Agnes Newton Keith

From the Creaux's Nest

The temperature reached 105 and was over 100 for the first five days in June. What makes it worse is that it hasn’t rained in months and the wind has gone down to a zero breeze. Monday a little rain finally came. Some folks got up to a couple of inches including a good amount of hail. Most of us got only .5 of an inch, enough to wash the dust off of the leaves. We could see the dark clouds to the south and east of us and prayed it would come our way but all we got was the over spray. For 38 years I’ve been on this place and I can assure you it’s the worse drought in all of those years. In 1953, the drought was really bad but at that time I had other interest than the weather. I wasn’t concerned about me and Cox’s gardens burning up, however, I do recall the big cracks in the soil and not a blade of green grass anywhere. I believe if we don’t get a good rain soon we will see that situation again. It will take a couple of Gulf storms to make up 19 inches of rain that we’re running below normal. We’re happy for the gardeners who got rain Monday though. City water just won’t cut it when it comes to growing a crop. It keeps stuff alive, works some on flowers but tomatoes, cucumbers and other veggies needs a little help from above. Green tomatoes will stay that way for a month on the stalk, etc. Our friend Judge Derry Dunn has eight plants and grows the most beautiful tomatoes I’ve seen and plenty of them. His secret is condensed water. A couple of gallons a day from the air conditioner works as good as God’s water on four plants per day. Ironically Judge Derry doesn’t eat tomatoes and that’s all right, more for me. Well, Cox’s and my only hope it seems is to go his famous Indian rain dance on a full moon, which is next Wednesday. We will try to keep our crop alive until then. Sometimes his dance takes another three or four days to bring on the rain. He learned the dance from the Indians as a boy in Juaquin. Come September, he turns 87 and sometimes he forgets some of the steps and the dance doesn’t work. He’s been practicing and believes he has it perfected. I’m betting on him and expecting a good rain sometime in the next 10 to 15 days. For Cox and I, growing crops long ago replaced our interest in girls. Someday you’ll see that garden water is more important than bath water.*****I’ve gotta move on. Come along, it won’t do you no harm.

world wide wildlife: AGNES KEITH

Agnes spent an idyllic five years at Sandakan, sometimes accompanying her husband on trips into the interior of the country. Harry persuaded her to write about her experiences and enter it in the 1939 Atlantic Monthly Non-fiction Prize contest. The judges voted unanimously for her entry to win, and it was partly serialized in the magazine before being published in November of that year as Land Below the Wind . The book received favorable reviews: The Scotsman described it as "A delightful book ... It has abundant humour and a pervading charm ... An original and engaging description of a country and people of extraordinary interest." The Japanese invading forces landed in Sandakan on 19 January 1942. For the first few months of occupation, the Keiths were allowed to stay in their own home. On 12 May Agnes and George were imprisoned on Berhala Island (Pulau Berhala) near Sandakan, in a building that had once been the Government Quarantine Station, along with other Western women and children. Harry was imprisoned nearby. "Among my companions in camp are some outstanding personalities, and the following [is one] of these. Mrs A.K. - a noted American novelist, who proposes to [write] a book on our life here. She is much sought after by the Japanese Camp Commandant, as he has read one of her previous books about Borneo. He evidently holds the opinion that a cup of [coffee] given in his office, and a packet of biscuits as a gift for her small son, will ensure him appearing as a hero in said book! After their liberation and a short period on Labuan Island for rest and recuperation, the Keiths returned to Victoria, British Columbia , where Harry had had a small country house since his bachelor days. In February 1946 he was asked to return to Borneo by the new Colonial Administration which had taken over from the Chartered Company. He was to be in charge of food production. He agreed to go, and so he and his family were split yet again. Agnes and George remained in Victoria, and Agnes worked her second book, an autobiographical account of her imprisonment: on her release Agnes had gathered up her notes and diary entries from their various hiding places, Borneo was a much-changed place, having suffered doubly, first under the Japanese occupation and then from the ferocious Allied attacks as the liberation of the island took place.

Land below the wind

Three came home

White man returns

Children of Allah

Bare feet in the palace