Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: October 24, 2025
There are no Negritos in Borneo, although they exist in the Malay Peninsula and the Philippines, and our explorers have failed to obtain any specimens of the "tailed" people in whose existence many of the Brunai people believe.
There is a native superstition in some parts of the West Coast, to the effect that the washing of a mosquito curtain in a stream is sure to excite the anger of the crocodiles and cause them to become dangerous. So implicit was the belief in this superstition, that the Brunai Government proclaimed it a punishable crime for any person to wash a mosquito curtain in a running stream.
The British Colony of Labuan was obtained by cession from the Sultan of Brunai and was in the shape of a quid pro quo for assistance in suppressing piracy in the neighbouring seas, which the Brunai Government was supposed to have at heart, but in all probability, the real reason of the willingness on the Sultan's part to cede it was his desire to obtain a powerful ally to assist him in reasserting his authority in many parts of the North and West portions of his dominions, where the allegiance of the people had been transferred to the Sultan of Sulu and to Illanun and Balinini piratical leaders.
In the following year, Sir JAMES BROOKE was appointed the first Governor of the new Colony, retaining his position as the British representative in Brunai, and being also the ruler of Sarawak, the independence of which was not formally recognised by the English Government until the year 1863.
On the 1st August, 1842, this cession of Sarawak to Mr. BROOKE was confirmed by His Highness Sultan OMAR ALI SAIFUDIN, under the Great Seal. MUDA HASSIM was the uncle of the Sultan, who was a sovereign of weak, vacillating disposition, at one time guided by the advice of his uncle, who was the leader of the "English party," and expressing his desire for the Queen's assistance to put down piracy and disorder and offering, in return, to cede to the British the island of Labuan; at another following his own natural inclinations and siding altogether with the party of disorder, who were resolved to maintain affairs as they were in the "good old times," knowing that when the reign of law and order should be established their day and their power and ability to aggrandize and enrich themselves at the expense of the aborigines and the common people would come to an end. There is no doubt that Mr. BROOKE himself considered it would be for the good of the country that MUDA HASSIM should be raised to the throne and the Sultan certainly entertained a not altogether ill-founded dread that it was intended to depose him in the latter's favour, the more so as a large majority of the Brunai people were known to be in his interest. In the early part of 1845 MUDA HASSIM appears to have been in favour with the Sultan, and was publicly announced as successor to the throne with the title of Sultan Muda (muda = young, the usual Malay title for the heir apparent to the Crown), and the document recognising the appointment of Mr. BROOKE as the Queen's Confidential Agent in Borneo was written in the name of the Sultan and of MUDA HASSIM conjointly, and concludes by saying that the two writers express the hope that through the Queen's assistance they will be enabled to settle the Government of Borneo. In April, 1846, however, Mr. BROOKE received the startling intelligence that in the December, or January previous, the Sultan had ordered the murder of his uncle MUDA HASSIM and of several of the R
The actual fact was that neither of them exercised any real government or authority over by far the greater portion, the inhabitants of the coast on the various rivers following any Brunai, Illanun, Bajau, or Sulu Chief who had sufficient force of character to bring himself to the front.
The Company's Agent expressly reported that the Chinese were the only pepper planters, that the aborigines did not plant it, and that the produce was disposed of to Chinese junks, which visited the port and which he trusted would, when the exclusive trade in this article was in the hands of the Company, be diverted from Brunai to Balambangan.
During our interview next morning with the Sultan, I twitted him on the skill and daring of Brunai thieves, who could perpetrate a theft from a friendly war-ship before the windows of the Royal palace.
It is a curious fact that, though abounding in Sarawak, in the districts near Brunai and in the southern parts of British North Borneo on the West Coast, it seems to stop short suddenly at the Putatan River, near Gaya Bay, and is not found indigenous in the North nor on the North-East.
Not a muscle of the faces of the nobles moved, but the Europeans were scarcely so successful in maintaining their gravity. Mr. DALRYMPLE'S description of Brunai, furnished to the Field in August, 1884, is as follows:
Word Of The Day
Others Looking