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The latter request I fully expected, would be evaded, and was therefore the more pleased when an answer came giving a cheerful consent to my going among the Dyaks of Lundu, and visiting the towns of Sadung, Samarahan, &c. At the same time the rajah informed me, that if I went up the river, he could not be answerable for my safety, as the rebels were not far distant, and constantly on the watch.
"About ten we quitted Samarahan and proceeded up the river, stopping only to take a set of sights, and about seven in the evening reached Sibnow, having previously passed the villages of Rembas and Siniawan. Siniawan and Sibnow are not above half a mile from each other, and Rembas not far distant.
The province consisted originally of "about sixty miles of coast, from Cape Datu to the entrance of the Samarahan River, with an average breadth of fifty miles inland;" but from time to time the Sultan entreated Sir James Brooke to take the rule of one river after another beyond this province towards Borneo Proper, for, owing to his own weakness, and the rapacity of his nobles who governed in his name, no revenue came to him from those rivers, nor could he protect native trade, or secure the lives of his subjects from the extortions and covetousness of their Malay chiefs.
One of Steer Rajah's followers went accordingly, and quickly procured the head of a hostile warrior far out of my territory; and on the return of the party, Parembam in turn sent forty men to Simpoke, which is a tribe attached to Samarahan, and on our immediate border.
It was as follows: A man from Samarahan, named Bujong, had undertaken to marry his daughter to a Sarawak man called Abdullah; but Abdullah proving a dissolute character, and greatly in debt, Bujong broke off the engagement before the proper authorities, and returned the presents which Abdullah, according to custom, had made.
While here, a boat, with a Dyak family, came alongside, consisting of a father, his son, and two daughters. They belonged to the Sibnowan tribe, and had a 'ladang, or farm, on the Samarahan, toward the sea. The women were good-looking; one, indeed, handsome, plump, and intelligent. They were naked to the waist, and ornamented with several cinctures of brass and colored rattans scraped very thin.
Besides the before-mentioned rivers are many smaller ones which are still noble streams the Sarebas, Samarahan, Sadong, Lundu, etc. It is indeed a well-watered country, and only requires the industry of man to develop its riches.
"The tribe now at Lundu were formerly settled on the Samarahan river for many years; and their burial-place there contained the ashes of the parents and grandparents of the present chief, who, with his followers, were not long ago driven to Lundu; and their former settlement being deserted, it has been the employment of some of the rascals here to rob these graves of their contents, and to desecrate the repose of the dead.
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