THE BORNEO MISSION

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the Church Missionary Society in Sierra Leone, braving the deadly climate of the recent settlement with a courage then thought heroic, and she had been brought up much with his children. This tradition was carried forward by herself and her eldest sister, the wife of Dr. Colenso, the Bishop of Natal, and up to the present time by Bishop Bickersteth of Japan, her uncle's grandson. She had been taught from her early childhood to believe the cause to be a holy one. Its foundation, she would have said, was in the command, which was imperative on those who believed in Him who gave it, upon each in his own order and in his own degree; but with her large views of things she was fully alive to its importance, both from its philanthropic and patriotic sides—on the one hand, from its civilising influence in raising the standard of morals and habits among the natives, and on the other in carrying the flag of the empire to the ends of the earth as the fruitful mother of colonisation and commerce. Our French neighbours are very alive to the last consideration, for even when they have desired to suppress or persecute the Church at home, they have sought to protect and foster it abroad. Bishop McDougall ever magnified his office and loved it. When his wife died in 1886, preceding him by only a few months, he was asked by a member of his family whether there was anything that he would desire to have recorded on her monument, and he replied in the fulness of his heart and with emotion, Yes, I should like it to be said that she first preached Christ to the native women of Borneo.'

It appears, however, from a speech of his kind friend the Bishop of Norwich at a public meeting in furtherance of the Borneo Church Mission held in November 1847 in London, that the appointment at Sarawak was not the only desirable offer made to him at that time. Before he was engaged at Borneo,' said the Bishop,' it so happened that I had the opportunity of sounding him as to his acceptance of an eligible

and profitable position in a part of the world which he considered would be all and everything to him. For a time I was unable to speak positively, but at the end of about a month things were arranged and I had the happiness of offering him the situation. It was, I repeat, one of all others that would have suited him and which he would have suited also. What was that reverend gentleman's answer? "I know that it is all and everything to me; but I have devoted my services to Borneo, and Mr. Brooke and I will not desert the post marked out for me.' I offered to place myself in the breach, and still to manage the affair. He resolutely declined, and now he turns himself to his final destination. I need not say how fully we may depend on him. He will do all that a Christian can do and may God ever prosper, protect, and bless him.' Of this appointment offered by the Bishop, the author has no further record, but, unless his memory betrays him, it was one which would have taken Mr. McDougall to Constantinople and the Mediterranean and to the haunts of his childhood.

From Bishop Stanle and his family the McDougalls ever received much kindness; and it was to the thoughtful good feeling of his son, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, when Dean of Westminster, that Bishop McDougall on his return from the East owed his first English preferment. Bishop Stanley possessed a very genial and sterling character, was a great hater of shams, and knew a man when he saw him. He had proved himself a wise and energetic ruler in the reorganisation of his diocese after the long and easy reign of his predecessor. To have gained, therefore, his approval was always a source of satisfaction to Bishop McDougall.

The legend of Sarawak had at this time seized on the imagination of the British public; the English Rajah was the hero of the hour. Sir Henry Keppel, in his 'Voyage of the "Meander," had authoritatively told the story, and the Rajah's published journals and letters had filled up the picturesque

details. Men related to each other how James Brooke, a simple English gentleman, without title and with no great estate, had sailed in the 'Royalist,' his yacht of 142 tons, from Devonport a few years before, to seek adventures in the far East, and there had found a kingdom; that this had been gained by the voluntary cession of a province from the Sultan of Bruni and his viceroy, his uncle Muda Hassim, not wrung from them by fraud or violence, but the reward of wise counsels and martial support given to the rightful rulers of a distracted country then in insurrection; that the Government, although in form despotic, had been undertaken all for the people and by the people; and that, under the Rajah's beneficent sway, war and rapine had been replaced by peace and order, Malay oppression by organised rule, and the savage customs of the Dyaks, piracy and head-taking, by commerce and agriculture. To have achieved all this with such scanty means seemed miraculous, but it was not so ; a small force of less than a score of well-armed Europeans has been sufficient both before and since to turn the tide in savage warfare. All men were then united to cry 'Well done,' and the enthusiasm spread even to the Palace. The adventurer was invited to Windsor Castle as the guest of her Majesty and Prince Albert. He was appointed Governor of the new settlement of Labuan and H.M. Commissioner for Borneo; and some time after was made a civil K.C.B., an honour then much more rare than at present. The freedom of the City was conferred upon him with the acclamations of the mercantile community, ever on the watch for new markets, and society opened her arms for his most flattering reception. No wonder that Mr. McDougall was captivated by such a story and desired to throw in his lot with the hero.

The country was described as delightful—a land of streams and rivers, which formed its highways; of ancient forests producing fruits, elsewhere unknown or of rare esteem, the mangosteen, the lansat, and the durian. Thus watered and wooded,

although so near the Equator, it was said to possess a climate far more temperate than could be expected in the Tropics. Devoid of beasts of prey, it was a paradise for the naturalist and the sportsman, Nature presenting herself in the strangest and most unaccustomed forms; but to those who would be the pioneers of civilisation and the teachers of a true religion it was still more attractive in its human inhabitants. Passing by the immigrant Chinese, important as the traders, the miners, and the taxable portion of the community, the inhabitants divided themselves into two races- the Malays, who had wandered from the Malay Peninsula and established themselves as the feudal or ruling class, and the Dyaks, the aborigines of the country. The former were described as Mohammedans of a mild type, the latter as a fine and numerous race divided into many tribes or nations, and known as sca or land Dyaks according to the localities of their settlements. Brave and simple in their habits and with many natural virtues, these Dyak tribes were believed to be almost without religion, and ready to accept a faith in any form in which it might be offered to them by those whom they could at once love and reverence. The great obstacle to their conversion was in course of removal with the pacification of the country. The Dyaks were a warlike people and rejoiced to ornament their dwellings with trophies of their foes. The North American Indian was content with the scalp, the Dyak smoked and preserved the entire head of his enemy. It was said that at one time without the offering of a head a Dyak girl scorned to become the wife of her lover, while its capture was the assumption of the toga virilis of the young brave. But while piracy and head-taking went hand in hand in desolating the country, their forcible suppression rendered possible the arts of peace and the reception of religion.

Here, then, was an opportunity for the exercise of the loftiest functions of the Christian teacher, for the foundation of a Church which, commencing in Sarawak, might spread