Footnotes:[3]Lesong, mortar, being mortar-shaped.
Footnotes:
[3]Lesong, mortar, being mortar-shaped.
[3]Lesong, mortar, being mortar-shaped.
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Throughout the year 1852 and part of '53 my husband was much tried with rheumatism in his knee, which made him quite lame, though he would hobble to church on crutches, and to hospital to look after his poor patients. Meanwhile he taught the young missionaries something of the art of healing, dressing wounds and broken bones, and physicking the ailments to which natives are most subject—fever, dysentery, etc. It was quite necessary they should know something of these subjects before they could be any use in the jungle. The first question the Dyaks asked, if told a new missionary was coming, would always be, "Is he clever at physic?" Medicines and simple remedies were always furnished to every mission-station, and the Rajah supplied all the stores that were needed for Kuching or elsewhere. We had taken a good stock with us at first, and all sorts of surgical instruments, but the Government kept it replenished.
The hospital was set up when the great influx of Chinese brought numbers of sick people to the place. A long shed was built, and twenty beds immediately filled; but the next day, one of the patients having died, all the others who could move ran away. They have so great a horror of a dead body that they never suffered any one to die in their houses if they could help it, but built a little shed for the sick man, and visited him twice a day with food and opium while life lasted. A separate room was therefore added for the dead. This hospital furnished good instruction to the missionaries. It was also their duty to teach the sick every day, and the result was that several Chinese were baptized on their recovery. This shed was afterwards exchanged for a long room above the fort, which was both more airy and substantial. A dispensary was attached to it.
When Mr. Chambers came from England and was able to undertake the duties at Kuching, my husband accompanied Captain Brooke and some of the Government officers in a tour up the Batang Lupar and Rejang Rivers. He was very lame at the time, but had no walking to do, only now and then to get out of his large boat and scramble up into a Dyak house. How he managed it under the circumstances I never could imagine, for the staircase from the water to a high Dyak house is only the trunk of a tree with a few notches in it, and, at low tide, a case of slippery mud; this, placed at a steep angle, without any rail, is not easyclimbing for any one, but a stiff knee made it still more difficult.
The object of the expedition was to make peace between certain Dyak tribes who had long been enemies, and to build a fort on the Rejang River, similar to Mr. Brereton's fort at Sakarran, and for the same purpose. An Englishman named Steele was to occupy the fort with some Malays. Captain Brooke took theJolly Bachelorgunboat, and Frank moved into it to cross the sea from the mouth of the Sarawak to the Linga River, for the waves were high and wetted the smaller boats. When they reached the Linga River, he was sitting one Sunday night on the boom of theJolly, enjoying the moonlight, and watching the swift rush of the tide, which is very rapid in that river. Suddenly, the piece of wood he was trusting to broke, and he was precipitated over the stern. Had he fallen into the water he must have been dragged under the vessel by the tide and drowned, but, through God's mercy, the ship's boat (Dingy), which only a few minutes before was the whole length of its painter away from theJolly, swept up to it from the swing of the vessel, and, as he fell, he caught hold of the boat and pulled himself into it, escaping with only a bruise, when a watery bed, or the jaws of an alligator or shark, might have received him. A shark had been swimming round the gun-boat during Divine service that day, and an alligator had taken a man only the day before from a boat close by. My dear husband's comment onthis narrow escape is, "Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits; who redeemeth thy life from destruction, and crowneth thee with mercy and lovingkindness."
The fleet waited for some days in the Linga River, while the Balow Dyaks fetched the jars which they were to exchange with the Sakarrans as a pledge of peace. These jars, of which every Dyak tribe possessed some, are of unknown antiquity. There is nothing very particular in their appearance. They are brown in colour, have handles at the sides, and sometimes figures of dragons on them. They vary in value, but though the Chinese have tried to imitate them, hoping to sell them to the Dyaks, they have never deceived them: they detect a difference where no European or Chinese eye can, and at once pronounce the Chinese jars of no value. Yet they will not sell their own rusas or tajows for any money, and they fancy that some of them have the property of keeping water always sweet. If a Dyak tribe offends the law, Government fines them so many jars, which are brought to Kuching and kept, or returned on their good behaviour. This reminds me of the story of a little Dyak boy who was taken prisoner in 1849. His father was killed, and the boy, about eight years old, was brought to the Rajah. For some days the child seemed quite happy, then he begged to speak to "Tuan Rajah," and told him confidentially that he knew a place in the jungle where some valuable tajows were secreted, and if he would land himwith some Malays or the bank of the river, he would point out the place. The Rajah believed the child, and the jars were found, and taken on board the boat. Then the little boy went again to the Rajah, and bursting into tears, said, "I have given you the riches of my tribe; in return give me my liberty. Set me down in the jungle path, give me some food, and in two days I shall reach my home and my mother." So the child was laden with all he took a fancy to—a china cup, a glass tumbler, and a gay sarong (waist-cloth), and as much food as he could carry—and we heard afterwards that he rejoined his friends in safety.
I must now return to my husband's journal. He says: "While at breakfast this morning, one of the men told us he had seen the people with tails, of whom we have often heard.[4]They live fifteen days up a river, in the interior of the Bruni country. It is a large river, but in some places runs through caverns, where they can only pass on small rafts. He was sent there by Pangeran Mumeim to get goats, as these tailed gentry keep a great many of them. He says their tails are as long as the two joints of the middle finger, fleshy and stiff. They must be very inconvenient, for they are obliged to sit on logs of wood made on purpose, or to make a hole in the earth, to accommodate their tails before they can sit down. These people do not eat rice, but sago made into cakes and baked in a pot. In their country, he said, was a great stone fort, withnine large iron guns, of which the people can give no account, not knowing when or by whom it was built.
"After dinner, when the men sit round me and smoke my cigars, they soon enter into conversation. We spoke a good deal to-day on the subject of religion, the difference between Christianity and Mahometanism, and, above all, the absurdity of their repeating the Koran, like so many parrots, without understanding one word of what they say; and the irreverence of addressing God in words they do not understand, so that their hearts can take no part in their prayers. They agreed that it would be better to learn God's law, instead of trusting merely to their hadjis, who are often as ignorant as themselves. A respectable old Bruni man, speaking of different races of men of various colours, said he had visited a tribe of white people, who lived on a high hill in the interior of the country; they were very white, and the women beautiful, with light hair. The men dress like Dyaks, but the women wear a long black robe, tight at the waist, and puffed out on the shoulders. The tradition of their origin, he said, was as follows: A long, long time ago, an old man who lived on this mountain lost himself in the jungle at its foot, and at night, being tired, and afraid of snakes and the evil spirits of the wood, he climbed into a tree and fell asleep. He was woke by a noise of ravishing music, the sweetest gongs and chanangs mingling with voices over his head. The music camenearer and nearer to the place where he was, until he heard the sweet voices under the tree, and, looking down, beheld a large clear fountain opened, and seven beautiful females bathing. They were all of different sizes, like the fingers on a man's hand, and they sung as they sported in the water. The old man watched them for some time, and thought how much he should like one of them as a wife for his only son; but as he was afraid of descending among them, he made a noose with a long piece of rattan, lowered it gently, and slipping it over one of them, drew her up into the tree. She cried out, and they all disappeared with a whirring noise. The girl he caught was very young, and she cried sadly because she had no clothes on; so he rolled her in a chawat (long sash), and immediately heard the gongs at his own house, which he had thought was a long way off. He took the child home, and she was brought up by his wife, until she was old enough to marry their son. She was very good and sweet-tempered, and everybody loved her. In course of time she had a son, as white as herself. One day her husband was in a violent rage and beat her. She implored him not to make her cry, or she should be taken away from him and her child. But he did not heed, and at last pulled her jacket off to beat her. Immediately another jacket was dropped with a great noise from the sky, upon the house. She put it on, and vanished upwards, leaving her son, who was the ancestor of the present tribe."
Who would have thought of a Dyak Undine?
While the Malay was telling this story, the boat was waiting in a sheltered nook of the Sakarran River for the bore to pass, before the crew dare venture up to the fort. The bore is a great wave, twelve feet high, which rushes up with the tide, and is succeeded by two smaller waves. It is very dangerous to boats; but happily the natives know where to hide while it sweeps past.
When they reached Sakarran Fort it took several days to hear all the claims the Lingas and Sakarrans had against each other. Six years before, the Rajah had persuaded them to make peace, but they had broken it the same day, and laid the blame upon one another. At last matters were arranged, and a platform being made under a wide-spreading banyan-tree, the chiefs sat round; and Captain Brooke made them a speech, describing the evils of piracy and war, and the determination of the Rajah that his subjects should live at peace with one another.
"He then presented each chief with a jar, a spear, and a Sarawak flag, and desired them to use the flag in their boats for the purposes of trade. Nothing could be more picturesque than the scene. The surface of the water was dotted over with the long serpent-like bangkongs, gaily painted and adorned with flags and streamers of many colours, which looked all the brighter against the solemn jungle background. Then Gassim and Gila Brani (madly brave), on the part of the Sakarrans, and Tongkat Langit (Staff of Heaven), the Linga chief,joined hands; and each tribe killed a pig with great ceremony, and inspected the entrails to see if the peace was good. Then they feasted and rejoiced together. This ended, they proceeded up the Rejang River in the boats, and paddled for four days, from twenty-five to thirty miles a day, until they came to the Kenowit, on the banks of which the fort was to be built."
The Rejang is a glorious river. It is not visited by a bore, and eighty miles from the sea it is half a mile broad, and deep to the banks. The flowers and fruits which grow there are a continual surprise and pleasure—but how shall I describe the flowers of those great woods?—not only up the Rejang, but everywhere in the old jungle. They seldom grow on the ground, though you may sometimes come upon a huge bed of ground orchids, but mostly climb up the trees, and hang in festoons from the branches. One plant, the Ixora, for instance, propagating itself undisturbed, will become a garden itself, trailing its red or orange blossoms from bough to bough till the forest glows with colour.
The Rhododendron, growing in the forks of the great branches, takes possession of the tall trees, making them blush all over with delicate pinks and lilacs, or deepest rose clusters. Then the orchideous plants fix themselves in the branches, and send out long sprays of blossom of many colours and sweetest perfume. Here the voice of the Burong boya (crocodile-bird) may be heard, singing like an English thrush. He shakes his wings as he sings,and the Malays say that from time immemorial he has owed a large sum of money to the crocodile, who comes every year to ask payment; then the bird, perched on a high bough out of reach of the monster, sings, "How can I pay? I have nothing but my feathers, nothing but my feathers!" So the crocodile goes away till next year. There are not many singing birds in Borneo besides this thrush. The soft voices of many doves and pigeons may always be heard, and often the curious creaking noise made by the wings of rhinoceros hornbills as they fly past. More musical is the voice of the Wawa monkey, a bubbling like water running out of a narrow-necked bottle, always to be heard at early dawn, and the sweetest of alarums. A dead stillness reigns in the jungle by day, but at sunset every leaf almost becomes instinct with life. You might almost fancy yourself beset by Gideon's army, when all the lamps in the pitchers rattled and broke, and every man blew his trumpet into your ear. It is an astounding noise certainly, and difficult to believe that so many pipes and rattles, whirring machines and trumpets, belong to good-sized beetles or flies, singing their evening song to the setting sun. As the light dies away all becomes still again, unless any marshy ground shelters frogs. But to hear all this you must go to the old jungle, where the tall trees stand near together and shut out the light of day, and almost the air, for there is a painful sense of suffocation in the dense wood.
Footnotes:[4]This legend, though commonly reported, has never been proved.
Footnotes:
[4]This legend, though commonly reported, has never been proved.
[4]This legend, though commonly reported, has never been proved.
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After two days' paddling from the mouth of the Rejang, the boats arrived at Sibou, where there is a manufactory for nepa salt. The nepa palm grows down to the edge of the banks, which are washed by a salt tide, and furnishes the Dyak with many necessaries.
The leaves make the thatch to cover the roofs of the houses, or shelter over their boats. Neatly fastened together with split rattans, they form the walls of the house. From the juice of the tree they make a fermented drink something like sweet beer, also brown sugar. The young shoots are eaten in curries and salads. The fruit is salted or pickled. When they have got all these good things out of it, they burn the stem of the palm with some of the leaves, and wash the burnt ashes in water. This water is then boiled until it is evaporated, and some black salt remains at the bottom of the pot. Ittastes bitter as well as salt; but the Dyaks prefer it to common salt, and if you ask why, they say, "It is a fat salt." I must now return to my husband's journal. "Arrived at Kenowit. A tribe of Milanows have been induced to settle here lately by the Rajah. Within the last few weeks they have built two long and substantial houses, raised thirty feet from the ground on trunks of trees, some two feet in diameter. There are in all sixty doors, or families. The tribe furnishes three hundred fighting men, and numbers from fifteen hundred to two thousand.
"The bachelors, as with the Dyaks, have a separate dwelling.
"Tanee's tribe, who are returning to Sibou on the Rajah's promise to build a fort at Kenowit, are of the same tribe, and number about three hundred men. They speak the Milanow language, and have the same customs of burial. The men and some of the women are tattooed in the most grotesque patterns. When you look at them closely the invention displayed is truly remarkable; but at a distance they give a dingy, dusky appearance to the men, as if they were daubed with an inky sponge. Nature having denied them beards, they tattoo curly locks along their faces, always bordered by a vandyke fringe, which must task their utmost ingenuity. Tanee, who has followed us with some of his warriors, is the very exquisite of a Kenowit. He is made like a Hercules, and is proud of showing his strength and agility. He piques himselfupon having the best sword, of fine Kayan make and native metal, and the strongest arm in his tribe. He sits most of the day sharpening one or another of these swords, feeling and looking along its edge to see that the weapon is in perfect order: then, to prove it, he seeks for a suitable block of wood, as thick as his arm, severs it at a blow, gives a yell, and with a grin of delight returns the weapon to its sheath. His jacket is of scarlet satin; his long hair is confined by a gold-embroidered handkerchief; his chawat is of fine white cloth, very long, and richly embroidered—the ends hang down to his knees, he wears behind an apron of panther's skin, trimmed with red cloth and alligator's teeth, and other charms; this hangs from his loins to his knees, and always affords him a dry seat. Tanee's boat is long, made out of one tree, like our river canoes, but much lighter and faster. His cabin is a raised platform in the centre of the boat, covered with a mat, and hung all round with weapons and trophies of war—Kyan fighting-coats of bear and buffalo hides, having head-pieces adorned with beads or shells, shields and spears all gaily decked with Argus' feathers, or human hair dyed red.
"On Sunday we moved from the boats into Palabun's house, and settled ourselves in part of the verandah. After breakfast I doctored the sick, and then we had the morning service, much to the surprise of the natives, who, however, did not disturb us. They sit round us all day, hearing and asking us questions.... Meanwhile the seven hundred menwho came in the flotilla of twenty boats, were busy building the fort. First they pulled down a temporary fort already set up by the Kenowits, and then cut wood to erect a substantial building. Four guns were mounted on the parapet, and there was a house inside for the Malay commandant, and a powder magazine. All the chiefs near Kenowit were assembled when the fort was finished, and had the same kind of address made them as at Sakarran, praising the benefits of peaceful trade instead of the miseries of wasteful war. They all listened with respect. That same afternoon, dismal howlings issued from Palabun's house. His brother, who had left him two years ago with a party of fourteen, to visit a friendly tribe at a distance, had been treacherously murdered. He and his party had been kindly received by their friends, and they had all gone out together on the war-path to seek heads. It is supposed that when they met no one, the hosts had turned on their visitors and taken their heads, rather than return home without any. Palabun vowed vengeance, and the whole tribe go into mourning for three months." (Bishop's Journal.)
A Dyak mourning is not a becoming black costume, made "cheerful," as the dressmakers say, by jet ornaments and bugle trimmings. It consists in the abandonment of all ornament and their usual clothing, and the substitution of a kind of a brown cloth made of the inside bark of trees, which must be as rough and uncomfortable as it is ugly.These people, being Milanows, have peculiar burial customs. They lay the dead in a boat, with all his property and belongings, and send it out to sea; for they imagine that in some way a man's possessions may be of use to him in another world, if no one claims them on earth.
"In this case there was no corpse to bury. The clothes were so disposed on the bier as to represent a figure, and laid beside it were handsome gold cloths and ornaments, gold buttons, krises,[5]and breastplates, and weapons of Javanese manufacture, representing some hundreds of dollars. There were also gongs and two brass guns. Of course the fate of such boat-loads, sent adrift in a tidal river, is generally to be capsized and lost in the water. But if Malays encounter them they do not hesitate to appropriate the effects. Palabun knew this, so he did not send his brother's boat away until our fleet had departed." (Bishop's Journal.)
I remember our once meeting one of these boats. It had been caught by branches from the bank, and swayed idly to and fro in the stream. We could only see a heap of coloured clothes inside it, but there was a weird, ghastly look about the boat which made us shudder. An unburied corpse, left to the winds and waves, without a prayer or a blessing! how could it be otherwise? Even if we could delude ourselves into fancying the Dyaks happy during their lives without Christianity, there can be no doubt of their being miserable whendeath comes. They all believe dimly in a future state, but their dread of spirits is so great that they can have no ideas of happiness unconnected with their bodies. "Having no hope, and without God in the world," describes the mental state of a heathen Dyak. In 1856, we were living for a few weeks on a hill called Peninjauh, some miles from Kuching, where the Rajah had built a cottage as a sanitarium after illness. The cool freshness of the mountain air, and the glorious view from See-afar Cottage, were indeed conducive to health. On the hillsides lived several villages of Land Dyaks, and I had a woman as nurse to my baby who belonged to one of these villages. The cholera was in the country at that time, and three men had died of the Sebumban Dyaks. Every night the most mournful wailing arose above the trees—a sad sound indeed, rising and falling on the wind as the friends of the dead walked all through the jungle paths near their homes, now near to our cottage, now far off. One night I found my little ayah seated in the nursery when she ought to have been in the cook-house getting her supper. "What is the matter, Nina? Are you ill, that you are eating no supper?" "No, I am not ill, but I dare not go to the cook-house to-night." "Why?" "I fear to meet the spirits who are abroad to-night in the jungle." "The spirits of the dead men?" "No, the spirits who come to fetch them." After three days the bodies of these Dyaks were burnt, for this was the custom of the Sebumbans. Thedead man is laid on a pile of wood, and they all sit round watching. Nina said, that when the fire has burnt some time the dead man sits up for a moment, whereupon they all burst into renewed waitings of sorrow and farewell. I am told that the heat swelling the sinews of the dead body may cause this curious phenomenon; but could there be a more mournful, hopeless story of death?
It is a relief to return to the party on the Rejang River. They were much entertained one day with a war-dance between two warriors, which was a graphic pantomime of their customs. "The two men appeared fully armed, and were supposed to be each alone on the war-path, looking out for a head. They moved to the beat of native drums, and seemed to be going through all the motions of looking out for an enemy, pulling out the ranjows (sharp pieces of cane stuck in the earth, point upwards, to lame an enemy). At length they descried one another, danced defiance, and, flourishing swords and shields, commenced the attack. The nimbleness with which they parried every stroke of the sword, and covered their bodies with their shields, was remarkable. In real combat, to strike the shield is certain death, because the sword sticks in the wood and cannot be withdrawn in time to prevent the other man from using his sword. After a time, one of the combatants fell wounded, and covered his body with his shield. The other danced round him triumphantly, and with one blow pretended to cut off his head; then,head in hand, he capered with the wildest gestures, expressive of the very ecstasy of savage delight But, on looking at his trophy closely, he recognized the features of a friend, and, smitten with remorse, he replaced the head with much solicitude. Then, moving with a slow, measured tread, he wept, and with many sighs of grief adjusted the head with much care, caught rain in his shield and poured it over the body; then rubbed and shook the limbs, which by degrees became alive by his mesmeric-like passings and chafings from the feet upwards. Each limb as it revived beat time to the music, first faintly, then with more vigour, till it came to the head; and when that nodded satisfactorily, and the whole body of his friend was in motion, he gave him a few extra shakes, lifted him on his legs, and the scene concluded by their dancing merrily together." (Bishop's Journal.)
Captain Brooke and my husband were a month away on this expedition. They would have liked to pay a visit to Kum Nepa, a Kyan chief, who lived much farther up the river,—six days in a fast Kyan boat, said the Dyaks, ten days in the boats our friends had with them. But Kum Nepa had just lost two children from small-pox, and, according to their custom, he and all his tribe had left their houses and taken to the jungle. The Dyaks dread small-pox to such a degree that, when it appears, they neglect all their usual occupation. The seed is left unsown, the paddy unreaped; they leave the sick to die untended, and supportthemselves in the jungle upon wild fruits and roots, until the scourge has passed away.
From the time we lived at Sarawak a continual effort was made to introduce vaccination. It was difficult to get lymph in good order at so distant a place; the sea voyage often rendered it useless. The other difficulty was made by the Malays, who inoculated for small-pox; and, as they charged the Dyaks a rupee a head for inoculating them, made it answer pecuniarily. Some who were adepts in the art went about the country inoculating until they caused quite an epidemic of small-pox. Now, I believe, the Dyaks have learnt from experience the superior advantages of vaccination, and, by a lateSarawak Gazette, I gather that it is one of the duties of a Resident among the tribes up country to vaccinate his people as well as to judge them wisely.
When the guns were mounted at the fort, and a garrison of seventy men, under Abong Duraup, settled there to guard it, the fleet left the Rejang to return to Sarawak. Captain Brooke had persuaded Palabun to give up his ideas of retaliation for his brother's death, on condition that the Kapuas people who killed him should give satisfaction. The last afternoon was devoted to doctoring the sick and giving them a stock of remedies. One poor man had nearly recovered his eyesight during the week he had been under treatment. So the Sarawak flag was hoisted at the fort and saluted, and after some good advice and renewed promisesfrom the Sakarrans and Kenowits, the boats pulled away to theJolly Bachelor, which had been left at the Serikei River; and a few days afterwards we heard gongs and boat music on the river, and my servant Quangho running into my room called out, "Our Tuan is coming," so we all went down to the stone wharf and welcomed them home. The lameness which had so long hindered my husband from moving about, did not yield to any remedies we applied, and at last we went to Singapore for medical advice. The doctors there sent their patient to China for a cold season, and he spent six weeks at Hongkong with the Bishop of Victoria, and at Canton with other friends, to the advantage of his knee. Afterwards we went together to Malacca, where there was a hot spring bubbling up in a field. Into this spring we put a large tub; and there, in the early morning, Frank used to sit, with no neighbours but the snipe feeding in the field, and, as he had his gun by his side, he occasionally shot some game for breakfast.
In 1853 we went home. My health was very much broken, and my husband was called to England by the necessary transfer of the mission from the Borneo Mission Society, whose funds came to an end, to the venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, who kindly adopted us. We arrived at Southampton one grey November day. I wondered to see the sky so near the earth, and the trees almost like shrubs in height comparedto our Eastern forests. But it was sweet to hear the children speaking English in the streets, and their fair rosy faces were refreshing indeed. I never thought our school-children plain when we were at Sarawak, but the contrast was certainly very great when we looked about us in England.
Footnotes:[5]A kris is a Malay dagger.
Footnotes:
[5]A kris is a Malay dagger.
[5]A kris is a Malay dagger.
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In 1854, after eighteen months' stay in England, during which time my husband worked as deputation for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, we returned to Sarawak,viaCalcutta, in one of Green's sailing vessels, for we were too large a party to afford the overland route.
Besides ourselves and our baby, we had two young ladies who wished to try and teach the Malay women in their homes, and to help with the day-scholars at the mission-house. Only one of these ladies reached Sarawak; the other left us at Calcutta, and married there eventually. The Rev. J. Grayling and Mr. Owen, a schoolmaster, also went with us, and a young friend who was put under my charge, and lived with us for some years on account of his health.
For nurse I had an old Malay woman who had taken some children to England from Singapore, and wanted to return. She was a capital sailor,and always able to carry Mab about however rough the sea was. Nothing could exceed her devotion to the child, but she had contracted a bad habit of always sharing the sailor's grog by day, and requiring a tumbler of hot gin and water before she went to bed. This was a great trouble to me, but I never saw her tipsy till we were staying at the Bishop's palace at Calcutta. Ayah, having been in the bazaar buying presents for her children, was brought back lying senseless in a palanquin. The Bishop, who was in the hall when the bearers set the palanquin down, exclaimed, "Oh! that woman has cholera! take her away."
However, she was kindly cared for by the servants, and appeared the next day without any shame, bringing "a toy for missy." All my lecture was quite thrown away—she "had only taken a glass of grog in the bazaar, and they had put bang into it, so of course it made her insensible; but it was no fault of hers." This curious old woman was a Mahometan, therefore her tipsiness was inexcusable. She practised the habit of alms-giving, however, not only with her own money but mine. She used to say I did nothing in that way for the salvation of my soul, and, as she loved me, she must do it for me. I remember seeing a beggar-woman with twin babies, who used to sit in the streets of Kensington with Mab's bonnets on the babies' heads. Ayah gave them for my sake. Indeed, she was notorious in Kensington, because she could not resist treating boys to ginger-beer,and I sometimes had the mortification of seeing Ayah with a small crowd at her heels, and my baby kissing her little hands to them as Ayah desired her.
We only spent a week in Calcutta. The object of our going there was that the Bishop, in conjunction with Bishop Dealtry of Madras, and Bishop Smith of Victoria, should consecrate my husband Bishop of Labuan; but the Bishops had not reached Calcutta, and their arrival was uncertain. We were anxious to get to Sarawak, and could not wait for them; so it was decided that Frank should return by himself in the autumn, and we should proceed as quickly as we could. Sad news reached us from Kuching. Our dear friend Willie Brereton, who had done so much for the Sakarran Dyaks, was dead of dysentery. There was no medical man when my husband was away.
Our Rajah had been very dangerously ill of small-pox, and had only a Malay doctor, who was devoted but ignorant. Happily Mr. Horsburgh, with medical books to aid him, came to the rescue in time, but the return of the physician of soul and body was much desired. I see, by my journal, that after a weary passage of twenty-four days in a sailing vessel from Singapore, we reached Sarawak on the 25th of April. Mr. Horsburgh came to fetch us from the mouth of the river in the Siam boat, a long boat with a house in it, which the Rajah brought with him from Siam after his embassy to that country. Mr. Horsburgh told us that all thechief Government officers were away, looking for Lanun pirates on the coast; but we had plenty of kind greetings from the Christian Chinese, who came about us in the bazaar, and all the school-children came running down the hill with Mrs. Stahl, who almost screamed for joy at our return. The house looked nicer than ever, for the trees had grown up about it, and I felt most vividly that this was our chosen home, endeared to us by many sorrows, but the place where we had received much blessing from God, and where our work lay, and perhaps some day its reward, in the Church gathered from the heathen into Christ's fold. We were not long alone; the next day Mr. Chambers arrived from Banting with a party of seven baptized Dyaks.
We had brought all sorts of beautiful things from England for the Church. A carpet to lay before the altar, a new altar-cloth, also painted shields for the roof. Our friends in England had furnished us with a box of clothes for the Dyaks, cotton trousers and jackets, and gay handkerchiefs for their heads. We always dressed the Christians for baptism—it was a sign of the new life they professed at the font; but we did not expect them to wear clothes generally, except their own chawats, nor was it to be desired until they knew how to wash them. We had also brought a beautiful magic lantern with a dissolving-view apparatus for our people's amusement and instruction, for some of the slides were painted byMiss Rigaud to illustrate the life of our Lord, and there were many astronomical slides also. All these treasures brought us numerous visitors. The Chinese Christians were all invited to a feast at our house, after which the magic lantern was exhibited, and we were glad to find that our school-children could explain all the Scripture slides quite correctly.
Mr. Horsburgh accompanied Mr. Chambers to Banting that day, to assist him in his work for the Balow Dyaks; and soon after, Mr. Gomes arrived from Lundu with a large party of men and boys; but I have already described their visit. My dear husband went off to Calcutta again in September, and was consecrated Bishop of Labuan on St. Luke's Day, October 18, 1855. Sir James Brooke added Sarawak to his diocese and title on his return; indeed, the small island of Labuan, no larger than the Isle of Wight, was only the English title to a bishopric which was then almost entirely a missionary one. The Straits Settlements, including Singapore, Penang, and Malacca, were then under the Government of India, and Labuan was the only spot of land under the immediate control of the Colonial Office. The Bishop of Calcutta would, from the first, have been glad to part with so distant a portion of his then unwieldy diocese, but it could not at that time be effected. As soon as the Straits Settlements were passed over to the Queen's Government, the Bishop of Labuan became virtually the Bishop of the Straits,and, even long before that, performed all episcopal functions in those settlements; but the title has only lately been altered.
As I was not present at my husband's consecration, I cannot do better than transcribe good Bishop Wilson's letter to the venerable society (S.P.G.), describing the ceremony.
Calcutta, Bishop's Palace, October 22, 1855.Thank God, the consecration took place with complete success on Thursday, October 18th, St. Luke's Day. The Bishop elect arrived some days before, the Bishop of Victoria on the 16th, and Bishop Dealtry (of Madras) on the 17th. The crowded cathedral marked the interest which was excited. We sent out two hundred printed invitations to gentry, besides requesting the clergy to attend in their robes. There were more than eight hundred jammed into the cathedral, and hundreds could not gain admittance. The clergy were thirty. After morning prayer the assistant bishops conducted the elect Bishop to the vestry, where, having attired himself in his rochet, he was presented to me when seated near the Communion table. Her Majesty's mandate was then read, and the commission of his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury. The several oaths were next duly administered by the registrar of the diocese. The Litany was devoutly read by the Bishop of Madras, and afterwards the examination of the candidate took place. I should have said that the sermon followed[111]the Nicene Creed. It was by the Bishop of Madras, the text being taken from 2 Tim. i. 6, 7:—"Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."The Bishop has consented at my request to print the discourse, which I shall have the pleasure of sending copies of for the Archbishop and yourself, I was gratified at observing that the text is taken from the solemn words used at the very act itself of consecration. After the examination, the Bishop returned to the vestry to put on the rest of the episcopal dress; and as the vestry in the cathedral is at the west end of the building, he had to pass down the one hundred and twenty feet conducting to it, with the eyes and hearts of the congregation fixed upon him with wonder and pleasure. On his return, the "Veni, Creator Spiritus" was sung, each alternate line being answered by the Bishops and clergy, with the accompaniment of our fine organ. After the appointed prayers, which are directed to follow this hymn, the imposition of hands took place, and the words of the consecration pronounced by myself as presiding metropolitan. The Bible was next placed in his hands, with the admirable exhortation prescribed—an exhortation which I think incomparable and almost inspired, as indeed the whole service is. The collection at the offertory was made for the[112]Sarawak Mission, and above five hundred C. rupees collected. The whole service concluded with the Holy Communion of the body and blood of Christ.The new Bishop preached at St. Thomas's Church on Sunday, the 21st, for his mission; and a single gentleman contributed one thousand C. rupees. He will preach at the cathedral on the 28th, when something more will be gathered. The Bishop of Madras has presented the four hundred rupees of his voyage expenses, from Madras to Calcutta and back, to the same blessed cause. I have had three breakfast parties (for I don't give dinners) to meet the Bishop, of about forty each, on the day after the consecration, and on Saturday, and this morning, and the addresses made by Bishops Dealtry and Smith were most warmly received. Thus has this great occasion passed off—the first consecration, I believe, that has ever taken place out of England since the glorious Reformation, and perhaps the first missionary Bishop sent out by our Church; unless the Bishop of Mauritius may be considered as having preceded him.It was, indeed, a singular event that four Protestant Bishops should meet in the heart of heathen India, amidst one hundred and fifty millions of idolaters and worshippers of the false Prophet.God be praised for this completion of episcopal functions in India!Daniel Calcutta.
Calcutta, Bishop's Palace, October 22, 1855.
Thank God, the consecration took place with complete success on Thursday, October 18th, St. Luke's Day. The Bishop elect arrived some days before, the Bishop of Victoria on the 16th, and Bishop Dealtry (of Madras) on the 17th. The crowded cathedral marked the interest which was excited. We sent out two hundred printed invitations to gentry, besides requesting the clergy to attend in their robes. There were more than eight hundred jammed into the cathedral, and hundreds could not gain admittance. The clergy were thirty. After morning prayer the assistant bishops conducted the elect Bishop to the vestry, where, having attired himself in his rochet, he was presented to me when seated near the Communion table. Her Majesty's mandate was then read, and the commission of his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury. The several oaths were next duly administered by the registrar of the diocese. The Litany was devoutly read by the Bishop of Madras, and afterwards the examination of the candidate took place. I should have said that the sermon followed[111]the Nicene Creed. It was by the Bishop of Madras, the text being taken from 2 Tim. i. 6, 7:—
"Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."
"Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."
The Bishop has consented at my request to print the discourse, which I shall have the pleasure of sending copies of for the Archbishop and yourself, I was gratified at observing that the text is taken from the solemn words used at the very act itself of consecration. After the examination, the Bishop returned to the vestry to put on the rest of the episcopal dress; and as the vestry in the cathedral is at the west end of the building, he had to pass down the one hundred and twenty feet conducting to it, with the eyes and hearts of the congregation fixed upon him with wonder and pleasure. On his return, the "Veni, Creator Spiritus" was sung, each alternate line being answered by the Bishops and clergy, with the accompaniment of our fine organ. After the appointed prayers, which are directed to follow this hymn, the imposition of hands took place, and the words of the consecration pronounced by myself as presiding metropolitan. The Bible was next placed in his hands, with the admirable exhortation prescribed—an exhortation which I think incomparable and almost inspired, as indeed the whole service is. The collection at the offertory was made for the[112]Sarawak Mission, and above five hundred C. rupees collected. The whole service concluded with the Holy Communion of the body and blood of Christ.
The new Bishop preached at St. Thomas's Church on Sunday, the 21st, for his mission; and a single gentleman contributed one thousand C. rupees. He will preach at the cathedral on the 28th, when something more will be gathered. The Bishop of Madras has presented the four hundred rupees of his voyage expenses, from Madras to Calcutta and back, to the same blessed cause. I have had three breakfast parties (for I don't give dinners) to meet the Bishop, of about forty each, on the day after the consecration, and on Saturday, and this morning, and the addresses made by Bishops Dealtry and Smith were most warmly received. Thus has this great occasion passed off—the first consecration, I believe, that has ever taken place out of England since the glorious Reformation, and perhaps the first missionary Bishop sent out by our Church; unless the Bishop of Mauritius may be considered as having preceded him.
It was, indeed, a singular event that four Protestant Bishops should meet in the heart of heathen India, amidst one hundred and fifty millions of idolaters and worshippers of the false Prophet.
God be praised for this completion of episcopal functions in India!
Daniel Calcutta.
I must add to this graphic letter a note which the venerable Bishop wrote to my husband, November 6th of the same year.
Tennasarim, Bishop's Cabin.My Beloved Rev. Bishop of Labuan,Whether to write to you by the pilot or not I can hardly tell. However, I am so anxious for your beginning well at Singapore and Sarawak, and so responsible also from having consecrated you to the Lord, that I must write. I have taken the liberty with you which Mr. Cecil took with me in 1801, to caution you, now you are a chief pastor and a father in God, against excessive hilarity of spirits. There is a mild gravity, with occasional tokens of delight and pleasure, becoming your sacred character, not noisy mirth.I met with a letter of a minister, now with God, to a brother minister, who was about to take his duty for a time, which I think will give you pleasure. "Take heed tothyself; your own soul is your first and greatest concern. You know that a sound body alone can work with power; much more a healthy soul. Keep a clear conscience through the blood of the Lamb. Keep up close communion with God. Study likeness to Him in all things. Read the Bible for your own growth first, then for your people. Expound much; it is through the truth that souls are to be sanctified, not through essays upon the truth. You will not find many companions; be the more with God. Be of good[114]courage, there remaineth much land to be possessed. Be not dismayed, for Christ shall be with you to deliver you. I am often sore cast down; but the Eternal God is my refuge. Now farewell; the Lord make you a faithful steward." If we do not meet again in the flesh, may we meet, never to part, before the throne of the Great Redeemer!I am your affectionateD. Calcutta.
Tennasarim, Bishop's Cabin.
My Beloved Rev. Bishop of Labuan,
Whether to write to you by the pilot or not I can hardly tell. However, I am so anxious for your beginning well at Singapore and Sarawak, and so responsible also from having consecrated you to the Lord, that I must write. I have taken the liberty with you which Mr. Cecil took with me in 1801, to caution you, now you are a chief pastor and a father in God, against excessive hilarity of spirits. There is a mild gravity, with occasional tokens of delight and pleasure, becoming your sacred character, not noisy mirth.
I met with a letter of a minister, now with God, to a brother minister, who was about to take his duty for a time, which I think will give you pleasure. "Take heed tothyself; your own soul is your first and greatest concern. You know that a sound body alone can work with power; much more a healthy soul. Keep a clear conscience through the blood of the Lamb. Keep up close communion with God. Study likeness to Him in all things. Read the Bible for your own growth first, then for your people. Expound much; it is through the truth that souls are to be sanctified, not through essays upon the truth. You will not find many companions; be the more with God. Be of good[114]courage, there remaineth much land to be possessed. Be not dismayed, for Christ shall be with you to deliver you. I am often sore cast down; but the Eternal God is my refuge. Now farewell; the Lord make you a faithful steward." If we do not meet again in the flesh, may we meet, never to part, before the throne of the Great Redeemer!
I am your affectionate
D. Calcutta.
After my husband's consecration, he undertook a confirmation tour for Bishop Wilson, at the mission stations around Calcutta. He also consecrated a church at Midnapore in South Bengal. In December, after four month's absence, he returned to Sarawak.
Our party in the mission-house during his absence consisted of a chaplain, a missionary lady learning Malay and teaching the girls' school, our young friend Mr. Grant, myself, and baby Mab. The days ran along a smooth groove, although we had all plenty to do. Up early in the morning, then a walk, and service in church at seven. After prayers some hours' teaching and learning before midday bath and breakfast. The afternoon was a more lazy time, though the hum of school went on continuously, while we did our sewing and reading in the coolest corners we could find. The new school-house, in which all the boys, the Stahls, and Mr. Owen, the schoolmaster, lived, was near enough to the mission-house for us to know the hourof the day by the lesson going on at the time; for all the younger boys repeated their multiplication tables in a loud voice together (in Malay), also their Chinese reading; then came the singing, rounds and part-songs, the most popular lesson of all. At four o'clock the school broke up. The children amused themselves as English boys do. There was a season for marbles, for hop-scotch, for tops, and for kites. Above all, do Chinese children love kites, and are most ingenious in making them. They cut thin paper into the shapes of birds, fish, or butterflies, and stretch it over thin slips of the spine of the cocoa-nut leaf, then they ornament it with bits of red or blue paper, and fasten it together with a pinch of boiled rice. The string is the most expensive part, and two pennyworth lasts many kites, for they are very frail affairs, and in that land of trees do not long escape being caught, though they fly beautifully. Miss J—— had a cockatoo which amused her and the little girls during sewing-class. He was a beautiful bird with a rosy crest, but extremely mischievous. To sharpen his beak he notched all the Venetian shutters in the verandahs; and if he spied a looking-glass, flew at it in a rage and broke it: fortunately there were no large mirrors in the house. These birds look very pretty perching in the trees, and this one became tame enough to be trusted out of doors, but they are bad inmates.
We had also a chicken-yard for Alan's amusement, and great were our difficulties in preserving the nests from rats, who ate the eggs. If we placedthe nests on a high shelf, these creatures managed to shove the eggs out of the nests so that they fell broken on the floor all ready for their supper. At last we circumvented them by slinging the nests by long rattans from the roof.
At five o'clock another short service took place in church. In the evening we read aloud to one another, while the rest sewed or drew.
This tranquil, even monotonous life was very much to my taste in my husband's absence, but after a few weeks it was disturbed by sad trials. First, the chaplain had a sunstroke, and fell out with the climate, the place, and some members of our little society; so he went to Singapore, and from thence to England. When we were recovering from this blow, and had again settled down into our usual ways, a worse trial befell me.
One morning Miss J—— did not appear at early breakfast, and little Mary, who waited upon her in her room, said she was sound asleep and did not wake when she opened the shutters. I thought nothing of it at first, for Miss J—— sometimes sat up late at night; but an hour afterwards, I went into her room and looked at her. Her breathing was so laboured I thought she was in a fit; and first I tried to put leeches on her temples, but they would not bite, and we resolved to carry her into the fresh breeze in the verandah, for the air of the room seemed laden with something close and stifling. When I threw back the covering of the bed, I perceived that the veins of both arms had been cut,and a few drops of blood stained her night-dress; also there was a small empty bottle in the bed with "Laudanum" on its label. The terrible truth was evident—she had taken poison and tried to bleed herself to death! Probably the action of the laudanum prevented any flow of blood, yet the few drops may have relieved the brain. The horror of this discovery nearly deprived me of my senses; but there was no time for lamentation—she was not dead, thank God, and all our efforts must be used to restore her to life. We were very ignorant, but we did all we could think of. There was no doctor to apply to, only the chemist who served the dispensary. He gave medicine which was certainly very strong, and we put mustard plasters on her legs. By the evening she was sensible enough to take some food, but for a week there was serious illness, and it was a long time before I could ask my poor friend why she had done this thing. She had left me a letter to read in the event of her death, but of course I never read it. We were very much together, but I had not thought her unhappy; indeed the only reason she ever gave me for so hating her life was, that she could not learn Malay, and did not think she should be any use as a missionary. This despondency was known to me, but I had no idea it cut so deep. Miss J—— had a great deal of quiet fun—she often amused us by her clever and somewhat caustic remarks. But Sarawak was too monotonous a life for her. When, some weeks afterwards, she had quite regainedthe balance of her mind, she went to Singapore, and became a very useful member of society for many years before she died. I never felt that I could judge her, for I had so much more to occupy my mind and interest my heart than my companion. There was baby in the first place, and the responsibilities of the school and mission naturally fell to my share. No doubt it requires an even temperament to live contentedly without society, and with only such excitement as daily duties and the beauties of nature afford. Yet these are full of infinite happiness, and we were not without friends, although we had no company: the little party at Government House, as it was then called, were very agreeable and uniformly kind. It is, however, a common mistake to imagine that the life of a missionary is an exciting one. On the contrary, its trial lies in its monotony. The uneventful day, mapped out into hours of teaching and study, sleep, exercise, and religious duties; the constant society of natives whose minds are like those of children, and who do not sympathize with your English ideas; the sameness of the climate, which even precludes discourse about the weather,—all this, added to the distance from relations and friends at home, combined with the enervating effects of a hot climate, causes heaviness of spirits and despondency to single men and women. Married people have not the same excuse; for besides duty and nature, they have "one friend who loves them best," and that ought to be enough for the mostexacting temperament. I say nothing about the comforts of religion—they are the portion of all, married or single; still some spirits become so sensitive in solitude that they are not able to take the cheerful side, even of their relation to their Heavenly Father, and these are generally the most reserved to their companions. I am glad to find that missionaries are now seldom sent alone to any station, and women are more often associated in sisterhoods for mission work under our colonial Bishops, so that they have the society and sympathy of English ladies after the toils of the day. I felt much discouraged after Miss J—— left me, and afraid of urging any one to follow in her place; but at last a cousin of my husband's came out to us, and as she enjoyed the climate, and delighted in the place and people, declaring that she had never been more happy in her life than with us, I consoled myself that it was not all the fault of Sarawak and the mission-house that poor Miss J—— could not live there.