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
These lines were most applicable to us during the year 1856. It was such
rest and peace when our Bishop returned from Calcutta and soothed all
the griefs and heartburnings we had suffered the four months he was
away. Then ensued the performance of his new episcopal duties. Mr. Gomes
was ordained priest in March. Confirmations took place, of our elder
school-children, who were all baptized when they first came to us; also
many Chinese Christians too, who had long attended the Bible classes at
the mission-house and stood firm to their baptismal vows. In April we
had another baby girl; and soon after, the Bishop went to Labuan, to
arrange about a church being built there. Unfortunately he caught fever
at Labuan; which declared itself at Singapore on his return. We were
both very ill, and glad of doctors' advice at Singapore; but Labuan
fever returns again and again, though in a slighter form after a while,
and was for years a constant trial to the Bishop's strength. When we
returned to Sarawak in October, our party was increased. Mr. and Mrs.
Crookshank had come out from England--she a bride, and quite a new
element of youth and beauty for Sarawak. A lady friend and her child and
nurse also came on a long visit to us, the air of Sarawak being
considered quite a tonic compared to the sea-breeze at Singapore, which
was at times visited by a hot wind from Java. Very pleasant days
followed our return home. Mrs. Harvey and I, with our children, went for
a month to "See-afar" Cottage on the hill of Serambo. I have already
mentioned this little house, built by Sir James Brooke as a sanitarium
after his attack of small-pox. The only objection to it was, that it was
built in the region of clouds: had the hill been five hundred feet
higher we should have had the clouds below us, as they are on Penang
Hill. The path up the mountain--if path it can be called--is almost a
staircase of tumbled rocks, and requires both strength and agility to
climb. It was quite beyond me; but I was carried on a man's back,
sitting on a bit of plank, with a strip of cloth fastened round my waist
and across the man's forehead, my back to his back. The Dyaks are famous
mountaineers, their bare feet cling to the stones, or notched trunks of
trees thrown from one rock to another. I never felt unsafe on my Dyak
friend's back, and he used to laugh when I proposed his setting me down
and taking a rest, and say, "You are not as heavy as a basket of durian
fruit." These Dyaks have beautiful groves of fruit-trees, and make a
good purse in the fruit season by bringing down durians, mangosteen and
lansat fruit to sell at Kuching. They also carry all their harvest of
paddy up the mountain to their rice-stores in the villages, so they are
used to heavy weights.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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