We now mounted our ponies and retraced our steps to the Istana, which we reached at dusk pretty well tired. We rested some time and gave the Sultan an account of our ascent. He pressed us to remain all night, but this we did not care to do, and thanking him for his hospitality and assistance, we mounted our ponies once more and rode back to Meimbong in the moonlight. Arriving at the Orang Kayu’s house we found the boat there to meet us and take us on board, but it was then low water in the river, and we had to wait some hours, so we went into the headman’s house, and lying down, slept until near midnight, when our men awoke us and rowed us up the river and across to the ship. It is a common opinion, and in the main I believe a correct one, that the Sulus are great thieves. I never lost anything among them, and a small bag I left accidentally at the headman’s house containing two or three dollars, a knife, ammunition, and other trifles, was handed on board in the morning untouched. From what I saw of Sulu and the inhabitants it appeared to me very evident that civilisation had formerly been much higher than it is at present. This is especially to be seen in their old buildings and manufactures. Thus the oldest of the dwellings had beautifully carved woodwork over the windows and doors, and had been erected of wood and with much more careful taste and labour than is now devoted to the same kind of work.
Nowhere else in the East did I see more evidence of tasteful purpose in design than here in Sulu. Here is a little sketch I made of a carved wood heading to the door of the Sultan’s Istana. Motive two conventional alligators holding a disc on which is written a Malay inscription in Arabic characters, the whole surrounded by open work. Some old knives were also most beautifully decorated, the blades being of splendid finish, and the hilts and sheaths of hard wood, carved very artistically. In Brunei city I had noted a few lattice windows in the older pile dwellings rather pretty in design, but not at all equal to the free and vigorous carving of the Sulus.
The older manufactures again, such as krisses, barongs, spear-heads, betel-boxes, indeed metal work generally, and particularly the artistic element, were formerly much finer than is now the case. The Sulus themselves, a well-built and originally a brave race, have deteriorated, and after resisting the incursion of their old enemies, the Spaniards, for generations, indeed centuries, are now utterly dispirited. Some of their chiefs indeed have intrigued with their old foes, and the result is that their country, and probably the last of her Sultans, is virtually under Spanish rule. The Sultan himself is a bright and intelligent man, but given to opium smoking, and some of his headmen and Datus composing the “ruma bichara,” a council chamber by which the Sulu has long been governed, taking advantage of his ease-loving nature have beguiled him with flattery, and advised him to sign one treaty after another until the entire Sulu Archipelago may now be considered as virtually belonging to the Philippine government.
As a race the Sulus are well developed, taller, and paler in colour than the Malays generally. The women are often very pleasing, with luxuriant hair and bright expressive eyes. Some of them, notably the wives and daughters of the chief men, are very pale, white almost in comparison with the women of the island, who are more often exposed to the effects of climate and labour. Several ladies of the court were pale in colour, with regular Italian-like features, and one of the wives of Datu Haroun—a sweet gentle creature—might readily have been mistaken for a European. She was essentially lady-like in voice and manner, and deserved a far better fate than that of nominal wife, but virtually slave of a crafty and cruel traitor to his country. Upon the women here, as throughout Borneo, devolves a large share of the everyday labour, and nearly all the trading in the markets is conducted by them, while their lords and masters stand listlessly by spear in hand, or gather in little groups to talk. Everywhere we saw them at work making mats or baskets, or met them in dug-out canoes and outriggers going to or coming from market, or from the place where the fresh water is daily obtained, below the Orang Kayu’s house. The women of the better class spend much of their time in embroidery and in cooking, indeed we were assured that the food set before us at the Istana had been prepared under the Sultana’s personal supervision, which I can well believe, and I do not think English ladies could have prepared such a repast as it was in a better way; indeed the snowy bowl of rice would, I think, prove inimitable to most of our lady cooks at home. Riding is fashionable in Sulu, and none but the very poorest walk far. Anything seems acceptable as a steed, and if the aristocratic grey pony with somewhat of Arab fleetness and gentleness is not obtainable, buffaloes, and even the cows, are taken as substitutes.
It is really a very pretty sight to see the market people coming to market from the hills, men and women alike, mounted on ponies or cattle with their baskets, bags, and bundles of produce flung across the saddle before and behind. The men, especially, mounted on their high wooden saddles, armed with the national spear, and clad in chain armour tunic, forcibly reminded one of the illustrations of Don Quixote, a resemblance considerably heightened by the gaunt leanness of their steeds. A plurality of wives is general with the Datus, and others who have means to keep up an establishment, and these women are for the most part purchased from their parents, although formerly they were not unfrequently captured during piratical excursions. St. John[2] mentions an instance where a pirate chief from Tawi-Tawi captured a Spanish schooner in 1859, and finding the captain’s daughter on board, he made her his principal wife and treated her with every attention; she subsequently bore him a child, the Spanish authorities having failed in their attempts to recover her.
As I have before intimated slavery is still common in Sulu, although there is no regular great slave mart such as existed only a few years ago at Sugh, the former capital. It is no uncommon occurrence for parents to sell their daughters, and visitors to Sulu are solicited even now to purchase wives at prices varying from fifty to two hundred dollars. I knew of one instance in which a trading captain presented his native wife, a Sulu girl, to the captain of another steamer, and the officers of Dutch vessels trading here in the Malay Archipelago nearly always keep native wives on board, and as a rule I believe these women are kindly treated. Throughout Malasia woman’s position is unfortunately a very low one. If possessed of personal attractions she is directly or indirectly sold to the highest bidder, and while her youthful charms last she may be spared actual toil, while her less attractive sister labours daily in house or field, but eventually a younger, fairer wife supplants her, and during her declining years she is—
“In daily labours of the loom employed,
Or doom’d to deck the bed she once enjoyed.”
All this is, of course, a very unsatisfactory state of things here as in other nations eastward, nor is it likely to be much improved under Spanish rule. And yet we must never forget that it is a time-honoured institution, and is not, to say the least, more objectionable than polyandry as practised among the tribes who live on the banks of the Upper Jumna and Upper Ganges. Polygamy is sanctioned by custom, and “custom is religion in the East.” Each Mahomedan is permitted to have four wives. Before we blame a religion so wide spread and powerful, however, we must not forget that it is a religion which practically preserves its millions of followers from other forms of intemperance, and notably from the use of intoxicating liquors, that great bane of many Englishmen everywhere, and especially of many of those who live in the Eastern tropics.