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Then Datu Bandar came in to say that the kunsi had gone up the river, and had taken some of the fort guns with them; that they were very crowded in the boats, and that he should follow after them with a Malay force at night. They did nothing, however, when the time came; for until the Malays had got their families safe out of the place they were not willing to fight.

After the proper preparations, the spoon, held by two women, became convulsed, and danced in good time to the song of the surrounding children and women. It was a most foolish spectacle; but Mr. Liesk maintained that many of the Malays believed in its spiritual movements.

She had, we concluded, come thus far south to collect a cargo of edible birds' nests, trepang, and other articles, for the Chinese market. It is extraordinary how far away from land these unwieldy craft will venture, and how they contrive to live in a heavy sea, which one would suppose would inevitably swamp them. The Malays had cut away her masts, probably to employ in some of their own craft.

The Chinese are generally considered, and with some truth, to be thieves, liars, and careless of human life, and these Chinese are coolies of the very lowest and least educated class. The Malays are invariably characterised as treacherous and bloodthirsty, and the Dyaks have only recently ceased to think head-taking an absolute necessity.

But this cannot be said of the Philippine Malays who in bodily formation and mental characteristics alike, may fairly claim a place, not among middling ones merely, but among almost the higher names inscribed on the world's national scale.

Another minute, and just when they had won an entrance, beating back the defenders of the barricaded gateways, a panic seized upon the Malays, for shell after shell was dropping and bursting in their midst; and before Captain Smithers and his brave little party could realise the fact, the enemy was in full retreat.

"But this is not the sole object of your mission. You will proceed, either before or after your visit to this rajah, as we will determine, to Batavia; bearing a despatch from me to the Dutch governor, narrating a number of acts of piracy that have taken place among the islands, and requesting that, as they are the paramount power in that district, they will take steps, both for their own sake and ours, to suppress piracy; and offering, on our part, that two or three of our ships of war shall, if they think it desirable, aid them in the punishment of the Malays.

During the day the Malays had attacked far more fiercely than usual, and though always repulsed, it had not been without loss.

"Why just here?" "Why, we're opposite the Straits of Sunda, the worst place about these parts." "What for?" "Pirates. The Malays, you know. We're not over well prepared to meet them, I'm afraid. If they come we'll have to fight them the best way we can; and these calms are the worst thing for us, because the Malay proas can get along in the lightest wind, or with oars, when we can't move at all."

Colonies of Malays from thence have settled themselves in almost all the districts where gold is procured, and appear to be the only persons who dig for it in mines, or collect it in streams; the proper inhabitants or villagers confining their attention to the raising of provisions, with which they supply those who search for the metal.