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The people of Muka live in that abject state of poverty that is almost always found where the sago-tree is abundant. Very few of them take the trouble to plant any vegetables or fruit, but live almost entirely on sago and fish, selling a little tripang or tortoiseshell to buy the scanty clothing they require.
There was good reason to believe that this incident, together with several murders of Europeans in Dutch Borneo, was the result of a loosely concerted action of the Malay chiefs, and that the Kanowit murders were directly instigated by Serif Masahor and Pangiran Dipa; the latter a Bruni noble who misruled Muka and the surrounding area.
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.
The Rejang, Batang Lupar, and Sarawak rivers are the largest, while among many other smaller streams are the Sadong, Saribus, Kalaka, Eyan, Muka, and Oya; the three latter, although small, are very important, as they run through the sago districts, where are large forests of that palm.
It is of a beautiful green colour above, with a forehead of the richest crimson, while beneath it is ashy white and rich yellow, banded with violet red. On the evening of our arrival at Muka I observed what appeared like a display of Aurora Borealis, though I could hardly believe that this was possible at a point a little south of the equator.
Inactivity followed; two or three useless forts were built, and Budrudeen, much to my regret and the detriment of the cause, was recalled. "Among the straggling arrivals I may mention Panglima Dallam, with a number of men, consisting of the Orang Bentulu, Meri Muka, and Kayan, Dyaks from the interior. Our house or, as it originally stood, shed deserves a brief record.
THE village of Muka, on the south coast of Waigiou, consists of a number of poor huts, partly in the water and partly on shore, and scattered irregularly over a space of about half a mile in a shallow bay.
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.
Helms, the manager of the Borneo mercantile company, accompanied them as far as Muka, where was an establishment to collect sago for exportation. On the second day after his arrival, a piratical fleet of Ilanuns, consisting of six large, and as many smaller vessels, appeared on the coast, and blockaded the town.
I succeeded in hiring two men to go with us to Muka, bringing a small boat in which to return; but we had to wait a day for our guides, so I took my gun and made a little excursion info the forest.
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