One morning, as I was watching the arrival of the mail-steamer from my verandah at Kuching, I noticed the figure of a tall European lady standing on deck. A few moments after, a messenger brought me a letter from Singapore from the Governor’s wife, Lady Jervois, introducing a traveller to Sarawak, whose name was Marianne North. The Rajah was away, so I sent his Secretary on board with a pressing invitation to the lady, of whom I had heard so much, but had not had the pleasure of meeting. Miss North’s arrival in Sarawak is a great and happy landmark in my life. Many of my English friends were devoted to her, and I was delighted at the idea of her coming to stay with me. I watched our small river-boat fetching her from the steamer, and went to meet her. She was not young then, but I thought she looked delightful. We shook hands, and the first words she said to me were: “How do you know if you will like me well enough to ask me to stay with you?” From that moment began a friendship which lasted until her death. Many people know the great work of her life, and must have seen the gallery of her pictures which she gave to Kew Gardens. Many of these pictures were painted in Sarawak. [Illustration: SUN SETTING BEHIND THE MOUNTAIN OF MATANG] The first evening of her stay in Kuching we went for a row on the river, and the sunset behind Matang was, as she said, a revelation. That land of forests, mountains, and water, the wonderful effect of sunshine and cloud, the sudden storms, the soft mists at evening, the perfumed air brought through miles and miles of forest by the night breezes, were an endless source of delight to her. Sometimes as we sat on our verandah in the evening after dinner, a sweet, strange perfume wafted from forest lands beyond, across the river, floated through our house--“The scent of unknown flowers,” Miss North would say.