The whole town appeared to be interested in our arrival, for, as we passed up the broad and deep river between the lines of houses, crowds of men, women, and children thronged the verandahs.
The floating market mentioned by Forrest was there also—several hundred canoes, each containing one or two women, covered over with mat hats a yard in diameter, floated up and down about the town, pulling through the water lanes and resting for a while in the slack tide at the back of the houses. These women, generally ill-favoured old slaves, frequent this migratory assemblage every day, and buy and sell fowls, vegetables, fish, and fruit.
The supply of food for this population of five-and-twenty thousand requires some arrangement: so every morning a market is held at various points, where the hill people assemble and exchange their agricultural produce for salt, fish, iron, and clothes. The old women are diligent frequenters of these places, and buy here to retail in the capital.
I have often come across these extemporized markets: some held under groves of fruit-trees; others on grassy fields, but, by choice or accident, always in a lovely spot.
We had not long been anchored when the Sultan and ministers sent messengers on board, to inquire the news and invite me to a meeting. They are very anxious about the result of my visit to the Kayans, as there is little doubt that this slave-acquiring and head-hunting people are destroying the interior population.
To-day they had received news that three long war-boats of their enemies had been dragged over into the waters of the upper Limbang; that they had attacked a party of the Sultan’s Murut subjects, and killed six, after which they had immediately returned to their own country. It is evident that the Borneans are in great fear of the ultimate result of these forays. The old Sultan being ill, I did not see him, but spent the evening with Pañgeran Mumein, the prime minister (and present Sultan). He is an amiable man, and bears a better character than the rest; his great fault is grasping. He is always telling the story of his fight with the Kayans, which exemplifies how easily these men were defeated by the use of musketry. Some years since, Pañgeran Mumein hearing that the district of Tamburong was invaded by the people of Baram, collected his followers and guns, and proceeded thither. When they came in sight of the Kayans crowded round a village, the Malays became alarmed, and wished to retreat; but their leader sprang forward and fired a brass swivel at the enemy; it fortunately took effect on one, and the crowd dispersed. Recovering from their fright, the Borneans fired volley after volley into the jungle, and celebrated their victory by loud beatings of gongs and drums. The Kayans, still more frightened, fled in all directions.
Pañgeran Mumein justly observed, that as long as the Kayans were unacquainted with the use of fire-arms, it was easy to defend the country; but that now the Bornean traders were supplying them with brass swivels and double-barrel guns, he thought that the ruin of Brunei was at hand. But the fact is, that though the Kayans are now less frightened at the noise of heavy guns and muskets than they were, they seldom employ them in their expeditions in the jungle, as they cannot keep them in working order.
With the assistance of his followers’ memories, Mumein repeated the names of forty villages that had been destroyed within the last ten years, and the majority of the inhabitants captured or killed.
Several of the respectable Malay traders of the place have agreed to go with me as guides and interpreters; among the rest are Gadore, Abdul Ajak, and Bakir, the principal dealers with Baram. Bakir had but just arrived from that country, and he says that the Kayans are anxiously awaiting my arrival, having heard that I was ready for the steamer. As he appears a very intelligent fellow, I will note down some of the information he gave me about the people. Their customs appear much the same as those of the Sea Dayaks: he began, oddly enough, with their funerals. When a man dies, they wrap him up in cloths and place him in a kind of box on top of four upright poles, and leave him there with some of his worldly goods—in the case of chiefs, a very large amount. Their marriages are simple. When two young people take a fancy to each other, their intercourse is unrestrained: should the girl prove with child, a marriage takes place; their great anxiety for children makes them take this precaution against sterility.
We pulled in the evening to visit the fine upas-tree growing at the end of the reach below the town. We landed at a Mahomedan burying-place, and there met a Malay, who warned us not to approach this deadly tree, but we smilingly thanked him and continued our course, forcing our way through the tangled bushes at its base: it has a noble stem, some five-and-thirty feet without a branch, and eighteen feet in circumference; the colour of its bark is a light brown. The tree is a very handsome and spreading one, and its bright rich green contrasted well with the dark foliage beyond.