The Project Gutenberg eBook, A History of Sarawak under Its Two White Rajahs 1839-1908, by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould and C. A. Bampfylde

A History of Sarawak
under its
Two White Rajahs
1839-1908

BY

S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.

AUTHOR OF 'THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS,' ETC.

AND

C. A. BAMPFYLDE, F.R.G.S.

LATE RESIDENT OF SARAWAK

LONDON

HENRY SOTHERAN & CO.

37 PICCADILLY, W., and 140 STRAND, W.C.

1909

DEDICATED

WITH HIGH APPRECIATION OF THE WORK DONE BY THEM

UNDER THE TWO RAJAHS

TO THE OFFICERS

ENGLISH AND NATIVE, PAST AND PRESENT

OF THE

RAJ OF SARAWAK

PREFACE

As I have been requested to write a preface to The History of Sarawak under its Two White Rajahs, one of whom I have the honour to be, I must, first of all, assert that I have had nothing to do with the composition or writing of the book, and I do not profess to be a writer, otherwise than in a very ordinary sense, having left school at the age of twelve to enter the Navy.

In that service I remained for ten years, when I obtained my lieutenancy, and then received two years' leave, which the Admiralty were glad to grant at that time (about 1852), as they thought naval officers were of a type likely to be of service in the development of the colonies and the improvement of native states. I then went to Sarawak to join my uncle, the first Rajah, with and under whom I remained, and consequently had to retire from the Navy; but I will admit that my ten years' service gave me what I probably could not have gained from any other profession—the advantages of having been taught to obey my seniors, and of having been disciplined; and I very firmly adhere to the rule that no one can make a successful commander unless he has learnt to obey. It further taught me those seafaring qualities, which have been so useful ever since, of being able to rough it and put up with one's surroundings, the lack of which so often makes the men of the present day, in their refined and gentlemanly way, not quite suited to handle the wheel of a ship at sea or the plough on land.

Now I will pass on to say how this book, good or bad as it may be—and I am not competent to pass judgment either way—came to be written. I was asked by more than one if I had any objection to the writing of my biography, and I, as far as I can recollect, gave no decided answer one way or the other; but I thought if I handed over the correspondence and all records that related to Sarawak and its Government that the distinguished author, Baring-Gould, and my friend, Charles Bampfylde, might be enabled to form a truthful account, and at the same time give the public a readable book.

I thought that some interest might be felt in the story of a life such as mine has been for the last sixty years, coupled with an account of the institutions, manners, and customs of the inhabitants of Sarawak, and especially of the way in which we have always treated the native population, finding much profit by it, more in kindliness and sympathy than in a worldly point of view, by making them our friends, and I may say associates, though they are of a different creed and different colour; and how we gained their hearts by living among them and really knowing them, not as superiors, but as equals and friends; and I thought being brought out during my life by the pen of the able author and that of my old and much-esteemed officer, Mr. Bampfylde, it would be more likely to give a correct impression than if some one took up the pen after my death and gained material from some good and some rather scratchy works that have been written on Sarawak, since such an one would probably make up a work that would be, no doubt, very readable and well adapted to take the fashion of the day, but not so truthful as a man of long personal experience could do, and has, I think, done it; and this I can aver, that what is written are facts, however plain and uninteresting they may prove. The work is not the history of my life more than that of the late Rajah, and I may flatter myself that we—he as founder and myself as builder of the state—have been one in our policy throughout, from the beginning up to the present time; and now shortly I have to hand it to my son, and I hope that his policy may not be far removed from that of his predecessors.

My life draws towards its close, but the book, if and whenever brought out, will stand in the future as a record of events that may be considered as the work of private individuals who stood alone and unprotected in a far distant land, and who were, I may also say, fortunately, scarcely ever interfered with, or the policy of Sarawak could not have been as successful as it has proved. It will, I have reason to believe, attract more attention in comparatively new countries, such as America and Australia, where the story of Sarawak is perhaps better known than in England. One word more, and that is, that the native element has always been our base and strong point: and our lives are safe with them so long as they are wisely treated and relied on with thorough trust and confidence.

C. BROOKE,

Rajah.

Chesterton, 8th January 1909.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

TITLES

Sultan.—Supreme head of the once large Bruni Sultanate, which is now only a corner or enclave within the raj of Sarawak. Iang di Pertuan, the Lord who Rules, is the correct supreme title in Bruni, and the one most generally in use.[^[1]]

Sultan Muda, heir-apparent. Lit. young Sultan, but seldom used. Iang di Pertuan Muda is the more correct Malay title. Cp. Pangiran, infra.

Rajah (fem. Rani, or Ranee).—The old title of the Bruni sovereigns. It is a Sanskrit word, and means king. But in Bruni it was improperly assumed by those (male and female) of royal descent. This has fallen into disuse, that is, none of them now bears such a title, but in referring to the princes of Bruni generally the term Rajah Rajah[^[2]] would be used. Rulers of districts were never entitled to the title ex officio. Such rulers are feudal chiefs with the title of Pangiran, and their chieftainship is generally hereditary.

Rajah Muda, heir apparent. Lit. young Rajah.

Pangiran is the highest Bruni title. Pangiran Muda—sometimes Pangiran Muda Besar—is another title of the heir-apparent to the Sultanate. (Rajah Muda is only used in Sarawak.) It is a Javanese title and means prince. It is not, however, now confined only to persons of royal descent as formerly, and the title has become very common, especially as illegitimate as well as legitimate children of all pangirans assume it.

Datu.—Lit. great-grandfather (by extension—ancestor). This is a high title in the Malay Peninsula, and the highest in Sarawak, but not in Bruni, though it is in Sulu. It can be conferred by the Ruler alone, and is an official title and not hereditary. It is only granted to Malays.[^[3]]

Bandar (Persian).—The meaning of this word is a port. Datu Bandar, one of the highest titles in Sarawak, would mean the chief of the port or town.

Shah Bandar means the Controller of the Customs.

Bandahara (Sanskrit.).—A treasurer. The Pangiran Bandahara is the chief of the four Wazirs of Bruni. The present Bandahara is Regent of Bruni.

Temanggong.—Another high official title, meaning Commander-in-Chief. The Pangiran Temanggong is one of the Bruni Wazirs.

Di Gadong and Pemancha.—Also high official titles, the meanings of which are uncertain. The Pangiran di Gadong and the Pangiran Pemancha are the titles of the other two Bruni Wazirs.[^[4]]

Patinggi (from Tinggi—elevated, exalted; hence Maha-tinggi, the most high). The Datu Patinggi was the highest or premier chief in Sarawak.

Penglima.—A Malay title, also sometimes formerly given to Dayaks; means a Commander.

Orang kaya.—Lit. rich man. A title generally given to Malay chiefs of inferior rank and to the Dayak chiefs.

Sherif.[^[5]]—An Arab title meaning noble. A title assumed by half-bred Arabs claiming descent from Muhammad. These men also take the exalted Malay title of Tunku or Tungku[^[6]] by which princes of the royal blood are alone addressed, but more especially the Sultan.

Haji.—One who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Tuan.—Master, Sir, Lord, Mistress, Lady. Tuan Besar—High Lord. Tuan Muda—Young Lord.

Nakoda.—Shipmaster, merchant.

Pengulu.—Headman. A title given to Dayak district chiefs.

Inchi.—Mister—a lower title than Tuan. A title foreign to Sarawak, and in that country only assumed by foreign Malays.

Abang.—Lit. elder brother. Datu's sons are styled Abang, and also Malay Government chiefs below the rank of Datu.

Laksamana.—An Admiral.

Imaum.—High Priest.

Hakim.—A Judge: lit. a learned man.

Awang.—A title sometimes given to the sons of Pangirans.

Dayang or Dang.—Lady of rank. A title given to daughters of Datus and Abangs.

Wan.—Another title given to Sherifs, but more generally to their sons. It is probably derived from the Arabic word Awan, meaning a helper or sustainer of Muhammad.

The following Malay geographical terms should also be noted:—

Bukit, a hill.

Danau, a lake.

Gunong, a mountain.

Pulau, an island.

Sungi, a river.

Tanjong, a cape.

Kampong, a village, or subdivision of a town, a parish.

[1]. Sultan is a title foreign to the Court language of Bruni.—Sir Hugh Low, G.C.M.G., Sarawak, 1848.

[2]. Rajah, correctly Raja. Plural is expressed by duplication.

[3]. In Bruni this title also is now debased by being granted to all natives, Chinese included.

[4]. St. John gives the di Gadong as Minister of Revenues, and the Pemancha as Minister for Home Affairs.—Forests of the Far East.

[5]. Pronounced by Malays Sherip, or Serip. Fem. Sheripa, Seripa. Sayid is another, though in the East less common title, assumed by descendants of the Prophet. Sir Richard Burton in his Pilgrimage says the former, men of the sword, the ruling and executive branch, are the descendants of El Husayn, the Prophet's grandson; and the latter, men of the pen, religion, and politics, are descended from the Prophet's eldest grandson, El Hasan. Siti is the female title.

[6]. A corruption of Tuan-ku (Tuan aku), my Lord, as it is often so pronounced.

CHAPTER I
BORNEO

NEPENTHES, AND RAFFLESIA TUAN-MUDÆ.

Next to Australia and New Guinea, Borneo[^[7]] is the largest island in the world; it is larger than the whole of France. It sits astride on the equator, that divides it nearly, but not wholly, in two; the larger portion being to the north of the Line.

The belt of islands, Sumatra, Java, and the chain to Timor and the Sarwatty group, represents a line of weakness in the crust of the earth, due to volcanic action, which still makes itself felt there. But the axis of elevation of Borneo is almost at right angles to this line, and in it are no active vents, and if there be extinct volcanoes, these are in the extreme north only. In Sarawak there are several hot springs, the water of which is impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen. The island owes its origin, as far as we can judge, to a great upheaval of plutonic rock that has lifted aloft and shivered the overlying beds, but the granite does not come everywhere to the surface. Something analogous may be seen in Exmoor, where the superincumbent clay-slate has been heaved up and strained, but the granite nowhere shows save in Lundy Isle, where the superposed strata have been swept away, leaving the granite exposed.

MOUNT ST. PEDRO, OR KINA BALU, 13,700 FEET.

Borneo is about 850 miles in length and 600 in breadth, and contains an area of 286,000 square miles. The centre of Borneo is occupied by broken hilly highland, with isolated mountains, of which the finest is the granite peak of Kina Balu (13,700 feet). Hills come down in places to the sea, as in the south of Sarawak, where they attain a height of from 2000 to over 5000 feet, and die into the sea at Cape Datu. The plains, chiefly swamps, are composed of the wash of the mountains, overlaid by vegetable mould, and these fringe the coast, extending inland from ten to thirty miles, with here and there isolated humps of hill standing up out of them.

The island is probably the best watered in the world. On every side are numerous rivers, mainly rising in the central highlands, at first dancing down the mountain ledges in cascades, then, forming dangerous rapids, enter the plain, and there swelled by affluents and widening out advance with no strong current to the sea. Owing to the width of the river-mouths, and to the configuration of the coast, some of them, as the Batang Lupar, the Sadong, and Saribas, have tidal bores, as is the case with our River Severn, that run up as many as seventy miles into the interior, and most have deposited troublesome bars at their mouths, and have embouchures clogged by shoals. To the slight fall is largely due the remarkable way in which several of these rivers descend into the ocean through plural mouths, thus forming a network of lateral waterways, called Loba and Trusan, whereby they mix and mingle with other rivers, and, very much like the Rhine after entering Holland, lose their identity and are frittered away in many channels. The Rejang, for instance, finds issue through five mouths, and the land between the Rejang and Igan entrances, which meet at Sibu, the apex of the delta, is a vast unbroken swamp, 1200 square miles in area. The same phenomenon is noticed in the Sarawak river, and in the Limbang to a smaller degree.

The rainfall in Borneo is so great, the rainy season lasting from October to April,[^[8]] that the rivers are very numerous and copious, rolling down large volumes of water. Severe droughts are, however, not uncommon during the fine season of the S.W. monsoon.

Between Kuching and Bruni are the Sadong, Batang Lupar, Saribas, Kalaka, Rejang, Bintulu, and the Baram rivers, all available as waterways for trade with the interior. For fifteen miles only from its mouth is the Batang Lupar navigable by steamers, above that, though a fine broad river, it is obstructed by dangerous shoals. The Rejang is navigable by steamers for 170 miles, nearly as far as the first rapids. This noble river descends many stages by as many plunges from terraces. Between the rapids the river is deep, sluggish and broad for many miles. Boats that can be hauled up past the rapids can ascend a distance of 650 miles from the mouth. The Baram river is navigable by steamers for some twenty miles above Claude Town, that is, eighty miles from the mouth, but owing to the exposed position of the bar and to the heavy seas breaking over it, and also to the silting up of the mouth during the N.E. monsoon, only very small craft can then enter, but during the S.W. monsoon it can be entered by steamers of light draught.

In Dutch Borneo as well there are magnificent rivers. The same cause that has made some of the rivers so uncertain in their mouths has produced vast stretches of morass, overgrown with the nipah palm and mangrove, and infested with mosquito swarms; but the beach is almost everywhere of beautiful white sand, reaching to where the graceful casuarina tree grows as a belt above the reach of the tide. The tropical heat, added to the great rainfall, makes Borneo a vegetable paradise; indeed, it presents the appearance of one vast surface of sombre evergreen forest, starred with flowering orchids, and wreathed with creepers, of a richness perhaps unsurpassed even in South America.

The hills and ranges of upland consist of blue metamorphic limestone on which is superposed a thick series of sandstones, conglomerates, and clay-shales. Piercing these beds are granite and a variety of plutonic rocks, as diorite, porphyrite, etc. These latter are developed in greatest abundance in the antimony districts, where they are in immediate contact with the limestone that has been fissured and tortured by upheaval. The sandstone shales have also been tilted and distorted; nevertheless in places they retain their original horizontal position. They are usually found to be impregnated with peroxide of iron. It is in this formation that the cinnabar deposits occur.

Both lime and sandstone have been extensively denuded, and the latter rises in isolated tabular mountains, or short peaky trends, to an altitude occasionally of 1500 feet above the sea, the ridges separated by undulating valleys, in which the limestone comes to the surface. Sometimes these denuded masses form low hilly tracts varying in elevation from 200 feet to 1200 feet; sometimes they appear as solitary crags, but invariably present long lines of ancient sea-cliff, and bold scarped faces, fissured and jointed in every conceivable direction.

In the intervening lowlands is a deposit of dark yellow felspathic clay varying in depth from a few feet to eighty feet and more, derived from the degradation of the hills by water. Associated with this clay and of more recent date are superficial deposits of pudding-stone and river gravels. The intrusive igneous rocks show mainly in the form of dykes, seaming the stratified rocks; consequently volcanic action took place subsequent to their deposition, but it was also antecedent to the more recent of the superficial deposits. It is in immediate connection with those plutonic dykes that we find the deposits of arsenic and cinnabar, occupying the fissures produced in the stratified rocks by volcanic upheavals, and we are led to the conclusion that these mineral lodes were deposited after the cessation of the upheaval.

Gold occurs in the form of fine sand in the alluvial deposits, and in the gravel of the rivers over a great part of Sarawak; and also in pockets of the limestone, in which it has been allowed to fall by water. Nuggets are of extremely rare occurrence, but Sir Spencer St. John mentions having seen one of seven ounces taken from the auriferous clay at Krian near Bau. The gold dust is usually in a state of finest comminution. So far no gold reef has been come upon.

In former days gold was extensively washed by Chinese at Bau and Paku in Upper Sarawak, which auriferous district commences at the confluence of the two branches of the Sarawak river, and extends back to their sources and the boundary of Dutch Borneo. As gold and antimony were known to abound here, the Chinese of Sambas and the lower Kapuas had made several endeavours to establish themselves in the district, but were much harassed by the Malays until the accession of the late Rajah Brooke, which made it possible for them to settle there and pursue in peace their business of gold mining. Then gold was washed extensively, and the fine reservoirs and "leats" which the Chinese constructed to sluice the alluvial soil remain to this day. They increased and became a thriving community, but they were not sufficiently looked after, and, falling under the machinations of socialistic Secret Societies, gradually got out of hand and broke into open rebellion in 1857, as shall be related in the sequel. It is sufficient to say here that this ended in dire ruin to themselves, and that the few who escaped were driven over the borders; but it also ruined the gold-mining industry, and, though some of the rebels returned and others came with them, the industry never fully recovered, and later on it received a further check by the introduction of pepper planting, which gave the Chinese a more profitable occupation, and gradually Upper Sarawak became covered with gardens of this description. Though gold mining under the Chinese practically died out, modern scientific and engineering skill has now placed it in a far higher position than it had ever previously attained, or could have attained under the primitive methods of the previous workers.

Quicksilver was discovered in situ about the year 1871, by Messrs. Helms and Walters of the Borneo Company, who prospected over the whole of Sarawak Proper, and ultimately succeeded in tracking the small fragments of cinnabar that are scattered over the district to a hill on the right bank of the Staat river. The hill is called Tegora, and rises to an elevation of 800 feet. In the upper portion of this hill, the ore was found deposited capriciously in strains and pockets with here and there a little metallic mercury.[^[9]]

In former years a large quantity of quicksilver was exported, but for some time this mineral product has ceased to appear as an item in the exports, the large deposit of cinnabar at Tegora having apparently been worked out. The existence of this mineral in other parts of the state is proved by traces found in several places, and the same may be said of antimony, of which there are indications of rich deposits; but the discovery of these minerals in paying quantities is a matter of chance. Antimony is still worked by the Borneo Company, Ltd., and a recent rise in the price has been an inducement to Chinese and Malay miners to increase the production, and the export of 1906 was more in quantity than it was in 1905, though small as compared with what it used to be.

Black bituminous coal, which occurs in the Tertiary strata, has been found in different parts, and two collieries are owned and worked by the Government, at Semunjan in the Sadong district, and at Brooketon. Several hundred Chinese are employed as miners under European supervision, and large sums have been expended upon machinery, etc.

Oil, a crude petroleum, has been discovered in two places; it is of good quality, and is an excellent lubricant.

It is not impossible, or indeed improbable, that diamond deposits in Sarawak will be found and exploited. No systematic operations in search of these precious stones have been attempted, the dense jungle which covers the country being an obstacle. The only people who wash for diamonds are the Malays, and these carry on their work in a very desultory and imperfect manner.

But agriculture and jungle produce have been, and will be, the main source of revenue to Sarawak, and prosperity to the country. We shall deal with these products, as well as with those that are mineral, more fully in a subsequent chapter.

The Bornean forest is so varied and so different at different hours and seasons that no description can possibly convey an adequate idea of it to those who have not known it. Infinite and ever changing are its aspects, as are the treasures it hides. Its beauties are as inexhaustible as the varieties of its productions. In the forest man feels singularly free. The more one wanders in it, the greater grows the sense of profound admiration before nature in one of its grandest aspects. The more one endeavours to study it, the more one finds in it to study. Its deep shades are sacred to the devotee of Science. Yet they afford ample food for the mind of the believer, not less than to that of the philosopher.[^[10]]

And we would add, to the superstitious native, to whom the jungles teem with ghosts and spirits.

The Bornean jungles are full of life, and of the sounds of life, which are more marked in the early mornings and in the evenings. Birds are plentiful (there are some 800 species), some of beautiful plumage, but few are songsters. Insect life is very largely represented, and includes many varieties of the curious stick and leaf insects,[^[11]] hardly to be distinguished from the twigs and leaves they mimic. Also the noisy and never tiring cicadas, whose evening concerts are almost deafening, and frogs and grasshoppers who help to swell the din. There are many varieties of beautiful butterflies, but these are to be found more in the open clearings. Though there are no dangerous animals, there are many pests, the worst being the leeches, of which there are three kinds, two that lurk in the grass and bushes, the other being aquatic—the horse-leech. Mosquitoes, stinging flies, and ants are common, and the scorpion and centipede are there as well. Snakes, though numerous, are rarely seen, for they swiftly and silently retire on the approach of man, and one variety only, the hamadryad, the great cobra or snake-eating snake, is said to be aggressive. The varieties of land and water snakes are many, there being some 120 different species. Natives often fall victims to snake bites. Pythons attain a length of over twenty feet;[^[12]] they seldom attack man, though instances have been known of people having been killed by these reptiles, and the following story, taken from the Sarawak Gazette, will show how dangerous they can be. At a little village a man and his small son were asleep together. In the middle of the night the child shrieked out that he was being taken by a crocodile, and the father, to his horror, found that a snake had closed its jaws on the boy's head. With his hands he prised the reptile's jaws open and released his son; but in his turn he had to be rescued by some neighbours, for the python had wound itself around his body. Neither was much hurt.

Of the wild animals in Sarawak, wild cattle and the rhinoceros have nearly disappeared before their ruthless destroyer, man; and such would have been the fate of that huge, though harmless, anthropoid, the maias, or "orang-utan," at the hands of collectors, had not the Government placed a check upon them by limiting the number each may collect.[^[13]] Deer, the sambur, the muntjac or barking deer, and the little mouse-deer, and also wild pig, of which there are several species, abound.[^[14]] Numerous too are the monkeys and apes, and numerous are the species; the more peculiar of the former being the proboscis monkey, a species confined to Borneo, and of the latter the gentle gibbons, who announce the dawn, making the woods ring and echo with their melodious gurgling whoops. There are two kinds of diminutive bears, the tree-leopard, wild cat, the scaly ant-eater, the porcupine, the otter, the lemur, and other small animals, including the flying fox, flying squirrel, flying lizard, flying frog, a peculiar kind of rat with a tail which bears a close resemblance to a feather,[^[15]] and huge toads nine inches in height.[^[16]] But to the casual traveller in the dense jungle with but a limited view, excepting an occasional monkey, or a pig or deer startled from its lair, few of these animals will be visible.

Of the valuable products of the jungle it will be sufficient to note here that gutta, camphor, cutch, and dammar-producing trees abound; also creepers from which rubber is extracted; and rattans of various kinds. There are trees from the nuts of which excellent oil is expressed; and many kinds of useful woods, some exceeding hard and durable, and some ornamental.

Man's greatest enemy is the crocodile, and this voracious saurian becomes a dangerous foe when, driven perhaps by scarcity of other food, it has once preyed upon man, for, like the tiger, it then becomes a man-hunter and man-eater. It will lurk about landing and bathing-places for prey; will snatch a man bodily from a boat; and one has been known to seize a child out of its mother's arms while she was bathing it. The Sarawak Gazette records numerous deaths due to crocodiles, though by no means all that happen, and many thrilling adventures with these reptiles. Two we will give as interesting instances of devotion and presence of mind. A little Malay boy, just able to toddle, was larking in the mud at low water when he was seized by a crocodile, which was making for the water with its screaming little victim in its jaws, when the child's sister, a girl of twelve, and his brother of eight, rushed to his assistance. The boy hopelessly tried to stop the crocodile by clinging to one of its fore-paws, but the girl jumped upon the brute's back, and gradually working her way to its eyes which were then just above water, succeeded in gouging out one with her fingers. This caused the crocodile promptly to drop its prey, but only just in time, as it was on the point of gliding into deep water. By the girl's vigorous intervention it not only lost its prey but also its life, for two men coming up hacked the brute to pieces. The little heroine had remembered the story of how her grandfather had formerly saved his life in the same way. To scoop out the eyes is the only chance of escape for one taken, and it must be done promptly. The little boy was scarcely hurt. The girl's courageous deed duly received a graceful recognition from the Ranee.

Another girl, a Dayak girl this time, rescued her mother, who was dragged out of a boat, in which they were together, by a large crocodile. She threw herself upon the monster, and by thrusting her fingers into its eyes compelled the brute, after a short but sharp struggle, to release its prey.

Death caused by a crocodile is one of the most horrible of deaths, and it is often a protracted one, as the victim is borne along above water for some distance, then taken down, bashed against some sunken log, and brought up again. "May I be killed by a crocodile if I am guilty" is a common invocation made by Malays in protestation of their innocence; in other words, they invoke the most dreadful death that comes within their ken. So did once a young Malay woman in the Simanggang Court on being convicted of a serious crime. That evening, whilst she was bathing, a smothered cry, that she had barely time to utter, announced that her prayer had been heard.

There are several kinds of crocodiles, broad and long snouted. In the Perak Museum is a specimen nearly twenty-five feet in length, but the longest that has been caught in Sarawak, and authentically measured, was nineteen feet. The Government gives a reward for killing these pests, which is paid upon some 250 to 300 annually brought to the police station at Kuching. More are killed in the various districts of which no record is kept.

Sharks of several species abound, but cases of injury by these are very rare.

Saw-fish are also common, and with their long spiny saws are dangerous creatures. A fisherman was killed by one of these at the mouth of the Sadong; he was in a small canoe when the fish, which he had cut at with his knife, struck him a blow on his neck with its saw, from which he died almost immediately.

Excellent fish are abundant, such as mackerel and herring, considerably larger than the English varieties, pomfret, barbel, soles, mullets, etc., and some of beautiful colours; also crabs, prawns, and oysters. The dugong (Malay duyong), the sea-cow, is rare in Sarawak, but common in North Borneo, as is also the whale; in Sarawak the latter are occasionally stranded on the beach. Turtles abound; these are preserved for the sake of their eggs, which are considered a great delicacy.

We will now consider the races that occupy Sarawak territory; and the following brief ethnological notes with regard to those of Indonesian stock will be all that is necessary for the purposes of this book; to attempt anything like an accurate classification of the many tribes and sub-tribes which differentiate the heterogeneous population of the country would be beyond its scope, even were it possible to trace the divergence of the cognate tribes from the original stock, and of the sub-tribes from the tribes. That there may have been earlier inhabitants of Borneo than those now existing in the island is possible. Traces of neolithic man have been found, but these may be due to the first settlers having brought with them stone weapons cherished as charms. Of paleolithic man not a trace has been discovered.[^[17]] To attempt to determine the flow of mankind into the country, or to decide which of the tribes of Indonesian stock now found in Sarawak was the first to occupy the soil, is to undertake an impossible task.[^[18]] It may be accepted that the most barbarous peoples, the Ukits, Bukitans, Punans, and other fast vanishing tribes, were the earliest inhabitants of whom we know anything, and that they were immigrants. But whence they came we know not. These tribes are all more or less related in language and customs, and in Borneo difference in names does not always denote any essential racial distinction.

UKIT CHIEF, WIFE AND CHILD.

A PUNAN.

As an instance of this we have the Lugats, of whom only a very few are left, the Lisums, the Bliuns, a tribe that has quite died out, the Segalangs, and the Seru Dayaks of the Kalaka, a tribe which is fast disappearing. The above sub-tribes take their name from rivers widely apart, and though their names differ they are of the same race, sub-tribes of the Ukits. Their tradition is that three or four hundred years ago the Ukits lived in the Lugat (now the Gat) river, a branch of the Baleh (hence we have the Lugats now living in the Anap), but they were driven out by the Kayans. Some went to the Lisum river (hence we have the Lisums), and some to Kapit, where they built strong houses on the site of the present fort, but these they were eventually forced to evacuate, and again they migrated down river, first to Tujong, near the Kanowit, and afterwards farther down again to Bunut, by Benatang. From Bunut they were driven out by their implacable foes, and they dispersed to Segalang (in the Rejang delta), to Bliun (in the Kanowit), and to Seru in the Kalaka.[^[19]] This tradition is supported by the strong evidence of language, and there is little reason for disregarding it. After being driven out of Lugat, some of the Ukits went over to the Kapuas, where, as in the Baleh, to which river some eventually returned, they are still known as Ukits. The Bliuns, Segalangs, and Serus became civilised owing to contact with the Malays and Melanaus. The Ukits, Bukitans, and Punans, with the exception of the Punan Bah of Balui, are the wildest of all the races in the island. The Ukits are light in complexion; tall and well knit, and better looking than other inland tribes. Formerly they did not reside in houses, or cultivate the soil, but roamed about in the jungle, and subsisted on wild fruit and the animals they killed. But some of these have begun to erect poor dwellings, and do a little elementary farming. They are expert with the blow-pipe, and in the manufacture of the upas-poison, with which the points of their needle-like arrows are tinged. But it is quite open to question whether these poor savages may not be a degenerate race, driven from their homes and from comparative civilisation by more powerful races that followed and hunted them from their farms to the jungle. Beccari (op. cit. p. 363) says that they "are savages in the true name of the word, but they are neither degraded nor inferior races in the series of mankind. Their primitive condition depends more than anything else on their nomadic or wandering life, and on the ease with which they live on the produce of the forests, and on that of the chase which the sumpitan (blow-pipe) procures for them. This has no doubt contributed to keep them from associating with their fellow-beings, and from settling in villages or erecting permanent houses. I believe that these, although they must be considered as the remnants of an ancient Bornean people, are not descended from autochthonous savages, but are rather the present-day representatives of a race which has become savage." And Beccari is of opinion "that it is difficult to deny that Borneo has had older and perhaps more primitive inhabitants." The natives have legends of former races having occupied the land; the most powerful were, according to the Punans, the Antu-Jalan, who lived in the Balui, around the mouth of the Belaga, where the fort of that name now stands. They disappeared, but have now returned in the persons of the white men. So the Punans believe, and other tribes hug other myths. These savage people are, or rather were, the bitter enemies of the Dayaks, and a terror to them. Silently and unperceived, they would steal on their hereditary enemies whilst these latter were collecting jungle produce, or employed on their farms, and wound them to death with their poisoned arrows.

In former days, when they were more powerful, the Bukitans would openly attack the Dayaks, and as late as 1856 they destroyed one of the large communal Dayak houses on the Krian, and also attacked the Serikei Dayaks. The Ukits do not take heads, and the Punans do not tattoo. The latter and the Bukitans are clever makers of rattan mats, which are in demand by Europeans and Chinese. The Ukits and the Bukitans reside on the upper waters of the Rejang, Baleh, and Kapuas; and the Punans in the Baram and Balui.

The Banyoks and the Seduans are, like the Segalangs, with whom they have intermixed, probably off-shoots of the Ukit tribe. They have recently merged, and occupy the same village in the Rejang below Sibu fort. Like the Tanjongs and the Kanowits they are clever basket makers.

The Sians, another off-shoot of the Ukits, live below Belaga fort.[^[20]]

All these small tribes inhabiting the interior, though a few are found near the coast, are dwindling away, mainly in consequence of in-and-in breeding. Of some of the tribes of the same stock only a few families are left, and in others only a few people, while one or two have totally disappeared within quite recent years.

The next Indonesian tribes to follow were the Kayans and then the Kenyahs, two that are closely allied, and both, according to tradition, came from the south, probably from the Celebes. They took possession of the Belungan (or Batang Kayan) river-basin, and overflowed into those of Baram and Balui (the right hand branch of the Rejang). These powerful tribes found these river-basins unoccupied except by scattered families of the tribes above mentioned, whom they drove into the jungle. In the Baram they remained undisturbed, as also in the Rejang till recent years. Down the latter river they spread as far as Kapit; at that time both the Sea-Dayaks and Malays were there, and over them the Kayans domineered, driving the former from their settlements at Ngmah,[^[21]] and harassing the latter in the Kanowit, and even in the Sekrang. Eventually, however, the Kayans were forced to fall back before the ever increasing Dayaks, and to retire to the head-waters of the Balui, and now, with the exception of one small settlement, all reside above the Belaga.

When we consider the large area occupied by the tribes of Kayans and Kenyahs, who may be classed together, it will be seen how important they are. Besides inhabiting the upper waters of the Baram and Rejang, they are found in very large numbers on the Batang Kayan. The Mahkam (Koti or Coti) is also thickly inhabited by Kayans, and many live on the Barito (Banjermasin), and on the Kapuas. The Kayans and Kenyahs are tattooed, as are most of the savage people of Indonesian origin in the interior. When the children are young the lobes of the ears are pierced, and by the insertion of heavy lead or copper rings the lobes become gradually so distended as to hang down to the shoulders, and, with elderly women, often lower. That this is a very old custom, and not peculiar to these people, is shown by the sculptures in the ancient Boro Budor temple in Java, where men and women are figured with such elongated ear lobes, having ear pendants and plugs exactly similar to those in use by the Kayans and Kenyahs. Most Indonesian tribes of the interior retain this fashion.[^[22]] These Kayans and Kenyahs are on a slightly higher grade of civilisation than the Sea-Dayaks, building finer houses, having more rule and order among themselves, and being expert in the manufacture of excellent weapons, extracting their iron for that purpose from the native ore. In character they are vindictive and cruel, but brave, and not without some good qualities. Formerly they practised hideous cruelties on their captives and slaves, and impalement was a common form of punishment. The women were even more barbarous than the men, being the most ingenious and inhuman in devising tortures. The Kayans under Sarawak rule have been checked in these matters, and human sacrifices have become a thing of the past. But that these propensities are only dormant is instanced by a case that occurred but a few years ago, far up the Balui. Four young Dayaks, survivors of a party of gutta-percha collectors, who had been cut off and killed by the Punans, after wandering for many days in the jungle, arrived destitute and starving at a Kayan house, and asked for food and shelter. Instead, the Kayans bound the young men, and, after breaking their legs and arms, handed them over to the women, who slowly despatched them by hacking them to pieces with little knives. And in the Baram, in 1882, a Kayan chief caused two captives to be bound and thrown down from the lofty verandah of his house to the ground, where they were decapitated—quite in Ashantee manner.[^[23]]

KAYAN GIRL, SHOWING ELONGATED EARS.

Among the Kayans and Kenyahs a broad distinction exists between the classes. There are but the chiefs and their families, and only serfs and slaves under them. The chiefs are not chosen by the people, as is the case among the Dayaks. They assume their position by right of birth, or by might. The position of the serf is little better than that of the slave, and all they may gain by their industry is seized by the chiefs. It is the difference that existed in Germany between the Freie and the Unfreie; in England in Saxon times between the thegn and the villein. Although the Kayans take heads in warfare, they do not value them as do the Dayaks, and will part with them to the latter; and they are not head-hunters in the strict sense of the term. The Kayans are a decreasing race, not so the Kenyahs. Both are capable of improvement, especially the latter; and they are improving, notably in the Baram, where they are directly under the control of the Government, since that river district was ceded to Sarawak in 1883.

The Tanjongs, Kanowits, Kajamans, and Sekapans,[^[24]] are cognate tribes, probably of the same stock as the Kayans and Kenyahs. Formerly they were large tribes, but are now each reduced to a solitary village. They are to be found only on the Rejang. The dialects of the two first are intermediary between those of the Melanaus and the Kayans, and they live in an intermediary position. The other two tribes live close to Belaga fort in the Kayan country; their dialects vary.

The Malohs of Kapuas in Dutch Borneo formerly had a large village at Kanowit, but nearly all have returned to their own country, and the tribe is now represented by a sprinkling only among the Sea-Dayaks. They are wonderfully skilled workers in brass and copper, and manufacture the peculiar brass corsets worn by the Sea-Dayak women, and their armlets, anklets, leg and ear-rings, and other personal ornaments; and they have been known to turn their talents to making counterfeit coin. They bear a great reputation for bravery, and are dangerous men to cross.

The Lanans live amongst the Kayans, to whom they are allied, in the Balui, and have seven or eight villages.

The Sebops and Madangs are Kenyah sub-tribes.

The Melanau, a large and most important tribe inhabiting the coast between Kedurong point and the mouths of the Rejang, is also of Indonesian stock, though, like the Malays, but in a lesser degree, they are of mixed breed. In speech these people are allied to the Kayans, and are regarded by some as a branch tribe. Certain of their customs are similar, and if they differ from the Kayans in many respects, this is due partly to environment, but mainly to the majority of them having embraced Muhammadanism, and to their having intermarried with the Malays, with whom they are now to a certain extent assimilated in customs. They cultivate sago on a large scale, and since the exit of their old Bruni rulers—or rather oppressors—are able to enjoy the fruits of their labour, and have increased their plantations considerably. At Bruit, Matu, Oya, Muka,[^[25]] and Bintulu, there are jungles of sago palms, and these places supply by far the largest proportion of the world's consumption of sago. The people being industrious and thrifty are well off. The above-named places are now large towns, and Muka is as large as Bruni. The Melanaus are skilled in working iron, are good carpenters, and excellent boat builders. Though they are by nature, like the cognate Kayans, vindictive and quarrelsome, serious crime is not common among them, and they are a law-abiding people. Formerly among the Kayans and Melanaus when one of their houses was about to be built, a hole was dug in the ground, a slave woman together with some beads placed in it, and the first iron-wood supporting post was levered up, and then driven through her into the ground. This was an oblation to the Earth Spirit.

The Kadayans do not appear to be allied to any of the races in N.W. Borneo; those in Sarawak have migrated from Bruni within recent times to escape oppression. They are a peaceful and agricultural race, and many of them are Muhammadans.[^[26]]

MURUTS.

The Muruts and Bisayas are considerable tribes inhabiting the Limbang, Trusan, and Lawas rivers in Sarawak, and beyond. They are of Indonesian stock, and of them a full and interesting account has been given by Sir Spenser St. John in his Life in the Forests of the Far East.

The heads of all these tribes are dolichocephalic or boat-shaped. They are yellow-stained, with hair either straight or slightly waved.

The Land-Dayaks, so named by Europeans in consequence of their not being accustomed to go to sea, or even to the use of boats, either for trading or piratical purposes, number several tribes, with some variations in language. They occupy localities up the rivers Sadong, Samarahan, Sarawak, and Lundu. The remains found among them of Hinduism, such as a stone-shaped bull,[^[27]] and other carved monumental stones, and the name of their deity, Jewata, as also the refusal among them to touch the flesh of cattle and deer, and the cremation of their dead, show that they must have been brought into intimate contact with the Hindus, probably at the time when the Hindu-Javanese Empire of Majapahit extended to Borneo.[^[28]] In customs and appearance they differ considerably from the other tribes. They have a tradition that they arrived from the north in large ships, possibly from Siam or Cochin-China. Having been oppressed and persecuted and hunted for their heads by the Sea-Dayaks they have retreated to the tops of hills and rocky eminences.

Of the Land-Dayak Captain the Hon. H. Keppel[^[29]] says:—

In character he is mild and tractable, hospitable when he is well used, grateful for kindness, industrious, honest, and simple; neither treacherous nor cunning, and so truthful that the word of one of them might safely be taken before the oath of half a dozen Borneans (Malays). In their dealings they are very straightforward and correct, and so trustworthy that they rarely attempt, even after a lapse of years, to evade payment of a just debt. On the reverse of this picture there is little unfavourable to be said, and the wonder is that they have learned so little deceit and falsehood where the examples before them have been so rife.

LAND-DAYAK CHIEF, WITH HIS SON AND GRANDSON.

It is difficult, perhaps impossible now, to assign the position of the Land-Dayaks with regard to the other native peoples. Their language is quite different from the others, and in many other essentials they differ.

Distinct from all these races in physical character and language are the Sea-Dayaks. These are proto-Malays, that is to say they belong to the same ethnic family, but represent that stock in a purer, less mixed stage. Radically their language is the same as the Malay. They are brachycephalic, bullet-headed, with more or less flattened noses, are straight-haired, almost beardless, with skin of olive hue, or the colour of new fallen leaves. They migrated from the west, probably from Sumatra, at a period previous to the conversion of the Malays to Islam, for their language, which with slight dialectic differences, is purely Malay, contains no Arabic except of very recent introduction. The Sea-Dayak inhabits the Batang Lupar, Saribas, Kalaka, and Rejang rivers. They are gradually spreading into the rivers of the north-east, and there are now a good many in the Oya, Muka, Tatau, and Baram districts.

SEA-DAYAK CHIEF.
(The Pengulu Dalam, Munan)

A Sea-Dayak is a clean built man, upright in gait, not tall, the average height being 5 ft. 3 inches. The nose is somewhat flat, the hair straight with no curl in it. The face is generally pleasing from the frankness and good nature that show in it. The women have good figures, light and elastic; well-formed busts, with interesting, indeed often pretty, faces; the skins are, as already stated, of so light a brown as to be almost yellow. They have lustrous dark eyes and black, straight hair.

The Dayaks are very fond of their parents, brothers, sisters, and of their children, and often a strong attachment exists between man and wife that lasts for life. The Dayaks have each but one wife, but it does not follow by any means that the first union lasts. A young couple may find incompatibility of temper after a week or two, and the union is dissolved on the plea of a dream inimical to its continuance.

Incest is considered to be the worst of crimes, bringing a curse on the country. Both incest and bigamy were formerly punishable by a cruel death, now by heavy fines, but for the former offence the fine is far heavier than for the latter.

The Sea-Dayaks are most hospitable, indeed a breach of hospitality is regarded as a punishable offence. They obtained their designation from the English who first came in contact with them, on account of their skill in navigating the sea along the coast, although living inland, and to differentiate them from the Dayaks of Sarawak proper, who were styled Land-Dayaks, because these latter were inexpert boatmen, and very few of them could paddle or swim. As shown farther on, Dayak really signifies an inland man.

The Sea-Dayak is now the dominant race in Sarawak, and in time will become so over the whole of the north-west of Borneo. The spread of this stock in former years appears to have been slow, owing to continual intestine wars, but since the advent of the white man, the discontinuance of these feuds, and the forced adoption of a peaceable life, these people have increased enormously in numbers. Fifty years ago there were but few of them to be found outside the Batang Lupar, Saribas, and Kalaka river-basins, but now, though the population on these rivers has grown considerably, it is less than that of the same race on the Rejang alone, and they are spreading into the Oya, Muka, Tatau, and Baram river-basins. The Melanau population of the two first-named rivers live entirely either on the coast or near to it, and the Dayaks found the upper reaches unoccupied.

The Sea-Dayaks have many good qualities that are more or less lacking in the other inland tribes. They are industrious, honest and thrifty, sober and cheerful, and comparatively moral. But the characteristics that mainly distinguish them are energy and independence. They are exceedingly sensitive, especially the women, and will seek refuge from shame in suicide;[^[30]] like the Malays the men will sometimes, though not often, amok when suffering from depression caused by grief, shame, or jealousy, for in the East this peculiar form of insanity is by no means confined to the Malay as is popularly supposed.[^[31]] Amongst them general social equality exists, and it is extended to their women. They do not suffer their chiefs to abuse their powers as the Kayan and Kenyah chiefs are allowed to do, but they are quite ready to submit to them when justness and uprightness is shown. They are superstitious and restless, and require a firm hand over them, and, "being like truant children, take a great advantage of kindness and forbearance, and become more rebellious if threats are not carried into execution." This was the advice given by the present Rajah to the Netherland officials some years ago. Their inherited desire for human skulls, and their old savage methods of obtaining them, still, in a degree, have a strong hold on the Sea-Dayak character, but against this it can be said to their credit that they are free from cruelty, and never torture a captive as do the Kayans and other tribes. They are kindly to their captives, and treat them as members of the family; and they were a peaceable people before they were led astray by the half-bred Arabs and the Malays.

The Sea-Dayaks are the collectors of jungle produce, in search of which they go on expeditions far into the interior—to Sumatra, the Malayan States, and North Borneo—and are away for months at a time.

The Dayak custom of head-hunting is founded on the same principle as that of scalp-hunting among the North-American Indians. A young man formerly found it difficult to obtain a wife till he had got at least one head to present to the object of his heart as token of his prowess; but it was quite immaterial whether the head was that of man or woman, of old or young. If a Dayak had lost a near relative it became his duty to obtain a head, for until this was accomplished, and a head feast had been given, the family must remain in mourning, and the departed relative would have no attendant in Sembayan (the shades); and so in the event of a chief dying it was incumbent upon the warriors of the tribe to procure one or more heads, in order that his spirit should be properly attended by the spirits of those sacrificed in his honour. Thus head-hunting became more or less a natural instinct, and an obligatory duty.

SEA-DAYAK GIRL.

The ancient Chinese jars,[^[32]] held in great esteem among the natives, and very highly prized, being supposed to be possessed of supernatural powers and healing virtues,[^[33]] are of various kinds and value. The Gusi is the most valued, and is treated with great care and veneration, and stands about eighteen inches high. Then comes the Lingka, then the Benaga,[^[34]] about two feet high, ornamented with the Chinese dragon. The Rusa[^[35]] is the least valued. From a note made in 1890 these are the lowest prices they fetch—Gusi tuak, $1000; Gusi bulan, $700; Gusi chendanum, $500; Galagiau, $400; Lingka, $310; Rusa, $150, In 1890 $7 = £1. These jars are all brown in colour. The Dayaks and Kayans possess a few fine blue and white, and pink and white, old Chinese jars, some over five feet in height.

About forty years ago an enterprising Chinese petty dealer took samples of the jars to China and had clever imitations made. He realised a large sum by the sale, and started as a merchant on a large scale, grew rich, waxed fat, and became the leading and wealthiest Chinese merchant in Kuching. The Malays are clever in "faking" jars, especially such as are cracked, but the Dayaks are not now to be deceived by them.

The Dayak village, like those of all interior tribes, is a communal establishment. It does not consist of separate huts occupied by any one family, but of large common halls on platforms, sometimes 800 ft. long, upon which the dwelling-rooms abut. They are constructed of wood, and are supported on poles sometimes 20 ft. to 40 ft. above the ground, the poles being from 6 to 18 inches in diameter. The largest will contain some 300 people. The following is a description of the Dayak village of Tunggang from the late Rajah's journal:—

Tunyang[^[36]] stands on the left hand (going up) close to the margin of the stream, and was enclosed by a slight stockade. Within this defence there was one enormous house for the whole population. The exterior of the defence between it and the river was occupied by sheds for prahus (boats), and at each extremity were one or two houses belonging to Malay residents.

The common habitation, as rude as it is enormous, measures 594 ft. in length, and the front room or street is the entire length of the building, and 21 feet broad. The back part is divided by mat partitions into the private apartments of the various families, and of these there are forty-five separate doors leading from the public apartment. The widowers and the young unmarried men occupy the public room, as only those with wives are entitled to the advantage of a separate room. The floor of the edifice is raised twelve feet from the ground, and the means of ascent is by the trunk of a tree with notches cut in it—a most difficult, steep, and awkward ladder. In front is a terrace fifty feet broad, running partially along the front of the building, formed like the floors, of split bamboo. This platform, as well as the front room, besides the regular inhabitants, is the resort of dogs, birds, monkeys, and fowls, and presents a glorious scene of confusion and bustle. Here the ordinary occupations of domestic labour are carried on. There were 200 men, women, and children counted in the room, and in front, whilst we were there in the middle of the day; and allowing for those who were abroad, or then in their own rooms, the whole community cannot be reckoned at less than 400 souls. The apartment of their chief is situated nearly in the centre of the building, and is larger than any other. In front of it nice mats were spread on the occasion of our visit, whilst over our heads dangled about thirty ghastly skulls, according to the custom of these people.

The Malay is the latest immigrant. He is of mixed breed, and the link that holds the Malays together is religion, for they are Mahomedans, whereas the Kayans, Land and Sea-Dayaks, and other tribes, are pagans. To accept their own traditions, the Bruni Malays came from Johore, whereas the Sarawak Malays, like those of the Malay peninsula, came direct from the ancient kingdom of Menangkabau. Between them there is a very marked difference in language, character, and appearance. Whence the proto-Malay stock came is a moot point, but it may be of Mongolian origin, subsequently blended with many other distinct ethnic types, such as the Arab and Hindu, and in the case of the Bornean Malay with the Indonesian peoples of their and the neighbouring islands. The Malays form the main population of Kuching, the capital, and of the towns Sadong, Simanggang, Kalaka, and Sibu. They have villages on the Lundu, Saribas, and lower Rejang, are scattered along the coast between Capes Datu and Sirik, and are to be found in the principal settlements beyond. The Malay has been very variously judged. The Malay Pangiran, or noble, was rapacious, cruel, and often cowardly. But he had a grace of manner, a courtesy, and hospitality that were pleasing as a varnish. The evil repute that the Malay has acquired has been due to his possession of power, and to his unscrupulous use of it to oppress the aboriginal races. But the Malay out of power is by no means an objectionable character. Sir James Brooke, the first Rajah, thus paints him:—

The feeling of the Malay fostered by education is acute, and his passions are roused if shame be put upon him; indeed the dread of shame amounts to a disease, and the evil is that it has taken a wrong direction, being more the dread of exposure or abuse, than shame or contrition for any offence. Like other Asiatics truth is a rare quality among them, and they have neither principle nor conscience when they have the means of oppressing an infidel.

They are thus depicted by Mr. Horace St. John in a work somewhat ambitiously entitled, The Indian Archipelago, its History and present State, vol. ii. p. 267 (published 1853).

Under the heading "Malays," we find the following:—

The Malays are Mahomedans, living under the rule of the Prophet's descendants, a mongrel race of tyrants, gamblers, opium-smokers, pirates, and chiefs, who divide their time between cockfighting, smoking, concubines, and collecting taxes.

That Mr. Horace St. John had never been in the Archipelago to which his history relates, was doubtless a matter of little consequence to many of his home-staying contemporaries. Sir Spenser St. John, brother to the author of the above-quoted Indian Archipelago, etc., who certainly wrote from a long personal experience of the people and country, offers us in his Forests of the Far East an opinion on the character and conduct of the Malay from which every one who has lived amongst these people will find no important cause to differ. Sir Spenser writes:—

The Malays are faithful to their relatives and devotedly attached to their children. Remarkably free from crimes, and when they are committed they generally arise from jealousy. Brave when well led, they inspire confidence in their commanders; they are highly sensitive to dishonour, and tenacious as regards their conduct towards each other, and being remarkably polite in manner, they render agreeable all intercourse with them. Malays are generally accused of great idleness, and in some sense they deserve it; they do not like continuous work, but they do enough to support themselves and families in comfort, and real poverty is unknown among them.

The author here refers to the Malays of Sarawak.

Sir W. H. Treacher,[^[37]] who knows the Malay intimately, paints him in favourable colours, now that he is restrained from tyrannising over the weak. He says:—

I am frequently asked if treachery is not one of their characteristics, and I unhesitatingly answer No. This particular misconception was probably initiated by the original merchant-adventurers, and we can imagine what a reception a body of strange, uninvited, white infidels would receive at the hands of Mahomedan Malays, whose system of warfare, taking its rise from the nature of the thickly jungle-covered country they inhabit, is adapted more for ambuscade than for fighting at close quarters. Add to that, being Mahomedans, they were by their religion justified in indulging in piracy and murder where the victims were infidels. The Malay is possessed of at least as much passive courage as the average Englishman, and is probably less troubled by the fear of death and the hereafter than many Christians.

On the other hand I must admit that the Malay, owing to his environment—the balmy climate making no severe calls upon him in the matters either of food, artificial warmth, or clothing, has not the bustling energy of the white man, nor the greed for amassing wealth of the Chinaman, nor does he believe in putting forth unnecessary energy for a problematical gain; he is like the English tramp who was always willing—that is, to look on at other people working, or like that one who complained that he was an unfortunate medium, too light for heavy work, and too heavy for light work.

The natural savagery of the Malay continually threatens to break out, and not infrequently does so in the form of the amok (running amuck), the national Malay method of committing suicide.

Apart from this tendency, when under control the Malay character has much in common with the Mongol, being, under ordinary circumstances, gentle, peaceable, obedient, and loyal, but at the same time proud and sensitive, and with strangers suspicious and reserved.

The Malays can be faithful and trustworthy, and they are active and clever. Serious crime among them is not common now, nor is thieving. They have a bad propensity of running into debt, and obtaining advances under engagements which they never fulfil. They make good servants and valuable policemen. All the Government steamers are officered and manned throughout by Malays, and none could desire to have better crews. They are the principal fishermen and woodsmen. Morality is perhaps not a strong point with them, but drinking is exceptional, and gambling is not as prevalent as it was, nor do they indulge in opium smoking.

With regard to the Chinaman, it will be well to let the present Rajah speak from his own experience. He says that—

John Chinaman as a race are an excellent set of fellows, and a poor show would these Eastern countries make without their energetic presence. They combine many good, many dangerous, and it must be admitted, many bad qualities. They are given to be overbearing and insolent (unless severely kept down) nearly to as great a degree as Europeans of the rougher classes. They will cheat their neighbours and resort to all manner of deception on principle. But their redeeming qualities are comparative charitableness and liberality; a fondness for improvements; and, except in small mercantile affairs or minor trading transactions, they are honest.

They, in a few words, possess the wherewithal to be good fellows, and are more fit to be compared to Europeans than any other race of Easterns.

They have been excluded as much as possible from gaining a footing in Batavia,[^[38]] under the plea of their dangerous and usurious pursuits; but the probability is that they would have raised an unpleasant antagonism in the question of competition in that country. The Chinaman would be equal to the Master, or White Man, if both worked fairly by the sweat of his brow. As for their usury, it is not of so dangerous a character as that which prevails among the Javanese and the natives.

Upon my first arrival I was strongly possessed by the opinion that the Chinamen were all rascals and thieves—the character so generally attached to the whole race at home. But to be candid, and looking at both sides, I would as soon deal with a Chinese merchant in the East as with one who is European, and I believe the respectable class of Chinese to be equal in honesty and integrity to the white man.

The Chinese may be nearly as troublesome a people to govern as Europeans, certainly not more so; and their good qualities, in which they are not deficient, should be cherished and stimulated, while their bad ones are regulated by the discipline of the law under a just and liberal government. They are a people specially amenable to justice, and are happier under a stringent than a lenient system.

Of the Chinese the Sarawak Gazette (November 1, 1897) says:—

The characteristics of this extraordinary people must at once strike the minds of the most superficial of European residents in the East. Their wonderful energy and capacity for work; their power of accumulating wealth; their peculiar physical powers, which render them equally fertile, and their children equally vivacious, on the equator as in more temperate regions, and which enable them to rear a new race of natives under climatic conditions entirely different from those under which their forefathers were born, are facts with which we are all acquainted. Their mental endowments, too, are by no means to be despised, as nearly every year shows us, when the results of the examination for the Queen's Scholarship of the Straits Settlements are published, and some young Chinese boy departs for England to enter into educational competition with his European fellows.

Chinese get on well with all natives, with whom they intermarry, the mixed offspring being a healthy and good-looking type. They form the merchant, trading, and artisan classes, and they are the only agriculturists and mine labourers of any worth. Without these people a tropical country would remain undeveloped.

The only census that appears to have been attempted in Sarawak was taken in 1871. Judging by the report that was published in the Gazette this census was made in a very imperfect manner.[^[39]] Of the interior population it includes Sea-Dayaks, but no means were obtainable for ascertaining the numbers of Kayans, Kenyahs, and many other tribes that go to make up the population of the State. It makes no separate mention of the large coast population of the Melanaus, who were presumably lumped with the Malays.

The census gives the following figures:—

The report concedes it was the generally received opinion that the population was nearer 200,000, and if we include the Kayans, Kenyahs, etc., and accept the approximate correctness of the above figures, that estimate would be about correct.

In 1871, the State extended as far as Kedurong Point only, but since that the territorial area has been nearly doubled. The population is now estimated at 500,000, though this is probably too liberal a calculation, and the following is a fairer estimate:—

The names by which the various tribes are known are those given to them by others, mostly by the coast people, or are taken from the name of the river on which they reside, or from which they came. Daya (as it should be spelt, and as it is pronounced) in the Melanau and Bruni Malay dialect means "land," "in-land." So we have Orang daya, an inlander. Ka-daya-an is contracted into Kayan; Ukit and Bukitan are from the Malay word bukit—a hill; and tanjong is the Malay for a cape or a point round which a river sweeps. Hence Orang Ukit or Bukitan, a hill-man,[^[40]] and Orang Tanjong, riverside people.

As in ancient Germany the districts were known by the names of the rivers that watered them, and each was a gau, so it is in Borneo, where the rivers are the roads of communication, and give their names to the districts and to the people that inhabit them. Indeed, in Borneo one can see precisely at this day what was the ancient Gau-verfassung in the German Empire.

The area of Sarawak is about 50,000 square miles, and the coast line about 500 miles.

The climate is hot and humid; it is especially moist during the N.E. monsoon, and less so during the S.W. monsoon. The former commences and the latter ends sometimes early and sometimes late in October, and in April the seasons again change. The months of most rain are December, January, and February; from February the rainfall decreases until July, the month of least rain, and increases gradually after that month. The average yearly rainfall is 160 inches. The maximum in any one year, 225.95 inches, was recorded in 1882, and the minimum 102.4 in 1888. The heaviest rainfall for one month, 69.25 inches, occurred in January, 1881, and the least, .66 inches, in August, 1877. The most in one day was 15.3 inches on February 8, 1876. Rain falls on an average 226 days in the year. These notes are taken from observations made in Kuching extending over thirty years.[^[41]] At Sibu, the average rainfall for five years was 116 inches, at Baram 92 inches, and at Trusan 167 inches. Except in the sun at mid-day and during the early hours of the afternoon the heat is hardly ever oppressive, and the mornings, evenings and nights are generally cool. In 1906, the maximum average temperature was 91°.6, and the minimum 71°.2 Fahrenheit; the highest reading was 94° in May, and the lowest 69°.6 in July.[^[42]]

In few countries are thunderstorms more severe than in Borneo, but deaths from lightning are not very common, and hail falls so rarely that when it does fall it is an awe-inspiring object to some natives. Archdeacon Perham records that during a very severe hailstorm in 1874 some Dayaks collected the hailstones under the impression that they were rare charms, whilst others fled from their house, believing that everybody and everything in it would be turned into a petrified rock, a woeful monument to future generations. To avert this catastrophe they boiled the hailstones and burnt locks of their hair.[^[43]]

SATANG ISLANDS, DATU BAY.

[7]. The name Borneo is a corruption of Burni, itself a corruption of Beruni or Bruni, the capital of that ancient but now decayed Sultanate bearing the same name, and of which Sarawak, and a great part of British North Borneo, once formed parts. It was the first place in Borneo with which the Spanish and Portuguese had any dealings, and in their old chronicles it is referred to as Burni, and Borneo subsequently became the distinguishing name of the whole island to Europeans. The natives themselves have none, except perhaps the doubtful one of Pulau Ka-lamanta-an, the island of raw sago, so named in recent times by the merchants and traders of the Straits Settlements as being the island from which that commodity was brought, and in those settlements it has since become the native name for Borneo. But in Sarawak this name is known to the Malays alone, and in other parts of Borneo, perhaps only a few have heard of it. In fact, it is applicable to Sarawak only, for in former days sago was exported to the Straits solely from that country, and the trade was carried on by Sarawak Malays, first with Penang and subsequently with Singapore. An old English map of about 1700 gives to the town of Bruni, as well as to the whole island, the name of Borneo. Mercator (1595) also gives Borneo to both.

Bruni is variously spelt Brunai, Brunei, Bruné, Borneo, Borney, Bornei, Porne, and Burni by old writers; all corruptions of Bruni. The Sanskrit word Bhurni, meaning land or country, has been suggested as the origin of the name.

[8]. See page [34].

[9]. Everett (A. Hart). "Notes on the Distribution of the Useful Minerals in Sarawak," in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1878. Mr. Everett was a distinguished naturalist. He served for eight years in the Sarawak service, and died in 1898.

[10]. Odoardo Beccari, Wanderings in the Great Forests of Borneo, 1904.

[11]. Probably the first European to discover these strange insects was the Italian Pigafetta, who in 1521 noticed them in the island of Palawan, to the north of Borneo, and thus quaintly describes them: "In this island are found certain trees, the leaves of which, when they fall off, are animated, and walk." He surmised they lived upon air.—Magellan, Hakluyt Society.

[12]. St. John mentions one that was killed at Brooketon 26 feet 2 inches in length.—Life in the Forests of the Far East, 1863.

[13]. With regard to the collection of orchids it has also been found necessary to do this. Collectors would ruthlessly destroy all orchids, especially the rarer kinds, which they could not carry away, in order to prevent others from collecting these.

[14]. In about 1825 a large bone was found in a cave at Bau which was pronounced to be that of an elephant. These animals are common in parts of N. Borneo, and Pigafetta found them at Bruni in 1521.

[15]. The Ptilocercus Lowii, only found in Borneo. It has been awarded a genus all to itself, and is one of the rarest of Bornean curiosities.—J. Hewitt, Sarawak Gazette, September 1, 1908.

[16]. "According to Mr. Boulanger, Borneo can boast of producing the longest legged frog and the longest legged toad in the world."—Idem.

[17]. "Mr. St. John (Forests of the Far East, p. 190) mentions stones or pebbles of a dark colour considered by the natives as sacred. Some such, found at Quop, were said to have been lost during the civil wars. They are possibly paleolithic implements."—Beccari, op. cit. p. 367.

[18]. The late Rajah wrote in 1838: "We know scarcely anything of these varieties of the human race beyond the bare fact of their existence." We have since learnt something of their languages and customs; of their origin nothing.

[19]. Mr. F. D. de Rozario. The Sarawak Gazette, September 2, 1901. Mr. de Rozario, the officer in charge of Kapit Fort, has been in the Government service for some fifty years, of which nearly all have been spent in the Upper Rejang, and his knowledge of the natives, their customs and languages, is unique.

[20]. See note 2, page [18].

[21]. The Indra Lila (brother of the Lila Pelawan, who was the present Rajah's Malay chief at Lingga over fifty years ago), was their chief. Trouble arose owing to Akam Nipa, the celebrated Kayan chief, who will be noticed hereafter, having fallen in love with a Malay girl of rank. His suit being rejected, he threatened to forcibly abduct the lady, a threat which he could have carried out with ease, so the Malays fled with her to Lingga. This occurred some eighty years ago.

[22]. One of Magellan's chroniclers records that in 1521 men were found in Gilo (Gilolo or Jilolo, to the east of, and near to the Celebes), "with ears so long and pendulous that they reached to their shoulders."—Magellan, Hakluyt Society. Marsden, History of Sumatra, says that the people of Neas island off the west coast of Sumatra elongate their ears in the same manner; so do the Sagais of Belungan. The sculptures above mentioned, and the fact that this curious custom still exists in southern India, point to it being one of Hindu origin.

[23]. Human sacrifices are still in vogue amongst the Kayans and Kenyahs in the Batang Kayan and Mahkam rivers.

[24]. The Kajamans, Sekapans, Sians, and Lanans are said to have been the first to cross over from the Bantang Kayan (Belungan) into the Balui (Rejang). They were probably then one tribe.

[25]. Muka is the Malay for face. The word has been carried into the English language as mug, contemptuously "an ugly mug," from the Sanskrit word muhka, the face.

[26]. Mr. E. A. W. Cox, formerly Resident of the Trusan, and latterly of the Bintulu, says the Kadayan tradition is that many generations back they were brought from Deli in Sumatra by a former Sultan of Bruni. They have always been the immediate followers of the sultans, forming their main bodyguard. They have no distinctive language of their own, and talk a low Bruni patois; their dress is peculiar; and their system of rice cultivation is far in advance of all other Borneans.

[27]. The Hindu sacred bull.

[28]. Writing of the Rafflesia, "those extraordinary parasitical plants, whose huge and startling conspicuous flowers spring from the ground like gigantic mushrooms," Beccari (op. cit. p. 102) says, "The Land-Dayaks called the variety he found at Poi (and which he named R. Tuan-Mudæ, in honour of the present Rajah) 'Bua pakma'; evidently a corruption of 'patma' or 'padma,' the sacred lotus (Nelumbian speciosum) of the Hindus, which is not a native of Borneo. This is, no doubt, one of the many traces of the ancient faith once professed by the Dayaks, who have preserved the memory of the emblematical flower, transferring its name to that of another plant conspicuous for its size and singular appearance. In Java, as well as in Sumatra, the Rafflesia is known as 'Patma'; but there the fact is not surprising, for the prevalence of Hinduism in those islands is a matter of not very remote history." Pakma or patma is the Malay name for the lotus.

The late Sir Hugh Low notes that the Land-Dayaks, who (in common with most of the inland tribes) regulate their farming seasons by the motions of the Pleiades, call that constellation Sakara, probably from the Batara Sakra of the Hindu-Javan mythology, to whose particular care the earth was confided.—Sarawak.

Hindu gold ornaments and a Persian coin, bearing a date corresponding with the year 960 A.D., have been discovered up the Sarawak river, and some in the centre of the Land-Dayak country, which shows that the people of the ancient Hindu-Javan settlement at Santubong must have spread into the interior, and have mixed with the natives.

[29]. Afterwards Admiral of the Fleet.

[30]. Disappointment in marriage and unkindness or harshness on the part of relatives are common causes of suicide by man or woman, but the most common motive is shame, particularly in cases of an unmarried woman, when enceinte, being unable to prove to the tribe who the father of her child is. A whole family has been known to poison themselves to escape the consequences and disgrace which would have befallen them owing to one of them having been the accidental cause of a long communal house being destroyed by fire. Suicide is invariably committed by eating the poisonous root of the tuba plant, derris elliptica.

[31]. The worst on record in Sarawak was committed in 1894 by a half-bred Chinaman (his mother was a Segalang, and he was brought up as one) at Seduan village, three miles from Sibu, in the Rejang. This man, who had just been discharged from jail, arose in the middle of the night, and speared or cut down all the inmates of the house—thirteen women and children, of whom only two or three survived. He was shot by Mr. Q. A. Buck, then the Resident at Sibu (joined 1874, retired 1899), who was quickly on the spot, and was the means of preventing a further loss of life.

[32]. The Sea-Dayaks say that they were constructed by the gods when they made the sky, out of a small surplus of the blue.

[33]. St. John, op. cit., mentions that the late Sultan Mumin of Bruni had an ancient jar which was reputed to be able to speak, and that it moaned sorrowfully the night before his first wife died. He refused £2000 for it.

[34]. Naga, a dragon; benaga, having a dragon.

[35]. Meaning a deer in Malay and Sea-Dayak.

[36]. A misprint for "Tunggang."

[37]. Late Resident-General of the Federated Malay States.

[38]. This was written in 1866.

[39]. Amongst Eastern people any attempt to make a systematic census is liable to be misapprehended, and to give rise to a bad feeling, and even to dangerous scares, and for that reason no census has been made by the Government. This census was an approximation based upon the amount paid in direct taxation, such as head and door taxes, allowing an average of so many people to a family.

[40]. And so Orang-Murut means a hill-man, murut, or more correctly murud, meaning a hill—bulud in Sulu.

[41]. Mr. J. Hewitt, B.A., Curator of the Sarawak Museum in the Sarawak Gazette, February 2, 1906.

[42]. Kuching Observatory.

[43]. The Sarawak Gazette.

FROM MERCATOR'S MAP.

CHAPTER II
EARLY HISTORY

OLD JAR, "BENAGA."

Borneo was known to the Arabs many centuries ago, and Sinbad the Sailor was fabled to have visited the island. It was then imagined that a ship might be freighted there with pearls, gold, camphor, gums, perfumed oils, spices, and gems, and this was not far from the truth.

When Genghis Khan conquered China, and founded his mighty Mogul Empire (1206-27), it is possible that he extended his rule over Borneo, where Chinese had already settled. Kublai Khan is said to have invaded Borneo with a large force in 1292; and that a Chinese province was subsequently established in northern Borneo, in which the Sulu islands were included, is evidenced by Bruni and Sulu traditions. The Celestials have left their traces in the name of Kina Balu (the Chinese Widow) given to the noble peak in the north of the island,[^[44]] and of the rivers Kina-batangan (the Chinese river) and Kina-bangun on the east coast of Borneo, and certain jars, mentioned in chapter I. p. [26], ornamented with the royal dragon of China, are treasured as heirlooms by the Dayaks. At Santubong, at the mouth of the Sarawak river, Chinese coins dating back to B.C. 600 and 112, and from A.D. 588 and onwards, have been found, with many fragments of Chinese pottery. The name Santubong is itself Chinese, San-tu-bong, meaning the "King of the Jungle" in the Kheh dialect, and the "Mountain of wild pig" in the Hokien dialect.

Besides the antique jars, the art of making which appears to have been lost, further evidence of an ancient Chinese trade may be found in the old and peculiar beads so treasured by the Kayans and Kenyahs. These are generally supposed to be Venetian, and to have been introduced by the Portuguese. Beccari (op. cit. p. 263) mentions that he had heard or read that the Malay word for a bead, manit (pronounced maneet), was a corruption of the Italian word moneta (money), which was used for glass beads at the time when the Venetians were the foremost traders in the world. But he points out "that the Venetians made their beads in imitation of the Chinese, who it appears had used them from the remotest times in their commercial transactions with the less civilized tribes of Southern Asia and the Malay islands." And it was by the Chinese these beads were probably introduced into Borneo; manit is but the Sanskrit word mani, meaning a bead.[^[45]]

From the Kina-batangan river came the Chinese wife of Akhmed, the second Sultan of Bruni. She was the daughter of Ong Sum Ping, a Chinese envoy, and from her and Sultan Akhmed the Bruni sultans down to the present day, and for over twenty generations, trace their descent on the distaff side, for their daughter married the Arab Sherip Ali, who became Sultan in succession to his father-in-law, and they were the founders of the present dynasty.[^[46]] Sulu chronicles contain the same legend; and according to these Ong Sum Ping, or Ong Ti Ping, settled in the Kina-batangan A.D. 1375. He was probably a governor in succession to others.

The Hindu-Javan empire of Majapahit in Java certainly extended over Borneo, but it left there no such stately temples and palaces as those that remain in Java, and the only reminiscences of the Hindu presence in Sarawak are the name of a god, Jewata,[^[47]] which lingers among the Dayaks, a mutilated stone bull, two carved stones like the lingams of the Hindus; and at Santubong, on a large immovable rock situated up a small stream, is a rudely carved statue of a human figure nearly life-size, with outstretched arms, lying flat, face downwards, in an uncouth position, perhaps commemorative of some crime.[^[48]]

Santubong is at the eastern mouth of the Sarawak river, and is prettily situated just inside the entrance, and at the foot of the isolated peak bearing the same name, which rises boldly out of the sea to a height of some 3000 feet. This place, which apparently was once a Chinese, and then a Hindu-Javan colony, is now a small fishing hamlet only, with a few European bungalows, being the sea-side resort of Kuching; close by are large cutch works. In ancient days, judging by the large quantity of slag that is to be seen here, iron must have been extensively mined.

Recently some ancient and massive gold ornaments, seal rings, necklets, etc., were exposed by a landslip at the Limbang station, which have been pronounced to be of Hindu origin; and ancient Hindu gold ornaments have been found at Santubong and up the Sarawak river.

FIGURE ON ROCK—SANTUBONG.

Bruni had been a powerful kingdom, and had conquered Luzon and the Sulu islands before it became a dependency of Majapahit, but at the time of the death of the last Batara[^[49]] of that kingdom, Bruni ceased to send tribute. The empire of Majapahit fell in 1478[^[50]] before the Mussulman Malays. The origin of the Malays is shrouded in obscurity; they are first heard of in Sumatra, in Menangkabau,[^[51]] from whence they emigrated in A.D. 1160 to Singapura, "the Lion city." They were attacked and expelled in 1252 by the princes of Majapahit, when they settled in Malacca. There they throve, and embraced the religion of Islam in 1276.

From Sumatra and the Malay peninsula the Malays continued to spread, and gradually to establish sultanates and states under them. The process by which this was effected was seldom by conquest, but by the peaceful immigration of a few families who settled on some unoccupied part of the coast within the mouth of a river. Then, in the course of time, they increased and spread to neighbouring rivers, and formed a state. By subjecting the aboriginal tribes of the interior, and by compulsion or consent, including weaker Malayan states of like origin, by degrees some of these states expanded into powerful sultanates with feudal princes under them.

So the Malayan kingdoms arose and gained power; and strengthened by the spirit of cohesion which their religion gave them, they finally overthrew the Hindu-Javan empire of Majapahit.

In Borneo there were sultans at Bruni, Sambas, Banjermasin, Koti, Belungan, Pasir, Tanjong, Berau, and Pontianak, and other small states under pangirans and sherips.

Exaggerated accounts of the "sweet riches of Borneo" had led the early Portuguese, Dutch, and English voyagers to regard the island, the Insula Bonæ Fortunæ of Ptolemy, as the El Dorado of the Eastern Archipelago; but these in turn found out their error, and, directing their attention to the more profitable islands in its neighbourhood, almost forsook Borneo until later years.

The Spaniards appear to have been the first Europeans to visit the island, as they were the first to make the voyage round the world, and to find the way to the Archipelago from the east, a feat which caused the Portuguese much uneasiness. They touched at Bruni in 1521, and Pigafetta says that there were then 25,000 families in the city, which on a low computation would give the population at 100,000; and he gives a glowing account of its prosperity. The Portuguese, under the infamous Jorge de Menezes, followed in 1526, and they were there again in 1530. They confirm Pigafetta as to the flourishing condition of the place. From 1530 the Portuguese kept up a regular intercourse with Bruni from Malacca, which the great Alfonso d'Albuquerque had conquered in 1511, until they were expelled from that place by the Dutch in 1641. Then they diverted the trade, which was chiefly in pepper, to their settlement at Macao, where they had placed a Factory in 1557, and from whence a Roman Catholic mission was established at Bruni by Fr. Antonio di Ventimiglia, who died there in 1691. It seems certain they had a Factory at Bruni, probably for a short time only, in the seventeenth century, though it is impossible now to do more than conjecture the date; but that they continued their trade with Bruni up to the close of the eighteenth century appears to be without doubt; and also that they had a Factory at Sambas out of which they were driven by the Dutch in 1609. On Mercator's map, alluded to in the first footnote of this chapter, are the words "Lave donde foÿ Don Manuel de Lima," or Lave where Don Manuel of Lima[^[52]] resided. Lave is Mempawa, sometimes spelt Mempava in recent English maps, a place between Sambas and Pontianak—so the Portuguese were even farther south than Sambas in the sixteenth century.

In 1565, the Spanish took possession of the Philippines, conquered Manila in 1571, and, five years later, according to both Spanish and Bruni records, were taking an active interest in Bruni affairs, which, however, does not appear to have lasted for long. In 1576, Saif ul Rejal was Sultan. In the Bruni records[^[53]] it is stated that a noble named Buong Manis, whose title was Pangiran Sri Lela (Sirela in the Spanish records), was goaded into rebellion by the Sultan's brother, Rajah Sakam, by the abduction of his daughter on the day of her wedding. To gain a footing in Bruni the Spaniards took advantage of this, and Don Francisco La Sande, the second Governor of the Philippines, conquered Bruni, and set Sri Lela on the throne. Four years later the Spaniards again had occasion to support their protégé with an armed force; but it ended in the rightful Sultan being restored through the efforts of the Rajah Sakam, aided by a Portuguese, who had become a Bruni pangiran,[^[54]] and the usurper taking refuge in the Belait, where he was slain. To close the history, so far as it is known to us, of the Spanish connection with Bruni, in 1645, in retaliation for piracies committed on the coasts of their colonies, the Spanish sent an expeditionary force to punish Bruni, which it appears was very effectually done.

The first Dutchman to visit Bruni was Olivier Van Noort, in 1600. He seems to have been impressed by the politeness and civility of the Bruni nobles, but, fortunately for himself, not to the extent of trusting them too much, for treachery was attempted. Nine years later, as we have noticed, the Portuguese had to make room for the Dutch at Sambas, and here the latter established a Factory, which was, however, abandoned in 1623. They returned to this part of Borneo in 1778, and established Factories at Pontianak, Landak, Mempawa, and Sukadana, but these proving unprofitable were abandoned in 1791. In 1818, an armed force was sent to re-establish these Factories, two years after Java had been restored to Holland by England, and from these, including Sambas, the Dutch Residency of Western Borneo has arisen.

A certain Captain Cowley appears to have been the first Englishman, of whom we know anything, to visit Borneo, or at least that part of it with which this history deals, and in 1665 he spent some little time at "a small island which lay near the north end of Borneo,"[^[55]] but he did not visit the mainland; perhaps, however, he may not have been the first. As far back as 1612, Sir Henry Middleton projected a voyage to Borneo. He died at Bantam in Java, where the East India Company had established a Factory in 1603, but it was not until 1682 that the Dutch expelled the English from that place, and from thence to Borneo is too simple an adventure not to have been attempted and accomplished by the daring old sea-dogs of those days. According to Dampier, a Captain Bowry was in Borneo in 1686;[^[56]] some English were captured by the Dutch when they took Sukadana in 1687; and there were probably others there before, but no settlement on the north and north-western shores was effected by the English until 1773, when the East India Company formed a settlement at Balambangan, an island north of Marudu Bay, the same probably as that on which Captain Cowley had stayed. This settlement, however, was but short lived, for in February 1775 it was attacked by a small force of Sulus and Lanuns led by a cousin of the Sultan of Sulu, Datu Teting. The garrison of English and Bugis was more than sufficient to have repelled the attack, but they were taken completely by surprise; the Resident and the few settlers managed to escape in what vessels they could find.[^[57]] A number of cannon and muskets, and considerable booty, fell into the hands of the raiders. The motive for this act was revenge; the English had behaved badly to the natives of the neighbouring islands, and Datu Teting had himself suffered the indignity of being placed in the stocks when on a visit to the settlement. The Company had established a Factory at Bruni as well, having obtained from the Sultan the monopoly of the pepper trade, and to this Factory the survivors retired, but some settled on the island of Labuan, where they made a village. In 1803, the Company again established themselves at Balambangan, but after a short occupation abandoned the island, together with the Factory at Bruni. No punishment followed Datu Teting's act, and British prestige in northern Borneo was destroyed.

This is briefly the whole history of British enterprise in that part of Borneo lying north of the equator, and it reflects little credit on the part played by our countrymen in Eastern affairs in those days.

We have shown that Bruni early in the fourteenth century possessed a population of at least 100,000. According to Sir Hugh Low, two hundred years after Pigafetta's visit, the population was estimated at 40,000, with a Chinese population in its neighbourhood of 30,000, engaged in planting pepper.[^[58]] In 1809, the city had shrunk to 3000 houses with a population of 15,000.[^[59]] In 1847, Low placed the population at 12,000; the Chinese had then disappeared, excepting a few who had been reduced to slavery. The population, still diminishing, is now under 8000.

On the picturesque hills that surround the town are still to be found traces of thriving plantations which formerly existed there, and which extended for many miles into the interior. These have totally disappeared, with the population which cultivated them. In 1291, two centuries before the first European vessel rounded the Cape,[^[60]] Ser Marco Polo visited the Archipelago. He gives us the first narrative we possess of the Chinese junk trade to the westward, and mentions a great and profitable traffic carried on by the Chinese with Borneo,[^[61]] and this trade throve for many years afterwards; even in 1776 the commerce with China was considerable,[^[62]] though then it must have been declining, for it had ceased before the close of that century. Hunt records that in his time there were still to be seen at Bruni old docks capable of berthing vessels of from 500-600 tons. Now the most striking feature of the place is its profound poverty. Nothing remains of its past glory and prosperity but its ancient dynasty.

Sir Hugh Low tells us that these old Malay kingdoms appear to have risen to their zenith of power and prosperity two hundred years after their conversion to Islam, and then their decline commenced, but he should have added half a century to this epoch. The late Rajah was of opinion that perhaps the introduction of Muhammadanism may have been the cause of their deterioration. Two hundred and fifty years after the conversion of the Malays to Muhammadanism, and under the ægis of this religion, all the Malayan States attained their zenith. This period was coetaneous with the appearance of what may fairly be described as their white peril, and the introduction of Muhammadanism, a religion which Christians, in their ignorance of its true precepts, are too apt wholly to condemn, brought with it the pernicious sherips, the pests of the Archipelago. The decay of the old Malayan kingdoms was due primarily to the rapacious and oppressive policy adopted by Europeans in their early dealings with these States, which was continued in a more modified form until within recent times. How this was brought about, and how the sherips contributed to it, is in the sequel.

Prior to the advent of the late Rajah in 1838, Sarawak appears to have attracted no attention, except that Gonsavo Pereira, who made the second Portuguese visit to Bruni in 1530, says that Lave (Mempawa), Tanjapura (which cannot be identified), and Cerava (Sarawak) were the principal ports, and contained many wealthy merchants; and Valentyn relates that in 1609 the Dutch found that Calca (Kalaka), Saribas, and Melanugo had fallen away from Borneo (Bruni) and placed themselves under the power of the king of Johore.[^[63]] Melanugo is also difficult to identify, but it may be that a transcriptive error has crept in somewhere, and that it refers to the Malanau districts beyond Kalaka.[^[64]]

The Sarawak Malays claim their origin from the ancient Kingdom of Menangkabau in Sumatra. Fifteen generations back, one Datu Undi, whose title was Rajah Jarom, a prince of the royal house of Menangkabau, emigrated with his people to Borneo, and settled on the Sarawak river. This prince had seven children, the eldest being a daughter, the Datu Permisuri.[^[65]] She married a royal prince of Java (this was after the downfall of Majapahit), and from them in a direct line came the Datu Patinggi Ali, of whom more will be noticed in the sequel, and the lineage is now represented by his grandson, the present Datu Bandar of Sarawak.

The Datu Permisuri remained in Sarawak. Rajah Jarom's eldest son established himself in the Saribas; his third son in the Samarahan; the fourth in the Rejang;[^[66]] and the fifth up the right-hand branch of the Sarawak, from whence his people spread into the Sadong. These settlements increased within their original limits, but were not extended beyond the Rejang.

Beyond this the Malays of Sarawak know little; but that these settlements must have early succumbed to the rising power of Bruni is evident. But it is also evident that after that power had commenced to wane, its hold over Sarawak gradually weakened until it became merely nominal. In 1609, the year they established themselves at Sambas, the Dutch found that these districts had fallen away from Bruni, as we have noticed. There may have been, and probably were, spasmodic assertions of authority on the part of Bruni, but it seems fairly evident that the Sarawak Malays managed to maintain an independence more or less complete for many years, up to within a very short period of the late Rajah's arrival, and then they had placed themselves again under the sovereignty of the Sultan, only to be almost immediately driven into rebellion by Pangiran Makota, the Sultan's first and last governor of Sarawak.

Just a century after the Portuguese had shown the way, and had won for their king the haughty title of "Lord of the Navigation and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India," the English and the Dutch appeared in the Archipelago. The latter under Houtman, who had learnt the way from the Portuguese under whom he had served, were the first, in 1595, if we exclude Drake, 1578, and Cavendish, ten years later, and both merely passed through the southern portion of the Archipelago on their way home on their voyages round the world.

During the seventeenth century the English confined their energies to buccaneering and trading, and established only two Factories, at Bantam 1603, and at Bencoolen 1685. The Dutch went in for conquest, established themselves strongly at Jakatra, renamed by them Batavia, in 1611, and then proceeded to drive the Portuguese out of their settlements. The power of Portugal had been humbled by Spain, and the courageous spirit of the old conquistadores had departed. One by one her settlements were wrested from her, and by the end of the century Holland was paramount in the Archipelago. Beyond one or two abortive descents upon Luzon, one, probably the last, under the famous Tasman, the Dutch had left the Spaniards undisturbed in the Philippines, but to the English was left Bencoolen only, Bantam having been taken away from them in 1682, and to the Portuguese a portion of the island of Timor.

During the latter half of the eighteenth century commenced the rise of Great Britain as a political power in the Malayan Peninsula and Archipelago. In 1760, her only settlements, those on the western coast of Sumatra, had been destroyed by the French, but these were re-established in 1763, and Bencoolen was fortified. In 1786, the colony at Penang (Prince Edward's island) was established; and nine years later Malacca was captured from the Dutch.

Early in the nineteenth century came the temporary downfall of Holland. In 1811, Java was taken by the British, and the Dutch settlements and dependencies passed into their hands, though these were soon to be restored. After subjugating the independent princes of the interior and introducing order throughout Java, which the Dutch had so far failed to accomplish, all her possessions in the Archipelago were restored to Holland in 1816; and in 1825 Bencoolen was exchanged for Malacca. Singapore was founded in 1819.

In Borneo south of the equator, excepting Sukadana, which has already been mentioned, Banjermasin had been the only country to attract attention, and in this formerly rich pepper country the Dutch and English were alternately established. As early as 1606, the former, with disastrous results, attempted to establish a Factory there, and after that experience they appear to have left the place severely alone, and the Banjers were free of the white peril for another century. Then, in 1702, the East India Company established a Factory there. As this venture is an interesting illustration of the methods adopted by the English, and an example of their common misconduct and mismanagement, we give a few particulars. The old Dutch chronicler, Valentyn, tells us how the Factor, Captain Moor, who lived in a house constructed on a raft, with only a wretched earth rampart ashore, and a handful of English and Bugis (of the Celebes) soldiers, laid a heavy hand on the people, but managed to hold his own, until in 1706 a Captain Barry commenced building a proper fort, but he died before it was completed. Then a surgeon, who was more interested in natural history than anything else, became Factor. The aggression of the English increased, and the Sultan drove them out with the loss of many men and two ships. Captain Beeckman, of the H.E.I. Company's service, who was there in 1713, ascertained that Captain Barry had been poisoned, and he tells us so hateful had their servants rendered the name of the Company to the Banjereens that he had to pretend his ships were private traders. They had promised the Sultan to build no forts nor make soldiers. They grossly ill-treated, and even murdered the natives, imposed duties, and finally insulted the Sultan, and attempted to capture the queen-mother. The English, taken by the natives, including a Captain Cockburn, were put to a cruel death.[^[67]]

Then came the Dutch once more, in 1747. They left in 1810, and the Sultan then petitioned the English to settle there again. This was done, but, simultaneously with their evacuation of Java, the English retired from Banjermasin, and it was transferred to the Dutch, who shortly afterwards re-established their old stations in western Borneo up to Sambas.

The Dutch continued to extend their influence, till, in process of time, they had acquired control over two-thirds of the island.

Necessarily this is but a brief summary of the political history of Borneo, and of the countries adjacent to it up to the time when commences our story of the north-western portion of the island, but it may be deemed sufficient to afford the reader a clearer insight into the narrative that follows.

The system of trade adopted by the Dutch, following in the footsteps of the Portuguese, was bad. Each in turn made of trade a monopoly, excluding the vessels of every other nation. Such produce of the country as was suitable for the Chinese market had to be sent first to one of their own depôts, thence to be transhipped to China, and all direct intercourse with China was checked. This cessation of direct trade affected the prosperity of the ports, among others Bruni, in a variety of ways. First, by the circuitous direction of the trade the exports became too expensive to fetch the cost of the double carriage, and in course of time dwindled to nothing. In the next place, the cessation of immediate intercourse with China arrested the flow of immigrants, hard-working and frugal men, who would have exploited the industries and natural products of the island. A third, and that the most serious effect of all, as a result of the extinction of honest trade and internal development, was the encouragement given to piracy. The sultans and rajahs were unable to maintain their state, and the people to satisfy their requirements by just means, and so commenced to live by piracy. So long as immediate requirements were satisfied by this means, they gave no thought to the morrow; it did not occur to them, or they were too ignorant to consider, that they were pulling up by the roots that on which the future prosperity of their countries depended.

"The Dutch had no sooner established themselves at Batavia than, not satisfied with transferring to it the emporium of Bantam, they conceived the idea of making it the sole and only depôt of the commerce of the Archipelago.... The destruction of the native trade of the Archipelago by this withering policy may be considered as the origin of many of the evils and of all the piracies of which we now complain. A maritime and commercial people, suddenly deprived of all honest employment, or the means of respectable subsistence, either sunk into apathy and indolence, or expended their natural energies in piratical attempts to recover by force and plunder what they had been deprived of by policy and fraud." So wrote Sir Stamford Raffles in 1821.

That bold, old west-country buccaneer, and erstwhile captain of the King's Navy, William Dampier, who besides being a shrewd fighter and trader, appears to have been equally as shrewd an observer, draws a sad picture of the degradation of flourishing states under the grinding power of the Dutch. He relates that the natives had ever been willing to trade with all nations, but the Dutch East India Company not only monopolised all the trade of those countries under their immediate control, but by means of their guard-ships prevented the adjacent countries trading with others than themselves, even with those of their own countrymen who were not connected with the Company, though they were not in a position to supply these countries with all the commodities their inhabitants needed, or to purchase or load all their produce.[^[68]] The cultivation of pepper naturally declined,[^[69]] and in some places the natives were prevented planting more than the Company would require. So it was with spices. In October every year the Dutch would send a large force throughout the spice islands to destroy trees, so as to keep the production down, and small garrisons were scattered about, whose sole duty appears to have been to see that the cultivation of spices was restricted to the requirements of the Dutch alone.[^[70]]

"The people, though they are Malayans, yet they are civil enough, engaged thereto by trade; for the more trade the more civility; and, on the contrary, the less trade the more barbarity and inhumanity. For trade has a strong influence upon all people, who have found the sweet of it, bringing with it so many conveniences of life as it does. I find the Malayans in general are implacable enemies to the Dutch; and all seems to spring from an earnest desire they have of a free trade, which is restrained by them where they have any power. But 'tis freedom only must be the means to encourage any of these remote people to trade,—especially such of them as are industrious, and whose inclinations are bent this way, as most of the Malayans are.

"Where there is any trade to be had, yet not sufficient to maintain a Factory, or where there may not be a convenient place to build a fort, so as to secure the whole trade to themselves, they (the Dutch) send their guard-ships, which, lying at the mouth of the rivers, deter strangers from coming thither, and keep the petty princes in awe of them. This probably causes so many petty robberies and piracies as are committed by the Malayans.

"Being thus provoked by the Dutch, and hindered of a free trade by their guard-ships, it is probable they therefore commit piracies themselves, or connive at and encourage those who do. So that the pirates seem to do it as much to revenge themselves on the Dutch for restraining their trade, as to gain this way what they cannot obtain in way of traffic."

So wrote Dampier, and if we go on to seventy years ago, when Sir James Brooke commenced, unaided, that counter-move which resulted in the salvation of the northern part of Borneo from the then hurtful and narrow-minded rule of the Dutch, and to its being opened to British trade and influence, we learn from his own words "how the policy of the Dutch has at the present day reduced this 'Eden of the Eastern Wave' to a state of anarchy and confusion, as repugnant to humanity as it is to commercial prosperity.... It is the direct influence which it exerts that has proved baneful to the Archipelago under the assumed jurisdiction of this European power. Her unceasing interference in the concerns of the Malay governments and the watchful fomenting of their internal dissensions have gradually and effectually destroyed all rightful authority, and given rise to a number of petty states which thrive on piracy and fatten on the slave trade. The consequent disorganisation of society arising from these causes has placed a bar to commercial enterprise and personal adventure, and has probably acted on the interior tribes much in the same way as this fatal policy has affected the Malays. As far as can be ascertained, the financial and commercial concerns of the Dutch have not been prosperous; it is easy to conceive such to be the case, as it will be conceded that oppression and prosperity cannot co-exist. In short, with the smallest amount of advantage, the Dutch Government has all along endeavoured to perpetuate an exclusive system, aiming more at injury to others than any advantage to themselves or to the nations under their sway; for where an enlightened administration might have produced the most beneficial results, we are forced to deplore not only the mischief done and the mass of good neglected, but the misery and suffering inflicted on unhappy races, capable, as has been proved, of favourable development under other circumstances."

In Borneo, as elsewhere, the Malays had for long been notorious pirates, but the Sea-Dayaks, only so far as consisted in spasmodic raids for the acquisition of heads.

The Malay governors, now under the influence of the Arab pseudo-sherips, diverted whole tribes of Dayaks from their peaceable avocations, and converted them into sea-robbers. The cultivation of their lands to produce saleable goods, for which there was now no sale, was abandoned, and fertile districts that had grown abundant crops were reduced to unprofitable jungle.

But it was not only on trading vessels in the China seas that they were taught to prey. The Malay princes and nobles sent those tribes whom they had demoralised to ascend the rivers and plunder and exterminate the peaceful tribes in the interior.

Among the tribes thus changed from an agricultural people into pirates were the Sekrang and the Saribas. When the Malay Muhammadan princes wanted slaves they summoned their Dayak nominal subjects to follow them, and led them against other tribes, either to harry the coasts or to penetrate up the rivers ravaging; and then, from this first stage to a second, converted them into pirates who swept the seas, falling on trading vessels, murdering the crews, and appropriating the plunder. According to agreement the Malay princes received two-thirds of the spoil, and their Dayak subjects, whom they had trained to be pirates, were granted one-third of the plunder and all the heads they could take.

About this head-hunting something has been said already, more will be said presently. As a Dayak said to a European, "You like books, we like heads."

In the latter half of the seventeenth century, the Sultan of Bruni, Muadin, was constrained to call in the aid of his neighbour, the Sultan of Sulu, to quell an insurrection, and in consideration of this assistance ceded to him the land from the north as far as the Kimanis river.

Sultan Abdul Mubin had murdered his uncle, Sultan Muhammad Ali, and usurped the throne. Pangiran Bongsu, under the title of Sultan Muadin, with the assistance of the Sulus, defeated Abdul Mubin, who was executed. Muhammad Ali was murdered in 1662, and a war ensued that lasted about twelve years.[^[71]]

The Spaniards attacked Sulu, captured the capital, and carried off the Sultan to Manila. When the English took Manila, under Sir William Draper in 1762, they released the Sultan Mumin, and he ceded the territory that had been granted to his predecessors by the Sultan of Bruni in or about 1674 to the East India Company, by deed signed in 1763, in consideration of an engagement entered into by the Company to protect him from the Spaniards.

Sultan Jemal ul Alam, of Bruni, who died in 1796, married Rajah Nur Alam, daughter of his uncle Sultan Khan Zul Alam, 21st Sultan of Bruni, by his first wife. By her he had one legitimate son, Omar Ali Saif Udin. The wife of Sultan Jemal had a full brother, Sri Banun Muda (usually called Rajah Api), and also half-brothers Hasim and Muhammad, sons of Khan Zul Alam by his second wife, and Bedrudin and two other sons by his third wife, a Lanun lady of rank.

On the death of his grand-uncle, also grandfather, and predecessor, Khan Zul Alam, Omar Ali was but a child, and Rajah Api claimed the throne, under the title of Sultan Muhammad Alam, and there were years of trouble in Bruni. Sir Hugh Low describes him as a madman with the most cruel propensities, whence probably his nickname Api, which signifies "Fire." He treated his nephew with great roughness, and often threatened him with a drawn sword, and Omar ran whimpering to his mother to complain. The prince's mother had long been jealous of the assumption of the sultanate by her brother, and, her son being almost imbecile, she hoped, by getting rid of Api, to exercise great power in the state. Accordingly, about the year 1828, she summoned those of her party and surrounded the residence of the Sultan Muhammad Alam, or Api, who finding himself deserted escaped in a boat. His sister sent after him a pangiran, or noble, with professions of friendship, and this pangiran persuaded him to assume the disguise of a woman to facilitate his escape. Then he got him into a little skiff, and led him into an ambush, where he was ordered to be put to death. He received the intimation with firmness. "Observe," said he, "when you strangle me, on which side my body shall fall—if to the right it prognosticates good for Bruni, if to the left it foretells evil." The bow-string was twisted, and Api sank on his left side. As we shall see that omen proved true.

Api's brother, Rajah Muda Hasim, an amiable, courteous, feeble man, was installed as Regent; and some time later was sent to Sarawak, where a rebellion had broken out, caused by the exactions and cruelty of the Pangiran Makota, who had been appointed governor of Sarawak by the Sultan. Hasim found the whole district a prey to anarchy, and those who should have reduced it to order were incompetent and too cowardly to fight. All he was able to do was to maintain a nominal sovereignty in the capital, Kuching.

The Malays and Arabs being Muhammadans, looked down on the pagan Land-Dayaks, subject to their domination, as mere bondsmen, to be slaughtered, fleeced, or enslaved—to be treated, in a word, as their caprice dictated, without being taken to task for their misdeeds. The limit of their exactions was fixed by necessity. The point beyond which oppression ceased was that where nothing was left to be extorted. But over the Sea-Dayaks of Sekrang, Saribas, and Kanowit they had no power. These tribes were far too independent in character and powerful to submit to oppression. These Sea-Dayaks would follow their so-called masters on a piratical expedition, and would obey them only so far as it pleased themselves to do so. As to the Kayans, they were too greatly feared to be molested. The late Mr. H. B. Low[^[72]] in 1879 was refused permission by the Sultan to cross into the Baram by the Limbang, for fear lest this should show the Kayans a way into Bruni. The Malay rulers oppressed their own people and the Melanaus almost as badly as they did the Land-Dayaks, murdering, robbing, and enslaving them.

The Land-Dayaks in Sarawak were governed by local Malay datus called Patinggi, Bandar, and Temanggong. These officers monopolised the trade. When the Dayaks had collected rice, edible birds' nests, wax, etc., the Patinggi claimed the right to buy the produce at a price fixed by himself, and one that barely allowed the seller enough to pay for his own necessaries. And not only did the Patinggi claim the right of pre-emption, but so did all his relatives, and in the end so did every Bornean Malay of any position. If the poor Dayak did not produce sufficient to satisfy the Patinggi, girls and children were taken to make up the deficit and sold into slavery.[^[73]]

He would sometimes send a bar of iron to a headman of a tribe, whether the latter wanted it or not, and require him to purchase it at an exorbitant price fixed by the sender. The man dared not refuse; then another bar was sent, and again another, till the Dayak chief was reduced to poverty.