to us, the air of Sarawak being
considered quite a tonic compared to the sea-breeze at Singapore, which
was at times visited by a hot wind from Java. Very pleasant days
followed our return home. Mrs. Harvey and I, with our children, went for
a month to "See-afar" Cottage on the hill of Serambo. I have already
mentioned this little house, built by Sir James Brooke as a sanitarium
after his attack of small-pox. The only objection to it was, that it was
built in the region of clouds: had the hill been five hundred feet
higher we should have had the clouds below us, as they are on Penang
Hill. The path up the mountain--if path it can be called--is almost a
staircase of tumbled rocks, and requires both strength and agility to
climb. It was quite beyond me; but I was carried on a man's back,
sitting on a bit of plank, with a strip of cloth fastened round my waist
and across the man's forehead, my back to his back. The Dyaks are famous
mountaineers, their bare feet cling to the stones, or notched trunks of
trees thrown from one rock to another. I never felt unsafe on my Dyak
friend's back, and he used to laugh when I proposed his setting me down
and taking a rest, and say, "You are not as heavy as a basket of durian
fruit." These Dyaks have beautiful groves of fruit-trees, and make a
good purse in the fruit season by bringing down durians, mangosteen and
lansat fruit to sell at Kuching. They also carry all their harvest of
paddy up the mountain to their rice-stores in the villages, so they are
used to heavy weights.

We took a stock of provisions up with us, fowls and ducks, a goat and
her kid, etc., and all the bedding we wanted, for of course there was
not much furniture in the cottage. Our first night was unfortunate. We
had settled ourselves in the rooms, had our supper, and were about to go
to bed, when the servants ran out of the cook-house, which was a
stone's-throw from the cottage, crying out, "Fire!" and in a few minutes
we saw it wrapped in flames. Of course a house built of sticks and
leaves does not take long to burn down to the ground, but we were
distressed to hear the bleatings of the little kid which could not be
got out in time. The ducks, too, were still in the long basket coop in
which they were carried up, and were literally roasted in their feathers
before anybody remembered them. A large party of Dyaks were on the spot
directly they saw the flames, and they did good service by throwing
water on the roof