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However, owing to the experience, tact, perseverance and intelligence of Inche MAHOMET, the Consular Agent, we gained our point after protracted negotiations, and obtained the seals of the Sultan, the Bandahara, the Di Gadong and the Tumonggong himself to a document, by which it was provided that, on condition of the Limbang people laying down their arms and allowing free intercourse with Brunai, all arbitrary taxation such as that which has been described should be for ever abolished, but that, in lieu therefor, a fixed poll-tax should be paid by all adult males, at the rate of $3 per annum by married men and $2 by bachelors; that on the death of an orang kaya the contribution to be paid to the feudal lord should be fixed at one pikul of brass gun, equal to about $21; that the possession of their sago plantations should be peaceably enjoyed by their owners; that jungle products should be collected without tax, except in the case of gutta percha, on which a royalty of 5% ad valorem should be paid, instead of the 20% then exacted; that the taxes should be collected by the headmen punctually and transmitted to Brunai, and that four Brunai tax-gatherers, who were mentioned by name and whose rapacious and criminal action had been instrumental in provoking the rebellion, should be forbidden ever again to enter the Limbang River; that a free pardon should be granted to the rebels.
A rich mine of copper is worked at Mukki near Labuan-haji, by the Achinese. The ore produces half its original weight in pure metal, and is sold at the rate of twenty dollars the pikul. A lump which I deposited in the Museum of the East India Company is pronounced to be native copper.
If an anak mas girl marries a freeman, she at once becomes a free woman, but a brihan, or marriage gift, of from two to two and a half pikuls of brass gun valued at $20 to $25 a pikul is payable by the bridegroom to the master. If she marry a slave, she remains an anak mas, but such cases are very rare and only take place when the husband is in a condition to pay a suitable brihan to the owner.
Your English companies are taking it out of the land by the pikul In the old days, before the Portuguese came, the handle of every warrior's kris was of ivory. Now our elephants are dying before the rifle of the sportsman. Soon our jungles will know them no more. Apes " and he pointed at the top of a giant marbow, where a troop of silver wah-wahs were swinging from limb to limb.
Slaves of one master can, with their owner's consent, marry, and no brihan is demanded, but if they belong to different masters, the woman's master is entitled to a brihan of one pikul, equal to $20 or $25. They continue to be the slaves of their respective masters, but are allowed to live together, and in case of a subsequent separation they return to the houses of their masters.
It sells at the former place for forty-five dollars per pikul, according to the degree of whiteness and other qualities. Beeswax is a commodity of great importance in all the eastern islands, from whence it is exported in large oblong cakes to China, Bengal, and other parts of the continent. Their honey is much inferior to that of Europe, as might be expected from the nature of the vegetation.
They were the sole planters of the pepper gardens, the monopoly of the trade in the produce of which the East India Company negotiated for in 1774, when the crop was reported to the Company to have been 4,000 pikuls, equal to about 240 tons, valued on the spot at 17-1/4 Spanish dollars per pikul.
They estimate the quantity of most species of merchandise by what we call dry measure, the use of weights, as applied to bulky articles, being apparently introduced among them by foreigners; for the pikul and catti are used only on the sea-coast and places which the Malays frequent.
The two latter are carried thither from the river of Sungkel, where they are procured from the country of the Battas, and the pepper from Pidir; but this article is also exported from Susu to the amount of about two thousand tons annually, where it sells at the rate of twelve dollars the pikul, chiefly for gold and silver.
The selling price was as follows: A boy, about 2 pikuls, a man 3 pikuls. A girl, 3 to 4 pikuls, a young woman, 3 to 5 pikuls. A person past middle age about 1-1/2 pikuls. A young couple, 7 to 8 pikuls, an old couple, about 5 pikuls. The pikul was then equivalent to $20 or $25. Mr.