they should do so! Yet the Dyaks are very fond of
children, and extremely indulgent to them. Our school was recruited
after the war by the children of Chinese, bought by Government from
their captors. This was my first and last visit to a Dyak feast. I used
to go and see the women in the early morning sometimes, and they
constantly came up to the mission-house to see my children. Of course
the war had an evil influence on them, increasing their interest in
heads, and all the heathen ceremonies connected with their possession.

We stayed about ten days at Banting, walking every afternoon to the
little church through a long avenue of fruit-trees--great forest trees
which threw a grateful shade over the path, charming for the children's
walks. They could have chicken broth too for their dinners; and Edith
revived, but it was a whole year after this before she grew any taller,
so that when she began to run about, three months later, it looked a
surprising feat for a baby who should be in long clothes, yet she was
then sixteen months old. This life at Banting was a kind of dream, after
all the hurry and anxiety we had gone through. At last we heard that we
might go back to Kuching, the Chinese had all been driven out of the
country, or killed. Our house was purified, and the dead bodies lying
about in the jungle had been buried, so that the air was sweet again. We
returned to Linga, and all embarked in a little schooner for home. It
was not a much better boat than the one we had fled in, and we suffered
two very trying days' voyage; but when we walked into the mission-house
and found Miss Woolley to welcome us, and our house, though dismantled,
uninjured, and most of the books in the library, we were very thankful.
The Sunday after, we had a thanksgiving service in the church, in which
all joined very heartily.

I must return, however, to the history of the war, from the time the
Rajah steamed up the river in the _Sir James Brooke_.

At Bau there were supposed to be from three to four thousand Chinese
rebels, who had lately been strengthened by many malcontents from the
Dutch country. The Chinese held Bau, Seniawan, the government fort of
Baleda, and a fort at Peninjauh opposite to Baleda. They boasted that
they had rice and gunpowder enough to last out six months in these
places; but they were gradually surrounded on all sides by Malays and
Dyaks, so that they could get no fresh stores. On the 10th of March a
body of Chi