Our boat-boys were sent on botanical expeditions for jungle plants, and every morning and evening a great variety of things arrived at the Astana, many of which I had never seen or even heard of. In the morning I would take my work into Miss North’s room and sit with her whilst she painted, for I loved her companionship. She it was who first made me realize the beauty, solace, and delight found in trees, plants, and flowers. But sometimes she was very stern; she thought me young and stupid. She would look at me through her spectacles, very kindly, I must say. “Why, you know nothing,” she said, “although you are so late from school!” She once asked me where pitcher-plants were to be found. “Pitcher-plants,” I said; “I have never heard of them. I don’t think there are any in the country.” “But this is the land of pitcher-plants,” Miss North replied, “and if you like we will try and find them together.” I sent for the boat-boy. I remember distinctly the picture she was painting at the time--a clump of sago palms growing in our garden. She told me how I could describe pitcher-plants to the faithful Kong Kong, one of our boat-boys, a Sarawak Malay, an odd and uncouth individual, with long hair flowing over his shoulders. He had been with the Rajah for many years. “Oh yes,” said Kong Kong, “I know. They grow where earth is marshy. I can show you where they grow.” One morning Miss North and I got up early and crossed the river almost before sunrise, and with Kong Kong as our guide, went in search of the pitcher-plants. We walked for a little way along the Rock Road, and turned into a path leading through a kind of moor, where the sensitive plant lay like a carpet covering the ground. That curse of agriculturists always delighted me. I felt a certain enjoyment in walking through the great patches of this shrinking stuff with its myriads of leaves closing at the slightest touch. We left a pathway behind us of apparently dying vegetation, but a minute or two after our passage it resumed its normal shape. Malays call it the “Shy” plant. Kong Kong then led the way over a swamp, where logs of wood were laid to keep passers-by off the mud. Our progress across these logs was not an easy matter. We went through a grove of trees, and suddenly, in a clearing, we came to the spot. I do not think anyone who has only seen pitcher-plants growing in the sedate way they do at Kew can have any idea of the beautiful madness of their growth when in a wild state. Here they were, cups long, round, wide, and narrow, some shaped like Etruscan vases, others like small earthenware cooking-pots, the terminations of long, narrow, glossy green leaves. Their colour, too, was perfectly exquisite--a pale green ground, splashed over with rose, carmine, yellow, and brown, the little lids to the cups daintily poised just above each pitcher. I suppose there must have been thousands of these plants, twisting, creeping, and flinging themselves over dead