Sketches of Our Life at SarawakMcDougall, Henriette
History
Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak
McDougall, Henriette
McDougall, Henriette, 1817-1886 -- Travel -- Malaysia -- Sarawak; Sarawak (Malaysia) -- Description and travel
That day we took Salion, Sunfoon, Chinzu, Queyfat, Assin,
Umque, Achin, boys; Achong, Moukmoy, Poingzu, girls. The English nurse
we had brought with us to Sarawak had married Stahl, the carpenter, of
whom I spoke before, and Mrs. Stahl became the matron of the school when
we moved to College Hill, and had these ten Chinese children as well as
the orphans to care for. We were very busy sewing for them, with a
Chinese tailor to help. Blue jackets and trousers for week-days, and
black trousers and white jackets for Sundays, had to be made at once.
The girls wore trousers as well as the boys, only wider, and their
jackets reached to the knee.
At the end of a week they were all clean and neat. Their heads were
shaved every Saturday, and their long tails freshly plaited up with
skeins of black or red strong silk, made on purpose. At first a barber
came to do this, but soon the elder boys learnt to do it, and it was a
regular Saturday business. These ten children soon learnt to speak
Malay. Then we took five more, and after that one or two as
circumstances threw them in our way. The school at last numbered
forty-five, but there was not room in the mission-house for so many; we
did not get beyond thirty the first year of the school.
I scarcely think thirty English children could have been so easily
reduced to order as these little Chinese. School must have been paradise
to them after the hardships they had undergone, and that perhaps made it
easier to please them; besides, the Chinese readily submit to rule and
method. The day was laid out for them. They rose at half-past five when
the day dawned; after a bath in a pond in the grounds, they had a slice
of rice-pudding with treacle on it, and then went to church for morning
prayers. By seven o'clock they were all at lessons in the big room--such
a buzzing and curious singsong of Chinese words--until nine, when the
breakfast took place; rice, of course, and a sort of curry of
vegetables, also a great dish of fish, either salt or fresh; a little
tea for the elder children, no milk or sugar, and water for the rest.
They soon learnt to sing their grace before and after meals.
The same kind of meal was repeated at five o'clock, but on Sunday they
had pork curried instead of fish, and on festivals chickens. I taught
these children to sing from the first. The Chinese are not musical
generally, and some of them found the sounds of _do_, _re_, _mi_, very
difficult to master, but we had very nice singing in church in time; and
when a schoolmaster came who knew plenty of songs, glees, and rounds,
the children learnt them quickly, and were often sent for to sing to the
rajah and other guests when they came to dinner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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