CHAPTER XXI

During one of my visits to England our youngest son Harry was born. He is called Tuan Bungsu (the youngest of a family), a title given to the youngest son of the Rajahs of Sarawak. As time went on and our boys were growing up, it became incumbent on me, for obvious reasons, to spend more time away from our country. I had to make my home in England, on account of the education of our sons, but, whenever possible, I hurried over to pay visits to what is, after all, my own land. I think one of the happiest periods of my life occurred just before Bertram went to Cambridge, when he accompanied me to Sarawak. We then stayed there some months, part of which time the Rajah was obliged to be in England.

Bertram and I gave many receptions to our Malay friends, and it did not take us long to pick up again the threads of our life in Sarawak. I should like to give an account of some journeys which Bertram and I took to some of the outstations. For instance, I was anxious we should visit the Rejang district together, and the Rajah, agreeing with these plans, gave us his yacht for our journeys.

We started one morning from Kuching, accompanied by our great friend Mr. C. A. Bampfylde, then administering the Government in the Rajah’s absence, and Dr. Langmore, who had come with us from Europe, for a round of visits to our Dyak and Kayan friends.

We stayed a day or two at the little village of Santubong, at the mouth of the Sarawak River, where the Rajah had built a bungalow for the use of Europeans requiring change of air to the sea. The chief of this village is a kindly, well-educated Malay, named Hadji Ahmad. This gentleman has been to Mecca, and is thought a great deal of both by Europeans and natives. At any of these small settlements in the Rajah’s country, Malay gentlemen of the standing of Hadji Ahmad occupy the office of magistrate, and are entitled to inquire into, and try, all the petty cases that may occur even in such simple out-of-the-way and almost sinless communities. As I think I have remarked before, the more serious criminal cases are under the control of the Rajah and his Council at Kuching.

When we arrived at the bungalow, we found Hadji Ahmad’s wife, sisters, aunts, and female cousins sitting on the floor arrayed in silks and satins with gold bangles, waiting for us. Hadji Ahmad was anxious we should be amused during our stay, and, being an enthusiastic fisherman, he was eager to show us a good day’s sport. He offered to erect a fishing-shed for us, with as thick a roof as possible, to protect us from the sun, on the shallow, shelving bank of sand which at low tide lies uncovered for miles on the Santubong shore. When the hut was built, some twenty fathoms from the shore, Hadji Ahmad asked permission to bring his family to join in the expedition. We started off at ebbtide in a long, narrow canoe, covered with white awnings. The Malay ladies had taken their position in the boat for about an hour and a half before our arrival, and as I stepped into the canoe they almost sent us overboard in their tender attempts to settle me down in the most comfortable corner. Hadji Ahmad’s wife was a buxom dame of thirty years. She and her five companions talked incessantly, and one of the elder women kept us amused and the Malay women in a perpetual giggle, at the manner in which she chaffed her brother, who was our helmsman. She was most personal in her remarks, drawing attention to his swarthy complexion, his beard and moustache that sparsely covered his chin and lips (Malay men are seldom adorned with either beard or moustache), but he took his sister’s witticisms good-humouredly.

The fishing-hut looked like a bathing machine, standing on stilts in the middle of the risen tide. It had been decorated with the beautiful blossom of the areca-nut palm, and mats and all kinds of draperies embroidered in gold (the work of the Malay women of the village) were hung round the hut. We made our way up the wide-rung ladder, some ten feet high, through which the water shone and glistened in the most alarming manner. A salvo of Chinese crackers were let off as we entered the hut, causing great delight to my female escort, who highly approved of the din. The hut groaned and creaked as our party, some fourteen in number, took their seats on a small platform jutting out from it over the sea. The construction of these sheds was very ingenious. They were erected upon a series of stout timber poles disposed at the back of the leaf building in the shape of a boat’s keel. A number of canoes, which had conveyed ten or fifteen of the most experienced fishermen in the village, were tied to these poles. Four great poles, acting as levers, swung horizontally each side of the hut, jutting out twenty feet in front, between which the nets were hung.

As the tide came in, the excitement of the party grew intense, and the fishermen sang a dirge-like melody, inviting the fish into the net, telling them the Rajah’s wife and son were expecting their arrival, and that, therefore, it would only be good manners and loyalty on their part to pay their respects by being caught and eaten by them! When sufficient time had elapsed, according to Hadji Ahmad’s idea, for the net to be full of fish, the fishermen hung on to the poles at the back of the hut, their weight swinging the ends on which the nets were tied out of the water, when we saw a number of fish wriggling in their meshes. Amongst the fish were two or three octopuses, those poisonous masses of white, jelly-like substances which all fishermen in the Straits dread like the evil one himself, on account of their poisonous stings; these, when captured, were tossed back again into the sea.

After an enjoyable day, we went back to the house for tea, and started off again in the cool of the evening to visit a creek in the neighbourhood, where lies a great boulder of sandstone, upon which the figure of a woman is carved. On this occasion, we travelled in one of the Aline’s boats, our crew having provided themselves with paddles in order to make their way through the aquatic vegetation which abounds in the small streams. Bertram took his place at the helm, and, without asking any questions, proceeded to steer us through a maze of nipa palms and mangroves, twisting in and out of these numerous channels for an hour or so. Dr. Langmore and I, thinking the way rather long, at last inquired whether we were on the right track, when Hadji Ahmad informed us that we were drifting in quite the wrong direction. “But why did you not say so?” I said to Hadji Ahmad. “We could not set the Rajah’s son right until he asked us to do so,” he replied. Therefore, had we not inquired the way, I suppose we might even now be wandering about the maze of water, with Bertram at the helm. The Hadji soon put us right, and Bertram was as amused as we were at the extreme politeness of our Malay entourage. At length the stone was reached, and it was indeed a curious object. One had better explain that at the foot of this mountain of Santubong, in the alluvial soil washed down by the frequent rain of those tropical countries, traces of a former settlement, in the shape of beads, golden ornaments, and broken pottery have been found lying here and there with the pebbles, gravel, and mud, rolled down from the mountain. Experts who have visited this spot are confident that a considerable number of people once lived here, and, owing to some unknown cause, deserted the spot. Amongst some of the debris, the remains of a glass factory and golden ornaments of Hindoo workmanship have been discovered. This race of people has faded completely from the memory of the present inhabitants of Santubong. The sandstone boulder with its effigy was only discovered during quite late years by a gardener who was clearing the soil in preparation for a vegetable garden.

We landed in the midst of mud and fallen trees. Narrow planks of wood, raised on trestles, led us through a morass to the figure. It rests under a roof of iron-wood shingles, erected by the Rajah’s orders to protect the carving from the effects of the weather. The carved figure is about life-size, and apparently represents a naked woman flung face downwards, with arms and legs extended, clinging to the surface of the rock; a knot of hair stands some inches from her head, and all round the figure the stone is weather-beaten and worn. Lower down, on the right of the larger carving, Bertram and I discovered the outline of a smaller figure in the same position. A triangular mark, with three loops on its upper bar, is to be seen near by on the stone, looking like the head of an animal rudely scratched. The natives of Santubong have turned the place into a sort of shrine for pilgrimage. Hadji Ahmad told me that the men and women of his village imagine the figure to have been that of a real woman, given to torturing animals for her amusement, and turned to stone by an avenging Deity. The people of Sarawak, at least all those with whom I have come in contact, are under the impression that anyone guilty of injuring, ill-treating, or laughing at animals is liable to be turned into stone by an offended god, and nearly all the stones or rocks to be met with in the beds of rivers, and elsewhere, are thought by the people to be the remnants of a human race, guilty of such crimes. They call these stones Batu Kudi (the stones of curses), but how these legends took root and became so firmly implanted in the minds of Sarawak people remains a mystery to this day.

This mysterious Santubong figure puzzles and interests me greatly. There is no one nowadays in Kuching capable of fashioning such a thing. Moreover, the tops of carved pillars, and other fretted fragments of stone, have been found in these gravel beds, so that I imagine somewhere on the mountain must be hidden more vestiges of a long-departed people, in the shape of temples and maybe of other buildings. When one remembers Angkor Wat and the manner in which that stupendous work of men’s hands lay buried for centuries, under its shroud of leaves, which more completely than desert sand obliterated the works of humanity for a long while, one can almost be certain that Santubong and its mysteries will be unveiled some day. I only wish I could live long enough to see it. Musing over the past history of semi-deserted countries, such as these, entrances and terrifies one. Under the shade of innumerable generations of trees, men and women have come and gone, struggled to live their lives, raised altars and temples to their gods, with perhaps the quietude of endless previous centuries lulling them into factitious security. Then that “something” happens, when, helpless as thistledown blown about by puffs of wind, such people are destroyed, driven forth or killed, when the relentless growth of the tropics takes possession of their deserted homes, and the trace of their existence is blotted out by leaves. Those great forests of the tropics must hold many secrets, and when staying near the Santubong mountain, its mystery weighed on me, and I longed to know the fate of those who had gone before. For reasons such as these, it is a pity that some of the Europeans who come into touch with natives should do all they can to wipe out from their minds legends and tales bearing on the origin of their race—​yarns they call them. Hadji Ahmad was a proof of the manner in which these methods affected him. I was anxious to know what was thought by the Santubong people about this stone. The Hadji said some obvious things, but when I pressed him further, he begged me not to do so, for he was afraid Englishmen in Sarawak might accuse him of telling lies; therefore he preferred to keep what he thought about the stone to himself. I cannot repeat too often that such criticisms made by Europeans to imaginative Eastern peoples amongst whom they live are helping to suppress secrets which, if unveiled, might prove of inestimable value to science.

Before closing this chapter, I must recount a conversation I had with one of my Santubong friends the evening before our departure to the Rejang. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and the mountain of Santubong looked black against the sky. Within a few yards of the house a grove of casuarina trees were swaying in the evening breeze. The murmur of their frail branches made an exquisite sound in the stillness of the night. As we stood on the verandah, my Malay friend said: “If you like to go out by yourself, Rajah Ranee, and stand under those trees at midnight, you will hear voices of unknown people telling you the secrets of the earth.” I wish now I had gone out and listened, for I am foolish enough to believe that the secrets told by those musical branches might have been worth listening to, but afraid of the night, of the solitude, and, above all, of the criticisms of my European friends, I refrained. I have since come to the conclusion that I have lost a wonderful and beautiful experience which may never occur again.

“I know a story about the mountain of Santubong. Would Rajah Ranee like to hear it?” said my friend, as we stood looking at the mountain. “Say on,” I replied; “I should well like to hear.” “In the days of long ago,” she began, “a holy man, whose name was Hassan, lived in a house at the foot of this mountain. He was a Haji, for he had been to Mecca, and wore a green turban and long flowing robes. He read the Koran day and night, his prayers were incessant, and the name of Allah was ever on his lips. His soul was white and exceedingly clean, and whenever he cut himself with his parang whilst hewing down the trees to make into canoes, the blood flowed from the wound white as milk.[10] He occasionally visited his brothers and sisters living in Kuching, taking about half a day to accomplish the journey, but he was never away from his solitary home by the sea-shore for very long. He never suspected that a beautiful lady, the Spirit of Santubong and the daughter of the moon, lived on its highest peak, and from thence had watched him admiringly on account of his blameless life. One day she flew down into the valley, entered his house, and made friends with him. Their intercourse ripened into love, they were married, and the daughter of the moon wafted her Haji husband to her home beyond the clouds. Haji Hassan and his spirit-wife lived for some years in this lofty region. They were such good people that it seemed as though nothing could ever happen to mar their happiness. But as time went on, the good man grew weary of this unalloyed happiness, and sighed for a change. From his home on the mountain-top he could see the roof of his little palm-thatched house, where he had lived alone for so many years, and he could see the lights of the village near it twinkling in the darkness of nights. He thought of his brothers and sisters in Kuching, and of his other friends living there, and a great longing came over him to return, if only for a short space of time, to the grosser pleasures of earth.

“One day he spoke these words to his wife: ‘Delight of my life and light of my eyes, forgive me for what I am about to say. I want to go to Kuching to see my brothers and sisters, and to stay with them a while.’ A great sickness of heart seized the daughter of the moon; nevertheless, she let him go, pledging him to return to her when a month had gone by. She called her servants and ordered them to prepare a boat to carry her husband to Kuching. So the Haji departed, and the days seemed long to the daughter of the moon. At length the Haji’s time had expired, but week after week went by and his wife sat alone on her mountain peak, longing for his return.

“Meanwhile, Haji Hassan was enjoying himself with his friends at Kuching. He was made a great deal of; bullocks were killed for his consumption at great banquets in the houses of his friends, where he was the honoured guest, and always the one chosen to admonish his friends and give them lessons in good conduct before the meal began. In fact, he was so lionized that he forgot his wife waiting for him amongst the clouds at the top of Santubong.

“Some months had elapsed, when one morning, as the Haji was returning from the river-bank where he had bathed and prayed before beginning the day, he looked towards the north and saw a great black cloud forming over the peak of the mountain; then he suddenly remembered his wife. He hastily summoned his servants, and, when the boat was made ready, the tide and strenuous paddling of his crew bore him speedily to the foot of Santubong. He clambered its steep sides and reached his home—​only to find it empty and desolate, for the daughter of the moon had flown. At this the Haji’s heart grew sick and he shed bitter tears. He went back to his relations at Kuching, and there became gloomy and silent, constantly sighing for the presence of his wife.

“One evening, a man in a canoe passed by the Haji’s landing-place, where he was sitting, staring at the river. ‘Eh, Tuan Haji,’ the man called out, ‘your wife has been seen on the top of Mount Sipang,’ and quickly paddled off. The Haji sprang into his canoe tied to the landing-place, unloosed its moorings, and paddled himself to the foot of Mount Sipang. He rushed up to its highest peak, but his wife was not there. Subsequently he heard news of her on Mount Serapi, the highest peak of the Matang range, but on reaching the mountain-top he was again disappointed. Thus from mountain peak to mountain peak the disconsolate husband sought his wife all over Borneo, but the daughter of the moon had vanished out of his life for ever. He went back to Kuching, and soon after died of a broken heart.”

This was the end of the story, but my friend went on to explain that whenever the peak of the Santubong mountain is bathed in moonlight the people imagine the daughter of the moon is revisiting her old home.

It was almost midnight. “I ask your leave to go, Rajah Ranee,” my Malay companion said. “I hope you will sleep well.” She walked away in the moonlight to her home in the village below, and I went to bed and dreamed about the Haji and his moonshine, whilst the talking trees outside told their secrets to the stars.