Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak

by Henriette McDougall

At five o'clock another short service took place in church. In the evening we read aloud to one another, while the rest sewed or drew.

This tranquil, even monotonous life was very much to my taste in my husband's absence, but after a few weeks it was disturbed by sad trials. First, the chaplain had a sunstroke, and fell out with the climate, the place, and some members of our little society; so he went to Singapore, and from thence to England. When we were recovering from this blow, and had again settled down into our usual ways, a worse trial befell me.

One morning Miss J—— did not appear at early breakfast, and little Mary, who waited upon her in her room, said she was sound asleep and did not wake when she opened the shutters. I thought nothing of it at first, for Miss J—— sometimes sat up late at night; but an hour afterwards, I went into her room and looked at her. Her breathing was so laboured I thought she was in a fit; and first I tried to put leeches on her temples, but they would not bite, and we resolved to carry her into the fresh breeze in the verandah, for the air of the room seemed laden with something close and stifling. When I threw back the covering of the bed, I perceived that the veins of both arms had been cut, and a few drops of blood stained her night-dress; also there was a small empty bottle in the bed with "Laudanum" on its label. The terrible truth was evident—she had taken poison and tried to bleed herself to death! Probably the action of the laudanum prevented any flow of blood, yet the few drops may have relieved the brain. The horror of this discovery nearly deprived me of my senses; but there was no time for lamentation—she was not dead, thank God, and all our efforts must be used to restore her to life. We were very ignorant, but we did all we could think of. There was no doctor to apply to, only the chemist who served the dispensary. He gave medicine which was certainly very strong, and we put mustard plasters on her legs. By the evening she was sensible enough to take some food, but for a week there was serious illness, and it was a long time before I could ask my poor friend why she had done this thing. She had left me a letter to read in the event of her death, but of course I never read it. We were very much together, but I had not thought her unhappy; indeed the only reason she ever gave me for so hating her life was, that she could not learn Malay, and did not think she should be any use as a missionary. This despondency was known to me, but I had no idea it cut so deep. Miss J—— had a great deal of quiet fun—she often amused us by her clever and somewhat caustic remarks. But Sarawak was too monotonous a life for her. When, some weeks afterwards, she had quite regained the balance of her mind, she went to Singapore, and became a very useful member of society for many years before she died. I never felt that I could judge her, for I had so much more to occupy my mind and interest my heart than my companion. There was baby in the first place, and the responsibilities of the school and mission naturally fell to my share. No doubt it requires an even temperament to live contentedly without society, and with only such excitement as daily duties and the beauties of nature afford. Yet these are full of infinite happiness, and we were not without friends, although we had no company: the little party at Government House, as it was then called, were very agreeable and uniformly kind. It is, however, a common mistake to imagine that the life of a missionary is an exciting one. On the contrary, its trial lies in its monotony. The uneventful day, mapped out into hours of teaching and study, sleep, exercise, and religious duties; the constant society of natives whose minds are like those of children, and who do not sympathize with your English ideas; the sameness of the climate, which even precludes discourse about the weather,—all this, added to the distance from relations and friends at home, combined with the enervating effects of a hot climate, causes heaviness of spirits and despondency to single men and women. Married people have not the same excuse; for besides duty and nature, they have "one friend who loves them best," and that ought to be enough for the most exacting temperament. I say nothing about the comforts of religion—they are the portion of all, married or single; still some spirits become so sensitive in solitude that they are not able to take the cheerful side, even of their relation to their Heavenly Father, and these are generally the most reserved to their companions. I am glad to find that missionaries are now seldom sent alone to any station, and women are more often associated in sisterhoods for mission work under our colonial Bishops, so that they have the society and sympathy of English ladies after the toils of the day. I felt much discouraged after Miss J—— left me, and afraid of urging any one to follow in her place; but at last a cousin of my husband's came out to us, and as she enjoyed the climate, and delighted in the place and people, declaring that she had never been more happy in her life than with us, I consoled myself that it was not all the fault of Sarawak and the mission-house that poor Miss J—— could not live there.

CHAPTER XI.
CHINESE INSURRECTION.

"Mortal! if life smile on thee, and thou find All to thy mind, Think, Who did once to earth from heaven descend Thee to befriend; So shalt thou dare forego, at His dear call, Thy life, thine all."

These lines were most applicable to us during the year 1856. It was such rest and peace when our Bishop returned from Calcutta and soothed all the griefs and heartburnings we had suffered the four months he was away. Then ensued the performance of his new episcopal duties. Mr. Gomes was ordained priest in March. Confirmations took place, of our elder school-children, who were all baptized when they first came to us; also many Chinese Christians too, who had long attended the Bible classes at the mission-house and stood firm to their baptismal vows. In April we had another baby girl; and soon after, the Bishop went to Labuan, to arrange about a church being built there. Unfortunately he caught fever at Labuan; which declared itself at Singapore on his return. We were both very ill, and glad of doctors' advice at Singapore; but Labuan fever returns again and again, though in a slighter form after a while, and was for years a constant trial to the Bishop's strength. When we returned to Sarawak in October, our party was increased. Mr. and Mrs. Crookshank had come out from England—she a bride, and quite a new element of youth and beauty for Sarawak. A lady friend and her child and nurse also came on a long visit to us, the air of Sarawak being considered quite a tonic compared to the sea-breeze at Singapore, which was at times visited by a hot wind from Java. Very pleasant days followed our return home. Mrs. Harvey and I, with our children, went for a month to "See-afar" Cottage on the hill of Serambo. I have already mentioned this little house, built by Sir James Brooke as a sanitarium after his attack of small-pox. The only objection to it was, that it was built in the region of clouds: had the hill been five hundred feet higher we should have had the clouds below us, as they are on Penang Hill. The path up the mountain—if path it can be called—is almost a staircase of tumbled rocks, and requires both strength and agility to climb. It was quite beyond me; but I was carried on a man's back, sitting on a bit of plank, with a strip of cloth fastened round my waist and across the man's forehead, my back to his back. The Dyaks are famous mountaineers, their bare feet cling to the stones, or notched trunks of trees thrown from one rock to another. I never felt unsafe on my Dyak friend's back, and he used to laugh when I proposed his setting me down and taking a rest, and say, "You are not as heavy as a basket of durian fruit." These Dyaks have beautiful groves of fruit-trees, and make a good purse in the fruit season by bringing down durians, mangosteen and lansat fruit to sell at Kuching. They also carry all their harvest of paddy up the mountain to their rice-stores in the villages, so they are used to heavy weights.

We took a stock of provisions up with us, fowls and ducks, a goat and her kid, etc., and all the bedding we wanted, for of course there was not much furniture in the cottage. Our first night was unfortunate. We had settled ourselves in the rooms, had our supper, and were about to go to bed, when the servants ran out of the cook-house, which was a stone's-throw from the cottage, crying out, "Fire!" and in a few minutes we saw it wrapped in flames. Of course a house built of sticks and leaves does not take long to burn down to the ground, but we were distressed to hear the bleatings of the little kid which could not be got out in time. The ducks, too, were still in the long basket coop in which they were carried up, and were literally roasted in their feathers before anybody remembered them. A large party of Dyaks were on the spot directly they saw the flames, and they did good service by throwing water on the roof of the cottage, and watching lest the thatch should catch. In the morning they discovered the burnt ducks, and ate them up with much relish, for a Dyak likes the flavour of burnt feathers. The next day the cook-house was rebuilt. These native huts look so clean and fresh when first put up, the straw-coloured attap[6] walls and green leaf roofs are so agreeable to the eye. They quickly turn hay colour and then get discoloured by the wood smoke. Except that we were at times rather short of food, we enjoyed our mountain retreat very much. The bath was a remarkable feature—a natural stone basin, under the shadow of a great rock, fed by the clearest streamlet and sheltered from view by a heavy bit of curtain, was our bathing-place. We carried a little leaf bucket and our towels in our hands, and while we poured the fresh water over our heads we could now and then stop to look at the great expanse of plain and forest, with silver rivers winding amidst them, and blue smoke stealing up here and there to mark a Dyak village. There was, however, a particular rock on the spur of the mountain from whence we always watched the sun set; there was a much wider view from thence. The sea lay on the horizon, and the pointed mountain of Santubong stood on the plain, with other ranges of hills far away. I fear we did little else but watch the glories of earth and sky at that time, and look after our children, who could not be trusted alone a minute on those steep paths.

Meanwhile the Bishop was paying a visit to Lundu in his new life-boat, a boat of about twenty-eight feet, with a little covered house in it, and water-tight compartments in the bow and stern to keep her afloat. She was well named, for even in this first voyage she saved the lives of her passengers. From the coast at Santubong you see blue hills far away to the west, which lie in the Lundu country. The sea runs very high, in the north-cast monsoon, between the mouths of these two rivers, the Sarawak and Lundu; and on this occasion the waves on their return from Lundu were fearful. Seven great waves like green hills advanced one after another. The Malay crew prayed aloud with terror. Stahl and the Bishop steered the boat and held their breaths. It looked like rushing into the jaws of death, but the life-boat mounted the big waves one after another, sometimes shuddering with the strain, but buoyant and stiff. The danger past, the crew praised Allah and the good boat; and they, as well as Stahl who had behaved so well at the time of danger, fell into a fit of ague from the nervous shock. We knew on the top of the hill that a fearful storm was raging, but we did not see the white boat flying like a bird over the seven great rollers, or there would have been no sleep for us that night. The crew never forgot it, nor the calm pluck of their steersman the Bishop. I must confess that an attack of fever was the result of all this exertion when he joined us on the hill.