Dr. Hose has under him in Sarawak eight men in holy orders, of whom six are Europeans, one Chinese and one Eurasian. The influence of the Missionaries has spread over the Skerang, Balau and Sibuyan tribes of Sea-Dyaks, and also among the Land-Dyaks near Kuching, the Capital, and among the Chinese of that town and the neighbouring pepper plantations.
There are now seven churches and twenty-five Mission chapels in Sarawak, and about 4,000 baptized Christians of the Church of England. The Mission also provides means of education and, through its press, publishes translations of the Bible, the Prayer Book and other religious and educational works, in Malay and in two Dyak dialects, which latter have only become written languages since the establishment of the Mission. In their Boys' School, at Kuching, over a hundred boys are under instruction by an English Master, assisted by a staff of Native Assistants; there is also a Girls' School, under a European Mistress, and schools at all the Mission Stations. The Government of Sarawak allows a small grant-in-aid to the schools and a salary of £200 a year to one of the Missionaries, who acts as Government Chaplain.
The Roman Catholic Mission commenced its works in Sarawak in 1881, and is under the direction of the Reverend Father Jackson, Prefect Apostolic, who has also two or three Missionaries employed in British North Borneo. In Sarawak there are six or eight European priests and schoolmasters and a sisterhood of four or five nuns. In Kuching they have a Chapel and School and a station among the Land-Dyaks in the vicinity. They have recently established a station and erected a Chapel on the Kanowit River, an affluent of the Rejang. The Missionaries are mostly foreigners and, I believe, are under a vow to spend the remainder of their days in the East, without returning to Europe.
Their only reward is their consciousness of doing, or trying to do good, and any surplus of their meagre stipends which remains, after providing the barest necessaries of life, is refunded to the Society. I do not know what success is attending them in Sarawak, but in British North Borneo and Labuan, where they found that Father Quarteron's labours had left scarcely any impression, their efforts up to present have met with little success, and experiments in several rivers have had to be abandoned, owing to the utter carelessness of the Pagan natives as to matters relating to religion. When I left North Borneo in 1887, their only station which appeared to show a prospect of success was one under Father Pundleider, amongst the semi-Chinese of Bundu, to whom reference has been made on a previous page. But these people, while permitting their children to be educated and baptized by the Father, did not think it worth their while to join the Church themselves.
Neither Mission has attempted to convert the Muhammadan tribes, and indeed it would, at present, be perfectly useless to do so and, from the Government point of view, impolitic and inadvisable as well.
Footnotes:
[10] On the 17th March, 1890 the Limbang River was forcibly annexed by Sarawak, subject to the Queen's sanction.
[11] Since this was written, Raja Sir Charles Brooke has acquired valuable coal concessions at Muara, at the mouth of the Brunai river, and the development of the coal resources of the State is being energetically pushed forward.
[12] This has since been formally proclaimed.