Rajah of Sarawak James

“ The dances over, Nimok pronounced an oration: he dwelt on the advantages of union; how desirous he was to benefit his tribe; how constantly it was his custom to visit Sarāwak in order to watch over the interests of the tribe—the trouble was his, the advantage theirs; but how, without union, could they hope to gain any advantage—whether the return of their remaining captive women, or any other? He proposed this union; and that, after the padi was ripe, they should all live at Ra-at, where, as a body, they were always ready to obey the commands of the Tuan Besar or the Datu. ”

“ Brooke on board, approached Sarāwak, his seat of government; in the reach before you near which, and off the right bank of the river, is a long and dangerous shelf of rocks. The deep channel which lies between the bank and the rocks is not more than sixty or seventy feet wide, and required some little care in passing; but, with the exception of the flying jibboom, which got nipped off in the branch of a magnificent overhanging tree, we anchored without accident in six fathoms water, and greatly astonished the natives with a royal salute in honor of Muda Hassim, the Rajah of Borneo. ”

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“ From Java Head we glided slowly through Princeʼs Strait, and coasting along the island, dropped our anchor in Anjer Roads. The scenery of this coast is extremely lovely, and comprises every feature which can heighten the picturesque; noble mountains, a lake-like sea, and deeply indented coast-line, rocks, islets, and, above all, a vegetation so luxuriant that the eye never wearies with gazing on its matchless tints. ”

“ Brooke to advise the course most becoming, disinterested, and humane for the British empire to pursue, it is not too much to say that, if the well-being of these races of our fellow-creatures is defeated or postponed, the crime will not lie at our door. The sacrifices we have made to extinguish slavery throughout the world are a sure and unquestionable pledge that we will do our utmost to extirpate the horrid traffic in those parts, and to uproot the system of piracy that feeds it. ”

“ His power, they say, equals his family; as he is, in some measure, independent; and were he to instigate the Sadung country to take arms against Borneo, it is very probable he would overthrow the government, and make himself Sultan of Borneo. In person, this noble partakes much of his fatherʼs race, both in height and features, being tall and large, with a fine nose and contour of face. His manners are reserved but kind; and he looks as if too indolent to care much about acquiring power; too fat for an active traitor, though a dangerous man to oppress. ”

“ Whether in preparing for the establishment of a British settlement on the coast of Borneo, or in actually making one, her majestyʼs ministers, I am satisfied, will advert to the merits and peculiar qualifications of Mr. Brooke. That gentleman is unknown to me, except by his acts and writings; but, judging by these, I consider him as possessing all the qualities which have distinguished the successful founders of new colonies; intrepidity, firmness, and enthusiasm, with the art of governing and leading the masses. ”

“ The European is loud, contemptuous, and abusive; the Malay cool and vindictive. The regal dignity has been insulted; the rajah has received ‘shame’ before his court; evil counselors are at hand to whisper the facility of revenge, and the advantages to be derived from it. The consequence too frequently follows—the captain and crew are krissed, and their vessel seized and appropriated. The repeated tragedy shocks the European mind; and the Malay has received, and continues to this day to receive, a character for treachery and bloodthirstiness. ”

“ The government of the Sibnowans may be called patriarchal. The authority of the chief appears limited within very narrow bounds; he is the leader in war, and the dispenser of the laws; but possesses no power of arbitrary punishment, and no authority for despotic rule. The distinction between Sejugah and the lowest of his tribe is not great, and rather a difference of riches than of power. A few ornamented spears, presented by the Malays, seem his only insignia of office; and these were never displayed in our presence, save in the dance. ”

“ The principal chiefs, and men distinguished by talent and some acquaintance with foreign affairs, are now on our side; and it only requires to support them in order that civilization may rapidly spread over the land, and Borneo become again, as it was one or two centuries ago, the abode of an industrious, rich, pacific, and mercantile people, interchanging products with all the trading nations of the world, and conferring and reaping those blessings which follow in the train of just and honorable trade wheresoever its enterprising spirit leads in the pursuit of honest gain. ”

“ The Malay government is said to exhibit the feudal system in its most perfect form. The chief, or rajah, issues his orders to the Pangerans, or princes of the blood; to the Datus, or nobles of royal descent; or to the Orang Kayas, or wealthy vassals. All these obey and follow him to war, free of expense, when the king is sufficiently powerful to enforce it; but whenever the vassal feels himself strong enough to throw off the yoke, and to assert his independence, he sets up for himself. ”

“ This is a capital American biography, of an American naval hero, scarcely less renowned and no less gallant and gifted with an heroic spirit than Nelson, the great British admiral. There is scarcely a more stirring life in the whole compass of literature than that of Jones; and the important part he played in giving force and almost life itself to the American navy, then in its earliest infancy, renders his history peculiarly interesting and attractive. No man certainly ever performed more gallant exploits, and few have rendered more important service to the cause of freedom than he. ”

“ And yet, if exertion can benefit our race, or even our own country—if the sum of human misery can be alleviated—if these suffering people can be raised in the scale of civilization and happiness—it is a cause in which I could suffer, it is a cause in which I have suffered and do suffer; hemmed in, beset, anxious, perplexed, and the good intent marred by false agents—surrounded by weakness, treachery, falsehood, and folly, is suffering enough ”

“ It is bounded on the north by the Solo seas, on the east by the Straits of Macassar, on the south by the Java, and on the west by the China seas. Situated in the track of the most extensive and valuable commerce, intersected on all sides with deep and navigable rivers, indented with safe and capacious harbors, possessing one of the richest soils on the globe, abounding in all the necessaries of human life, and boasting commercial products that have in all ages excited the avarice and stimulated the desires of mankind,—with the exception of New Holland, it is the largest island known. ”

“ In this voyage, while going up the China seas, he saw for the first time the islands of the Asiatic Archipelago—islands of vast importance and unparalleled beauty—lying neglected, and almost unknown. He inquired and read, and became convinced that Borneo and the Eastern Isles afforded an open field for enterprise and research. To carry to the Malay races, so long the terror of the European merchant-vessels, the blessings of civilization, to suppress piracy, and extirpate the slave-trade, became his humane and generous objects ”

“ On the contrary, all chiefs who have seized on territory and arrogate independence (making this independence a plea for piracy) can never be allowed the right of declaring war, or entering on hostilities with their neighbors; for, as I have before remarked, all native trade must in that case be at an end, as the piratical chiefs, no longer in dread of punishment from European powers, would doubtless declare war against every unwarlike native state which they did not need as a market for the sale of their slaves and plunder. ”

“ The great river of Borneo Proper is certainly the finest on the island. It is a deep, navigable, and majestic stream; it has three fathoms upon the bar at low water; the rise and fall is, I believe, fifteen feet; there are docks here for Chinese junks of five or six hundred tons, and a first-rate ship of war might get up far above the town. ”

“ Whatever, indeed, might prove the work of ages in various other parts of the globe would, under the present circumstances of the Chinese empire, be instantaneous on these shores; and their habits of industry and civilization, when once rooted to the soil, would soon spread their genial influence to the extensive population of the interior, unite them in the bonds of social life, cement them in the general prosperity, and render these extensive shores a valuable appendage and an increasing resource to the wealth and power that brought about so happy a revolution in their affairs. ”

“ The poor Dyaks in the interior, as well as the Chinese, were in the greatest state of alarm, and thence I gained some credit among them for my interference on their behalf. The very idea of letting 2500 wild devils loose in the interior of the country is horrible; for though they have one professed object, they combine many others with it, and being enemies of all the mountain tribes, they cut them up as much as they can. What object, it may be inquired, can the Malays have in destroying their own country and people so wantonly? ”

“ People settled like myself too often try to create a Utopia, and end with a general confusion. The feeling of the native which binds him to his chief is destroyed, and no other principle is substituted in its stead; and as the human mind more easily learns ill than good, they pick up the vices of their governors without their virtues, and their own good qualities disappear, the bad of both races remaining without the good of either. ”

“ On the first point, it appears clear to me, that the plunder or seizure of a peaceful and lawful trader on the high seas constitutes an act of piracy, without any reference to the nation or color of the injured party; for if we limit our construction of piracy, we shall, in most cases, be in want of sufficient evidence to convict, and the whole native trade of the Archipelago will be left at the mercy of pirates, much to the injury of our own commerce and of our settlement of Singapore. ”

“ The Indian Archipelago has fully shared this neglect; and even the tender philanthropy of the present day, which originates such multifarious schemes for the amelioration of doubtful evils, which shudders at the prolongation of apprenticeship for a single year in the West, is blind to the existence of slavery in its worst and most aggravated form in the East. Not a single prospectus is spread abroad; not a single voice is upraised to relieve the darkness of Paganism, and the horrors of the Eastern slave-trade. ”

“ In fact, it is a government that inspires on all sides one universal distrust—that rules by precedents of oppression without a view to protection. The chiefs dread the power of their vassals, who, in return, apprehend everything from the rapacity of the governing power; while the bulk of the people, having no property to lose, are still compelled to appear abroad armed to defend their very persons from the outrage and violence of the next assassin they meet. ”

“ Beside, as the island is small, and soldiers at times inconsiderate, they might profane or defile its holy precincts, and thus lay the foundation of perpetual disputes, or even a serious rupture. The fort and factory, if built at all at Pontiana, must hence be fixed in some detached place. The sultan is building a new palace and covering it with tiles; a novelty in this quarter. There is but a scanty supply of fowls and buffaloes, and the necessaries of life are scarce and dear. It is altogether the most uncouth and dreary spot under the sun, though the sultan prefers it to Sambas and Mompava. ”

“ He is an intelligent man; and I hail with pleasure his advent to Sarāwak, as the dawn of a friendship with the two pirate tribes. It is not alone for the benefit of these tribes that I desire to cultivate their friendship, but for the greater object of penetrating the interior through their means. ”

“ Living, as the Chinese do, under the rapacity of despotic and ferocious freebooters, who are actuated by no one principle of honor, justice, or good faith, it is their interest to conceal the riches they amass, not only to preserve themselves from the clutches of these tyrants, but as the most compact substance to transport to their native shores, to which they repair with the fruits of their industry, by the annual junks that arrive at Pontiana, leaving the mines to new settlers: from two to three hundred leave Pontiana every year. ”

“ With a post such as is proposed to be established, our measures for the suppression of piracy (after the punishment of Seriff Houseman and the Balagnini) would advance step by step, as our knowledge increased, and with alternate conciliation and severity, as the case might require. By detaching the recognised governments from the practice, and gradually forming among the chief men a friendly and English party opposed to piracy, we should, I doubt not, speedily obtain our principal object of clearing the sea of marauders, and ultimately correct the natural propensity of the natives for piracy. ”

“ While the East India Company were sending Captain Forest from their settlement of Balambangan as far as New Guinea in search of this plant, how little they dreamed of its flourishing so near them on the island of Borneo! The soil on which they grow is a yellowish clay, mixed with vegetable mould. I brought some of the fruit away with me. After breakfast, a breeze springing up, we sailed to the mouth of the Sarāwak river, waited for the tide, and pushed on for the vessel, getting aboard about half past three in the morning. ”

“ The miserable state of Borneo I have already mentioned; and it is now a saying of the Balagnini pirates, that ‘it is difficult to catch fish, but easy to catch Borneons.’ Externally and internally they are equally wretched, and torn by factions; yet, on the whole, I am not inclined to judge harshly of the poorer order of them. They are a good-tempered, very hospitable, and unwarlike people, the victims of their rajahs; the oppressed, but not the oppressors. In this character, however, I do not reckon the Pangerans and their followers. ”

“ While there is so much of right feeling and manly principle in the actions of these Dyaks, the miserable race who pretend to be their superiors have no single virtue or good intention. I do not, however, mean to confound the inhabitants of Sarāwak, or the other rivers, with those of Borneo Proper. The latter are thoroughly corrupt and profligate. The former are Malays, but have their good qualities, and certainly are not possessed with the spirit of intrigue which seems the life, the only moving principle of the Borneons. ”