In the middle of the rushing about incidental to going to quarters, and with the first cartridge, who should turn up but the dog Carlo, jumping with delight on his master and everybody else. Welcome little dog! the last time the magazine was opened was on Sunday, when the gunner went down at 8.40 P.M. to get a cartridge for the nine o’clock gun, it being dark, the dog must have got locked in. How he existed or what his feelings were in that atmosphere he knows best. If I had not fancied the Nipa Palm for a target, poor Carlo might have been smothered or starved to death. [Sidenote: April 17.] [Sidenote: Sarawak.] Early morning found us off Tanjong Datu; before eight we had passed the Santobong entrance, and soon after rounded Tanjong Sipang and stood for the Maratobas entrance to the Sarawak River. These bold headlands and magnificent scenery, although I had visited them frequently since, brought fresh to my mind some five-and-twenty years ago, when I first came up in the _Dido_ with James Brooke on board, and gave the first, and nearly the only, help he ever had in securing his position; thereby enabling him to carry out his philanthropic views for the benefit of a strange race. If he has not succeeded to the full extent of his, then, sanguine hopes, still there is no man living or to come who, single-handed, will have benefited his fellow-creatures to the extent Brooke has. In 1842 piracy, slavery, and head-hunting were the order of the day. The sail of a peaceful trader was nowhere to be seen, not even a fisherman’s hut along the length of this beautiful coast. Far into the interior the Malays and Dyaks warred on one another. Now, how different! Huts and fishing-stakes are to be seen all along the coast; the town of Kuching, which on the visit of the _Dido_ had scarcely 800 inhabitants, now has a population of over 20,000. At least 250,000 of the aborigines who called themselves warriors are now peaceful traders and cultivators of the soil. The jungle is fast being cleared to make way for farms; and to prove what industry can do, Miss Burdett-Coutts has taken a tract of 500 acres of jungle--far from being the most productive soil that could be found--where everything that is likely to thrive within the tropics will be introduced into this model farm. Fruits such as pineapple, bananas, mangosteens, and oranges were doing well. Rice and sago, mulberry trees to feed silkworms, were all in progress. On arriving up the river at the Quop junction, we found the _Pearl_ had proceeded up, drawing over 19 feet water. Rejoicing in our steaming up this beautiful river, and just abreast of a shelf of rocks on which I so nearly lost the _Dido_, I found that my ill-luck in finding the bottom had not forsaken me. I believe the helm was ported to avoid running down a canoe that attempted to cross our bows. And we were bumped hard upon the rocks! With a rising tide we did not remain, but we knew not until long afterwards what mischief was done.