Watson 267 Map of Malacca Straits and Singapore 286 Rajah Brooke _Nina Daly_ 289 Map--Eastern Archipelago 292 Map of Coast--Borneo 293 _Dido_ at Sarawak _Anon._ 303 A River Scene _From photo by Dr. Johnstone_ 320 A Sailor’s Life under Four Sovereigns CHAPTER I 1809-1822 [Sidenote: 1809. June 14.] The baptismal certificate announces my birth at Earl’s Court, Kensington, on June 14, 1809. It was only in 1820 I learnt from my sister, Mary, that three weeks after birth I was deposited in my father’s footpan to be interred in a garden at the back of the house, not being entitled to a berth in consecrated ground. That mattered little, as before the final screwing down the old nurse discovered there was life in the “small thing.” I was christened at Kensington. Henry, Lord Holland, became responsible for my sins, a similar kind act having been conferred by Charles James Fox upon my elder brother; after which I was removed to join the others at Quidenham. [Sidenote: 1815.] Later on I recollect the nurse trying to frighten us by saying “Boney was coming,” and how glad we children were when we heard of the defeat of that hero at Waterloo; accomplished, as I then believed, by my brother George, an Ensign in the 14th Foot! [Sidenote: 1817.] My dear mother died at Holkham in 1817. [Sidenote: 1818.] [Illustration] At the beginning of 1818 my younger brother Tom and I were sent to a school at Needham Market, kept by the Rev. James Wood, a short, muscular man, wearing knee-breeches and powdered hair. A nice wife and children; the latter played with us smaller boys. His brother, a merchant at Lisbon, used to send cases of oranges, which were stowed in the upper shelf of a large cupboard. When in the humour, the master chucked them to us from a ladder singly, giving lessons in catching. From Portugal we had two schoolfellows, Francisco Nunes Sweezer Vizeu and Alvaro Lopes Pereira. They were kind to me, the smallest boy, and I have never forgotten them. While there, a young man named Long, who was training for Holy Orders, came occasionally to read with Mr. Wood. He gave me a brass gun mounted on wheels, and a promise of sixpence if I would fire it off during school-time. At my end of the table I arranged, with books, a screened battery, with the rear open; and then, under pretence of drying my slate at the fire, heated a wire, which was applied according to instructions. The explosion was loud; books flew in all directions; the gun bounded over my head and lost itself behind a row of books, where it remained until next half. [Illustration: _A Successful Operation._]