Sarawak looked very peaceful on our return; and now began the interest of the Dyak missions. From our first arrival at Kuching my husband had taken every opportunity of visiting the Dyak tribes, and sometimes a chief would come to the town with a number of his people, to pay their rice tax, or purchase clothes, tobacco, gongs, gunpowder, whatever the bazaar possessed which they valued. They brought with them beeswax, damar, honey, or rattans to exchange for those things. On these occasions the whole party came up to the mission-house to hear the harmonium, see the magic-lantern, and beg presents. At first they would ask for arrack, but finding nothing but claret to be had with us, soon left off that request. Plates and cups were always valued, and they used to say we had _so many_ more than we could possibly want in the pantry, that of course we would give them some. To their honour be it said, they never stole one, and were invariably refused, for we had not any more than we wanted. The Dyaks hung their plates in loops of rattan very ingeniously against the walls of their houses; but a plantain-leaf folded up is more often used by them in lieu of plates, and they could not have a better substitute. I never enjoyed a meal so much as some cold rice and sardines eaten off a plantain-leaf in the jungle at Lundu, after a long walk to the waterfall. The servant with the provision basket had lost his way, and as we sat hungry under the great trees at the foot of the fall, a Dyak friend produced a box of sardines and a parcel of cold rice, and divided it amongst us. When at last the basket of cold chickens arrived we handed them over to the Dyaks, feeling quite superior to such civilized food.