Our evening strolls through the Astana grounds reminded my friends of the legends related by the old lady reciters. “Here we are,” they often exclaimed, “in the Rajah’s gardens, playing, smelling sweet perfumes, and looking at ponds over which floats the lotus--just like the old stories.” Beyond the miles and miles of forest land stretching to the north between Kuching and the sea, the mountain of Santubong could be seen from our garden towering on the horizon. Viewed from Kuching, the outline of the mountain as it lies against the sky, has the appearance of a human profile, bearing an extraordinary resemblance to the first white Rajah of Sarawak. The Malays are aware of this fact, and the women have frequently said to me as we stood looking at the mountain, “The gods knew what they were about, they fashioned Santubong so that the image of the first white Rajah should never fade from the country.” Another source of joy on these occasions was the presence of a peahen we kept roaming about at liberty in our garden. The naked feet of the women pattering up and down the paths was, for some mysterious reason, more than the bird could stand. The appearance of my Malay friends was the signal for it to single from out the group one unfortunate member, when it would rush at her toes and follow her in and out the bushes on the lawn. The victim, half-amused and half-frightened at the pecks, would move quicker than is customary amongst Malay aristocrats. Sometimes the bird got so violent in its attacks, that I had to call the sentry on guard at the door of the Astana. The sentry (either a Malay or a Dyak), in his white uniform with black facings, musket in hand, appeared very courageously at first to protect the woman from her feathered persecutor, until the peahen turned her attention to his toes, whereupon his musket was dropped, and the little figure of the sentry rushing hither and thither in his frantic attempts to escape from the bird caused us much merriment. This was a frequent occurrence, and my Malay friends called it “playing with the peahen”! I was glad I wore shoes, for I do not think I should have enjoyed the bird’s antics quite so much as they did. Sometimes the party stayed until 6 p.m., when, on fine evenings, more punctual than any clock, we heard a shrill trumpeting noise issuing from the woods near the Astana. I believe this came from a kind of cricket. “It is the six o’clock fly telling us to go home,” they said, and, at the first sound of this musical alarum, my friends bade me good-night, stepped into their boats, and were paddled to their homes. I often watched them as they went away in their covered boats, the paddles churning up the golden or flame-coloured waters of the river tinted by the sunset, and thought how absurd it is that different coloured skins should be a bar to friendship between white and dark people, seeing that kindness and sympathy are not confined to any region of the earth, or to any race of men.