A BOAT JOURNEY.
Throughout the year 1852 and part of '53 my husband was much tried with
rheumatism in his knee, which made him quite lame, though he would
hobble to church on crutches, and to hospital to look after his poor
patients. Meanwhile he taught the young missionaries something of the
art of healing, dressing wounds and broken bones, and physicking the
ailments to which natives are most subject--fever, dysentery, etc. It
was quite necessary they should know something of these subjects before
they could be any use in the jungle. The first question the Dyaks asked,
if told a new missionary was coming, would always be, "Is he clever at
physic?" Medicines and simple remedies were always furnished to every
mission-station, and the Rajah supplied all the stores that were needed
for Kuching or elsewhere. We had taken a good stock with us at first,
and all sorts of surgical instruments, but the Government kept it
replenished.
The hospital was set up when the great influx of Chinese brought numbers
of sick people to the place. A long shed was built, and twenty beds
immediately filled; but the next day, one of the patients having died,
all the others who could move ran away. They have so great a horror of a
dead body that they never suffered any one to die in their houses if
they could help it, but built a little shed for the sick man, and
visited him twice a day with food and opium while life lasted. A
separate room was therefore added for the dead. This hospital furnished
good instruction to the missionaries. It was also their duty to teach
the sick every day, and the result was that several Chinese were
baptized on their recovery. This shed was afterwards exchanged for a
long room above the fort, which was both more airy and substantial. A
dispensary was attached to it.
When Mr. Chambers came from England and was able to undertake the duties
at Kuching, my husband accompanied Captain Brooke and some of the
Government officers in a tour up the Batang Lupar and Rejang Rivers. He
was very lame at the time, but had no walking to do, only now and then
to get out of his large boat and scramble up into a Dyak house. How he
managed it under the circumstances I never could imagine, for the
staircase from the water to a high Dyak house is only the trunk of a
tree with a few notches in it, and, at low tide, a case of slippery mud;
this, placed at a steep angle, without any rail, is not easy climbing
for any one, but a stiff knee made it still more difficult.
The object of the expedition was to make peace between certain Dyak
tribes who had long been enemies, and to build a fort on the Rejang
River, similar to Mr. Brereton's fort at Sakarran, and for the same
purpose. An Englishman named Steele was to occupy the fort with some
Malays. Captain Brooke took the _Jolly Bachelor_ gunboat, and Frank
moved into it to cross the sea from the mouth of the Sarawak to the
Linga River, for the waves were high and wetted the smaller boats. When
they reached the Linga River, he was sitting one Sunday night on the
boom of the _Jolly_, enjoying the moonlight, and watching the swift rush
of the tide, which is very rapid in that river. Suddenly, the piece of
wood he was trusting to broke, and he was precipitated over the stern.
Had he fallen into the water he must have been dragged under the vessel
by the tide and drowned, but, through God's mercy, the ship's boat
(_Dingy_), which only a few minutes before was the whole length of its
painter away from the _Jolly_, swept up to it from the swing of the
vessel, and, as he fell, he caught hold of the boat and pulled himself
into it, escaping with only a bruise, when a watery bed, or the jaws of
an alligator or shark, might have received him. A shark had been
swimming round the gun-boat during Divine service that day, and an
alligator had taken a man only the day before from a boat close by. My
dear husband's comment on this narrow escape is, "Praise the Lord, O my
soul, and forget not all His benefits; who redeemeth thy life from
destruction, and crowneth thee with mercy and lovingkindness."
The fleet waited for some days in the Linga River, while the Balow Dyaks
fetched the jars which they were to exchange with the Sakarrans as a
pledge of peace. These jars, of which every Dyak tribe possessed some,
are of unknown antiquity. There is nothing very particular in their
appearance. They are brown in colour, have handles at the sides, and
sometimes figures of dragons on them. They vary in value, but though the
Chinese have tried to imitate them, hoping to sell them to the Dyaks,
they have never deceived them: they detect a difference where no
European or Chinese eye can, and at once pronounce the Chinese jars of
no value. Yet they will not sell their own rusas or tajows for any
money, and they fancy that some of them have the property of keeping
water always sweet. If a Dyak tribe offends the law, Government fines
them so many jars, which are brought to Kuching and kept, or returned on
their good behaviour. This reminds me of the story of a little Dyak boy
who was taken prisoner in 1849. His father was killed, and the boy,
about eight years old, was brought to the Rajah. For some days the child
seemed quite happy, then he begged to speak to "Tuan Rajah," and told
him confidentially that he knew a place in the jungle where some
valuable tajows were secreted, and if he would land him with some
Malays or the bank of the river, he would point out the place. The Rajah
believed the child, and the jars were found, and taken on board the
boat. Then the little boy went again to the Rajah, and bursting into
tears, said, "I have given you the riches of my tribe; in return give me
my liberty. Set me down in the jungle path, give me some food, and in
two days I shall reach my home and my mother." So the child was laden
with all he took a fancy to--a china cup, a glass tumbler, and a gay
sarong (waist-cloth), and as much food as he could carry--and we heard
afterwards that he rejoined his friends in safety.
I must now return to my husband's journal. He says: "While at breakfast
this morning, one of the men told us he had seen the people with tails,
of whom we have often heard.[4] They live fifteen days up a river, in
the interior of the Bruni country. It is a large river, but in some
places runs through caverns, where they can only pass on small rafts. He
was sent there by Pangeran Mumeim to get goats, as these tailed gentry
keep a great many of them. He says their tails are as long as the two
joints of the middle finger, fleshy and stiff. They must be very
inconvenient, for they are obliged to sit on logs of wood made on
purpose, or to make a hole in the earth, to accommodate their tails
before they can sit down. These people do not eat rice, but sago made
into cakes and baked in a pot. In their country, he said, was a great
stone fort, with nine large iron guns, of which the people can give no
account, not knowing when or by whom it was built.
[Footnote 4: This legend, though commonly reported, has never
been proved.]
"After dinner, when the men sit round me and smoke my cigars, they soon
enter into conversation. We spoke a good deal to-day on the subject of
religion, the difference between Christianity and Mahometanism, and,
above all, the absurdity of their repeating the Koran, like so many
parrots, without understanding one word of what they say; and the
irreverence of addressing God in words they do not understand, so that
their hearts can take no part in their prayers. They agreed that it
would be better to learn God's law, instead of trusting merely to their
hadjis, who are often as ignorant as themselves. A respectable old Bruni
man, speaking of different races of men of various colours, said he had
visited a tribe of white people, who lived on a high hill in the
interior of the country; they were very white, and the women beautiful,
with light hair. The men dress like Dyaks, but the women wear a long
black robe, tight at the waist, and puffed out on the shoulders. The
tradition of their origin, he said, was as follows: A long, long time
ago, an old man who lived on this mountain lost himself in the jungle at
its foot, and at night, being tired, and afraid of snakes and the evil
spirits of the wood, he climbed into a tree and fell asleep. He was woke
by a noise of ravishing music, the sweetest gongs and chanangs mingling
with voices over his head. The music came nearer and nearer to the
place where he was, until he heard the sweet voices under the tree, and,
looking down, beheld a large clear fountain opened, and seven beautiful
females bathing. They were all of different sizes, like the fingers on a
man's hand, and they sung as they sported in the water. The old man
watched them for some time, and thought how much he should like one of
them as a wife for his only son; but as he was afraid of descending
among them, he made a noose with a long piece of rattan, lowered it
gently, and slipping it over one of them, drew her up into the tree. She
cried out, and they all disappeared with a whirring noise. The girl he
caught was very young, and she cried sadly because she had no clothes
on; so he rolled her in a chawat (long sash), and immediately heard the
gongs at his own house, which he had thought was a long way off. He took
the child home, and she was brought up by his wife, until she was old
enough to marry their son. She was very good and sweet-tempered, and
everybody loved her. In course of time she had a son, as white as
herself. One day her husband was in a violent rage and beat her. She
implored him not to make her cry, or she should be taken away from him
and her child. But he did not heed, and at last pulled her jacket off to
beat her. Immediately another jacket was dropped with a great noise from
the sky, upon the house. She put it on, and vanished upwards, leaving
her son, who was the ancestor of the present tribe."
Who would have thought of a Dyak Undine?
While the Malay was telling this story, the boat was waiting in a
sheltered nook of the Sakarran River for the bore to pass, before the
crew dare venture up to the fort. The bore is a great wave, twelve feet
high, which rushes up with the tide, and is succeeded by two smaller
waves. It is very dangerous to boats; but happily the natives know where
to hide while it sweeps past.
When they reached Sakarran Fort it took several days to hear all the
claims the Lingas and Sakarrans had against each other. Six years
before, the Rajah had persuaded them to make peace, but they had broken
it the same day, and laid the blame upon one another. At last matters
were arranged, and a platform being made under a wide-spreading
banyan-tree, the chiefs sat round; and Captain Brooke made them a
speech, describing the evils of piracy and war, and the determination of
the Rajah that his subjects should live at peace with one another.
"He then presented each chief with a jar, a spear, and a Sarawak flag,
and desired them to use the flag in their boats for the purposes of
trade. Nothing could be more picturesque than the scene. The surface of
the water was dotted over with the long serpent-like bangkongs, gaily
painted and adorned with flags and streamers of many colours, which
looked all the brighter against the solemn jungle background. Then
Gassim and Gila Brani (madly brave), on the part of the Sakarrans, and
Tongkat Langit (Staff of Heaven), the Linga chief, joined hands; and
each tribe killed a pig with great ceremony, and inspected the entrails
to see if the peace was good. Then they feasted and rejoiced together.
This ended, they proceeded up the Rejang River in the boats, and paddled
for four days, from twenty-five to thirty miles a day, until they came
to the Kenowit, on the banks of which the fort was to be built."
The Rejang is a glorious river. It is not visited by a bore, and eighty
miles from the sea it is half a mile broad, and deep to the banks. The
flowers and fruits which grow there are a continual surprise and
pleasure--but how shall I describe the flowers of those great
woods?--not only up the Rejang, but everywhere in the old jungle. They
seldom grow on the ground, though you may sometimes come upon a huge bed
of ground orchids, but mostly climb up the trees, and hang in festoons
from the branches. One plant, the Ixora, for instance, propagating
itself undisturbed, will become a garden itself, trailing its red or
orange blossoms from bough to bough till the forest glows with colour.
The Rhododendron, growing in the forks of the great branches, takes
possession of the tall trees, making them blush all over with delicate
pinks and lilacs, or deepest rose clusters. Then the orchideous plants
fix themselves in the branches, and send out long sprays of blossom of
many colours and sweetest perfume. Here the voice of the Burong boya
(crocodile-bird) may be heard, singing like an English thrush. He shakes
his wings as he sings, and the Malays say that from time immemorial he
has owed a large sum of money to the crocodile, who comes every year to
ask payment; then the bird, perched on a high bough out of reach of the
monster, sings, "How can I pay? I have nothing but my feathers, nothing
but my feathers!" So the crocodile goes away till next year. There are
not many singing birds in Borneo besides this thrush. The soft voices of
many doves and pigeons may always be heard, and often the curious
creaking noise made by the wings of rhinoceros hornbills as they fly
past. More musical is the voice of the Wawa monkey, a bubbling like
water running out of a narrow-necked bottle, always to be heard at early
dawn, and the sweetest of alarums. A dead stillness reigns in the jungle
by day, but at sunset every leaf almost becomes instinct with life. You
might almost fancy yourself beset by Gideon's army, when all the lamps
in the pitchers rattled and broke, and every man blew his trumpet into
your ear. It is an astounding noise certainly, and difficult to believe
that so many pipes and rattles, whirring machines and trumpets, belong
to good-sized beetles or flies, singing their evening song to the
setting sun. As the light dies away all becomes still again, unless any
marshy ground shelters frogs. But to hear all this you must go to the
old jungle, where the tall trees stand near together and shut out the
light of day, and almost the air, for there is a painful sense of
suffocation in the dense wood.