trunks of trees, falling in cascades of colour above our heads, forming a perfect bower. We all stood still, silently looking at them. At length Miss North remarked: “And you said yesterday there were no such things in the country!” Miss North remained with us about six weeks, and when I very sorrowfully accompanied her on board the steamer on her return to England, I felt that something new and delightful had come into my life, for she had not only introduced me to pitcher-plants, but to orchids, palms, ferns, and many other things of whose existence I had never dreamed. Miss North was the one person who made me realize the beauties of the world. She was noble, intelligent, and kind, and her friendship and the time we spent together are amongst my happiest memories. She used to paint all day, and, thinking this must be bad for her, I sometimes tried to get her away early in the afternoon for excursions, but she would never leave her work until waning daylight made painting impossible. I remember how she painted a sunset behind Matang, which painting she gave to me. She sat on a hill overlooking the river until the sun went behind the mountain. The world grew dark, and the palms in the neighbourhood looked black against the sky as she put her last stroke into the picture. She put up her palette, folded her easel, and was preparing to walk home with me to the Astana, when for some moments she stood quite still, staring at the thread of red light disappearing behind the shoulder of the mountain. “I cannot speak or move,” she said. “I am drunk with beauty!” But there was one thing that Miss North and I did not agree upon. She did not approve of the view I took of our Dyak and Kayan people. She liked to meet Malay ladies, because, as we all know, they have better manners than most Europeans, but she could not bear the thought of either Dyaks or Kayans. I could never eradicate from her mind the idea that they were savages. I used to try and interest her in these people, for I longed that she should accompany us in some of our journeys into the interior, but this she would never do. “Don’t talk to me of savages,” she would say; “I hate them.” “But they are not savages,” I would reply. “They are just like we are, only circumstances have made them different.” “They take heads: that is enough for me,” she would add severely, and would listen to no defence for that curious custom of theirs, for which I could find so many excuses. CHAPTER XVIII