[324]. High Chamberlain.
[325]. In reply to a question on December 15, 1906, by Sir Edward Sassoon, the Under-Secretary for the Colonies found it convenient to take no notice of Sir Edward's reference to the F.M.S. in this connection.
[326]. To quote the present Secretary for Foreign Affairs when addressing the House, but a few years ago upon the subject of an export duty on English coal.
SEA-DAYAK WAR-BOAT.
CHAPTER XIV
THE SEA-DAYAKS
LAND-DAYAK WEAPONS.
In an address to the Council Negri in 1891, the Rajah said that he might divide his term of service of thirty-nine years into three periods of thirteen years each. The first period had been almost wholly devoted to the work of suppressing head-hunting among the Dayaks, involving frequent expeditions by sea and by land, and a life of carrying arms and keeping watch and ward against subtle enemies. The second period had been divided between expeditions of the same nature, and the peaceful pursuits of giving or amending law, and the establishment of its supremacy. And the last period had been almost entirely taken up with attending to the political and social affairs of a settled and peaceful country. Those present who had been young with himself during the early days of his service, had been strong and able to carry through the work set before them, rough and perilous in the extreme, in mountainous regions of jungle, subject to every kind of exposure; but now these hardships were no more required, and that was well, for both they and himself were waxing old. The character of his task was changed—he and his old comrades on river and rock and in jungle could sit in their arm-chairs, and attend to the political business and the commercial progress of the country.
To these periods the Rajah has since added a fourth, and that the longest of all, during which much has been done to extinguish the lingering sparks of racial and intertribal hostility. These still break out occasionally amongst the Sea-Dayaks, though at wider intervals, as time goes on, but are confined to the remote interior, and to a very limited district within the State and over the borders, of which Lobok Antu is the centre. These occasional outbreaks, which but reveal the old Adam, do not trouble or affect those living outside this district, and indeed do not stir their interest any more than the border troubles in India affect the population of that country generally.