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Never was such a blazing as when we left Sarawak; twenty-one guns I fired to the rajah, and he fired forty-two to me at least we counted twenty-four, and they went on firing afterward, as long as ever we were in sight. The last words the Rajah Muda Hassim said, as I took my leave, were 'Tuan Brooke, do not forget me.
One man does not kill another, though he may kill a member of the Bukat tribe, neighbouring nomads who live in the northeast of the western division, in the mountains toward Sarawak. Suicide is unknown. It was asserted to me that the Penyahbongs do not steal nor lie, though I found the Saputans untrustworthy in these respects. About half of the men select very youthful wives, from eight years up.
Thus the intrigues of the Malay nobles, which for a time had seriously threatened the stability of the Rajah's government, resulted in the addition of an area of some 7000 square miles to the Sarawak territory. The basin of the Rejang, the largest river of Sarawak, was the next region to be added to the Raj.
Charles Johnson went up to Kenowit directly, taking the Bishop's yacht, the Sarawak Cross, as his floating fortress. He sent a thousand Dyaks to attack the fortified village of the Kenowits, who were engaged in the murders. These Dyaks were repulsed, but he led them on again himself with two hundred Sarawak Malays, good men and true.
When at Singapore, he heard that the Malays of Sarawak, a district forming the southern extremity of the Sultanate of Bruni, had rebelled against the Bruni nobles, and had in vain appealed to the Dutch Governor-general at Batavia for deliverance from their oppressors.
The controleur courteously provided for my use the government's steamship Sophia, which in six hours approached within easy distance of the kampong. My party consisted of Ah Sewey, a young Chinese photographer from Singapore whom I had engaged for developing plates and films, also Chonggat, a Sarawak Dayak who had had his training at the museum of Kuala Lampur in the Malay Peninsula.
Brooke lent us his native-built boat, the Jolly Bachelor, carrying a long six-pounder brass gun and thirty of our men; also a large tope of thirty-five tons, which carried a well-supplied commissariat, as well as ammunition. The native force was extensive; but I need only mention the names of those from Sarawak.
It is very singular that there should be a mountain of so great a height rising from an island of otherwise low land. Near Sarawak there is mountainous country, where live the Dyaks, previously described, and a mountain of the name of Santabong, which has already been made mention of. On the S. E. coast of the island we saw no elevation of land of any consequence.
There are great numbers of Sarawak people at Sadong, all looking out for birds'-nests; new caves have been explored; mountains ascended for the first time in the search. It shows the progress of good government and security, and, at the same time, is characteristic of the Malay character.
Late in the afternoon we brought up in the roadstead of Sarawak, on the northern coast of Borneo. The place is not at all enlivening; neither house, human being, nor boat, to indicate we are in habitable land. The town itself, the capital of a small rajahship governed by an Englishman, lies some twenty miles up a river, in the estuary of which we are anchored.
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