CHAPTER XI

During those first four years of my stay in Sarawak, the advent of a little girl and twin boys served to show still more strongly the affection and devotion of the people for their chief. Looking back to that time, I cannot help remembering with pleasure the way in which the people took my children to their hearts; the funny little jingling toys they made to amuse them when they were quite babies; the solicitude they showed for their health; the many times they invited them to their houses, when I felt that they were even safer in their keeping than in my own. All this often returns to my mind, and makes me feel more of a Malay than ever.

One sad incident I must mention, if only to contradict the common idea that Muhammadans are all fanatics and incapable of sympathy towards the religious feelings of those who are outside their creed. Once, when returning from a journey with the Rajah, I met with a bad accident. I fell down the hold of a steamer, which resulted in one of my children, a son, being born dead. When this happened, the Rajah had been called away by urgent business up some of the far-off rivers of the interior. Naturally, I was very ill, and the four Malay chiefs of the Rajah’s Council were anxious to show their sympathy with me. When they heard that the child had never lived, they went to the doctor and asked him where it was to be buried. The doctor naturally referred them to the Bishop, who had no other alternative but to decide that it could not be buried in consecrated ground. But the chiefs thought differently. They came that night to the Astana, bringing with them a coffin and carried the little body to the consecrated ground on our side of the river, where some of the Rajah’s relatives are laid. These chiefs dug the grave themselves, and covered it over with a grass mound. I was much too ill at the time to know what was going on, but I was told afterwards that Datu Isa insisted on a tree of frangipani being planted over the spot. I am sorry to say the tree died, but this additional proof of those dear people’s sympathy can never fade from my memory.

The Rajah returned to Kuching immediately he heard the news, and in a few weeks I began to mend. When I was well enough, Datu Isa sat with me daily, and she said the event of my recovery must be marked by a thanksgiving ceremony, for which an afternoon had to be set apart. “You must lie quiet all the morning, Rajah Ranee,” she said, “and think kind thoughts, so that your mind may be serene. I will appear at three o’clock with my women.” I did not in the least know what she was going to do. At three o’clock, according to her promise, Datu Isa headed a long procession of my friends, who came to the door of my room. I was told not to speak, and we were all as silent as the grave. Datu Isa opened the door of my mosquito house; she carried in one hand a piece of something that looked like dried shark’s skin, and in her other she held a ring of pure gold. One of her daughters had a basket containing grains of rice dyed with saffron. Datu Isa rubbed the ring against the “something” two or three times, and then traced signs over my forehead with the ring. She scattered a tiny pinch of gold dust on my hair, and threw a handful of the yellow rice over me. “Thanks be to Allah, Rajah Ranee, for you are well again.” I was just going to speak, but she motioned me to be quite silent, and she and her women departed. Being somewhat given to superstition, I feel sure that this quaint rite hastened my recovery.

Before I close this chapter of the first years of my stay in Sarawak, it would be ungrateful of me did I not mention the tokens of affection and kindness I received from the English ladies of the place, almost all of them having come to live in Kuching since my first arrival there. Mrs. Crookshank, wife of the Resident of Sarawak; Mrs. Kemp, then the wife of the Protestant Chaplain; indeed, all the ladies then living in Kuching were always charming to me. We saw a great deal of one another, and whenever any of these ladies left the country, their absence from our tiny English society was very much felt.

As regards my relations with the Malay women, the Rajah himself encouraged our friendship; he approved of my methods regarding them, and sympathized with them most completely. Owing to his desire to make the place more agreeable to me, he appointed my brother, Harry de Windt, his private secretary. This was a great joy to me, my brother and I being devoted to one another. I like to imagine that the interest he took in Sarawak, and the many expeditions on which he accompanied the Rajah, first inspired the travelling passion in him and led to his future achievements in the many world-wide explorations, for which (though he is my brother) I think I may rightly say he has become famous. It was also during his stay in Sarawak that he wrote his first book and began his career as an author.

So my first four years of residence in Sarawak passed away as a dream, until it was realized that malaria and the climate made it impossible for me to remain in the country without a change to England. Therefore the Rajah made up his mind to go home for a year or so, for he himself, with his incessant work, expeditions, and journeys here and there for the good of the people, had suffered quite his share of fever. As we stepped into the Heartsease, all my women friends congregated on the lawn of the Astana to say good-bye to me. No need now to ask where were the women, and no need now to send for them lest they might be too frightened to come of their own accord. There they were, the best friends I ever had, or ever hope to possess. I felt inclined to cry as I said goodbye to them all, and had it not been for ill-health, I think the idea of a journey to England would have been hateful to me.

It was during this voyage that the first great sorrow since my arrival in Sarawak occurred. The three children we were taking home with us died within six days of one another, and were buried in the Red Sea.