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Updated: July 24, 2025
At Labuan it was difficult to prevail on a Malay messenger to pass after sunset by the gaol, where executions took place, or by the churchyard, for fear of the ghosts haunting those localities. Javanese element, and Hindu work in gold has been discovered buried in the island of Pappan, situated between Labuan and Brunai. Mr.
Writing in 1845, Sir JAMES BROOKE, then the Queen's first Commissioner to Brunai, says with reference to this Sultanate: "Here the experiment may be fairly tried, on the smallest possible scale of expense, whether a beneficial European influence may not re-animate a falling State and at the same time extend our commerce. * If this tendency to decay and extinction be inevitable, if this approximation of European policy to native Government should be unable to arrest the fall of the Bornean dynasty, yet we shall retrieve a people already habituated to European habits and manners, industrious interior races; and if it become necessary, a Colony gradually formed and ready to our hand in a rich and fertile country," and elsewhere he admits that the regeneration of the Borneo Malays through themselves was a hobby of his.
Turning a sharp corner, the British Consulate is reached, where presides, and flies with pride the Union Jack, Her Majesty's Consular Agent, Mr. or Inche MAHOMET, with his three wives and thirteen children. He is a native of Malacca and a clever, zealous, courteous and hospitable official, well versed in the political history of Brunai since the advent of Sir JAMES BROOKE.
The term asu is that generally employed by the Javanese, from whose country possibly the dog may have been introduced into Borneo. In Brunai, dogs are called kuyok, a term said to be of Sumatran origin. On the North and East there are large herds of wild cattle said to belong to two species, Bos Banteng and Bos Gaurus or Bos Sondaicus.
The experiment has been tried and, so far as concerns the re-animation of the Malay Government of Brunai, the verdict must be "a complete failure."
Between British North Borneo, on the one side, and Sarawak, on the other, the sea-board of Brunai, which, when we first appeared on the scene, extended from Cape Datu to Marudu Bay some 700 miles is now reduced to 125 or 130 miles, and, besides the river on which it is built, Brunai retains but two others of any importance, both of which are in rebellion of a more or less vigorous character, and the whole State of Brunai is so sick that its case is now under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government.
The local expenditure in Borneo is chiefly for salaries of the officials, the armed Constabulary and for Gaols and Public Works, the annual "rental" payable to the Sultans of Brunai and Sulu and others, the subsidizing of steamers, Medical Services, Printing, Stationery, Prospecting, Experimental Gardens and Harbour and Postal Services.
Captain MUNDY replied that the former treaty had been broken when Her Majesty's Ships were fired on by the Brunai forts, and "at last I turned to the Sultan, and exclaimed firmly, 'Bobo chop bobo chop! followed up by a few other Malay words, the tenor of which was, that I recommended His Majesty to put his seal forthwith." And he did so.
The native mode of using tobacco has been referred to in my description of Brunai. The British Borneo Trading and Planting Company have acquired the patent for Borneo of DEATH'S fibre-cleaning machines, and are experimenting with these products on a considerable scale and, apparently, with good prospects of success.
In November, 1846, instructions were received in Singapore, from Lord PALMERSTON, to take possession of Labuan, and Captain RODNEY MUNDY was selected for this service. He arrived in Brunai in December, and gives an amusing account of how he proceeded to carry out his orders and obtain the voluntary cession of the island.
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