se the balean-wood is extremely hard, and consumes a great
deal of labour; but once ready, the house rises from the earth like
magic, for every beam and post fits into its place.

We had brought a great box of carpenter's tools with us from England,
among them valuable moulding-planes; we wished the carpenters to learn,
in building the house, how to make the arches and ornamental mouldings
for the church.

Happily for us, when the _Mary Louisa_ was wrecked in the straits on her
way home, the crew were all saved, and the ship-carpenter came over to
Sarawak to see if my husband would employ him. As he was a capital
joiner, he was set over a gang of workmen at once. All the plans for the
house and church were made by Frank (my husband), and I was set to draw
patterns of the doors and windows, the verandah railings, and the porch.
Stahl was an intelligent German workman, and soon learnt Malay enough to
direct the men. The Malays levelled the hill and dug the foundations;
the Chinese were employed as carpenters, but they, too, could speak
Malay. I remember making great friends with one of them, Johnny Jangot,
John of the Beard, so called on account of a few long hairs at the tip
of his chin, for the Chinese are a beardless race. Johnny used to eat
his breakfast in the court-house to save himself trouble. What a set-out
it was! Rice, of course; then three or four little basins with different
messes--duck, fish, chicken, and plenty of soy-sauce; more basins with
vegetables, all eaten with the help of chop-sticks; and a teapot snugly
covered with a cosy. I asked one day to taste the tea, and Johnny
poured me out a tiny cup of hot, sweet, spirits and water! Samchoo is a
spirit made from rice, and very strong, as our poor English sailors used
to find to their cost when her Majesty's ships paid us a visit. The
Chinese said that the English drank the samchoo cold and raw, and
therefore it poisoned them, whereas they always qualified it with hot
water. It did not taste strong, which made it all the more pernicious.
Johnny drank real tea all day long, and smoked a good deal of
tobacco--it seemed to me he did very little else; but he was not a bad
workman, though of course it was not such a day's work as an Englishman
can do.

In the East you must accept the customs of the country, and be content
with the people: they are not given to change. Stahl made some
wheel-barrows for the men to use instead of little baskets in which they
c