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They are not tattooed, and the sumpitan is unknown amongst them. Leaving Ambun, which is situated in a pretty bay, we proceeded to Tampasuk, a considerable town, inhabited by Illanuns and Badjows. This is a piractical town; and I was informed by an Arab in captivity there that scarcely a week passes without strife and contention amongst themselves.
And even the few survivors of that time old men now had changed so much, that it would have been unkind to remember against them that they had ever slit a throat in their lives. He had one especially in his mind's eye: a dignified, venerable headman of a certain large coast village about sixty miles sou'west of Tampasuk. It did one's heart good to see him to hear that man speak.
Seriff Houseman, a half-bred Arab, is located in Malludu Bay, and has, by account, from fifteen hundred to two thousand men with him. He is beyond doubt a pirate direct and indirect, and occasionally commands excursions in person, or employs the Illanuns of Tampasuk, and others to the eastward, who for their own convenience make common cause with him.
The stupendous mountain of Kiney is about fifteen miles from Tampasuk, which at present is the most considerable pirate-port in the Malay seas, and belongs to the Rajah of Borneo Proper. The pirates frequenting this place have committed such depredations hereabout as to have induced the English to call the north of Borneo Pirates' Point.
The Tampasuk pirates, belonging to the Rajah of Borneo Proper, aiding and abetting Pangeran Annam against the English, are Datu Akop, Datu Aragut, and Datu Jumbarang, with ten large men-of-war prows: there is also there the Rajah Endut, a Siak chief. Matan is under an independent rajah, who was formerly styled Sultan of Sukadana; but about seventeen years ago the Dutch burnt down his city.
There is a very valuable gold mine in the north of Borneo, at a place called Tampasuk, situated in the district ceded to the English by the Sultan of Sulo; but having become the principal pirate port on the coast, the working of the mines has been discontinued.
The principal piratical ports that still exist, beside those of Lingin, Rhio, and Billiton, are 1st, Pangeran Annam, at Sambas; 2d, Port Borneo Proper, and four hundred prows at Tampasuk, both under the Rajah of Borneo Proper; 3d, the Pasir pirates; 4th, the Sulo pirates; 5th, the Illano, or pirates on the Isle of Magindano.
The gold mines of Tampasuk have been mentioned; there are also mines of rock-crystal. Tawaran and several other places abound in goats and cattle. Abai has a small harbor, and the whole of this coast is accurately laid down by Lieutenant James Burton, in the sloop Endeavor. They send their produce to Borneo Proper. The pirates are commanded by Datus from Borneo Proper.
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