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The first division coincides with Sarawak proper; the second includes the Batang Lupar, Saribas, and Kelaka districts; the third comprises the Rejang, Oya, Muka, Bintulu, and Matu districts; the fourth consists of the Baram, Limbang, Trusan, and Lawas.
For two days they remained off Muka, capturing there, and on the coast southwards, thirty-two persons. Mr. Helms persuaded Hadji Mataim and a few natives to start in a fast boat and apprize Captain Brooke; and this boat, though chased by the pirates, got safe to Bintulu.
Some of the Malanaus, a partially Mohammedan tribe of Klemantans, seated about the mouths of the Muka, Oya, and Bintulu rivers of Sarawak, have the curious custom of flattening the heads of the infants, chiefly the females. The flattening is effected at an early age, the process beginning generally within the first month after birth.
Of these tribes, all with the exception of the Ukits are tattooed, unlike the Dyaks, who look upon the practice with contempt, and say that they have no need to disfigure their faces to frighten their enemies. A curious mixture of the Dyak and Malay races are the Milanoes. These occupy the sea-coast and Oya, Muka, and Bintulu rivers.
In the following year the Rajah, visiting the Sultan at Bruni, found him willing to cede Muka and the basins of the adjoining rivers, the Oya, Tatau, and Bintulu, in return for a perpetual annual payment of 16,000 dollars, an arrangement which was accepted and which still holds good.
In the year 1862, Captain Brooke, then governing Sarawak in his uncle's absence, decided to go to Bintulu on the north-west coast of Borneo, a territory which had lately been ceded to the Rajah by the Sultan, and build a fort on the river, to check piracy and protect the peaceable inhabitants who were settling there on the promise of such protection.
Those encountered by the Rainbow were seen off Datu on Monday night, and on Friday morning they were near Bintulu, a distance of two hundred and forty miles, although they had delayed nearly two days at Muka, picking up thirty people on the coast. Most of these were recaptured and returned to Muka.
In the same Gazette I noticed a letter from the Resident at Bintulu, one of the farthest stations from Kuching, in which he speaks of a Malay noble, warmly attached to the Sarawak Government, who claimed all the inhabitants of a large district as his slaves. It was merely a nominal claim, as they did no work for him, but he said they belonged to him. Still, when he was assured by Mr.