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
Mary married the schoolmaster, Mr. Owen. We brought Julia home with us
in 1869, and put her into a training-school for teachers in Dublin,
where she was much beloved. When we returned to Sarawak, in 1861, she
became the schoolmistress to the girls I then had in the house, and
others who came as day-scholars. She was a thoroughly good girl, and a
great comfort to me, but of course she married, a young man employed as
mate in the _Rainbow_, a Government vessel running between Sarawak and
Singapore. Some years afterwards Forrest died, and Julia married again,
an older man very well off. I have no doubt she is bringing up her
family in the fear of God, but I have not heard of her lately. I had
many trials with the girls, more than I like to recount. All the first
little family of Chinese girls we received in 1850 belonged to the tribe
who rebelled in 1857, and their relations carried them off when we were
driven from the mission-house. They were taken to Bau where their
relations lived, but what became of them in the terrible flight to the
Dutch country, when many were killed, and still more died of the
privations of the jungle, we never could hear.
Sarah and Fanny came to us in 1856. They were little orphans, half
Chinese, half Dyak, whom, with two more girls and four boys, the
Government had redeemed from slavery and gave to the mission. Some of
these children stayed at Lundu with Mr. Gomez and his family; some came
to me--Sarah, Fanny, and Betsy, a baby whom I gave out to nurse. Poor
little Sarah had a very scarred face from a burn, but she was a bright,
clever child. Fanny was better-looking, but more heavy and less
impressible. These two girls married native catechists in course of
time. I trust they are doing some good among their own people.
In the year 1862 some little captives fell into the hands of Captain
Brooke, then ruling at Sarawak. They came from Sarebas, and one of them
had been wounded by a spear, though he was only a tiny boy of four
years old. Captain Brooke wrote to me to know if I would take this
family of children into the school--two girls, Limo and Ambat, and two
boys, Esau and Nigo. If I could not take them, he said, they must be
sent back to their own country immediately, as there was a boat
departing the next day. The Bishop was away from Sarawak, so I had to
decide; nor would there have been any doubt in my mind about it, but
Esau the eldest boy was covered with kurap, from head to foot. This is a
skin disease to which Dyaks are subject, and which suggests the leprosy
of the Old Testament, for the outer skin peels off in flakes, and gives
almost a "white as snow" appearance to the surface. I doubted whether I
ought to take a pupil so afflicted, for it is decidedly catching. I
found that Ambat and Nigo had both patches of it here and there from
contact with Esau, whereas Limo, who was older, more clothed, and who
slept apart, was quite free.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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