I must tell one more curious belief existing amongst Malays. Just before I left for England, a Malay woman from one of our out-stations brought me a cocoa-nut, very much larger than the ordinary fruit of the Archipelago. I believe these huge cocoa-nuts are only to be found growing in the Seychelles Islands, and the natives call them “cocoa de mer” The woman told me she had brought me this fruit on account of the luck it brought its possessor; at the same time assuring me it came from fairyland. I asked her to tell me its story, when she informed me that, as every one knows, in the middle of the world is a place called “The navel of the sea.” In this spot, guarded by two dragons, is a tree on which these large cocoa-nuts grow, known as Pau Jinggeh. The dragons feed on the fruit, and when they have partaken too freely of it, have fits of indigestion, causing them to be sea-sick; thus the fruit finds its way into the ocean, and is borne by the current into all parts of the world. These enormous nuts are occasionally met with by passing vessels, and in this manner some are brought to the different settlements in the Malayan Archipelago. The fruit brought for my acceptance had been given to the woman by a captain of a Malay schooner, who had rescued it as it was bobbing up and down in the water under the keel of his boat. “I thought you would like to have it, Rajah Ranee,” she said, “because it cannot be bought for love nor money.” The fruit now occupies a prominent position in our drawing-room at Kuching, and is a source of great interest to the natives. With our ideas of European wisdom, we may be inclined to smile superciliously at these beliefs, but we should not forget that a great many of us do not like seeing _one_ magpie, we avoid dining thirteen at table, we hate to see the new moon through glass, we never walk under a ladder, or sit in a room where three candles are burning; and how about people one meets who assure us they have heard the scream of a Banshee, foretelling the death of some human being? Putting all these things together, I do not think either Malays or Dyaks show much more superstition than we Europeans do; after all, we are not so very superior to primitive races, although we imagine that on account of our superior culture we are fit to govern the world. CHAPTER XX During my residence in Sarawak, I witnessed several epidemics of cholera, and to any who have nervous temperaments, its advent is alarming. On one of its visitations, some curious incidents occurred, on account of the superstitious practices of the Chinese residing in Kuching.