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
thei