On that day he became Rajah of Sarawak, though a feudatory Rajah, a position which he was not content to hold for long, as such a position would have proved untenable.
Sarawak was then of very limited extent; it was a little governorship extending from Cape Datu to the mouth of the Sadong, and included, besides smaller streams, the Lundu, Sarawak, and Samarahan rivers; and this district, about 3000 square miles in area, is, with the inclusion of the Sadong river, now known as Sarawak Proper. In the days of Hasim Sarawak was not a raj, but a province under a governor. Hasim was not actually the Rajah of Sarawak, though his high birth gave him the right to the courtesy title of Rajah. His real title was the Pangiran Muda;[[93]] Muda is inseparable from the title, and was not a part of his name. Pangiran Muda, the heir to the throne, is the correct Bruni title. Rajah Muda (young Rajah) also means heir-apparent.
The districts from Sarawak up to Bintulu, and beyond, formed separate provinces, and were under separate governors, but Hasim's high rank naturally gave him some influence over these officials. Sadong was governed by Sherip Sahap, his subjects being Land-Dayaks; his power, however, extended to the head of that river. Sherip Japar of Lingga, Sherip Mular of Sekrang, and Sherip Masahor of Serikei, held nominal authority only over the main population of their respective districts occupied by the Sea-Dayaks, for these people acknowledged no government, and lived in independence even in the vicinity of the Malays. Such, moreover, was the case with the Saribas, which was nominally governed by Malay chiefs. The districts of Muka, Oya, and Bintulu were under Bruni pangirans, but, having only Melanaus to govern, their control was complete. In the Baram, a river inhabited by warlike Kayans and Kenyahs, the Malays, nominal rulers and traders, lived on sufferance alone, and so it was in the Sea-Dayak countries of the Batang Lupar, Saribas, and Rejang. Over the Malays, the Land-Dayaks, and the Melanaus, the Bruni Government had power—the Sea-Dayaks and Kayans scorned it. The sherips, as the title denotes, are of Arab origin, and they claim descent from the Prophet. They are half-breeds, and were dangerous men. Earl, in his Eastern Seas, 1837, says:—
"The pirates who infest the Archipelago consist wholly of the free Mahomedan states in Sumatra, Lingin, Borneo, Magindano, and Sulu (and he should have added of the Malay Peninsula), those natives who have remained uncontaminated by the detestable doctrines of the Arabs, never being known to engage in like pursuits."
Again:—
The genuine Arabs are often high-minded, enterprising men, but their half-caste descendants who swarm in the Archipelago comprise the most despicable set of wretches in existence. Under the name of religion they have introduced among the natives the vilest system of intolerance and wickedness imaginable; and those places in which they have gained an ascendency[[94]] are invariably converted into dens of infamy and piracy.
Sir Stamford Raffles says "they are commonly nothing better than manumitted slaves, and they hold like robbers the offices they obtain as sycophants, and cover all with the sanctimonious veil of religious hypocrisy."
And such were the sherips of Borneo with whom the English Rajah had to deal, and whose power he eventually broke. There are many of these to this day in Sarawak, but they have been converted into harmless members of the community, and some have been good Government officials, notably Sherip Putra, who died in June, 1906, after having served the Government well and faithfully for twenty-two years; and he was the son of Sherip Sahap, and the nephew of Sherip Mular.
The condition of the country on Rajah Brooke's accession is best described in his own words. After relating the devastations committed by the piratical and head-hunting Dayaks of Saribas and Sekrang, the Rajah goes on to say:—
It is of the hill Dayaks,[[95]] however, I would particularly write, for a more wretched, oppressed race is not to be found, or one more deserving the commiseration of the humane. Though industrious they never reap what they sow; though their country is rich in produce, they are obliged to yield it all to their oppressors; though yielding all beyond their bare sustenance, they rarely can preserve half their children, and often—too often—are robbed of them all, with their wives.[[96]] All that rapacity and oppression can effect is exhausted, and the only happiness that ever falls to the lot of these unhappy tribes is getting one tyrant instead of five thousand. Indeed, it is quite useless to try to explain the miserable condition of this country, where for the last ten years there has been no government; where intrigue and plunder form the occupation of all the higher classes; where a poor man to possess beyond his clothes is a crime; where lying is a virtue, religion dead, and where cheating is so common; and last, where the ruler, Muda Hasim, is so weak, that he has lost all authority except in name and observance.