"The sultan is a man past fifty years of age, short and puffy in person, with a countenance which expresses, very obviously, the imbecility of his mind. His right hand is garnished with an extra diminutive thumb—the natural member being crooked and distorted. His mind, indeed, by his face, seems to be a chaos of confusion—without acuteness, without dignity, and without good sense. He can neither read nor write; is guided by the last speaker; and his advisers, as might be expected, are of the lower order, and mischievous from their ignorance and greediness. He is always talking, and generally joking; and the most serious subjects never meet with five minutes' consecutive attention. The favourable side of his character is, that he is good-tempered and good-natured—by no means cruel—and, in a certain way, generous, though rapacious to as high a degree. His rapacity, indeed, is carried to such an excess as to astonish a European, and is evinced in a thousand mean ways. The presents I made him were unquestionably handsome; but he was not content without begging from me the share I had reserved for the other Pangerans; and afterwards, through Mr Williamson, solicited more trifles—such as sugar, penknives, and the like. I may note one other feature that marks the man. He requested as the greatest favour—he urged with the earnestness of a child—that I would send back the schooner before the month Ramban, (Ramadan of the Turks,) remarking, 'What shall I do during the fast without soft sugar and dates?'"
The delivery of the prisoners, and the forgiveness of Muda Hassim, were quickly obtained; the more personal matter found opposition with the advisers of the Crown, but was ultimately conceded. On the 1st of August 1842, the letters to Muda Hassim were sealed and signed; and at the same council the contract, which gave Mr Brooke the government of Sarāwak, was fully discussed; and by ten o'clock at night was signed, sealed and witnessed. Mr Brooke returned to his government and people on the following day.
On the 1st of January 1843, the following entry appears in the diary so often quoted:—"Another year passed and gone!—a year with all its anxieties, its troubles, its dangers, upon which I can look back with satisfaction—a year in which I have been usefully employed in doing good to others. Since I last wrote, the Dyaks have been quiet, settled, and improving; the Chinese advancing towards prosperity; and the Sarāwak people wonderfully contented and industrious, relieved from oppression, and fields of labour allowed them. Justice I have executed with an unflinching hand."
It was in the month of March 1843, at the conclusion of the Chinese war, that Captain Keppel was ordered in the Dido to the Malacca Straits and the island of Borneo. Daring acts of piracy had been committed, and were still committing, on the Borneon coast; and, becoming engaged in the suppression of these crimes, he fell in with the English rajah of Sarāwak, and obtained from him the information which he has recently given to the world, and enabled us to place succinctly before our readers.
The piracy of the Eastern Archipelago is very different to that of the western world. The former obtains an importance unknown to the latter. The hordes who conduct it issue from their islands and coasts in fleets, rove from place to place, intercept the native trade, enslave whole towns at the entrance of rivers, and attack ill-armed or stranded European vessels. The native governments, if they are not participators in the crime, are made its victims, and in many cases, we are told, they are both—purchasing from one set of pirates, and plundered and enslaved by another. Captain Keppel has well related more than one engagement in which he was concerned with the ferocious marauders of these eastern seas—scenes of blood and horror, justified only by the enormity of the offence, and the ultimate advantages likely to be obtained from an extirpation of the deeply-rooted evil. As we have hinted at the commencement of this article, our present object is not so much to draw attention to the battle-scenes described by Mr Keppel, and which may be read with peculiar though painful interest in his book, as to obtain for Mr Brooke, the peaceful and unselfish disposer of so many blessings amongst a benighted and neglected people, that admiration and regard which he has so nobly earned. He has done much, but our government may enable him to do more. He has shown the capabilities of his distant home, and called upon his mother-country to improve them to the uttermost. We hear that her Majesty's government have not been deaf to his appeal, and that aid will be given for the development of his plans, equal to his warmest expectations. We trust it may be so. Nothing is wanting but the assistance which a government alone can afford, to render Borneo a friendly and valuable ally, and to constitute Mr Brooke one of the most useful benefactors of modern times; a benefactor in the best sense of the term—an improver of his species—an intelligent messenger and expounder of God's purpose to man.
THE SMUGGLER'S LEAP.
A Passage in the Pyrenees.
"Oh! there's not in this wide world," I exclaimed, quite unintentionally quoting Tom Moore; "there never has been, nor can ever be again, so charming a creature. No nymph, or sylph, or winged Ariel, or syren with song and mirror, was ever so fascinating—no daughter of Eve so pretty and provoking!"
This apostrophe, which certainly appears, now that in cooler moments I recall it, rather rhapsodical, was not uttered viva voce, nor even sotto voce, seeing that its object, Miss Dora M'Dermot, was riding along only three paces in front of me, whilst her brother walked by my side. It was a mere mental ejaculation, elicited by the surpassing perfections of the aforesaid Dora, who assuredly was the most charming girl I had ever beheld. But for the Pyrenean scenery around us, and the rough ill-conditioned mule, with its clumsy side-saddle of discoloured leather, on which she was mounted, instead of the Spanish jennet or well-bred English palfrey that would best have suited so fair an equestrian, I could, without any great exertion of fancy, have dreamed myself back to the days of the M'Gregor, and fancied that it was Die Vernon riding up the mountain side, gaily chatting as she went with the handsome cavalier who walked by her stirrup, and who might have been Frank Osbaldistone, only that he was too manly-looking for Scott's somewhat effeminate hero. How beautifully moulded was the form which her dark-green habit set off to such advantage; how fairy-like the foot that pressed the clumsy stirrup; how slender the fingers that grasped the rein! She had discarded the heavy riding-hat and senseless bonnet, those graceless inventions of some cunning milliner, and had adopted a head-dress not unusual in the country in which she then was. This was a beret or flat cap, woven of snow-white wool, and surmounted by a crimson tassel spread out over the top. From beneath this elegant coiffure her dark eyes flashed and sparkled, whilst her luxuriant chestnut curls fell down over her neck, the alabaster fairness of which made her white head-dress look almost tawny. Either because the air, although we were still in the month of September, was fresh on the mountains, or else because she was pretty and a woman, and therefore not sorry to show herself to the best advantage, she had twisted round her waist a very long cashmere scarf, previously passing it over one shoulder in the manner of a sword-belt, the ends hanging down nearly to her stirrup; and this gave something peculiarly picturesque, almost fantastical, to her whole appearance.