Fearing that many of their people would be led astray by the agents of Sherip Masahor, who were now all over the country withdrawing people from their allegiance to the Government, the well-disposed Dayak chiefs of the Kanowit earnestly begged that an English officer should be stationed there. The Tuan Muda visited Kanowit without delay, and with the aid of the people built a new fort in a better position. Having obtained the sincerest promises from the Dayaks to protect and support him, the Tuan Muda left young Mr. Cruickshank in charge, and then returned to Sekrang. Active measures had also to be taken against a large party of Dayaks in the Saribas who had fortified themselves in preparation for the coming of the Sherip, and these were driven out. But the Saribas Malays were surprisingly staunch. "Enemies were numerous up the rivers Sekrang, Saribas, Kalaka, Serikei, and Kanowit, numbering many thousands of families, all of whom relied on the support of Sherip Masahor,"[263] and these had to be watched and kept in check by punitive forces despatched in different directions. The heads of these rivers have one watershed, and the focus of the malcontented Dayaks was Rentap's reputed impregnable stronghold on Sadok. Owing to its situation, almost in the centre of this watershed, it was at once a support and a refuge to those Dayaks, and around it they gathered. The powers of the Government during the past few years had been taxed to their utmost, so that Rentap of necessity had been left undisturbed, and with the munitions of war supplied by the Sherip, and the staunch support of the Kayans his power had increased. But the Tuan Muda was not to be denied, and his fall was near. In November, 1860, the Rajah left England, and with him went the Consul-General, Mr. S. St. John, and Mr. Henry Stuart Johnson[264] to join his uncle's service. After a short detention in Singapore waiting for the _Rainbow_, he arrived at Kuching on February 12, 1861. The Consul-General now officially informed the Council of Sarawak that the British Government disavowed and totally disapproved of Governor Edwardes' proceedings. But though they reprimanded him, they supported him in office. His term as Governor was, however, very shortly to expire, but not till he had seen, what must have been gall and bitterness to his soul, as it certainly was to his backers in England, the cession by the Sultan to Sarawak of Muka and all the region of the sago plantations, the produce of which he had hoped to secure for Labuan, and the banishment of Sherip Masahor from Borneo. Mr. St. John went on to Bruni and relieved Mr. Edwardes of his position as Consul-General, and was the tactful and just medium for arranging the difficulties produced by the conduct of the latter. He says: