One morning, as I was watching the arrival of the mail-steamer from
my verandah at Kuching, I noticed the figure of a tall European lady
standing on deck. A few moments after, a messenger brought me a letter
from Singapore from the Governor’s wife, Lady Jervois, introducing a
traveller to Sarawak, whose name was Marianne North. The Rajah was
away, so I sent his Secretary on board with a pressing invitation to
the lady, of whom I had heard so much, but had not had the pleasure of
meeting. Miss North’s arrival in Sarawak is a great and happy landmark
in my life. Many of my English friends were devoted to her, and I was
delighted at the idea of her coming to stay with me. I watched our
small river-boat fetching her from the steamer, and went to meet her.
She was not young then, but I thought she looked delightful. We shook
hands, and the first words she said to me were: “How do you know if
you will like me well enough to ask me to stay with you?” From that
moment began a friendship which lasted until her death. Many people
know the great work of her life, and must have seen the gallery of
her pictures which she gave to Kew Gardens. Many of these pictures were
painted in Sarawak.
[Illustration: SUN SETTING BEHIND THE MOUNTAIN OF MATANG]
The first evening of her stay in Kuching we went for a row on the
river, and the sunset behind Matang was, as she said, a revelation.
That land of forests, mountains, and water, the wonderful effect of
sunshine and cloud, the sudden storms, the soft mists at evening, the
perfumed air brought through miles and miles of forest by the night
breezes, were an endless source of delight to her. Sometimes as we sat
on our verandah in the evening after dinner, a sweet, strange perfume
wafted from forest lands beyond, across the river, floated through our
house--“The scent of unknown flowers,” Miss North would say.
Our boat-boys were sent on botanical expeditions for jungle plants,
and every morning and evening a great variety of things arrived at
the Astana, many of which I had never seen or even heard of. In the
morning I would take my work into Miss North’s room and sit with her
whilst she painted, for I loved her companionship. She it was who
first made me realize the beauty, solace, and delight found in trees,
plants, and flowers. But sometimes she was very stern; she thought me
young and stupid. She would look at me through her spectacles, very
kindly, I must say. “Why, you know nothing,” she said, “although you
are so late from school!” She once asked me where pitcher-plants were
to be found. “Pitcher-plants,” I said; “I have never heard of them.
I don’t think there are any in the country.” “But this is the land of
pitcher-plants,” Miss North replied, “and if you like we will try and
find them together.” I sent for the boat-boy. I remember distinctly the
picture she was painting at the time--a clump of sago palms growing
in our garden. She told me how I could describe pitcher-plants to the
faithful Kong Kong, one of our boat-boys, a Sarawak Malay, an odd and
uncouth individual, with long hair flowing over his shoulders. He had
been with the Rajah for many years. “Oh yes,” said Kong Kong, “I know.
They grow where earth is marshy. I can show you where they grow.” One
morning Miss North and I got up early and crossed the river almost
before sunrise, and with Kong Kong as our guide, went in search of
the pitcher-plants. We walked for a little way along the Rock Road,
and turned into a path leading through a kind of moor, where the
sensitive plant lay like a carpet covering the ground. That curse of
agriculturists always delighted me. I felt a certain enjoyment in
walking through the great patches of this shrinking stuff with its
myriads of leaves closing at the slightest touch. We left a pathway
behind us of apparently dying vegetation, but a minute or two after our
passage it resumed its normal shape. Malays call it the “Shy” plant.
Kong Kong then led the way over a swamp, where logs of wood were laid
to keep passers-by off the mud. Our progress across these logs was
not an easy matter. We went through a grove of trees, and suddenly,
in a clearing, we came to the spot. I do not think anyone who has
only seen pitcher-plants growing in the sedate way they do at Kew can
have any idea of the beautiful madness of their growth when in a wild
state. Here they were, cups long, round, wide, and narrow, some shaped
like Etruscan vases, others like small earthenware cooking-pots, the
terminations of long, narrow, glossy green leaves. Their colour, too,
was perfectly exquisite--a pale green ground, splashed over with rose,
carmine, yellow, and brown, the little lids to the cups daintily poised
just above each pitcher. I suppose there must have been thousands of
these plants, twisting, creeping, and flinging themselves over dead
trunks of trees, falling in cascades of colour above our heads, forming
a perfect bower. We all stood still, silently looking at them. At
length Miss North remarked: “And you said yesterday there were no such
things in the country!”
Miss North remained with us about six weeks, and when I very
sorrowfully accompanied her on board the steamer on her return to
England, I felt that something new and delightful had come into my
life, for she had not only introduced me to pitcher-plants, but to
orchids, palms, ferns, and many other things of whose existence I had
never dreamed. Miss North was the one person who made me realize the
beauties of the world. She was noble, intelligent, and kind, and her
friendship and the time we spent together are amongst my happiest
memories. She used to paint all day, and, thinking this must be bad
for her, I sometimes tried to get her away early in the afternoon for
excursions, but she would never leave her work until waning daylight
made painting impossible. I remember how she painted a sunset behind
Matang, which painting she gave to me. She sat on a hill overlooking
the river until the sun went behind the mountain. The world grew dark,
and the palms in the neighbourhood looked black against the sky as she
put her last stroke into the picture. She put up her palette, folded
her easel, and was preparing to walk home with me to the Astana, when
for some moments she stood quite still, staring at the thread of red
light disappearing behind the shoulder of the mountain. “I cannot speak
or move,” she said. “I am drunk with beauty!”
But there was one thing that Miss North and I did not agree upon. She
did not approve of the view I took of our Dyak and Kayan people. She
liked to meet Malay ladies, because, as we all know, they have better
manners than most Europeans, but she could not bear the thought of
either Dyaks or Kayans. I could never eradicate from her mind the idea
that they were savages. I used to try and interest her in these people,
for I longed that she should accompany us in some of our journeys
into the interior, but this she would never do. “Don’t talk to me of
savages,” she would say; “I hate them.” “But they are not savages,” I
would reply. “They are just like we are, only circumstances have made
them different.” “They take heads: that is enough for me,” she would
add severely, and would listen to no defence for that curious custom of
theirs, for which I could find so many excuses.