One sad incident I must mention, if only to contradict the common idea that Muhammadans are all fanatics and incapable of sympathy towards the religious feelings of those who are outside their creed. Once, when returning from a journey with the Rajah, I met with a bad accident. I fell down the hold of a steamer, which resulted in one of my children, a son, being born dead. When this happened, the Rajah had been called away by urgent business up some of the far-off rivers of the interior. Naturally, I was very ill, and the four Malay chiefs of the Rajah’s Council were anxious to show their sympathy with me. When they heard that the child had never lived, they went to the doctor and asked him where it was to be buried. The doctor naturally referred them to the Bishop, who had no other alternative but to decide that it could not be buried in consecrated ground. But the chiefs thought differently. They came that night to the Astana, bringing with them a coffin and carried the little body to the consecrated ground on our side of the river, where some of the Rajah’s relatives are laid. These chiefs dug the grave themselves, and covered it over with a grass mound. I was much too ill at the time to know what was going on, but I was told afterwards that Datu Isa insisted on a tree of frangipani being planted over the spot. I am sorry to say the tree died, but this additional proof of those dear people’s sympathy can never fade from my memory. The Rajah returned to Kuching immediately he heard the news, and in a few weeks I began to mend. When I was well enough, Datu Isa sat with me daily, and she said the event of my recovery must be marked by a thanksgiving ceremony, for which an afternoon had to be set apart. “You must lie quiet all the morning, Rajah Ranee,” she said, “and think kind thoughts, so that your mind may be serene. I will appear at three o’clock with my women.” I did not in the least know what she was going to do. At three o’clock, according to her promise, Datu Isa headed a long procession of my friends, who came to the door of my room. I was told not to speak, and we were all as silent as the grave. Datu Isa opened the door of my mosquito house; she carried in one hand a piece of something that looked like dried shark’s skin, and in her other she held a ring of pure gold. One of her daughters had a basket containing grains of rice dyed with saffron. Datu Isa rubbed the ring against the “something” two or three times, and then traced signs over my forehead with the ring. She scattered a tiny pinch of gold dust on my hair, and threw a handful of the yellow rice over me. “Thanks be to Allah, Rajah Ranee, for you are well again.” I was just going to speak, but she motioned me to be quite silent, and she and her women departed. Being somewhat given to superstition, I feel sure that this quaint rite hastened my recovery.