ered. It must be said that insects are a great discomfort
at Sarawak. Mosquitoes, and sand-flies, and stinging flies which turn
your hands into the likeness of boxing-gloves, infest the banks of the
rivers, and the sea-shore. Flying bugs sometimes scent the air
unpleasantly, and there are hornets in the woods whose sting is
dangerous. When we look back upon the happy days we spent in that
lovely country, these drawbacks are forgotten; the past is always
beautiful, and shadows, even of sorrow and sickness, only enhance the
interest of the picture. Sin alone, in ourselves and those about us, can
make the past hateful, and the great charm of the future is that it is
untouched by sin. Happy, then, are those who are able to look back on
the past with smiles of thankfulness, while they stretch out their arms
hopefully to the future.

Sarawak looked very peaceful on our return; and now began the interest
of the Dyak missions. From our first arrival at Kuching my husband had
taken every opportunity of visiting the Dyak tribes, and sometimes a
chief would come to the town with a number of his people, to pay their
rice tax, or purchase clothes, tobacco, gongs, gunpowder, whatever the
bazaar possessed which they valued. They brought with them beeswax,
damar, honey, or rattans to exchange for those things. On these
occasions the whole party came up to the mission-house to hear the
harmonium, see the magic-lantern, and beg presents. At first they would
ask for arrack, but finding nothing but claret to be had with us, soon
left off that request. Plates and cups were always valued, and they used
to say we had _so many_ more than we could possibly want in the pantry,
that of course we would give them some. To their honour be it said, they
never stole one, and were invariably refused, for we had not any more
than we wanted. The Dyaks hung their plates in loops of rattan very
ingeniously against the walls of their houses; but a plantain-leaf
folded up is more often used by them in lieu of plates, and they could
not have a better substitute. I never enjoyed a meal so much as some
cold rice and sardines eaten off a plantain-leaf in the jungle at Lundu,
after a long walk to the waterfall. The servant with the provision
basket had lost his way, and as we sat hungry under the great trees at
the foot of the fall, a Dyak friend produced a box of sardines and a
parcel of cold rice, and divided it amongst us. When at last the basket
of cold chick