The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics by Various
page 66 of 279 (23%)
page 66 of 279 (23%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
could boast that for three years only one person had lost his life by
other than natural causes. How would American cities appear in comparison with this poor Dyak and heathen metropolis? Well does Rajah Brooke proudly ask, "Could such success spring from a narrow and sordid policy?" Mrs. McDougall, the missionary's wife, says: "We have now a beautiful church at Sarawak, and the bell calls us there to worship every morning at six, and at five every evening. Neither is there anything in this quiet, happy place to prevent our thus living in God's presence." Mrs. McDougall adds a story which shows the estimation in which the natives hold their Rajah. "Pa Jenna paid me a visit at Sarawak. The Rajah was then in England. But Pa Jenna, coming into my sitting-room, immediately espied his picture hanging against the wall. I was much struck with the expression of respect which both the face and attitude of this untutored savage assumed as he stood before the picture. He raised his handkerchief from his head, and, saluting the picture with a bow, such as a Roman Catholic would make to his patron saint's altar, whispered to himself, 'Our great Rajah.'" And this man was a reclaimed pirate. This reverential love of the natives is the one thing which does not admit of a doubt. The proofs are constant and irresistible. Some years since a lady with a few attendants was pushing her boat up a Bornean river, many leagues away from Sarawak, when she encountered a wild Dyak tribe on a warlike expedition. The sight of more than a hundred half-naked savages, crowning a little knoll which jutted into the river a half-dozen rods in advance of her boat, dancing frantically like maniacs, brandishing their long knives, and yelling all the while like demons, was not cheering. Yet at the sight of the Sarawak flag raised at |
|