"Mortal! if life smile on thee, and thou find All to thy mind, Think, Who did once to earth from heaven descend Thee to befriend; So shalt thou dare forego, at His dear call, Thy life, thine all."
These lines were most applicable to us during the year 1856. It was such rest and peace when our Bishop returned from Calcutta and soothed all the griefs and heartburnings we had suffered the four months he was away. Then ensued the performance of his new episcopal duties. Mr. Gomes was ordained priest in March. Confirmations took place, of our elder school-children, who were all baptized when they first came to us; also many Chinese Christians too, who had long attended the Bible classes at the mission-house and stood firm to their baptismal vows. In April we had another baby girl; and soon after, the Bishop went to Labuan, to arrange about a church being built there. Unfortunately he caught fever at Labuan; which declared itself at Singapore on his return. We were both very ill, and glad of doctors' advice at Singapore; but Labuan fever returns again and again, though in a slighter form after a while, and was for years a constant trial to the Bishop's strength. When we returned to Sarawak in October, our party was increased. Mr. and Mrs. Crookshank had come out from England--she a bride, and quite a new element of youth and beauty for Sarawak. A lady friend and her child and nurse also came on a long visit to us, the air of Sarawak being considered quite a tonic compared to the sea-breeze at Singapore, which was at times visited by a hot wind from Java. Very pleasant days followed our return home. Mrs. Harvey and I, with our children, went for a month to "See-afar" Cottage on the hill of Serambo. I have already mentioned this little house, built by Sir James Brooke as a sanitarium after his attack of small-pox. The only objection to it was, that it was built in the region of clouds: had the hill been five hundred feet higher we should have had the clouds below us, as they are on Penang Hill. The path up the mountain--if path it can be called--is almost a staircase of tumbled rocks, and requires both strength and agility to climb. It was quite beyond me; but I was carried on a man's back, sitting on a bit of plank, with a strip of cloth fastened round my waist and across the man's forehead, my back to his back. The Dyaks are famous mountaineers, their bare feet cling to the stones, or notched trunks of trees thrown from one rock to another. I never felt unsafe on my Dyak friend's back, and he used to laugh when I proposed his setting me down and taking a rest, and say, "You are not as heavy as a basket of durian fruit." These Dyaks have beautiful groves of fruit-trees, and make a good purse in the fruit season by bringing down durians, mangosteen and lansat fruit to sell at Kuching. They also carry all their harvest of paddy up the mountain to their rice-stores in the villages, so they are used to heavy weights.