When I remember Sarawak, its remoteness, the dreamy loveliness of its landscape, the childlike confidence its people have in their rulers, I long to take the first ship back to it, never to leave it again. How it happened that as a young English girl I came into intimate contact with the people of Sarawak is as follows: In 1868, on the death of the first English Rajah of Sarawak, his nephew and successor came to England and visited my mother, who was his cousin. On his return to Borneo in the early seventies, I accompanied him as his wife. Looking over the diaries I kept in those days, they throw little light upon the new surroundings in which I found myself. I had received the limited education given to girls in that mid-Victorian period; I had been taught music, dancing, and could speak two or three European languages; but as regards the important things in life, these had never been thought of consequence to my education. I was sea-sick almost the whole way from Marseilles to Singapore, so that when we stayed at the various ports on our way out--Aden, Ceylon, Penang, etc.--I was much too ill to take any interest in them. I remember that in Singapore we received invitations from the Governor and from the residents of the place to stay with them on our way to Sarawak; but I felt ill, and the Rajah and I thought it best to take up our quarters at an hotel. However, we dined with the Governor and his wife, Sir Harry and Lady Ord, and I do not think I had ever met kinder people. The Chief Justice and his wife, Sir Benson and Lady Maxwell, were also charming to us, asking us to spend a day with them at their country house near Singapore. This we did, and it was all delightful and lovely, barring the fact that I met none of the Singapore natives on these occasions. It was at Singapore that I first tasted tropical fruits--mangoes, mangosteens, a fruit called the soursop, tasting like cotton wool dipped in vinegar and sugar; also many other kinds--all of which, under the distempered state of my mind, owing to the journey, I thought positively repulsive. As to the delights of first impressions in the tropics, I must say I did not share in those feelings. I hated the heat, the damp clammy feel of those equatorial regions, and I then thought that I should never find happiness in such countries. [Illustration: THE AUTHOR FROM A PAINTING BY MRS. ALFRED SOTHEBY]