, and who is in as good health as when he left Europe.

Our days at Kuching slipped pleasantly by. A plunge in the large
Astana swimming-bath at dawn began the day; after which, our light
breakfast of coffee, eggs, and fruit over, we would go across river
for a ride or stroll out with a gun; and during my morning's walk past
the neat town and bungalows, the latter surrounded with their pretty
gardens and trim hedges, I often thought of what poor old Muda Hasim
would think could he arise from his grave and compare Kuching the
modern with the Kuching of forty years ago--half a dozen Malay houses
on a mud bank!

_Dejeunner a la fourchette_ over, a siesta and cigar would be indulged
in till five o'clock, when a ride or rattling set-to at lawn tennis,
followed by a refreshing bath, prepared one for dinner--the more
enjoyable for the violent exercise that had preceded it. Such was our
daily life in Kuching, and one that I shall ever look back upon with
pleasure.

But the loveliest countries have their little drawbacks, Sarawak not
excepted. Mosquitoes and sand-flies are not, although very numerous,
the worst evils in the land, for I was startled, my first night in
Kuching, while lying half-awake in bed, to feel something cold and
slimy run across my chest. Thinking it was a snake, I was out of bed
like (to use a Yankee expression) "greased lightning," and was not a
little relieved to find that the cause of the mischief was only a
"chik-chak," or common lizard of the country, which was larger than
usual in this case, being nearly a foot long.

But the true curses of Sarawak are the rats. Go where you will, avoid
them as you may, there is not a bungalow that is not infested with
them, and boots, shirts, and even cigars, suffer in consequence. No
sooner in bed, and the lights out, than their gambols commence, and
they sometimes make such a noise as to keep one awake for the greater
part of the night. I have sometimes gone out to the verandah, thinking
I heard men's footsteps, and found it to be rats, who fled at my
approach. These pests occasionally migrate at night in large numbers,
several hundred of them on one occasion passing through the Raja's
bed-room at Astana on one of these nocturnal expeditions. Nor are
mosquito curtains a guard against them, for an out-station officer at
Simanggang, on the Batang Lupar river, woke up one night to find a
huge grey rascal sitting on his chest and endeavouring to make a
hearty meal