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Updated: July 16, 2025
The Kayans are skilled in this kind of transport of heavy timber; for the building of their houses and of the larger tombs involves similar difficulties, though the timbers required for these purposes are not so huge as those used for the war-boats. Arrived at the river bank, the hollowed stem is launched upon the water and towed down stream to the village at a time when the water is high.
For this purpose they went out in fleets of from ten to thirty war-boats or prahus. These boats were about ninety feet long; they carried a large gun in the bow and three or four lelahs, small brass guns, in each broadside, besides twenty or thirty muskets. Each prahu was rowed by sixty or eighty oars in two tiers, and carried from eighty to a hundred men.
In consequence of Sir James Brooke's application, H.M.S. Albatross, commanded by Captain Farquhar; H.M.'s sloop Royalist, commander, Lieutenant Everest; and H.E.I.C.'s steamer Nemesis, commander, Captain Wallage, were sent by Admiral Collyer to Sarawak. Then the rajah had all his war-boats got ready to join the English force.
We had heard that a large number of troops, some said five thousand, were collected within the fortifications; and each of the boats which had been sent out reconnoitring brought word that, during the night and day, they had seen no end of war-boats, full of men, coming down the Pegu river, evidently to assist in the defence of the place.
They were, however, skilful in manufacturing a soft paper from the barks of trees; nets and lines from the fibres of the cocoa-nut; and hooks from muscle-shells; in weaving their rush mats, and especially in building canoes and war-boats.
Men of rank have their barges tugged by war-boats, common watermen not being admitted into the same boat with them.
The big smoke seen that morning above the forests of the coast was some agreed signal from Tengga to Daman but what it meant Hassim had been unable to find out. He feared for Jorgenson's safety. He said that while one of the war-boats was being made ready to take the captives into the lagoon, he and his sister left the camp quietly and got away in their canoe.
'They're clearly the old line of coast, hammered into breaches by the sea. The space behind them is like an immense tidal harbour, thirty miles by five, and they screen it impenetrably. It's absolutely made for shallow war-boats under skilled pilotage. They can nip in and out of the gaps, and dodge about from end to end. On one side is the Ems, on the other the big estuaries.
All the men of the war-party then proceed in their war-boats to the spot where the war-omens have been observed, and camp round about it in roughly built huts. Here they will remain at least two days, establishing their connection with the favourable omen-birds. From this encampment they may not return to the house, and, if they are expecting a party of allies, they may await them here.
Later Tengga's houses were set on fire and Belarab, mounting a fiery pony, issued forth to make a triumphal progress surrounded by a great crowd of headmen and guards. That night the white people left the stockade in a cortege of torch bearers. Mr. Travers had to be carried down to the beach, where two of Belarab's war-boats awaited their distinguished passengers. Mrs.
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