It seems strange that these beautiful and well cultivated islands should be still the last great stronghold of piracy in the eastern seas. This has been the great blot on the Sulu character for centuries; and they are also credited with having poisoned many of the traders who formerly visited the island, and to whom they had become largely indebted for goods. We reached the Istana soon after eight o’clock, and tying our ponies to the verandah we ascended to the audience-chamber above. Here, in this chamber, we noticed two small Armstrong guns mounted on low carriages, and a Gatling gun or mitrailleuse was also conspicuous. The presence of the modern armament here would have been rather puzzling had we not known that the Sultan had obtained these guns from the steam-ship America, as the first instalment of the rental or payment which has to be made annually to the Sultan on account of his having ceded Sandakan and his territory in North Borneo to Baron Overbeck’s Company.
Velvet-lined armchairs were immediately placed for us at a round table below the raised platform, and refreshments consisting of excellent chocolate and sweet biscuits were brought in. The Sultan’s own servant or “boy,” “Gelah,” a most amusing fellow, saw that we were properly attended to, and told us that His Highness would soon be in to welcome us. After the chocolate, brandy and excellent Manilla cigars appeared under the direction of “Gelah,” who seemed to know the habits of Englishmen tolerably well. He spoke Malay better than most of the others, and this language formed the only means of communication we had. The attendants not having brought a corkscrew, he sent off to fetch one, and then poured us out a glass each. It was Three Star Hennessy, and very good. After helping us, the imp took up one of the chocolate cups, poured a little water into it to rinse it, and then slung it out at the open door. He then very coolly nearly filled the cup with brandy and tossed it off neat without wincing; he also helped himself to the cigars as though to the manner born. As soon as we entered several boys, superintended by an old woman, had brought in a lot of cushions and arranged them on the platform near us. A lamp, and fancy betel and cigarette boxes were next brought and arranged. The Sultan himself appeared on the platform soon after we had finished eating, and shook hands with us very affably before he reclined on the cushions which had been placed for him. He came in with a dignified step and reclined very gracefully; but as conversation warmed up he sat upright on the edge of the platform with his legs dangling down in front, apparently as free and easy as a schoolboy on a rail fence. A good many Sulus came in during the evening, so that at ten o’clock the space between the platform and the door was pretty well filled. Some of his people had evidently told him of my propensity for sketching, and he asked to see my sketch-book. Amongst other things therein was a rough sketch of a “barong” or sword, and its carved sheath belonging to the old Orang Kayu at Meimbong, which His Highness at once recognised, and he sent off “Gelah” to fetch a valuable one of his own, which was, as he told me, of Sulu manufacture. The blade was beautifully finished, having an inlaid representation of a scorpion on one side and a centipede on the other, together with some Arabic dates of important events. The handle was of ivory, carved and mounted in chased gold and pearls. I made a sketch of this weapon, at which he was greatly pleased, and he watched every line and touch with great interest.
We had dined previous to our leaving the ship, and I had congratulated myself earlier in the evening at having been lucky enough to escape eating more than a biscuit with my cup of chocolate; but even after ten o’clock our table was loaded with more edibles. There were dishes of snowy rice, biscuits, excellent fish, curried fowl, eggs boiled, and some bananas and other fruit. The whole was daintily cooked and well served. With a graceful wave of the hand he requested us to satisfy the hunger which, as he said, he felt sure had been occasioned by the long ride we had been so good as to undergo in order to visit him. Of course there was nothing for it but to fall to; and I must say that we both enjoyed the fresh fish and rice, and the well-made curry very much. Clean water and glasses were placed on the table, and chocolate was again brought in. After this meal more brandy and water and cigars were introduced to our notice by “Gelah,” and we kept up a conversation with His Highness until after twelve o’clock, when he withdrew after having had a peep to see that our sleeping apartment was in good order. As soon as his back was turned towards us—almost before, “Gelah” pocketed all the surplus cigars and took another cup of neat brandy,—his example being followed by one or two of the other attendants.
We retired to our room for the night; and then the Sultan’s son, Datu Mahomed, and “Bottelah,” the Sultan’s secretary, together with two or three others, including “Gelah,” came in for a chat, so that we did not get a chance of sleeping a wink until after two o’clock. Even when we were alone in our sleeping apartment, and had reclined just as we were in our clothes on the cushions and finely worked mats spread out for us, I somehow felt conscious that we were watched; and once I caught a glimpse of a dark figure gliding past a square opening in the wall above. Our room communicated with the audience chamber which we had just left, by a window-like opening about two feet square. The lights in the large chamber had been extinguished, while we, as is customary in the East, had a glimmering oil lamp in our room, so that any one in the audience chamber could see us plainly, without being themselves seen. We had no fear of treachery, and yet could not help feeling a creeping sensation of uneasiness as shadow after shadow passed the opening to the right of which we lay. At length a shadow lingering longer than usual, I sprang to my feet and put my head through the opening. A little suppressed scream, and the patter of bare feet on the platform on the other side, followed by muffled titters and whispering, told the tale.
The ladies of the court, debarred by etiquette from seeing us publicly, had taken advantage of the darkness to obtain a peep at us. Barefooted, they had moved more silently than mice on the platform in the next room, and had satisfied their curiosity by stealing to the opening one after another, and looking down on us to their hearts’ content. After this we got an hour or two of rest, and awoke at daybreak, when everybody was astir. We found our breakfast ready, and our ponies were saddled and at the door.
The men whom the Sultan had promised us as guides, and a buffalo to carry down plants, were also waiting, and “Gelah” was eager to accompany us by order of his royal master. Breakfast over, we started off in excellent spirits up a gently rising path leading past a burial ground, and beneath some of the finest Durian trees in the island. A newly made grave ornamented with flowers and the young flower-stems of the betel-nut palm, was pointed out to us as being that of a man who had been shot at the Istana in a squabble about one of the ladies of the court. It appears that the man’s wife having died he wanted to carry off a relation of his who now belonged to the Sultana’s suite, and in the row which followed he met with his death.
Our ride was a very pleasant one, and led us up through several cultivated patches with here and there a belt of jungle. Soon after leaving the Istana an aerides was seen flowering very freely on the trees, also the ubiquitous Dendrobium crumenatum, with pseudo bulbs four feet in length, the flowers much larger than usual. Cymbidium aloifolium was everywhere plentiful, clustering in large masses on the boles of large trees in the clearings. At an elevation of about 1000 feet we came to a village and fruit grove, and here we stayed to rest awhile as the sun was now very hot overhead, and a drink of cocoa-nut milk proved very grateful. On the trees here I obtained a greenish yellow flowered dendrobium, which proved to be a new species very similar to the D. d’Albertisii of New Guinea. At about 1500 feet we reached the skirt of the old forest, and had to dismount and do the rest of the ascent on foot. We had brought ropes with us, and removing the saddles and other gear we tethered the horses and buffalo to bushes in a little natural meadow where they could make a good meal off the fresh mountain grass. This was a great treat to them, as the coarse herbage of the plains was at this season very dry, and the horses in Meimbong were being fed on cocoa-nut leaves owing to the dearth of other fodder. We descended a gully, and crossing a little stream commenced the ascent on foot, leaving a Sulu lad in charge of our goods and animals. We had at first a rough climb over tree roots and loose stones. In one place the ascent was nearly vertical, and the boulders being easily detached from the dry soil, it was dangerous for our followers below. An areca palm bearing large clusters of small scarlet fruit below a spreading crown of dark green leaves was very handsome, and both ferns and selaginellas were luxuriant in the shade. I collected specimens of all I saw for scientific purposes. Pigeons and paroquets and other birds were seen here on the trees overhead, but although we shot at several and saw them fall, the branches overhead were so dense that they lodged there, and we could not induce any of our followers to climb for them on account of the deadly tree snakes, which are said to infest the place.
Our guides did not like the ascent, and tried to make us believe that the point of the ridge was the top of the mountain, but we insisted in pushing further up the ridge and at length were rewarded by reaching the summit. The air was very fresh and cool here, and by climbing a low-branched tree we obtained splendid views of the surrounding plains and hill-tops and of the sea. We rested here for some time. A strong-growing species of pentaphragma, bearing pure white flowers in the axils of its oblong fleshy leaves grew here plentifully, and an aucuba-like shrub bore clusters of red berries as large as peas. Tree ferns also grew up to the top, and their stems were draped with long green moss, which looked very fresh and pretty. Two or three species of anæctochilus also grew here, their rich velvety leaves being illuminated with gold and silvery veins. From one spot in the descent we could see the coast and the outlying islets very plainly, also more newly-formed coral islets inlaid with lagoons. We saw abundant evidence of wild pigs and deer up this mountain, but the wild cattle which formerly existed plentifully are now quite extinct.
During our conversation about this mountain last night the Sultan told us some wonderful stories of birds’ nest caves, and of a cavity or hole at the top lined with mother of pearl (tepoy) large enough for several men to bathe in at the same time, also of the wild men who lived in the forest, making their habitations in the trees, and of other wonderful things, all of which he discreetly added we should not be able to see without we had supernatural assistance. The gods truly were unpropitious, for we saw none of the mysteries of the mountain to which he had referred. Wild men may formerly have inhabited the trees of the forest here, as the “jakuns” still do in Jahore, and what he told us may have been a well-worn old tradition handed down for many generations. It is not improbable that his reference to the crater at the top was the remains of an old tradition of the volcanoes which once, without a doubt, did exist here in the island.
We descended to the village, leaving the men to bring on the horses and gear, and here “Gelah” procured us some hot water, and we sat down under the shady trees and enjoyed our lunch of chocolate and biscuit. “Gelah” told us he did not care for chocolate and asked for some brandy. I gave him half a tumblerful, which he drank and became very communicative. He lighted one of the cigars he had appropriated last night—indeed he had been smoking them all the morning—and then he told us that many of the Sulus were bad men and great thieves, adding that he was a good man himself, and that was why the Sultan liked him. He then helped himself to more brandy, tossing it off undiluted as before. He then launched out into a long story of a pirate fleet having left Tawi-Tawi about a year before, and remarked that they had but just returned with a good deal of plunder. Wallace mentions[1] that these Sulu pirates sometimes visit the Aru islands near New Guinea and Ceram on their predatory expeditions. They only attack small trading prahus now, but in former times even large sailing vessels were not safe from their attacks.