a very high-spirited, brave young man. 
 Palabun himself is dreadfully distressed at his 
 death, and swears vengeance, but we hope to 
 pacify him before we leave. The whole tribe 
 goes into mourning for three months ; the women 
 cut their hair, lay aside all their ornaments, and 
 wear bark clothes. They keep up their howling 
 also during that time. All the property of the 
 deceased is collected and launched forth in a 
 boat, no one of the tribe daring to touch any- 
 thing that belonged to a dead man. 
 
 Tuesday 6th. The women kept up dismal 
 weepings during the night. In the morning I 
 went to see the young chiefs things laid out 
 preparatory to their being sent on their fruitless 
 journey after him. They were all arranged 
 under a canopy, made of his sarongs, two were 
 of rich gold cloth (value about fifty dollars each), 
 and the rest of his wardrobe was disposed under 
 it, so as to represent a corpse on a bier; the gold 
 ornaments alone, consisting of large buttons, a 
 breastplate, and a very rich and handsome hris 
 handle of ancient- Javanese, or Indian manufac- 
 
 m 2
 
 164 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 ture, representing a figure of Buddha, cannot be 
 worth less than two hundred dollars: besides 
 this there were gongs and two brass guns. Two 
 women were lying by the bier on either side the 
 effigy, and the father, a very old man, sat beside 
 it watching; the women every now and then 
 raising a mournful howl. In three days these 
 things will be launched down the river in a boat 
 made for the purpose, and if any one were known 
 to touch it he would be slain. If the body had 
 been recovered, it would have been launched 
 with its former property in the boat. This is 
 the invariable mode of burial with the Milanows. 
 The general fate of these funeral barks is to get 
 capsized, when the things all go to the bottom ; 
 but should a Malay happen to fall in with such a 
 treasure, he would not scruple to appropriate it, 
 and of this Palabun was doubtless aware, as he 
 took care not to send away his brother's property 
 until we had left the river. 
 
 This foolish custom, of which they can give no 
 account, except that they received it from their 
 fathers, prevents any valuables or heir looms re- 
 maining in the tribe. For, when a man dies, all 
 he possesses is, they say, sent after him, lest he 
 should want it hereafter; yet -they can give no
 
 WAR-DANCE. 165 
 
 account of their ideas of a future life. May they 
 soon know, and have the hope of, a happy eternity 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord. The fort was 
 finished building to-day, and, when the guns 
 arrive from the gun boat, we shall return. Be- 
 fore dinner we were entertained with a Kenowit 
 pantomime war-dance. Two men appeared, fully 
 armed, supposed to be on the war path looking 
 for heads, keeping time to the beat of the torn 
 toms. They seemed to go through all the mo- 
 tions of looking out for an enemy, watching 
 behind a tree, pulling out the ranjows from the 
 path (these are sharp pieces of cane, stuck into 
 the ground, with their points upwards, to wound 
 the feet of their enemies). At length they de- 
 scry one another, dance defiance, and, flourishing 
 their swords and shields in the most agile man- 
 ner, they commence the attack. It was most re- 
 markable to witness the nimbleness and skill 
 with which they managed their shields, covering 
 their bodies so that it was impossible to get a 
 stroke at each other. They say that, in a real 
 combat, to strike the shield is certain death, for 
 the sword sticks in it, and cannot be withdrawn, 
 before the man whose sword is free rushes in. 
 After a time one of the combatants fell wounded, 
 and covered his body with his shield. The other
 
 166 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 danced round him triumphantly, and, with one 
 blow, pretended to cut off his head; then, with 
 the head in his hand he capered about with the 
 wildest gestures, expressive of the very ecstasy 
 of savage delight; but, on looking at his trophy 
 closely, he recognised the head and features of a 
 friend, and, smitten with remorse, he replaced it 
 with great solicitude ; then moving with slowly 
 measured tread, he wept, and, with many sighs of 
 grief, refixed and adjusted the head the greatest 
 care; caught rain in his shield, and poured it 
 over the body; then he rubbed and shook the 
 limbs, which, by degrees, resuscitated, and be- 
 came invigorated by his mesmeric-like passings 
 and channgs, from the feet upwards; each limb, 
 as it revived, beat time to the music, first faintly, 
 then with more and more vigour, till he came to 
 the head, and, when that nodded satisfactorily, 
 and the whole body of his friend was in motion, 
 he gave him a few extra shakes, lifted him on his 
 leo-s, and the whole scene concluded by their 
 both dancing right merrily. This dance is quite 
 characteristic of their habits of attacking indis- 
 criminately the first person they meet when they 
 go out on the war path to take heads. 
 
 A few years ago it would have been very dan- 
 gerous for us to have been with these people,
 
 MANNING THE FORT. 167 
 
 when the news of the young chief's death arrived. 
 They are in the habit, on these occasion of be- 
 reavement, of making a vow to go forth and kill 
 the first persons they meet ; and like Jeptha's, 
 their rash vow often brings desolation to their 
 own household. Sikali, the chief of the next house, 
 a few years ago lost a child and brother, he went 
 out with his followers, met a party of his own 
 tribe returning home, and slew them all. Tanee 
 did the same on a like occasion. Palabun, per- 
 suaded by Captain Brooke, gave up his ideas of 
 retaliation for his brother's death, on condition, 
 that Captain Brooke, should endeavour to get 
 satisfaction, through Cum Nipa's influence, from 
 the Kapuas people. 
 
 The guns arrived last night; they were moun- 
 ted at the fort before breakfast, and a garrison of 
 70 men, under Abong Duraup and Galo, ap- 
 pointed to guard it. At midday there was an- 
 other council, at which the Sakarrans and Keno- 
 wits expressed their purpose to abide by the Ra- 
 jah's injunctions, and not to pirate again. After 
 this, the flag was hoisted at the Fort and saluted. 
 I dispensed a stock of medicine to my patients 
 with directions how to use it; one of the head 
 men, Henion, is, from last week's treatment, 
 almost restored to sight, and will be quite so, if
 
 168 LETTEES FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 he perseveres in following my advice. After this, 
 I had again a talk with Palabun, about becoming 
 a Christian, and he repeated his earnest desire of 
 having a Missionary sent to him and his people. 
 There cannot be a more favourable position for 
 
 one. 
 
 Thursday 9th. At sunset we pulled after the 
 "Jolly," caught her at the Serrekei River, got on 
 board, and sent our boats to make the best of 
 their way to Sarawak— we hope to be there first. 
 After our month's cruize to the River Sakarran 
 and other pirate haunts, how wilfully ignorant 
 and blind appear to us the tirades of some people, 
 who pretend that these tribes are not piratical— 
 If they could see the desolation of fertile tracts of 
 country, the insecurity of life and property, the 
 precautions against attack, and the continual fear 
 and dread in which the well-disposed people live 
 within reach of the pirates— if, in these pirates' 
 houses, they could see the piles of smoked heads 
 of Malays, Dyaks, and Chinese, and the traces of 
 plunder, and hear them recount their past prowess 
 in the fights they have won, and the heads they 
 have taken, they would certainly doubt no longer. 
 One of the Sakarran chiefs, Rentab, has in his 
 house two brass guns, taken from a Dutch armed 
 boat, which put out after him, when he was
 
 RETURN HOME. 1G9 
 
 making a raid on the Sarebas coast ; she got a- 
 head of the others in the chase, and kept firing 
 into the Dyak balla, when a ball killed a son or 
 nephew of Rentab, which so enraged the Dyaks, 
 that they turned round upon her, boarded, and 
 killed every man in the boat, forty, and took their 
 heads. Even old Gassim's eye lights up, when 
 he talks of his former exploits. He once attacked 
 Sirhassin, one of the Natunas islands, and has 
 often ravaged the Chinese, and other settlements, 
 on the Dutch parts of the island." 
 
 Thus ends Papa's Journal, and I cannot tell 
 you Charley, the joy, with which on Sunday, 
 May 11th, when I was sitting reading after church, 
 the sound of gongs, and boat music, fell on my 
 ear, and my servant Quangho, running in, infor- 
 med me, that " our Tuan was coming," we all ran 
 down to the wharf, to welcome, and bring them 
 home.
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 MALACCA. 
 
 June, 1852. 
 
 My dearest Boy, 
 
 On Feb. 19th, 1852, I left Singapore in 
 the little steamer " Hooghley," to visit Malacca 
 
 and our kind friends, Dr. and Mrs. T- , who 
 
 live there. Twenty -two hours' voyage brought 
 us to our destination ; and when I looked out of 
 my cabin window, early on the morning of the 
 20th, I saw that we were at anchor, but a long 
 way off the shore, for mud and sand-banks have 
 gradually accumulated in the harbour, until it is 
 impossible for any vessel deeper than a small 
 schooner to run near the land. So we got into 
 a boat, and enjoyed the pretty view of Malacca 
 as we approached it. If you look at the map, 
 you will see that the town is situated on the 
 narrow tongue of land called the Malayan Pe- 
 ninsula. Six centuries ago, a Malay Prince, 
 called S'ri Iscander Shah, was driven from Sin- 
 gapore by his enemies, the Javanese. He and 
 his followers wandered about in their boats till
 
 ACCOUNT OF MALACCA. 171 
 
 they came to this coast, where they landed. The 
 Prince stood under the shade of a fine tree, while 
 one of his dogs roused a white mouse deer, or 
 Plandok-, but the deer stood at bay, and drove 
 the dog into the water. " This is a fine place," 
 said the Rajah, " the very Plandoks are full of 
 courage; let us found a city here." Accordingly, 
 they did so, and called it Malacca, which was the 
 name of the tree under which the Prince stood 
 on first landing. This is the Malay story ; and 
 they add, that the city prospered and increased 
 so much that, at the end of a hundred years, the 
 colony contained 190,000 inhabitants. 
 
 In the year 1561, a fleet of Portuguese, led by 
 the famous Alphonso Albuquerque, conquered 
 Malacca, and drove the Malay Rajah to Johore, 
 a country near the extreme point of the Penin- 
 sula. So the Portuguese held Malacca for more 
 than a hundred years, and built forts on the hills, 
 the ruins of which are still standing. Then the 
 Dutch made friends with the Malay Rajah, who 
 lived at Johore, and offered to help him to recover 
 his former kingdom ; but, when they had beaten 
 the Portuguese, they kept Malacca for themselves. 
 The natives, indeed, were but badly treated, by 
 either the Portuguese or Dutch ; and it was a 
 happy day for them when an English fleet sailed
 
 172 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 into the harbour, in the year 1795, and made the 
 Dutch surrender to the British flag. Since that 
 time the Dutch have had the place again, for a 
 few years ; but the English at last gave them the 
 fine island of Sumatra, in exchange for a few 
 little settlements on the coast of India, of which 
 Malacca is the most important ; and, as before 
 this, the English had destroyed all the forts 
 which the Portuguese and Dutch had built to 
 defend themselves against the natives, I. dare say 
 the Dutch thought themselves well off in the 
 bargain. 
 
 The inhabitants of Malacca, from the place 
 having passed from the hands of one European 
 nation to another, are a curious mixture of races 
 —Portuguese, Malay, Dutch, and English, are 
 so intermingled, that you may go into a gentle- 
 man's house, and see an old Malay grandmother, 
 dressed in her sarong and baju ; and if you know 
 her language, she will introduce you to her son, 
 a dingy Portuguese man or thickset Hollander, 
 whose half-English wife will tell you that her 
 daughter, Rose, must go " home to be educated." 
 While you are wondering whether the " home " 
 is Johore, Lisbon, or Amsterdam, you hear that 
 it is England, which place neither parents nor 
 grandparents most likely ever saw.
 
 HILLS NEAK MALACCA. 173 
 
 On the hill of St. Paul are the ruins of an old 
 convent, " Our Lady of the Mount," built by 
 Albuquerque, and they say visited by St. Francis 
 Xavier, a Roman Catholic missionary of great 
 fame. One of the pretty hills in the neighbour- 
 hood is called by his name, and several Romish 
 saints are buried there. I have twice walked up 
 this hill at sunrise ; the view from it is lovely, 
 for the country of Malacca is one vast garden of 
 fruit trees and cocoa-nuts, and waiving plains of 
 paddy, which at this season reminds one of our 
 English harvest. The grain resembles oats, and 
 is cultivated in immense fields, bounded by 
 groves of trees, and watered by small ditches, 
 which you cannot see when the corn is high. 
 This beautiful prospect is varied by the blue sea 
 on one side, dotted with little wooded islands, 
 and the fine mountains of Ophir inland. On the 
 top of the hill of St. Xavier is a clump of An- 
 senna trees, growing in the midst of the old fort, 
 which you may trace round the top of the hill. 
 Indeed, every hill seems to have been crowned 
 by its fort, except St. Paul's, on which stood the 
 convent. Now, the hills are Chinese burying 
 grounds. There is a large colony of Chinese in 
 Malacca : and so fond are they of the place, that 
 many Chinese, who grow rich, and spend most of
 
 174 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 their years at Singapore, Penang, or other settle- 
 ments, buy their places of burial, and build their 
 tombs at Malacca. This converts the country 
 about the coast into a great cemetery, which, as 
 you drive past, does not supply you with many 
 cheerful ideas, especially if you happen to meet 
 any signs of their miserable devil worship, scraps 
 of riband or gilt paper scattered over the grass, 
 to keep away the antoos. The Dutch made the 
 nave of the convent church into a churchyard 
 for themselves, and the English have converted 
 the chancel into a powder magazine. A flagstaff, 
 on the summit of this hill, tells the people of the 
 town all about the ships at sea. The flags of 
 different colours and patterns which they hoist, 
 shew whether it is a steamer, ship, brig, or 
 schooner which is passing, where she comes from, 
 and whither bound. All this is very interesting, 
 in such a quiet, dull place as Malacca, where it 
 is not often that a large vessel puts in, on account 
 of the bad harbour. We have spent part of our 
 time here, at a Bungalow fifteen miles from the 
 town, which is called Ayer Panas (hot water), 
 from its vicinity to a hot spring in the midst of 
 a paddy field, so hot, that you cannot bear your 
 hand for a moment in the spring, and it smells 
 of rotten eggs, from its having sulphuretted hy-
 
 POLICE STATION. 175 
 
 drogen gas always bubbling up through the water. 
 Papa had a little shed built over the spring, and 
 a bath put in it, where he used to sit for an hour 
 every morning, besides drinking the nasty hot 
 water, to cure his rheumatism, which became so 
 much better from this treatment, that at the end of 
 a week he could walk with us of an evening in 
 the fine jungle, which surrounded the house. The 
 little Bungalow, in which we lived, was a police 
 station, placed there to watch the country round, 
 and especially the settlements of Chinese who 
 were employed in working the tin mines, about 
 two miles further in the jungle, and Avho were 
 sometimes very unruly. While I was at Malacca 
 several murders were committed, in the constant 
 quarrels between these Chinese miners and their 
 Malay neighbours. Fifteen or twenty Peons, 
 Malay policemen, slept in the lower part of the 
 Bungalow, and we lived in the upper story. At 
 night these men lighted an immense wood lire 
 before the door, to frighten away tigers, for the 
 jungle of that country is infested by these savage 
 beasts; and the night before we arrived, they 
 said there were two prowling about the house. 
 The knowledge of this often made us quicken our 
 steps, if the beauty of our evening walk lud us 
 so far from home, that the twilight began to close
 
 176 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 round us before we reached it ; but I never felt 
 in any danger except once, the last evening before 
 we left Ayer Panas. 
 
 Papa and I set off as soon as the heat of the 
 day abated, to visit the tin mines in the jungle- 
 It was broad day -light, and I laughed at the per- 
 tinacity of a tall Malay Peon who insisted on fol- 
 lowing us close, with a sword at his side, lest a 
 tiger should cross our path. What a lovely walk 
 it was ! the fine trees of the deep woods were 
 peopled by birds and monkeys, who seemed 
 callino" to us to know what we wanted in their 
 domain— the bright branches of the orange- 
 coloured Ixora, and delicate blue Justicia; the 
 pink Kammunting (mountain gooseberry), and 
 the lilac Melastoma, made the pathway gay as a 
 o-arden. We walked on, scarcely speaking and 
 half-dreaming, as one feels disposed to do in such 
 a still evening scene, till we heard the fall of the 
 pump at the mines, and presently the voices of the 
 Chinese. Then Papa said " You had better not 
 o-o amongst the miners, they are a rude uncouth 
 set ; sit down on a bank, the Peon shall guard you, 
 and I will just go and look at the workings :" so 
 I, glad of a rest, sat still and amused myself with 
 the antics of some great monkeys, at a little dis- 
 tance, who were getting their supper and playing
 
 RUNNING A RISK. 177 
 
 games in a high tree. I soon heard Papa and 
 the miners laughing very heartily, and felt sure 
 he was making friends with them, as Papa knows 
 how to do with most people. But after a time 
 the voices ceased, the light began to fade out of 
 the sky, the monkeys finished their supper— then 
 I turned to the Peon, and said " You must go to 
 Tuan and tell him to return, it grows late and 
 will be dark before we reach home; I will walk 
 slowly along the path, so that you may overtake 
 me." To tell the truth, I was anxious at Papa's 
 staying so long amongst the Chinese miners, for 
 whom I had no great respect ; but it was not 
 until I had proceeded some little distance along 
 the wood, that it occurred to me how near a tiger 
 might be in the thicket beside the path, and how 
 utterly defenceless I was, should he spring out — 
 then the turn or fall of every leaf in that silent 
 wood, made me start, and it was with no small 
 pleasure that I saw our servant coming to meet 
 me, and heard Papa's voice behind, and the Peon 
 with him, whose sword I no longer despised. We 
 reached home, thank God, in safety, although it 
 was quite dark, and my friend, who was putting 
 her baby to sleep in the house, looked quite 
 alarmed at the risk we had run. 
 
 N
 
 178 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 The tin ore looks something like emery powder, 
 and is mixed with a quartzose sand. The Chi- 
 nese smelt it, until it is a pure metal, and cast it 
 into long blocks, in which state they sell it for 
 nineteen dollars a hundred-weight, and it is sent 
 to Europe. There is much gold found by the 
 Chinese at Mount Ophir, in the interior of the 
 country, but Papa was not well enough to explore 
 where there were no roads, or he would have 
 ascended this fine hill.
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 THE LIFE OF SIR JAMES BROOKE. 
 
 November, 1S53. 
 
 My Dearest Charley, 
 
 The life of a great man is a spring of 
 good actions and generous impulses to others, 
 and cannot be too well known and studied ; for 
 in proportion to our love and sympathy for what 
 is excellent, we become capable of the virtues 
 which we admire. For this reason I now pro- 
 pose writing you a short history of Sir James 
 Brooke, our English Rajah; for, although you 
 are well acquainted with him personally, and his 
 name is to you a household word, there are many 
 of my young friends who will read these letters 
 who may be rather puzzled at the frequent men- 
 tion of an Englishman possessing such a foreign 
 sounding title, and who may wish to hear how 
 he became an Eastern sovereign, and how he 
 gained such influence over the half-civilized 
 Malays and the wild Dyaks. God gives to every 
 one of us the capability of excelling if we add 
 
 H 2
 
 180 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 our own endeavours to His gifts in the path 
 which he marks out for us in this life. We are 
 all fashioned differently ; to some He gives one 
 talent to others ten. Some are called to public 
 life, where the eyes of all men scan and judge 
 their actions ; some live so obscurely, that the 
 narrow circle of their friends and relations seems 
 alone to notice or care for them. But all are 
 alike watched by God : it is not a man's grandeur 
 or his talents which make him approved by his 
 Maker, whose gifts these are; but whether he 
 steadily and perseveringly, in the face of all 
 difficulties and temptations, follows the path of 
 duty, and patiently takes up the crosses which 
 lie in his way. This patience and perseverance 
 are the qualities which you, even child as you 
 are, may imitate in the Rajah's character. James 
 Brooke was the son of a gentleman in the Indian 
 Civil Service, and was born in India on the 29th 
 of April, 1803 : while still a little boy he was 
 sent home to England for his education, and thus 
 had the disadvantage which belongs to all Indian 
 born children, of not knowing his parents in his 
 early years. When he was fourteen his father 
 and mother returned to England; and it has 
 often comforted me to hear the Rajah say that he
 
 THE LIFE OF SIR JAMES BROOKE. 181 
 
 loved and reverenced his mother, as much as if 
 he had been brought up at her side. She was of 
 a most gentle and superior nature, wise enough 
 to gain the strongest influence over his wayward 
 youth, and to encourage him in the love of travel 
 and adventure which she saw was most likely to 
 develop his character and talents. At the age of 
 sixteen he went to India as a cadet, and was 
 engaged in the first Burmese war, where he so 
 distinguished himself by his gallantry (he fell, as 
 was supposed, mortally wounded), as to receive 
 the thanks of government. At last he was 
 obliged to ask leave of absence and return to 
 England to recover from a serious wound which 
 he had received in his lungs, and which for a 
 long time endangered his life. Little things 
 often shew the strength of a person's mind, and 
 I think it is worth mentioning, that the Rajah 
 has told me he thought his constitution recovered 
 its tone by his daring to take a cold bath every 
 morning through a severe winter; when many 
 thought he was going into a consumption he 
 jumped out of bed into his ice-cold bath, and 
 became strengthened both in frame and in pur- 
 pose by the exertion. 
 
 But I must hasten to the more important 
 events of his life. He did not continue in the
 
 182 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 Indian army after 1820, but travelled in various 
 countries, and often retired to some quiet country- 
 place where he could read and study without 
 interruption. In 1830 he made a voyage to 
 China, and then saw, for the first time, the islands 
 of the Eastern Archipelago ; he was struck with 
 their beauty, the importance they might be to 
 English commerce, and the neglect which had 
 hitherto prevented any settlements on their 
 shores. When he returned home he could not 
 forget that vast island of Borneo, abandoned to 
 savages, or the solitude of nature, with the ex- 
 ception of a few small Dutch factories on the 
 coast. He therefore determined to explore the 
 country himself. About this time his father 
 died, and Mr. Brooke, having succeeded to a good 
 fortune, he purchased a yacht, the Royalist, 140 
 tons burthen, and chose and trained her crew of 
 twenty men, with the greatest care, during a 
 cruise in the Mediterranean; for he said, "I felt 
 that it was necessary to form men to my purpose, 
 and, by a line of steady and kind conduct, to 
 raise up a personal regard for myself, and attach- 
 ment for the vessel, which could not be expected 
 in ordinary cases. In following this object I 
 was nearly three years in preparing a crew to my 
 mind, and gradually moulding them to consider
 
 THE LIFE OF SIR JAMES BROOKE. 183 
 
 the hardest fate or misfortune, under my com- 
 mand, as better than the ordinary service in a 
 merchant vessel." 
 
 We cannot suppose that Mr. Brooke had more 
 than a general idea at the time he was preparing 
 his vessel and her crew for this long voyage, as 
 to his object in making it. " I go," said he, " to 
 awake the spirit of slumbering philanthropy 
 with regard to these islands." Circumstances 
 were to decide how this was to be accomplished. 
 On the 1st of June the Royalist anchored at 
 Singapore. He there learnt that a Malay Rajah 
 was then resident at Sarawak, who was friendly 
 to the English, and had shewn kindness and 
 generosity to the crew of a merchant vessel 
 wrecked at the entrance of the river, and to him 
 he resolved to pay his first visit. On the 15th 
 of August the Royalist anchored abreast the 
 town of Kuching, which was described as "a 
 collection of huts, erected on piles, and contain- 
 ing about 1500 persons." 
 
 What was then a miserable village, is now a 
 well built town, containing as many as 20,000 
 inhabitants : such is the effect of peace and good 
 government. Muda Hassim, the Malay Rajah, 
 received Mr. Brooke's visit very graciously. 
 There is a great deal of formality about the
 
 184 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 courts of Eastern Princes, and a number of 
 speeches are made at first, which mean nothing, 
 before they begin to say anything to the purpose. 
 Muda Hassim made all the display he could, and 
 was very polite and delighted to see his English 
 friend ; and when Mr. Brooke inquired whether 
 the war, in which he had heard that he was en- 
 gaged with his subjects, proceeded favourably, 
 he replied, that there was no war, but merely 
 some child's play among his subjects, and so the 
 conference ended. But this " child's play " 
 proved a very serious affair to Muda Hassim — 
 who at last applied to Mr. Brooke to help him 
 with his handful of Englishmen. One vigorous 
 charge from this little band sufficed; for the 
 warfare of the rebels had hitherto consisted in 
 building forts, from which they could throw 
 missive weapons ; and Muda Hassim's forces, led 
 by corrupt and cowardly chiefs, had never dared 
 to attack them. 
 
 Having conquered the rebels, Mr. Brooke pro- 
 mised to save their lives, by asking their pardon 
 from their Rajah. It was with great difficulty, 
 however, that he obtained this mercy for them. 
 " I only succeeded," says Mr. Brooke, " when, at 
 the end of a long debate, I soliciting, he deny- 
 ing, I rose to bid him farewell, saying, that if
 
 THE LIFE OF SIR JAMES BROOKE. 185 
 
 after all my exertions in his cause, he would not 
 grant nie the lives of his people, I could only 
 conceive that his friendship for me was at an 
 end. Upon this he yielded." After this im- 
 portant event Muda Hassim begged Mr. Brooke 
 to live at Sarawak, and help him to govern his 
 subjects, at the same time employing a schooner 
 to trade between Sarawak and Singapore. 
 
 The government of Sarawak was as bad as 
 the weakness of Muda Hassim and the wicked- 
 ness of his nobles could make it. They were 
 surrounded by a number of followers whose only 
 pay was their being screened from punishment 
 by their masters ; these men oppressed the Dyaks 
 in the most shameful manner ; they levied heavy 
 taxes upon them, and, if they could not pay, 
 they took their wives and children as slaves. 
 Sometimes they would take a boatload of gongs, 
 brazen vessels, etc., to a Dyak tribe, and desire 
 them to give them in exchange enormous quan- 
 tities of rice, birds' nests, honey, etc. ; it mattered 
 not whether the Dyaks wished to buy these 
 goods, they were obliged to do so, and at the 
 price fixed by the Malays. If a good harvest 
 had seemed to ensure them food for the season 
 they found it wrested from them, and all the 
 fruits of their industry only served to feed the
 
 186 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK. 
 
 greediness of their oppressors: nor was there 
 any remedy, for the courts of justice at Sarawak 
 could see no faults in the nobles or their follow- 
 ers. No one who is unacquainted with the 
 double dealing of eastern courts can imagine 
 what a difficult part Mr. Brooke had to play to 
 protect the oppressed, and, at the same time, 
 maintain his influence over the oppressors. His 
 own life was once and again threatened, and 
 Muda Hassim, if he had the will, had not the 
 power to defend him. The yacht was several 
 times fully armed, and prepared to make what 
 resistance she could, when some act of tyranny 
 or treachery forced Mr. Brooke to expostulations 
 with Muda Hassim. At one time both the yacht 
 and the Swift, the merchant schooner, were 
 absent ; one on an errand of mercy, to demand 
 some shipwrecked English from the Sultan of 
 Bruni, who was detaining them as prisoners, the 
 other at Singapore. Mr. Brooke with only three 
 Englishmen remained at Kuching, steadily pur- 
 suing his schemes of reform and protection— he 
 knew no fear, and his whole soul was bent upon 
 remedying the evils he saw around him. Mr. 
 Brooke agreeing to live at Kuching, Muda Hassim 
 built him a house in the town, when just as he had 
 taken possession of it, a large force of Sakarran
 
 THE LIFE OF SIR JAMES BROOKE. 187 
 
 and Sarebas Dyaks with one hundred war boats, 
 and not less than two thousand five hundred 
 men, came up the river and requested the Rajah 
 to allow them to attack a hostile tribe in the 
 interior. Muda Hassim gave them leave, know- 
 ing full well that their purpose was really to 
 destroy all the weak tribes in their way, and 
 take the heads of his own subjects. The Chi- 
 nese and the Dyaks were in the greatest terror, 
 but Mr. Brooke instantly quitted his house and 
 returned on board his yacht, sending to the 
 Rajah to know whether he had granted the 
 pirates such a permission. At the same time 
 the guns of the Royalist were prepared for 
 action; and such was the effect of this remon- 
 strance, that the pirates, sulky enough, were 
 obliged to take their departure. By such acts 
 as these Mr. Brooke won the hearts of the people 
 of Sarawak, and the respect of its rulers. He 
 listened to the sad tales of the poor Dyaks, 
 which brought tears to his eyes, and awoke 
 within him the most earnest desires to help 
 them. " Unhappy people," he says, " who suffer 
 for the crimes of others; God knows I will aid 
 you to the utmost of my power;" and his power 
 grew daily : for the constant exercise of firmness
 
 188 LETTERS FROM SARAWAK. 
 
 and justice, with the greatest patience, could not 
 but influence all parties. 
 
 I could tell many tales of this trying time, 
 when the strong will of one Englishman stemmed 
 the wickedness of this eastern court, and sheltered 
 its subjects, but my letter would be too long, and 
 you must read for yourself Mr. Brooke's Journals 
 when you are older. At last Muda Hassim, un- 
 able to carry on the government, resigned it into 
 the hands of Mr. Brooke; and on the 1st of 
 August, 1842, the Sultan of Bruni signed and 
 sealed the compact, which gave the province of 
 Sarawak to Mr. Brooke and his heirs for ever. 
 " I hope," he says, " that this day, so important 
 to me, will be marked with a white stone in the 
 annals of Sarawak." T wish the Dyaks, whom 
 their English Rajah has rescued from slavery op- 
 pression and poverty, could tell how well this wish 
 has been fulfilled; and that the Malays, who are 
 now contented and happy under just laws, justly 
 administered, could add their testimony to the 
 character of a ruler, who has won them to the 
 paths of virtue and industry by unwearied kind- 
 ness, firmness and patience. I have known the 
 time, when, night after night, the Rajah has sat 
 surrounded by his native subjects, drawing out 
 their confidence by listening to their histories,
 
 THE LIFE OF SIR JAMES BROOKE. 189 
 
 and in return instructing them, and amusing 
 them by tales and facts, which to them are more 
 wonderful than fiction. At night, and under the 
 influence of a cigar the Malay is wide awake ; he 
 tells you long stories, and lets you into all his 
 secrets, but there are not many Englishmen who 
 have sufiicient kindness and patience to be inter- 
 ested, and give them all the sympathy their 
 hearts require. 
 
 I have, in a former letter, told you the efforts 
 which Sir James Brooke has made during his go- 
 vernment of Sarawak, to put down piracy, not only 
 amongst his own subjects, but the neighbouring 
 Dyak tribes ; so I will not repeat the tale. It has 
 been hard work to teach savages good faith ; mercy, 
 and peace ; but, though some of the pirate tribes 
 still threaten an outbreak, I believe the day will 
 come, when even they will bless his memory, as 
 their true friend, for now opposing their evil 
 courses, and teaching them to be quiet and in- 
 dustrious, even though an occasional chastisement 
 be necessary to enforce the lesson. Meanwhile, 
 we may hope that the Missionaries, who are now 
 stationed near them, may gain sufficient influence 
 to win them, by God's grace, to a true faith in 
 Him and our Lord Jesus Christ. Then they will
 
 190 LETTERS EROM SARAWAK.. 
 
 " turn their swords into ploughshares," and build 
 churches instead of bangkongs ; then instead of 
 the terrible war-yell, we shall hear divine songs 
 and musical church bells echoing through the 
 woods, and the beautiful country and rich soil 
 will yield a glad return to the labour bestowed 
 upon them. Let us not only pray, but labour, 
 for this happy day, for which our good Rajah has 
 toiled and waited these ten years, and devoted 
 his fortune and health to accomplish. Already 
 the dawn of it appears, for there is a strong party 
 of men of peace amongst the Sarebas, and at Sa- 
 karran they are, I hope, being brought to abetter 
 mind, by the labours and teaching of a young 
 Englishman, Mr. Brereton ; who, by following the 
 example of Sir James Brooke, has won the hearts 
 of many thousands of the wild Sakarrans. 
 
 " Lives of great men all remind us 
 We can make our lives sublime, 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 Footprints on the sands of time." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 J. Wertheimer& Co., Printers, Circus Place, London Wall.
 
 ©rijjmal $ul)cni(c f ikarj, 
 
 CORNER OF ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD, LONDON. 
 
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