Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak Part 8

Most of these were recaptured and returned to Muka. On reckoning up, it was found that one hundred and sixty-five people had been rescued, and perhaps one hundred and fifty or two hundred had got away from the vessels sunk on sh.o.r.e. In every pirate prahu were from forty to fifty Illanuns, and from sixty to seventy captives, many of whom were killed by the pirates when they found themselves beaten, among them two women.

Nine women and six children were saved; seven of the women belonged to Muka or Oya. Of the Illanuns, thirty-two were taken alive; ten of these were boys. Some died afterwards of their wounds; some were taken to Kuching in irons, there tried, and some of them executed. They died the death of murderers; but Captain Brooke gave the boys to respectable people to bring up, hoping they might be reformed. We had one young fellow, about fourteen years old, when he had been cured of his wounds in the hospital. I kept him about me, and used to teach him; but he could not be tamed. He turned Mahometan, and left us to be employed at the fort; but there he stole money, and had to be sent elsewhere. The nature of an Illanun pirate seems almost unmixed evil, because they are taught to be cruel from their childhood.

There were two circ.u.mstances in this affray with the Illanuns which called for thankfulness on the part of the victors. First, that they met the pirates in two detachments, which enabled them to attack them successfully, without the danger of their boarding the steamer, which, from their numbers, would have been fatal to the little party on board the _Rainbow_. Secondly, that their ammunition lasted through the two engagements. It was quite finished; only a little loose powder in a barrel, and a few broken cartridges, remained when the last prahus were taken. Had they fallen in with another fleet, they would have been at their mercy. Almost while I write these last words, we have received a letter from the present Rajah of Sarawak--Charles Johnson Brooke. He says, "I have heard this morning that one of our schooners has been captured by the Sooloo pirates, and the crew murdered." The last twenty years have not therefore altered the character of these people, and their extermination seems the only remedy for the misery they inflict on their fellow creatures.

CHAPTER XVII.

A MALAY WEDDING.

MY DARLING MAB,

I am sitting in a darkened room, while Mildred is having her day sleep; and as I am thinking of you, I may as well begin a letter for next mail. Last week I went to a Malay wedding, the first I ever attended, although I have been here so many years. It amused me very much; so I shall try to describe it to you.

Early in the morning the bridegroom's friends came to beg flowers from our garden. Then papa told them I would go to the wedding, and they said, "Be sure not to be later than twelve o'clock." Accordingly, Mr. and Mrs. Ricketts, the British Consul and his wife, Mr. Zehnder, and I set off in two boats, after eleven o'clock breakfast; but we need not have got there before two o'clock.

Eastern people set little value on time. They would just as soon sit cross-legged on the floor smoking for three hours as for one. The bride is the daughter of one of the first merchants in the place, Nakodah Sadum, and the bridegroom is the grandson of the old Datu Tumangong, whom you may remember. A handsome young man is Matussim, and enlightened, for a Malay. He made his betrothed a present of his photograph last year. Formerly Malays objected to having their portraits taken, fancying it a breach of the second commandment.

The bride's father's house was gay with flags and streamers, and in front of it lay, by the river's brink, four small cannon, which had been busy, for days before and all that morning, saluting the occasion. We walked up into the house, which was full of guests. A long verandah, lined with hadjis and elders, all smoking and talking, led to the princ.i.p.al room, which, unlike any Malay house before built in Sarawak, had large Venetian-shuttered doors all round, and was therefore cool and airy. There was a little round table, and some armchairs covered with white mats for the expected guests, in the middle of the room. Sadum and his wife came forward and greeted us very cordially, and then we were told to sit down on the chairs. I looked about for the bride, and saw a crowd of women in one corner, and a boy holding a gilt umbrella over the young lady, who was being shaved. A woman with a razor was shearing her eyebrows into a delicate line, and all round her forehead tr.i.m.m.i.n.g disorderly hairs. Four women, seated on their heels in front of her, were fidgeting over her face; she, impa.s.sive as a log in their hands. A vast deal of singing and drumming went on all the time, a row of musicians keeping it up all round the room. The girl was washed; then her hair, magnificent black hair down to her heels, knotted in two great bows on either side of her head. Over these, gold ornaments like wings were fixed, and a little tower of gold bells above them. Then the women painted a black band round her forehead, and added a silver edge to it, also painted. Her eyebrows were likewise touched up, and her skin rubbed all over with yellow powder. Poor child! she was a curious figure by the time it was all finished, and her skin must have felt painfully stiff. She was then attired in very handsome silk robes, ornamented with solid gold, and the attendants carried her to a raised dais or bed-place at one end of the room. There she sat, not daring to lift her eyes until the bridegroom's arrival.

The divan was gorgeous with silk curtains and cus.h.i.+ons embroidered with gold thread and embossed with tinsel ornaments, the work of the bride herself. The seat for the bridegroom was somewhat higher and larger than the bride's. At last the bridegroom approached in a large barge, which held about two hundred people. A small boat preceded it with three guns, which kept up a deafening noise as he drew near. He was carried up the steps, and the house door was shut to in his face, according to the Malay custom. Then he begged admittance very humbly, and after paying a fee of five dollars, was admitted. His followers rush in first--such a clatter! Greetings, welcomes, jokes, and laughter, make a Babel of noise; everybody speaking at once.

Then a cloth was laid down for the bridegroom to pa.s.s over, and he was pulled with apparent reluctance into the room, panting and shutting his eyes as if exhausted. His head was wreathed with Indian jessamine. He was naked to the waist, except a gold scarf over one shoulder; otherwise he had plenty of gold and red silk about him. He was pulled up to the bride, turning his head away as if he was ashamed to look at her, and dropped a red silk handkerchief over her face for a moment. Then he sat down on the divan, and all the old women of both houses sprinkled the couple with yellow rice, and rubbed their foreheads with some charm, which looked like a bit of stone and a nutmeg-grater, and wished them all kinds of luck--but especially that they might be the parents of _sons_ only. After the young people had endured this long enough, the curtains were let down round the dais, and only two or three old women kept going in and out. We found they were taking off all the finery, and dressing the bride and bridegroom in their usual clothes; for while we were drinking coffee and eating Malay cakes at the little table, they came out from the curtains, looking quite pleasant and natural. So we shook hands, made our congratulations, and bade them adieu. We got home at four o'clock, very hot and tired, and papa laughed at us for going; but I was glad I did for once in a way.

A wedding is a very serious expense to Malays of any rank. The bridegroom has to make settlements on the bride, and the bride's father has to keep open house for weeks, besides fees to the hadjis, and gunpowder _ad libitum_. The religious part of the ceremony is enacted some days before the marriage. One day papa was calling at a Malay house, where a wedding was about to take place, and found the bridegroom learning a pa.s.sage in the Koran, in Arabic, which he could not translate, but which it was necessary he should repeat. A hadji was standing by, driving the words into his head. The hadji could not translate it either; but the Koran may only be read in Arabic, lest it should be desecrated. Sometimes papa would read a chapter to any Malay who desired to understand the meaning of his sacred book; but they were generally content with learning it as a charm, or certain parts of it.

The Rajah often made a present of an ox for a great man's wedding. This was a great help, for many dishes of curry could be made out of so much meat. When we wished for some meat at Christmas and Easter, we sent for the Mahometan butcher to kill the animal. He turned its head towards Mecca, repeated prayers over him, and then cut his throat in such a way that no drop of blood was left in the flesh; for the Malays hold to the Jewish law in that as well as many other particulars. Then the people would buy whatever beef we did not want ourselves; but not otherwise.

This is a long letter, but as I am on the subject of weddings, I may as well tell you about a Chinese wedding we had the other day at our house. The bridegroom was Akiat, a carpenter, about six feet two inches high. He was dressed in whity-brown silk, which made him look like a tall spectre; and the bride was Quey Ginn, a fat, dumpy little girl of sixteen, the Chinese deacon's daughter, and one of my scholars. She did not choose her old husband of fifty years, but her parents arranged it, and Akiat paid one hundred dollars for his wife. I went to see her the day before the wedding, and she showed me all her clothes and ornaments; but I thought she did not look as if she cared for them. So I whispered, "Are you happy, child?" "No, not at all,"

burst out Quey Ginn. "I don't want to be married and leave my parents." Whereupon I could not help taking her in my arms and comforting her, telling her to be a good wife, and she would soon learn to be content. She has been to visit me since her marriage, and I am amused to see that she is quite a little woman, instead of the shy girl she used to be; and, whereas as a girl she was never allowed to be seen in the streets, or even to go to church, she now does exactly as she likes, and, I am happy to say, comes regularly to church. These people were all sincere Christians. Akiat was the Chinese churchwarden, and, as papa esteemed them very highly, he allowed the breakfast to take place at our house.

I had a cake made for the occasion, which Quey Ginn cut up with much pleasure. The ring in it fell to Mr. Zehnder's share, which amused him also. Good-bye.

It was this year, 1865, that Mr. Waterhouse, the chaplain of Singapore, came to visit us. The doctors often sent us a patient or friend to be under the Bishop's care, and for rest and change; the latter was the cause of Mr. Waterhouse's visit, and six weeks of jungle life did him good, while his society and sympathy were a great pleasure to us, the Bishop especially. The Bishop took him to visit the different mission stations, and he often spoke to me with satisfaction of the "real mission work" he witnessed at Banting, Lundu, and the Quop. At each of these stations he found a consecrated church and a community of Christian people; whilst the missionaries set over them, not only instructed and ministered to the tribe among whom they lived, but journeyed to outlying places, founding branch missions and setting catechists to work under them. I find in one of my letters, when Mr.

Waterhouse returned from Banting, he said, "I cannot but admire the patience with which Mr. Chambers talks all day, morning, noon, and night, to every party of Dyaks, who march into the house whenever they like, making it quite their home: it is what very few people could do day after day." This is the trial of Dyak teaching. You cannot appoint specific hours for instruction. People come when they can, sometimes long distances. They can never be denied, except you are actually at meals, and then they sit down and wait till the eating is over. Here is a programme of a day at Banting:--

By seven in the morning Mr. Chambers goes to one or another Dyak house to teach. These houses contain many families under one roof. The people understand now that teaching is the sole object of Mr. Chambers' visit, so, when he enters, all who are at leisure gather round him. He returns home to eleven o'clock breakfast. After breakfast his school of boys occupies him for the afternoon; but every party of Dyaks who come in must be listened to, and, if they are willing, instructed, taught a prayer, a hymn, a parable, or some Scripture lesson. This goes on till five o'clock, when the bell calls them to daily prayers, and they all walk together down the beautiful jungle avenue to the pretty church. A short service, in which the Dyaks respond heartily, and a catechizing follows, during which they are allowed to ask questions of their teacher. Then an hour's rest before dinner. But immediately after dinner more Dyaks, sometimes a whole house, _i.e._ forty or fifty persons, come in, and have coffee, and pictures, and a lecture. All this does not happen every day, but most days during what we call the working season, from March till October, and no doubt so much talking and so little leisure is very fatiguing. But then comes the harvest, and afterwards the wet monsoon, and the schools fall off, and the Dyaks no longer come from a distance to be taught. It is sufficiently dull and lonely then in the jungle stations. The sea runs too high for boats to bring mails, or books, or provisions; the rain falls heavily, and with little intermission, and food becomes scarce. Mrs. Chambers told me that the prayer for daily bread, which seems to us to relate to the daily needs of our souls for the bread and water of life, bore a literal meaning to them in the north-east monsoon, when the day's food was by no means certain. Rice they had, it is true; but English people get nearly starved upon rice alone, without fish, meat, or bread. It was therefore with sincere thankfulness that they welcomed a chicken, however skinny, in that season.

After the Banting expedition, the Bishop took Mr. Waterhouse to Lundu, and Mr. Hawkins, a missionary lately come out, went with them. They arrived on a Sat.u.r.day. On Sunday there was a great gathering of Christian Dyaks: fifty-two people were confirmed, eighty received the Holy Communion, so that they were more than three hours in church, the Bishop preaching to them in Malay. On Monday Mr. Waterhouse and Mr.

Hawkins paid a visit to a beautiful waterfall, about two miles from the town; and on Tuesday all the party, Mr. Gomez included, went in boats forty miles up the river Lundu, with three hundred Dyaks, to tuba fish.

The Bishop had paid the Dyaks to collect tuba the week before. It is a plant found in the jungle, the root of which washed in water makes a milky-looking poison. It does not make the fish unwholesome to eat, only intoxicates them for the time, so that they rise floundering about on the surface of the water, but it destroys human life, and is the poison chosen by Dyaks who commit suicide, though I do not believe that this crime is common among them.

When the party had ascended the river far enough, the Dyaks built a hut for the English to sleep in. They made a floor of logs of wood, spread over with the bark of trees, which, beaten down hard, made a capital mattress on which to lay their mats and pillows. The kajangs (leaf mats) off the boat made some shelter from the weather, although it takes a good deal to keep Borneo rain out! The Dyaks were much too busy to go to sleep at all: they drove stakes all across the river to secure their fish, then they beat out the tuba in the bottom of their boats. It took all night, by the light of torches, to do this; and a wild sight it was, in the midst of the solemn old jungle. Very early in the morning, when the tide was at its lowest ebb, they put the tuba into the river; the flood coming up, and bringing plenty of fish, encountered this intoxicating milk, and carried over the stakes a whole shoal of dead and tipsy fish. Then the Dyaks, darting about in little boats, speared the big fishes, and caught the small ones in landing-nets.

Hundreds of fish were caught, and the Dyaks had a grand feast; also, they salted quant.i.ties, in their nasty way--pounding the fish up, letting it turn sour, and then packing it into bamboos with salt, as a relish to eat with their rice. Certainly it has a strong flavour! They all camped two nights in the jungle, then returned to Lundu, and reached Sarawak in the yacht _f.a.n.n.y_, after an absence of ten days. We had a visit from H.M.S. _Scout_ about this time, and one day sat down sixteen to dinner in the mission-house, some of the officers having come up to spend the day. It is difficult to improvise a dinner in a country where no joints of meat are to be had, unless you kill an ox for the purpose.

Sheep there are none. A capon or goose, or a sucking pig, are the only big dishes, and not always to be had. However, we did very well, and our visitors were delighted with Sarawak, and with the schoolboys' singing; for I had them up to sing glees and rounds, and "Rule Britannia," after dinner. Captain Corbett was so pleased with the little fellows that he invited them all to see the s.h.i.+p the next morning. Accordingly our largest boat took the choir down very early to Morotabas, where the _Scout_ lay, and Captain Corbett took them all over it himself, even down to the screw chamber. The boys had never seen so large a man-of-war before (1600 tons), so they were delighted. Some Dyaks who went with them were much terrified lest they should be carried off to sea, for the captain ordered "up anchor," that the boys might see how it was done, and then sent them off the last minute. They came home in high glee.

Only those who live at the ends of the earth can tell what a pleasure and refreshment is a little visit from her Majesty's s.h.i.+ps from time to time. The whiff of English air they bring with them, and the hearty English enthusiasm which has not had time to evaporate, is most reviving.

Many Chinese Christians returned to China this summer. I hope they carried the good seed of the word of life with them. They are only birds of pa.s.sage at Sarawak: when they grow rich they prefer to spend their money in their native country. Our Chinese deacon took his family for a visit to their Chinese relations. Even the married daughter went with them; and a few days afterwards, Akiat, her husband, came to tell me that he was so wretched without his wife, that he should go to Singapore for the few months of her absence, to while away the time, and he meant to have a nice new house ready for her on her return.

Voon Yen Knoon deserved a holiday, certainly, for he worked hard among his countrymen, besides teaching every day in the school. Three evenings every week were devoted to the instruction of the Chinese, at the mission-house. Two distinct languages were spoken by the different tribes of Chinese who had settled at Sarawak. They could not be taught together. The people of the Kay tribe came on one evening, the Hokien another, each having their own interpreter. On the third evening the interpreters were instructed in the lessons for the following week. On these nights our long dining-room was full of Chinamen, and a large tray of tiny cups of tea was carried in, and consumed before the teaching began.

CHAPTER XVIII.

LAST YEARS AT SARAWAK.

Mr. Chalmers' Merdang Dyaks once said to him, "See how many races of people there are: Dyaks, Malays, Klings, Chinese, English. They have all different religions: this is proper, for G.o.d has given to each the religion suited to them."

I remembered this ingenious remark when I was reading Mr. Helms's interesting book, just published, "Pioneering in the Far East." He says: "Like most barbarous and savage nations, the Dyak identifies his G.o.ds and spirits with the great phenomena of nature, and a.s.signs them abodes on the lofty mountains. Though, in his opinion, all spirits are not equally malignant, all are more or less to be dreaded. The silent surroundings of primaeval forests in which the Dyak spends most of his time, the mountains, the gloomy caves, often looming mysteriously through cloud and mist, predispose him to identify them with supernatural influences, which in his imagination take the form of monsters and genii. With no better guide than the untutored imagination of a mind which in religious matters is a blank, who shall wonder that this is so? I have myself often felt the influences of such surroundings, when dark clouds deepened the forest gloom, and the approaching storm set the trees whispering: if, at such a moment, the s.h.a.ggy red-haired and goblin form of the orang-outang, with which some of the Dyaks identify their genii, should appear among the branches, it requires little imagination to people the mystic gloom with unearthly beings."

Mr. Helms is quite right--the religion which springs from circ.u.mstance and surrounding nature is always one of fear; evil is so close to the heart of man that the very elements and mysteries of nature seem his enemies, so long as he is ignorant of the love of G.o.d. The great creating Spirit, whose existence is acknowledged by all Dyaks, inspires them with neither love nor trust; it is only malign spirits who are active, who concern themselves with his affairs, and threaten his happiness and prosperity, and who must therefore be propitiated. What a different aspect his native woods must present to the Christian Dyak, who can look around without fear, and believe that his Heavenly Father made all these things! You would imagine that Christianity would be welcomed as a deliverance from such superst.i.tion; but here the apathy of long habit raises a barrier. The Dyak who professed to think his dismal religion was given him by G.o.d, was probably too intellectually idle to think at all. "What you say is most likely true, but we have received our belief from our forefathers, and it is good enough for us," is the common remark of the Land Dyak. This listlessness was perhaps originally caused by oppression and misery, a hard life and cruel masters. In the days we knew these people they had a sad and patient expression in their faces, as if they could not forget the time when they were ground down by Malay extortion, and despoiled by stronger, more warlike tribes. The present generation may have more spirit, more independence, and the blessings of peace and liberty may leave their minds more open to the light of truth. It is, however, interesting to note how different races of men develop different religious beliefs, and how these Dyaks intuitively perceive spirit through matter, and are governed, however blindly and ignorantly, by the powers of the unseen world.

The orang-outang, or wild man, in not very commonly met in the jungle. I have seen the trees alive with monkeys, but never met an orang-outang at liberty. The Dyaks may well be afraid of them if it is true, as they say, that if one of these monsters attacks a man, he picks his flesh off his bones like a cook plucking a chicken. They are immensely powerful, but once caged are gentle enough. Their one desire in confinement is clothing, why I cannot tell; large-sized monkeys always wrapped themselves in any bit of cloth they could find, partly in imitation of their keepers, and perhaps also because they are very chilly creatures, and, deprived of their usual violent gymnastics, suffered from cold. A Chinaman had a female orang in his shop while we were at Sarawak, who took a violent liking to the Bishop, and always expected to be noticed when he pa.s.sed the shop. Then she would kiss and fondle his hand; but if he forgot to speak to "Jemima," she went into a pa.s.sion, screamed, and dashed about her cage.

I never allowed any kind of monkey to be kept at the mission-house. We had too many children on the premises, and they are jealous and uncertain in their behaviour to children. Indeed I always regretted their being either shot or caged--they enjoy life so intensely in the jungle, and are so amusing, swinging themselves from the branches of tall trees, leaping, flying almost, in pursuit of one another for mere fun, that it was sad to put them in prison, where they never lived long, and where they only exhibited a ludicrous and humiliating parody on the habits of mankind.

There was a race of monkeys at Sarawak called by the natives "Unkah,"

from the noise they made, but which we called Noseys, for they had long noses which fell over their mouths, so that the large males had to lift their noses with one hand, while they put food into their mouths with the other. When we first lived in the country, and were anxious to send specimens of every new and curious thing to England, my husband shot one of these large monkeys for the sake of his skin, but he was so distressed at the look the beast gave him when he felt himself hit, he was so like his own uncle in England, who had rather a red face and long nose, that he resolved never again to shoot a monkey. This ape was clothed in long brown fur, while his legs were encased in much shorter hair of a tan colour, which gave the idea of leather breeches. I once saw a monkey's nest in a high tree. The tree was very bare of leaf or the nest might have escaped notice. It was formed of big sticks laid in a strong fork of the branches; and whether it was lined with anything softer could not be seen from below, but the sticks stuck out, covering a large s.p.a.ce, which had no appearance of comfort or snugness.

The one monkey I liked, and that at a distance, was the wa-wa, whose voice was very sweet and melodious, like the soft bubbling of water; but it was a very melancholy animal, and never seemed to possess the fun and trickishness of the more common sorts of ape. They are all delicate and difficult to rear, and invariably die of over-eating, or rather eating what is unwholesome for them, if they have a chance. It seems as if, in approaching the form of man, they lost the instinct of the brute. It was a great addition to the pleasures of life in Sarawak that there were no wild beasts to be feared in the jungles. When we were once staying at Malacca, and, for the sake of a natural hot spring, inhabited a little bungalow in the country, we were always liable to encounter a tiger in our walks; on Penang Hill, also, there was a large tiger staying in the woods. During one of our visits, we tracked his footsteps in a cave on the hill; and he carried off a calf from a gentleman's cow-house near us--at another time a pony from a neighbour's stable. Tigers do not, however, live at Penang: they occasionally swim over the strait from Joh.o.r.e, opposite the island, if driven by hunger. The natives made deep pits to catch them, with bamboo spears at the bottom to transfix them when they fall in. On one occasion a French Roman Catholic missionary fell into one of these tiger-pits, and remained there, starved and wounded, for three days before he was discovered. He was a very good man, and gave a wonderful account of his happiness, his visions of heavenly bliss while dying in that slow torture, for he was too far gone to be restored. He died rejoicing that he had known what it was to suffer with Christ.

The last two years of our life at Sarawak, the Bishop's health failed and caused me much anxiety. The long jungle walks, which were so necessary in getting about from one mission to another, became more and more difficult to him. Often he had to stop and lie down under a tree till the palpitation of his heart abated; repeated attacks of Labuan fever affected his liver; and our friends often warned us that we ought to go home to save his life. The interest of the different missions increased so much at this time, that it seemed hard to give up a post in which many trials and disappointments had been lived through, just as success seemed about to reward the years of patient labour. The peace and harmony of the mission was greatly promoted, the last three years of our stay, by an annual meeting of the clergy with their bishop. They came from their different rivers to spend a week at the mission-house, and for certain hours of each day met in the church to discuss missionary operations, Church discipline, religious terms, translations, etc. It was very desirable there should be no diversity of opinion in these matters, but that the different missions should have the same plans, uses, and customs. And these meetings, besides the importance of the subjects discussed, knit the missionaries to one another and all to the Bishop, promoting also that _esprit de corps_ which strengthens any inst.i.tution, be it school, college, or Church in a heathen country.

A curious adventure happened to the Bishop in 1865. It was the rainy season, and the roads were saturated with water and full of holes, especially a new bit of road towards Pedungan, where sleepers of wood had been laid down, to steady what would otherwise have been a bog; but holes here and there could not be avoided. The Bishop always took a ride early in the morning, before seven o'clock service in church. That morning I had asked him to go to a house down that road, to inquire about a servant. He came home late, and covered with mud all down one side. "Papa has fallen," said little Mildred, playing in the garden. At her voice her father seemed to wake up out of a deep sleep, and gradually he became conscious of a severe bruise on his face and pain in his head; but he could give no account of the matter, which was, however, explained by a Malay in the course of the day. This man was walking on the road to Pedungan, when he met the Bishop returning home.

He saw the horse put his foot into a deep hole and come down, the Bishop also. He did not, however, at once fall off, not until the horse in his efforts to rise had inflicted a blow with his head on his rider's face.

The Malay helped the horse up, which was not hurt, and the Bishop on his back; and seeing he was much stunned, he followed them for some way lest the Bishop should need a.s.sistance: but when they reached the town and seemed all right, he went back. All this time, however, the Bishop was perfectly unconscious; the horse carried him as he chose, over a ditch, up a steep bank, under low-hanging trees, and quite safely until he stopped at our own door. A headache and some stiffness were the only results of what might have been a fatal accident. We were very thankful to G.o.d for having sent His angel to guard steps as unconscious and heedless as any little child's could have been. No memory of what had happened ever came back to the Bishop.

In 1866 the _Rifleman_, her Majesty's surveying s.h.i.+p, gave us a pa.s.sage to Labuan, where the Bishop wanted to hold a confirmation. This s.h.i.+p was going to Manilla, and from thence to Hong Kong, before she returned to Singapore, and, through the kindness of Captain Reed, we accompanied her. At Labuan I caught the fever of the country, but it did not come out for ten days, by which time we were at Manilla. We anch.o.r.ed off Manilla on Christmas-day evening: it had been a very wet day, but cleared up at night, and we sat on deck watching the lights on sh.o.r.e, and listening to the constant chimes of the numerous church bells, whilst the sailors sang songs and did their best to amuse us. It seemed so strange to be in a Christian country again.

They have some customs at Manilla which I could not help admiring. When the Vesper bell rings at six o'clock, all business and pleasure is suspended for a few minutes, and all the world, man, woman, and child, say a prayer. The coachmen on the carriages stop their horses, the pedestrians stand still, friends engaging in animated conversation are suddenly silent. The setting sun is a signal for the heart to rise to G.o.d; it is a public recognition of His protecting care, and an act of thanksgiving. When it is over, the children ask their parents' blessing for the night. This was told me by a native of Manilla, an educated gentleman, who gave his children every advantage of learning and travel.

The Vesper custom I saw for myself every time I took an evening drive.

We witnessed a very gorgeous procession on the feast of the Epiphany.

All the city functionaries, the military, the priests, bands of music, and a masquerade of the three kings on horseback, surrounded by troops of children beautifully dressed in white and scattering flowers, pa.s.sed through the streets to a church, into which they all poured, the three horses riding in too, to attend high ma.s.s. I saw but little of Manilla, being ill nearly all the time. It is a place shaken to pieces by earthquakes. When we were there the great square, where the Government offices once stood, was a heap of ruins, and the treasury was too poor even to clear them away. The bridges were all broken in the middle, and patched up somehow; and all the rooms in the houses were crooked, the timbers of the walls being joined loosely together to admit of the frequent trembling, heaving, and subsidence of the ground, without their cracking. I believe the country all round was lovely, but I only took one drive when I was convalescent, and then we steamed away to Hong Kong. I shall say nothing about Hong Kong, for all the world knows what a beautiful place it is in winter--how bright and sparkling the blue sea, how clean and trim the streets, and how stately the buildings; also what a dream of loveliness is the one drive out of the town to the Happy Valley, where many an Englishman lies buried in the cemetery. I had a second bout of fever at Hong Kong. Happily for us, we found kind relatives both at Manilla and Hong Kong, who nursed me, and who were very good to us. We found it very cold there after stewing for six years in Borneo, and the Bishop caught a chill which made him ill all the rest of the way home. Had we thought when we left Sarawak in '66 that we should never return there, it would have been a great trial to bid adieu to our old home, but we had no such intention. We were only taking Mildred to England, and seeking a necessary change for the Bishop's failing health. The knowledge that he would not be able to resume his work in the East dawned upon us by degrees. It was a great disappointment, but we were thankful that an English vicarage was found for us, where we could make a home for our children, and where the duties and pleasures of an English parish remained to us. It is, however, very pleasant, on a foggy day in November or February, to return in fancy to that land of suns.h.i.+ne and flowers; to imagine one's self again sitting in the porch of the mission-house, gazing at the mountain of Matang, lit up with sunset glories of purple and gold. Then, when the last gleam of colour has faded, to find the Chinaman lighting the lamps in the verandah, and little dusky faces peeping out, to know if you will sing with them "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," or the hymn about the "Purple-headed mountain and river running by," which must have surely been written for Sarawak children.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE ISLAND OF BORNEO.