The return to England of Captain Bethune, C.B., bringing with him a further portion of Mr. Brookeʼs Journal to my charge, enables me to afford my readers some interesting details relative to the important events that have occurred in Borneo subsequent to my departure from Sarāwak.
“January, 1845.—The departure of the Dido left me sad and lonely, for Captain Keppel had been really my companion and friend; and he so thoroughly entered into my views for the suppression of piracy, and made them his own, that I may not expect any successor to act with the same vigour and the same decision. Gallant Didos! I would ask no further aid or protection than I received from you. Sir Edward Belcher, with the Phlegethon in company, arrived not long after the Didoʼs departure, and conveyed the Rajah Muda Hassim and his train to Borneo Proper. H.M.S. Samarang and Phlegethon visited and examined Labuan, and proceeded thence to Ambun. Ambun is a miserable village; and it at once gave the lie to the report of a European female being there in captivity, for no poor Orang Kaya could retain such a prize. The inhabitants of Ambun are Badjows, and the country people or Dyaks of the interior are called Dusuns, or villagers. I saw many of them, and they appeared a gentle mild race, and far less warlike by account than our Dyaks. They are not tattooed, and the sumpitan is unknown amongst them. Leaving Ambun, which is situated in a pretty bay, we proceeded to Tampasuk, a considerable town, inhabited by Illanuns and Badjows. This is a piractical town; and I was informed by an Arab in captivity there that scarcely a week passes without strife and contention amongst themselves. There likewise I received information respecting the Balagnini, the great pirates of these seas. They are represented as in habiting numerous small islands in the vicinity of Sooloo: their origin is Badjow. I apprehend there would be little difficulty in breaking their power, and curing the propensity to piracy.
“This cruise being over, I established myself quietly at Sarāwak. The country is peaceable; trade flourishes; the Dyaks are content; the Malays greatly increased in number—in short, all goes well. I received a visit from Lingire, a Dyak chief of Sarebus. At first he was shy and somewhat suspicions; but a little attention soon put him at his ease. He is an intelligent man; and I hail with pleasure his advent to Sarāwak, as the dawn of a friendship with the two pirate tribes. It is not alone for the benefit of these tribes that I desire to cultivate their friendship, but for the greater object of penetrating the interior through their means. There are no Malays there to impede our progress by their lies and their intrigues; and, God willing, these rivers shall be the great arteries by which civilization shall be circulated to the heart of Borneo.
“14th.—The Dyaks of Tumma, a runaway tribe from Sadong, came down last night, as Bandar Cassim of Sadong wishes still to extract property from them. Bandar Cassim I believe to be a weak man, swayed by stronger-headed and worse rascals; but, now that Seriff Sahib and Muda Hassim are no longer in the country, he retains no excuse for oppressing the poor Dyaks. Si Nankan and Tumma have already flown, and most of the other tribes are ready to follow their example, and take refuge in Sarāwak. I have fully explained to the Bandar that he will lose all his Dyaks if he continues his system of oppression, and more especially if he continues to resort to that most hateful system of seizing the women and children.
“I had a large assembly of natives, Malay and Dyaks, and held forth many good maxims to them. At present, in Sarāwak, we have Balows and Sarebus, mortal enemies; Lenaar, our extreme tribe, and our new Sadong tribe of Tumma. Lately we had Kantoss, from near Sarambow, in the interior of Pontiana; Undops, from that river; and Badjows, from near Lantang—tribes which had never thought of Sarāwak before, and perhaps never heard the name. Oh, for power to pursue the course pointed out!
“16th.—The Julia arrived, much to my relief; and Mr. Low, a botanist and naturalist, arrived in her. He will be a great acquisition to our society, if devoted to these pursuits. The same day that the Julia entered, the Ariel left the river. I dismissed the Tumma Dyaks; re-warned Bandar Cassim of the consequences of his oppression; and had a parting interview with Lingire. I had another long talk with Lingire, and did him honor by presenting him with a spear and flag, for I believe he is true, and will be useful; and this Orang Kaya Pa-muncha, the most powerful of these Dyaks, must be mine. Lingire described to me a great fight he once had with the Kayans, on which occasion he got ninety-one heads, and forced a large body of them to retire with inferior numbers. I asked him whether the Kayans used the sumpitan? he answered, ‘Yes.’ ‘Did many of your men die from the wounds?’ ‘No; we can cure them.’ This is one more proof in favor of Mr. Crawfurdʼs opinion that this poison is not sufficiently virulent to destroy life when the arrow is (as it mostly is) plucked instantly from the wound.
“26th.—Linn, a Sakarran chief, arrived, deputed (as he asserted, and I believe truly) by the other chiefs of Sakarran to assure me of their submission and desire for peace. He likewise stated, that false rumors spread by the Malays agitated the Dyaks; and the principal rumor was, that they would be shortly attacked again by the white men. These rumors are spread by the Sariki people, to induce the Sakarrans to quit their river and take refuge in the interior of the Rejong; and once there, the Sakarrans would be in a very great measure at the mercy of the Sariki people. This is a perfect instance of Malay dealing with the Dyaks; but in this case it has failed, as the Sakarrans are too much attached to their country to quit it. I am inclined to believe their professions; and at any rate it is convenient to do so and to give them a fair trial.
“28th.—How is it to be accounted for, that the Malays have so bad a character with the public, and yet that the few who have had opportunities of knowing them well speak of them as a simple and not unamiable people? With the vulgar, the idea of a Malay—and by the Malay they mean the entire Polynesian race, with the exception of the Javanese—is that of a treacherous, blood-thirsty villain; and I believe the reason to be, that from our first intercourse to the present time, it is the Pangerans or rajahs of the country, with their followers, who are made the standard of Malay character. These rajahs, born in the purple; bred amid slaves and fighting-cocks, inheriting an undisputed power over their subjects, and under all circumstances, whether of riches or poverty, receiving the abject submission of those around their persons, are naturally the slaves of their passions—haughty, rapacious, vindictive, weak, and tenacious unto death of the paltry punctilio of their court The followers of such rajahs it is needless to describe; they are the tools of the rajahʼs will, and more readily disposed for evil than for good; unscrupulous, cunning, intriguing, they are prepared for any act of violence. We must next contrast these with a burly, independent trader, eager after gain; probably not over-scrupulous about the means of obtaining it, ignorant of native character, and heedless of native customs and native etiquet. The result of such a combination of ingredients causes an explosion on the slightest occasion. The European is loud, contemptuous, and abusive; the Malay cool and vindictive. The regal dignity has been insulted; the rajah has received ‘shame’ before his court; evil counselors are at hand to whisper the facility of revenge, and the advantages to be derived from it. The consequence too frequently follows—the captain and crew are krissed, and their vessel seized and appropriated. The repeated tragedy shocks the European mind; and the Malay has received, and continues to this day to receive, a character for treachery and bloodthirstiness. Even in these common cases an allowance must be made for the insults received, which doubtless on numerous occasions were very gross, and such flagrant violations of native customs as to merit death in native eyes; and we must bear in mind, that we never hear but one side of the tale, or only judge upon a bloody fact. It is from such samples of Malays that the general character is given by those who have only the limited means of trade for forming a judgment; but those who have known the people of the interior and lived among them, far removed from the influence of their rajahs, have given them a very different character. Simple in their habits, they are neither treacherous nor bloodthirsty; cheerful, polite, hospitable, gentle in their manners, they live in communities with fewer crimes and fewer punishments than most other people of the globe. They are passionately fond of their children, and indulgent even to a fault; and the ties of family relationship and good feeling continue in force for several generations. The feeling of the Malay, fostered by education, is acute, and his passions are roused if shame be put upon him; indeed, this dread of shame amounts to a disease; and the evil is, that it has taken a wrong direction, being more the dread of exposure or abuse, than shame or contrition for any offence.
“I have always found them good-tempered and obliging, wonderfully amenable to authority, and quite as sensible of benefits conferred, and as grateful, as other people of more favored countries. Of course there is a reverse to this picture. The worst feature of the Malay character is the want of all candor or openness, and the restless spirit of cunning intrigue which animates them, from the highest to the lowest. Like other Asiatics, truth is a rare quality among them. They are superstitious, somewhat inclined to deceit in the ordinary concerns of life, and they have neither principle nor conscience when they have the means of oppressing an infidel, and a Dyak who is their inferior in civilization and intellect.
“If this character of the Malay be summed up, it will be anything but a bad one on the whole; it will present a striking contrast to the conduct and character of the rajahs and their followers, and I think will convince any impartial inquirer, that it is easily susceptible of improvement. One of the most fertile sources of confusion is, classing at one time all the various nations of the Archipelago under the general name of Malay, and at another restricting the same term to one people, not more ancient, not the fountain-head of the others, who issued from the center of Sumatra, and spread themselves in a few parts of the Archipelago.