llah and the good boat; and they, as
well as Stahl who had behaved so well at the time of danger, fell into a
fit of ague from the nervous shock. We knew on the top of the hill that
a fearful storm was raging, but we did not see the white boat flying
like a bird over the seven great rollers, or there would have been no
sleep for us that night. The crew never forgot it, nor the calm pluck of
their steersman the Bishop. I must confess that an attack of fever was
the result of all this exertion when he joined us on the hill.

The rest of the year 1856 passed away quietly. We were all looking
forward to an event which was to improve the English society of the
place very much. The Rajah's nephew, Captain Brooke, was bringing out a
bride; and her brother, Mr. Charles Grant, another. These four young
people were expected in the early spring of 1857, and the Rajah was
refurnishing his bungalow to receive these additions to his family. A
new piano had arrived, and all sorts of pretty things, to brighten up
the cool dark rooms of Government House. Mr. and Mrs. Crookshank were
preparing a house for themselves also; and all their boxes, which had
remained unopened while they lived with the Rajah, were moved up to
their bungalow. Little did we think that all these treasures would be
burnt before they were even unpacked!

The Chinese gold-workers of Bau and Seniawan had long given more or less
trouble to the Sarawak Government. They were governed by their own
self-elected kunsi (magistrates), and recognized their fealty to Sarawak
only by the payment of a small tax on the gold they washed from the
soil. They sent the gold away to China, and habitually cheated as to the
quantity obtained. They also smuggled opium from the Dutch settlement of
Sambas, thus defrauding Government of revenue. Worse than all this, they
introduced secret societies, or hui, among themselves, and threatened to
rebel if any of their kunsi were punished for breaking the laws of the
country. At Christmas, 1856, they boasted they could demolish Kuching
in one night, if they chose; and that a new Joss House they were
building there should furnish them with a pretext to gather by hundreds
to set the Joss in his temple, and possess themselves of the place and
the Europeans who lived there. These uncomfortable rumours seemed to
have some foundation when a new road was discovered which the Chinese
had made between Bau and Seniawan, another settlement nearer to Kuching.