CHAPTER XIII.
EVENTS OF 1857.
When we were once more at home we found it would be better to go to Singapore, and from thence to Penang, for a little quiet. We were both ill, the Bishop seriously so. We wanted for everything, and the bazaar in Sarawak could not supply us: besides, ours was the only English dwelling-house left in the place, except the Borneo Company's premises. Captain Brooke and Mr. Grant with their brides were immediately expected, and must be housed at the mission while a bungalow was being built across the water. We left Miss Woolley to take care of the expected visitors, the children and I went to Singapore in the Sir James Brooke steamer, and Sir William Hoste gave a passage in H.M.S. Spartan to the Bishop and Alan Grant.
I was glad of an opportunity to get my baby vaccinated, which could only happen at Singapore in those days. We were two months away, and the cool quiet of Penang Hill was a great refreshment. The first news I heard there was that Miss Woolley was to be married to Mr. Chambers. This wedding took place immediately on our return home, the end of July. It was a great benefit to the Banting Dyaks, for Mrs. Chambers devoted herself to the women and young girls, and was a true friend to them. She taught them to sew, and instructed them in morals and religion. When I went to Banting some years afterwards, I found a set of modest young women who were much pleased with gifts of needles, thread, and thimbles; they also enjoyed a game of croquet after the lessons were done, and it was wonderful to see what smart taps of the mallet were fearlessly given under their bare feet; for of course the Dyaks do not wear shoes.
About a month after our return to Sarawak, Captain Brooke's baby boy was born. No one can tell what a care and anxiety this event was, in a place where there was no doctor except the Bishop. The well-being of so important a person as the Rajah mudah's wife, and the birth of the heir of Sarawak, called forth much sympathy from everybody. Thank God, all went well; but we said it ought never to happen again—there should be a medical man whose sole duty it was to care for the bodies of the community, while the Bishop was free to minister to their spiritual wants. Soon after there was a public baptism of this boy Basil Brooke, and his cousin Blanche Grant, in the church, which was full of Malays as well as English to witness the ceremony. This was the day before the Rajah set off for England.
There were many happy days during the next few months, for there were several English ladies in the place and we were all friends. In October the Bishop went to Labuan, and while he was away the cholera made its first appearance at Sarawak, among the Malays. The Rajah muda and I consulted together what physic should be made ready for those who would take it. A short time before, a little pamphlet had been sent to us about the virtues of camphor, and especially its value in cholera. We made a saturated solution of camphor in brandy, and gave a teaspoonful of it on moist sugar for a dose, adding three drops of Kayu Puteh oil, extracted from a Borneon wood and called cajeput oil in England, a very strong aromatic medicine. This mixture proved itself very useful. If the patients applied in good time it invariably gave relief to the cramp and pain in the stomach; if the disease had gone on to sickness it was more difficult to administer. Sometimes we followed it up with laudanum and castor oil.
The Malays suffered very much from this epidemic. Constant funerals were to be seen on the river, and there was much praying at the mosque. Then the Chinese were attacked, but not so fatally. Two dead men were, however, found on our premises; they were strangers to us, but we supposed they came late at night to the mission for medicine, and, lying down in the stable or cow-house, died without reaching the house. It was an anxious time. I used to hang little bags of camphor round the children's necks, and was very careful of the diet for the household. Thank God, we had no case either in the school or the house.
Seven years afterwards the cholera returned much more violently. An English gun-boat, lying off the town, lost several of her crew; and at last the Bishop advised them to go to sea and let the sea air blow through the ship, to carry off the infection. He went on board himself to see them off, and while they were going down the river two more men were seized with cholera, and died in half an hour.
This time the cholera was very fatal among the Dyaks up some of the rivers. The poor creatures were so terrified that they left their houses, as in small-pox, and scarcely dared bury their dead. In one instance they paid a very strong man to carry the dead on his back to a steep hill, and throw them into the ravine at the bottom. The food enjoyed by the Dyaks, rotten fish and vegetables, no doubt inclined them to get cholera. The first time of its visitation was after a great fruit season when durian, that rich and luscious fruit, had been particularly abundant. A durian is somewhat larger than a cocoa-nut in its inner husk; it has a hard prickly rind, but inside lie the seeds, enclosed in a pulp which might be made of cream, garlic, sugar, and green almonds. It is very heating to the blood, for when there are plenty of durians the people always suffer more from boils and skin disease than usual. We never permitted them to enter our house, for we could not bear the smell of them. But many English people liked them; and they were so much esteemed by the Dyaks, that when the fruit was ripe they encamped for the night under the trees. When a durian fell to the ground with a great thud, they all jumped up to look for it, as the fallen fruit belongs to the finder, and they loved it so that they willingly sacrificed their sleep for it. Woe be to the man, however, on whose head the fruit falls, for it is so hard and heavy it may kill him.[7]