text:
Page:Ginzburg - The Legends of the Jews - Volume 1.djvu/45

 overseer of this first division. The second division is built of silver, and the wainscoting thereof is of cedar. Here dwell those who have repented, and Manasseh, the penitent son of Hezekiah, presides over them. The third division is built of silver and gold. Here dwell Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the Israelites who came out of Egypt, and the whole generation that lived in the desert. Also David is there, together with all his sons except Absalom, one of them, Chileab, still alive. And all the kings of Judah are there, with the exception of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, who presides in the second division, over the penitents. Moses and Aaron preside over the third division. Here are precious vessels of silver and gold and jewels and canopies and beds and thrones and lamps, of gold, of precious stones, and of pearls, the best of everything there is in heaven. The fourth division is built of beautiful rubies, and its wainscoting is of olive wood. Here dwell the perfect and the steadfast in faith, and their wainscoting is of olive wood, because their lives were bitter as olives to them. The fifth division is built of silver and gold and refined gold, and the finest of gold and glass and bdellium, and through the midst of it flows the river Gihon. The wainscoting is of silver and gold, and a perfume breathes through it more exquisite than the perfume of Lebanon. The coverings of the silver and gold beds are made of purple and blue, woven by Eve, and of scarlet and the hair of goats, woven by angels. Here dwells the Messiah on a palanquin made of the wood of Lebanon, “the pillars thereof of silver, the bottom of gold, the seat of it purple.” With him is Elijah. He takes the head of Messiah, and places it in his bosom, and says to him, “Be quiet,


text:
Page:The history of Tom Jones (1749 Volume 1).pdf/188

 poibly could not, abolutely remove her, rom her Place, he found, however, the Means of making her Life very uneay. This Mrs. Wilkins, at length, o reented, that he very openly hewed all Manner of Repect and Fondnes to little Tommy, in Oppoition to Mrs. Blifil.

The Captain, therefore, finding the Story in Danger of perihing, he at lat took an Opportunity to reveal it himelf.

He was one Day engaged with Mr. Allworthy in a Difcoure on Charity: In which the Captain, with great Learning, proved to Mr. Allworthy, that the Word Charity, in Scripture, no where means Beneficence, or Generoity.

‘The Chritian Religion, he aid, was intituted for much nobler Purpoes, than to enforce a Leon which many Heathen Philoophers had taught us long before, and which, though it might, perhaps, be called a moral Virtue, avoured but little of that ublime Chritian-like Dipoition, that vat Elevation of Thought, in Purity approaching to angelic Perfection, to be attained, expreed, and felt only by Grace. Thoe (he aid) came nearer to

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text: Poems (Osgood)/Leonor

title: Poems (Osgood)/Leonor


text: Poems (Osgood)/To Lizzie

title: Poems (Osgood)/To Lizzie


text: Poems (Osgood)/Victoria, on her way to Guildhall


text: Poems (Osgood)/None are Poor

title: Poems (Osgood)/None are Poor


text: Poems (Osgood)/Fazry

title: Poems (Osgood)/Fazry


text:
Page:Ginzburg - The Legends of the Jews - Volume 1.djvu/46

 for the end draweth nigh.” On every Monday and Thursday and on Sabbaths and holidays, the Patriarchs come to him, and the twelve sons of Jacob, and Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, and all the kings of Israel and of Judah, and they weep with him and comfort him, and say unto him, “Be quiet and put trust in thy Creator, for the end draweth nigh.” Also Korah and his company, and Dathan, Abiram, and Absalom come to him on every Wednesday, and ask him: “How long before the end comes full of wonders? When wilt thou bring us life again, and from the abysses of the earth lift us” The Messiah answers them, “Go to your fathers and ask them”; and when they hear this, they are ashamed, and do not ask their fathers.

In the sixth division dwell those who died in performing a pious act, and in the seventh division those who died from illness inflicted as an expiation for the sins of Israel.

The fourth day of creation produced the sun, the moon, and the stars. These heavenly spheres were not actually fashioned on this day; they were created on the first day, and merely were assigned their places in the heavens on the fourth. At first the sun and the moon enjoyed equal powers and prerogatives. The moon spoke to God, and said: “O Lord, why didst Thou create the world with the letter Bet?" God replied: “That it might be made known unto My creatures that there are two worlds.” The moon: “O Lord, which of the two worlds is the larger, this world or the world to come?” God: “The world to come is the larger.” The moon: “O Lord, Thou didst create two


text:
Page:West African Studies.djvu/280

 thought should master these works thoroughly, and I fully grant their great importance; but, nevertheless, I am quite unable to agree with Mr. Jevons (Introduction to the History of Religion, p. 164) when he says, regarding Fetishism, that "it is certainly amongst the inhabitants of the Gold and Slave Coasts that the subject can best be studied." These two Coasts are, I grant, the best place for a student who is resident in Europe, and therefore dependent on the accounts given by others of the things he is dealing with, to draw his information from, because of the accuracy and extent of the information he can get from Ellis's work; but, apart from Ellis the value of these regions to an ethnologist is but small, and for an ethnologist who will go out to West Africa and study his material for himself, the whole of the Coast regions of the Benin Bight are but of tenth-rate importance, because of the great and long-continued infusion of both Mohammedan and European forms of thought into the original native thought-form that has taken place in these regions. This subject I will refer to later, and I will return now to the history, confining myself to the earlier portions of it, and to that which bears on the early development of trade.

I sincerely wish I could go into full details regarding the whole history of the locality here, because I know my only chance of being allowed to do so is on paper, and it would be a great relief to my mind; but I forbear, experience having taught me that the subject, to put it mildly, is not of general interest. For example, person after person have I tried to illuminate and educate in the matter of our relationships with the Ashantees; always, alas, in vain. Before I have got

title: Page:West African Studies.djvu/280


text: Poems (Osgood)/May-Day in New England

title: Poems (Osgood)/May-Day in New England


text: Poems (Osgood)/Virginia

title: Poems (Osgood)/Virginia


text: Poems (Osgood)/To Anna

title: Poems (Osgood)/To Anna


text: Poems (Osgood)/What I Love

title: Poems (Osgood)/What I Love


text:
Page:West African Studies.djvu/281

 half through they "hear a voice I cannot hear that's calling them away;" or remember something "that must be done at once;" or, worst of all, go off straightway to sleep, after once or twice feebly enquiring, "Where is that place?" Of course I am glad that my little knowledge has been the comfort it has to several people. Once, when I was homeward-bound along the Gold Coast, three gentlemen came on board very ill from fever, and homeward-bound, too. Their worst symptom was agonising insomnia. "Not a wink," they assured my friend the Irish purser, had they had for a couple of months." We'll soon put that right for you on board this boat," he said, in his characteristically kind and helpful manner. To my great surprise, that same afternoon he deliberately tackled me on the subject of the real reason that induced Osai Kwofi Kari Kari to cross the Prah in January, 1873. I was charmed at this unwonted display of interest in the subject, and hoped also to gain further information on it from those recently shipped Gold Coasters in the smoking-room. I was getting on fairly well with it; and my friend the purser, instead of having "some manifests to write out," as was usual with him, nobly battled with the intricacies of the subject for a good half hour and more; and then, just when I was in the middle of some topographical elucidation, accompanied by questions, up that purser rose, yawned and stretched himself, and hailed the doctor, who happened to be passing by. "What do you think of that, doctor?" he said, pointing to the settee. "Do them a power of good," says his compatriot the medico. Turning round, I saw the three victims of insomnia grouped together; the middle man had his head pillowed on the oilclothed top of the table, and reclining, more or less gracefully, against him on either side

title: Page:West African Studies.djvu/281


text: Poems (Osgood)/On a Landscape by Doughty


text: Poems (Osgood)/Your Heart is a Music-Box, Dearest


text: Poems (Osgood)/The Cherub's Secret

title: Poems (Osgood)/The Cherub's Secret


text: Template:New texts/2024/01

title: Template:New texts/2024/01


text: Poems (Osgood)/Hymn to the Virgin

title: Poems (Osgood)/Hymn to the Virgin


text:
Page:Ginzburg - The Legends of the Jews - Volume 1.djvu/47

 worlds, a greater and a lesser world; Thou didst create the heaven and the earth, the heaven exceeding the earth; Thou didst create fire and water, the water stronger than the fire, because it can quench the fire; and now Thou hast created the sun and the moon, and it is becoming that one of them should be greater than the other.” Then spake God to the moon: “I know well, thou wouldst have me make Thee greater than the sun. As a punishment I decree that thou mayest keep but one-sixtieth of thy light.” The moon made supplication: “Shall I be punished so severely for having spoken a single word? “God relented: “In the future world I will restore thy light, so that thy light may again be as the light of the sun.” The moon was not yet satisfied. “O Lord,” she said, “and the light of the sun, how great will it be in that day?” Then the wrath of God was once more enkindled: “What, thou still plottest against the sun? As thou livest, in the world to come his light shall be sevenfold the light he now sheds.”

The sun runs his course like a bridegroom. He sits upon a throne with a garland on his head. Ninety-six angels accompany him on his daily journey, in relays of eight every hour, two to the left of him, and two to the right, two before him, and two behind. Strong as he is, he could complete his course from south to north in a single instant, but three hundred and sixty-five angels restrain him by means of as many grappling-irons. Every day one looses his hold, and the sun must thus spend three hundred and sixty-five days on his course. The progress of the sun in his circuit is an uninterrupted song of praise to God. And this song alone makes his motion possible. Therefore, when Joshua wanted


text: Poems (Osgood)/The Dying Rose-Bud's Lament


text: Poems (Osgood)/The Unexpected Declaration


text:
Page:Ginzburg - The Legends of the Jews - Volume 1.djvu/48

 to bid the sun stand still, he had to command him to be silent. His song of praise hushed, the sun stood still.

The sun is double-faced; one face, of fire, is directed toward the earth, and one, of hail, toward heaven, to cool off the prodigious heat that streams from the other face, else the earth would catch afire. In winter the sun turns his fiery face upward, and thus the cold is produced. When the sun descends in the west in the evening, he dips down into the ocean and takes a bath, his fire is extinguished, and therefore he dispenses neither light nor warmth during the night. But as soon as he reaches the east in the morning, he laves himself in a stream of flame, which imparts warmth and light to him, and these he sheds over the earth. In the same way the moon and the stars take a bath in a stream of hail before they enter upon their service for the night.

When the sun and the moon are ready to start upon their round of duties, they appear before God, and beseech him to relieve them of their task, so that they may be spared the sight of sinning mankind. Only upon compulsion they proceed with their daily course. Coming from the presence of God, they are blinded by the radiance in the heavens, and they cannot find their way. God, therefore, shoots off arrows, by the glittering light of which they are guided. It is on account of the sinfulness of man, which the sun is forced to contemplate on his rounds, that he grows weaker as the time of his going down approaches, for sins have a defiling and enfeebling effect, and he drops from the horizon as a sphere of blood, for blood is the sign of corruption.

As the sun sets forth on his course in the morning, his wings touch the leaves on the trees of Paradise, and their


text: Poems (Osgood)/What can be the matter with Lizzie


text: Poems (Osgood)/Mina Dolce

title: Poems (Osgood)/Mina Dolce


text:
Page:West African Studies.djvu/282

 were his two companions, their half-smoked pipes fallen from their limp fingers—all profoundly, unquestionably asleep. "Oh, yes! of course, I was delighted," but not flattered; and, warned by this incident, I will here only say that should any one be really interested in the eventful history of the long struggle between the English, Portuguese, French, Dutch, and Brandenburgers, with each other and with the natives, for the possession of the country where the black man's gold came from, they will find a good deal about it in the works already cited; and should any medical man—the remedy is perhaps a little too powerful to be trusted in the hands of the laity—require it for the treatment of insomnia as above indicated, I recommend that part of it which bears on the Ashantee question in small but regular doses.

Our earliest authorities mentioning Africa with the knowledge in them that it is surrounded by the ocean, save at Suez, are Theopompus and Herodotus. Unfortunately all Theopompus's works are lost to us, voluminous though they were, his history alone being a matter of fifty-eight volumes, while before he took up history he had won for himself a great reputation as an orator, during the reigns of Philip and Alexander the Great. He is perpetually referred to, however, though not always praised, by other great classical writers, Cicero, Pliny, the two Dionysiuses and others, and was evidently regarded as a great authority; one particular fragment of his works that refers to Africa is preserved by Ælian, and consists of a conversation between Silenus and Midas, King of Phrygia. Silenus says that Europe, Asia, and Africa are surrounded by the sea, but that beyond the known world there is an island of immense extent containing large animals and

title: Page:West African Studies.djvu/282


text:
Page:Ginzburg - The Legends of the Jews - Volume 1.djvu/49

 vibration is communicated to the angels and the holy Ḥayyot, to the other plants, and also to the trees and plants on earth, and to all the beings on earth and in heaven. It is the signal for them all to cast their eyes upward. As soon as they see the Ineffable Name, which is engraved in the sun, they raise their voices in songs of praise to God. At the same moment a heavenly voice is heard to say, “Woe to the sons of men that consider not the honor of God like unto these creatures whose voices now rise aloft in adoration.” These words, naturally, are not heard by men, as little as they perceive the grating of the sun against the wheel to which all the celestial bodies are attached, although the noise it makes is extraordinarily loud. This friction of the sun and the wheel produces the motes dancing about in the sunbeams. They are the carriers of healing to the sick, the only health-giving creations of the fourth day, on the whole an unfortunate day, especially for children, afflicting them with disease.

When God punished the envious moon by diminishing her light and splendor, so that she ceased to be the equal of the sun as she had been originally, she fell, and tiny threads were loosed from her body. These are the stars.”

On the fifth day of creation God took fire and water, and out of these two elements He made the fishes of the sea. The animals in the water are much more numerous than those on land. For every species on land, excepting only the weasel, there is a corresponding species in the water, and, besides, there are many found only in the water.”


text:
Page:A voyage round the world, in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution, commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4, and 5 (IA b30413849 0001).pdf/237

Rh

however, they were covered with forests, equally intricate and impenetrable as those of Dusky Bay, but containing a greater number of pigeons, parrots, and small birds, which perhaps abandon that rude climate during the cold season, and pass their winter in these milder regions. Oyster-catchers or sea-pies, and various sorts of shags, likewise enlivened the sea shores here, but ducks were extremely scarce. West Bay contains a number of fine coves, each of which affords excellent anchorage; the hills rise gently all round it, covered with shrubs and trees, and many of their summits are clear of woods, but overgrown with a common species of fern, (acrosticum furcatum.) This is likewise the case with many islands in the sound, and great part of the south-east shore of the sound from Cape Koamaroò to East Bay. After collecting a number of new plants, among which was a species of pepper, very much resembling ginger in the taste, and shooting many birds of all sorts, we returned on board late in the evening.

The launch, which had been sent out in the morning to an adjacent cove, in order to cut greens for the ship's company and some grass for our goats and sheep, did not return that day; but staying out all the next likewise, we began to be very uneasy about the twelve people in her, among whom were our third lieutenant, the lieutenant of marines, Mr. Hodges, the carpenter, and the gunner. Our apprehensions were the more just, as the wind and wea-


text: Talk:The Middle Peasants

title: Talk:The Middle Peasants


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/275

SKETCHES OF

AND

CHAPTER I.

N 1670 II granted to the Hudson's Bay Company a Charter of Incorporation, His Majesty delegating to the Company actual sovereignty over a very large portion of British North America, and assigning to them the exclusive monopoly of trade and mining in the territory. Writing in 1869, Mr., , says:—"I have endeavoured to give an account of the constitution and history of the last of the great proprietary companies of England, to whom a kind of delegated authority was granted by the Crown. It was by some of these that distant Colonics were founded, and one, the most powerful of them all, established our Empire in the East and held the sceptre of the Great Mogul. But they have passed away

fuit Ilium et ingens Gloria Teucrorum

and the Hudson's Bay Company will be no exception to the rule. It may continue to exist as a Trading Company, but as a Territorial Power it must make up its mind to fold its (buffalo) robes round it and die with dignity." Prophesying is hazardous work. In November, 1881, two hundred and


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/276

 eleven years after the Hudson's Bay Charter, and twelve. years after the date of Mr. article, Queen granted a Charter of Incorporation to the British North Borneo Company, which, by confirming the grants and concesssions acquired from the Sultans of Brunai and Sulu, constitutes the Company the sovereign ruler over a territory of 31,000 square miles, and, as the permission to trade, included in the Charter, has not been taken advantage of, the British North Borneo Company now does actually exist "as a Territorial Power" and not "as a Trading Company."

Not only this, but the example has been followed by Prince , and German Companies, on similar lines, have been incorporated by their Government on both coasts of Africa and in the Pacific; and another British Company, to operate on the Niger River Districts, came into existence by Royal Charter in July, 1886.

It used to be by no means an unusual thing to find an educated person ignorant not only of Borneo's position on the map, but almost of the very existence of the island which, regarding Australia as a continent, and yielding to the claims recently set up by New Guinea, is the second largest island in the world, within whose limits could be comfortably pack- ed England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, with a sea of dense jungle around them, as bas pointed out. Every school-board child now, however, knows better than this.

Though Friar is said to have visited it about 1322, and, of Bologna, between 1503 and 1507, the existence of this great island, variously estimated to be from 263,000 to 300,000 square miles in extent, did not become generally known to Europeans until, in 1518, the Portuguese touched at the city of Brunai. He was followed in 1521 by the Spanish expedition, which under the leadership of the celebrated Portuguese circum- navigator, had discovered the Philippines, where, on the island of Mactan, their leader was killed in April, 1520. An account of the voyage was written by, an Italian volunteer in the expedition, who accompanied the fleet to Brunai after death, and published a glowing


text:
Author:Standish Grove Grady

Works

 * A Condensed Commentary on the Registration of Voters Act (1843)
 * The law and practice in proceedings on the Crown side of the Court of Queen's Bench (1844)
 * The Law of Fixtures (1845)
 * The Gross Abuses of Public Charities Pointed Out (1846)
 * A Letter on the Present State of Our Public Schools (1862)
 * The Diminution of the Poor Rate by Improved Legislation (1862)
 * A Treatise on the Hindoo Law of Inheritance (1868)
 * A Manual of the Mahommedan Law of Inheritance and Contract (1869)
 * A Manual of Hindu Law (1871)
 * The Indian Codes (1871)

title: Author:Standish Grove Grady


text:
Page:Cicero (Collins 1871).djvu/201

Rh passions or desires. Happy in their own perfect wisdom and virtue, they

Cotta—speaking in behalf of the New Academy—controverts these views. Be these your gods, Epicurus? as well say there are no gods at all. What reverence, what love, or what fear can men have of beings who neither wish them, nor can work them, good or ill? Is idleness the divinest life? "Why, 'tis the very heaven of schoolboys; yet the schoolboys, on their holiday, employ themselves in games." Nay, he concludes, what the Stoic Posidonius said of your master Epicurus is true—"He believed there were no gods, and what he said about their nature he said only to avoid popular odium." He could not believe that the Deity has the outward shape of a man, without any solid essence; that he has all the members of a man, without the power to use them; that he is a shadowy transparent being, who shows no favour and confers no benefits on any, cares for nothing and does nothing; this is to allow his existence of the gods in word, but to deny it in fact.

Velleius compliments his opponent on his clever argument, but desires that Balbus would state his views upon the question. The Stoic consents; and, at some length, proceeds to prove (what neither disputant has at all denied) the existence of Divine beings of some kind. Universal belief, well-authenticated instances of their appearance to men, and of the fulfilment of prophecies and omens, are all evi-

title: Page:Cicero (Collins 1871).djvu/201


text:
Page:Cicero (Collins 1871).djvu/202

190 dences of their existence. He dwells much, too, on the argument from design, of which so much use has been made by modern theologians. He furnishes Paley with the idea for his well-known illustration of the man who finds a watch; "when we see a dial or a water-clock, we believe that the hour is shown thereon by art, and not by chance." He gives also an illustration from the poet Attius, which from a poetical imagination has since become an historical incident; the shepherds who see the ship Argo approaching take the new monster for a thing of life, as the Mexicans regarded the ships of Cortes. Much more, he argues, does the harmonious order of the world bespeak an intelligence within. But his conclusion is that the Universe itself is the Deity; or that the Deity is the animating Spirit of the Universe; and that the popular mythology, which gives one god to the Earth, one to the Sea, one to Fire, and so on, is in fact a distorted version of this truth. The very form of the universe—the sphere—is the most perfect of all forms, and therefore suited to embody the Divine.

Then Cotta—who though, as Pontifex, he is a national priest by vocation, is of that sect in philosophy which makes doubt its creed—resumes his objections. He is no better satisfied with the tenets of the Stoics than with those of the Epicureans. He believes that there are gods; but, coming to the discussion as a dispassionate and philosophical observer, he finds such proofs as are offered of their existence insufficient. But this third book is fragmentary, and

title: Page:Cicero (Collins 1871).djvu/202


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/277

 account of its wealth and the brilliancy of its Court, with its royally caparisoned elephants, a report which it is very difficult to reconcile with the present squalid condition of the existing "Venice of Hovels," as it has been styled from its palaces and houses being all built in, or rather over, the river to which it owes its name.

The Spaniards found at Brunai Chinese manufactures and Chinese trading junks, and were so impressed with the importance of the place that they gave the name of Borneo—a corruption of the native name Brunai—to the whole island, though the inhabitants themselves know no such general title. for their country.

In some works, Pulau Kalamantan, which would signify wild mangoes island, is given as the native name for Borneo, but it is quite unknown, at any rate throughout North Borneo, and the island is by no means distinguished by any profusion of wild mangoes.

In 1573, a Spanish Embassy to Brunai met with no very favourable reception, and three years later au expedition from Manila attacked the place and, deposing a usurping Sultan, re-instated his brother on the throne, who, to shew his gratitude, declared his kingdom tributary to Spain. The Portuguese Governor of the Moluccas, in 1526, claimed the honour of being the first discoverer of Borneo, and this nation appears to have carried on trade with some parts of the island till they were driven out of their Colonies by the Dutch in 1609. But neither the Portuguese nor the Spaniards seem to have made any decided attempt to gain a footing in Borneo, and it is not until the early part of the 17th century that we find the two great rivals in the eastern seas—the English and the Dutch East India Trading Companies—turning their attention to the island. The first Dutchman to visit Borneo was, who anchored at Brunai in December, 1600, but though the Sultan was friendly, the natives made an attempt to seize his ship, and he sailed the fellowing month, having come to the conclusion that the city was a nest of rogues.


text: Talk:Immortal Hymns And Their Story/Jesus, Lover of My Soul (unsourced)


text:
Author:Thomas Jackson (1783–1873)

Works

 * Life of John Goodwin, A.M., comprising an Account of his Opinions and Writings (1822)
 * Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Rev. Richard Watson (1834)
 * The Centenary of Wesleyan Methodism: a Brief Sketch of the Rise, Progress, and Present State of the Wesleyan Methodist Societies throughout the World (1839)
 * Expository Discourses on various Scripture Facts (1839)
 * The Life of the Rev. Charles Wesley (1841), in 2 vols.
 * The Journal of the Rev. Charles Wesley, with Selections from his Correspondence and Poetry; with an Introduction and Notes (1849), in 2 vols.
 * The Life of the Rev. Robert Newton, D.D. (1855)
 * The Duties of Christianity theoretically and practically considered (1857)
 * The Providence of God, viewed in the Light of Holy Scripture (1862)
 * Aids to Truth and Charity (1862)
 * The Institutions of Christianity, exhibited in their Scriptural Character and Practical Bearing (1868)
 * Recollections of my own Life and Times (1873), edited by the B. Frankland

As editor

 * The Works of the Rev. John Wesley (1829–31), in 14 vols.
 * John Goodwin's Exposition of Romans ix., with two other Tracts by the same (1834)
 * The Christian armed against Infidelity (1837)
 * Memoirs of Miss Hannah Ball (1839)
 * A Collection of Christian Biography (1837–1840), in 12 vols.
 * Anthony Farindon's Sermons (1849), in 4 vols.
 * Wesley's Journals (1864), in 4 vols.
 * The Lives of the Early Methodist Preachers (1865), in 6 vols.

title: Author:Thomas Jackson (1783–1873)


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/278

 The first English connection with Borneo was in 1609, when trade was opened with Sukadana, diamonds being said to form the principal portion of it.

The East India Company, in 1702, established a Factory at Banjermassin, on the South Coast, but were expelled by the natives in 1706. Their rivals, the Dutch, also established Trading Stations on the South and South-West Coasts.

In 1761, the East India Company concluded a treaty with the Sultan of Sulu, and in the following year an English Fleet, under Admiral and Sir  captured Manila, the capital of the Spanish Colony of the Philippines. They found in confinement there a Sultan of Sulu who, in gratitude for his release, ceded to the Company, on the 12th September, 1762, the island of Balambangan, and in January of the following year Mr. was deputed to take possession of it and hoist the British flag. Towards the close of 1763, the Sultan of Sulu added to his cession the northern portion of Borneo and the southern half of Palawan, together with all the intermediate islands. Against all these cessions the Spanish entered their protest, as they claimed the suzerainty over the Sulu Archipelago and the Sulu Dependencies in Borneo and the islands. This claim the Spaniards always persisted in, until, on the 7th March, 1885, a Protocol was entered into by England and Germany and Spain, whereby Spanish supremacy over the Sulu Archipelago was recognised on condition of their abandoning all claim to the portions of Northern Borneo which are now included in the British North Borneo Company's concessions.

In November, 1768, the Court of Directors in London, with the approval of Her Majesty's Ministers, who promised to afford protection to the new Colony, issued orders to the authorities at Bombay for the establishment of a settlement at Balambangan with the intention of diverting to it the China trade, of drawing to it the produce of the adjoining countries, and of opening a port for the introduction of spices, etc. by the Bugis, and for the sale of Indian commodities. The actual date of the foundation of the settlement is not known, but Mr. states that in 1771 the Court ordered that


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/279

 the Government should be vested in "a chief and two other persons of Council," and that the earliest proceedings extant are dated Sulu, 1773, and relate to a broil in the streets. between Mr., the second in the Council, and the Surgeon of the Britannia.

This was a somewhat unpropitious commencement, and in 1774 the Court are found writing to Madras, to which Balambangan was subordinate, complaining of the "imprudent management and profuse conduct" of the Chief and Council.

In February, 1775, Sulu pirates surprised the stockade, and drove out the settlers, capturing booty valued at about a million dollars. The Company's officials then proceeded to the island of Labuan, now a British Crown Colony, and established a factory, which was maintained but for a short time, at Brunai itself. In 1803 Balambangan was again occupied, but as no commercial advantage accrued, it was abandoned in the following year, and so ended all attempts on the part of the East India Company to establish a Colony in Borneo.

While at Balambangan, the officers, in 1774, entered into negotiations with the Sultan of Brunai, and, on undertaking to protect him against Sulu and Mindanau pirates, acquired the exclusive trade in all the pepper grown in his country.

The settlement of Singapore, the present capital of the Straits Settlements, by Sir, under the orders of the East India Company in 1819, again drew attention to Borneo, for that judiciously selected and free port soon attracted to itself the trade of the Celebes, Borneo and the surrounding countries, which was brought to it by numerous flcets of small native boats. These fleets were constantly harassed and attacked and their crews carried off into slavery by the Balinini, Illanun, and Dyak pirates infesting the Bornco and Celebes coasts, and the interference of the British Cruisers was urgently called for and at length granted, and was followed, in the natural course of events, by political intervention, resulting in the brilliant and exciting episode whereby the modern successor of the olden heroes—Sir —obtained for his family, in 1840, the kingdom of Sarawak, on the west coast of the island,


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/280

 which he in time purged of its two plague spots—head-hunting on shore, and piracy and slave-dealing afloat—and left to his heir, who has worthily taken up and carried on his work, the unique inheritance of a settled Eastern Kingdom, inhabited by the once dreaded head-hunting Dyaks and piratical Mahomedan Malays, the government of whom now rests absolutely in the hands of its one paternally despotic white ruler, or Rája. Sarawak, although not yet formally proclaimed a British Protectorate, may thus be deemed the first permanent British possession in Borneo. Sir was also employed by the British Government to conclude, on 27th May, 1847, a treaty with the Sultan of Brunai, whereby the cession to us of the small island of Labuan, which had been occupied as a British Colony in December, 1846, was confirmed, and the Sultan engaged that no territo- rial cession of any portion of his country should ever be made to any Foreign Power without the sanction of Great Britain.

These proceedings naturally excited some little feeling of jealousy in our Colonial neighbours—the Dutch—who ineffectually protested against a British subject becoming the ruler of Sarawak, as a breach of the tenor of the treaty of London. of 1824, and they took steps to define more accurately the boundaries of their own dependencies in such other parts of Borneo as were still open to them. What we now call British North Borneo, they appear at that time to have regarded as outside the sphere of their influence, recognising the Spanish claim to it through their suzerainty, already alluded to, over the Sulu Sultan.

With this exception, and that of the Brunai Sultanate, already secured by the British Treaty, and Sarawak, now the property of the family, the Dutch have acquired a nominal suzerainty over the whole of the rest of Borneo, by treaties with the independent rulers—an area comprising about two-thirds of the whole island, probably not a tenth part of which is under their actual direct administrative control.


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/281

 They appear to have been so pre-occupied with the affairs of their important Colony of Java and its dependencies, and the prolonged, exhausting and ruinously expensive war with the Achinese in Sumatra, that beyond posting Government Residents at some of the more important points, they have hitherto done nothing to attract European capital and enterprise to Borneo, but it would now seem that the example set by the British Company in the North is having its effect, and I hear of a Tobacco Planting Company and of a Coal Company being formed to operate on the East Coast of Dutch Borneo.

The Spanish claim to North Borneo was a purely theoretical one, and not only their claim, but that also of the Sulus through whom they claimed, was vigorously disputed by the Sultans of Brunai, who denied that, as asserted by the Sulus, any portion of Borneo had been ceded to them by a former Sultan of Brunai, who had by their help defeated rival claimants and been seated on the throne. The Sulus, on their side, would own no allegiance to the Spaniards, with whom they had been more or less at war for almost three centuries, and their actual hold over any portion of North Borneo was of the slightest. Matters were in this position when Mr., now Sir , , fitted out an expedition, and in December, 1877, and January, 1878, obtained from the Sultans of Brunai and Sulu, in the manner hereafter detailed, the sovereign control over the North portion of Borneo, from the Kimanis river on the West to the Siboku river on the East, concessions which were confirmed by Her Majesty's Royal Charter in November, 1881.

I have now traced, in brief outline, the political history of Borneo from the time when the country first became generally known to Europeans—in 1518—down to its final division between Great Britain and the Netherlands in 1881.

If we can accept the statements of the earlier writers, Borneo was in its most prosperous stage before it became subjected to European influences, after which, owing to the mistaken and monopolising policy of the Commercial Companies then holding sway in the East, the trade and agriculture of this and other islands of the Malay Archipelago received a


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/282

 blow from which at any rate that of Borneo is only now recovering. By the terms of its Charter, the British North Borneo Company is prohibited from creating trade monopolies, and of its own accord it has decided not to engage itself in trading transactions at all, and as Rája Government is similar to that of a British Crown Colony, and the Dutch Government no longer encourage monopolies, there is good ground for believing that the wrong done is being righted, and that a brighter page than ever is now being opened for Borneo and its natives.

Before finishing with this part of the subject, I may mention that the United States Government had entered into a treaty with the Sultan of Brunai, in almost exactly the same words as the English one, including the clause prohibiting cessions of territory without the consent of the other party to the treaty, and, in 1878, Commodore was ordered by his Government to visit Borneo and report on the cessions obtained by Mr., I was Acting British Consul-General at the time, and before leaving the Commodore informed me emphatically that he could discover no American interests in Borneo, "neither white nor black."

The native population of Borneo is given in books of reference as between 1,750,000 and 2,500,000. The aborigines are of the Malay race, which itself is a variety of the Mongolian and indeed, when inspecting prisoners, I have often been puzzled to distinguish the Chinese from the Malay, they being dressed alike and the distinctive pig-tail having been shaved off the former as part of the prison discipline.

These Mongolian Malays from High Asia, who presumably migrated to the Archipelago viâ the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, must, however, have found Borneo and other of the islands partially occupied by a Caucasic race, as amongst the aborigines are still found individuals of distinctive Caucasic type, as has been pointed out to be the case with the Buludupih tribe of British North Borneo, by Dr. , whom I had the pleasure of meeting in Borneo in 1878-9. To these the name of pre-Malays has been given, but Professor , to whom I beg to acknowledge my indebtedness on


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/283

 these points, prefers the title of Indonesians. The scientific descriptions of a typical Malay is as follows:—"Stature little over five feet, complexion olive yellow, head brachy-cephalous or round, cheek-bones prominent, eyes black and slighlty oblique, nose small but not flat, nostrils dilated, hands small and delicate, legs thin and weak, hair black, coarse and lank, beard absent or scant;" but these Indonesians to whom belong most of the indigenous inhabitants of Celebes, are taller and have fairer or light brown complexions and regular features, connecting them with the brown Polynesians of the Eastern Pacific "who may be regarded as their descendants," and Professor accounts for their presence by assuming "a remote migration of the Caucasic race to South-Eastern Asia, of which evidences are not lacking in Camboja and elsewhere, and a further onward movement, first to the Archipelago and then East to the Pacific." It is needless to say that the aborigines themselves have the haziest and most unscientific notion of their own origin, as the following account, gravely related to me by a party of Buludupihs, will exemplify:—

In past ages a Chinese settler had taken to wife a daughter of the aborigines, by whom he had a female child. "Her parents lived in a hilly district (Bulud=hill), covered with a large forest tree, known by the name of opih. One day a jungle fire occurred, and after it was over, the child jumped down from the house (native houses are raised on piles off the ground), and went up to look at a half burnt opih log, and suddenly disappeared and was never seen again. But the parents heard the voice of a spirit issue from the log, announcing that it had taken the child to wife and that, in course of time, the bereaved parents would find an infant in the jungle, whom they were to consider as the offspring of the marriage,


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/284

 and who would become the father of a new race. The prophecy of the spirit was in due time fulfilled."

It somewhat militates against the correctness of this history that the Buludupihs are distinguished by the absence of Mongolian features.

The general appellation given to the aborigines by the modern Malays—to whom reference will be made later on—is Dyak, and they are divided into numerous tribes, speaking very different dialects of the Malayo-Polynesian stock, and known by distinctive names, the origin of which is generally obscure, at least in British North Borneo, where these names are not, as a rule, derived from those of the rivers on which they dwell.

The following are the names of some of the principal North Borneo aboriginal tribes:—Kadaians, Dusuns, Ida'ans, Bisaias, Buludupihs, Eraans, Subans, Sun-Dyaks, Muruts, Tagaas. Of these, the Kadaians, Buludupils, Eraans and one large section of the Bisaias have embraced the religion of Mahomet; the others are Pagans, with no set form of religion, no idols, but believing in spirits and in a future life, which they localise on the top of the great mountain of Kina-balu. These Pagans are a simple and more natural, less self-conscious, people than their Mahomedan brethren, who are ahead of them in point of civilization, but are more reserved, more proud and altogether less "jolly," and appear, with their religion, to have acquired also some of the characteristics of the modern or true Malays. A Pagan can sit, or rather squat, with you and tell you legends, or, perhaps, on an occasion join in a glass of grog, whereas the Mahomedan, especially the true Malay, looks upon the Englishman as little removed from a "Kafir"—an uncircumcised Philistine—who through ignorance constantly offends in minor points of etiquette, who eats pig and drinks strong drink, is ignorant of the dignity of repose, and whose accidental physical and political superiority in the present world will be more than compensated for by the very inferior and uncomfortable position he will attain in the next. The aborigines inhabit the interior parts of North Borneo, and all along the coast is found a fringe of true Malays,


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/285

 modern Malay and using the Arabic written character, whereas the aborigines possess not even the rudiments of an alphabet and, consequently, no literature at all.

How is the presence in Borneo of this more highly civilized. product of the Malay race, differing so profoundly in language. and manners from their kinsmen—the aborigines—to be accounted for? Professor once more comes to our assistance, and solves the question by suggesting that the Mongolian Malays from High Asia who settled in Sumatra, attained there a real national development in comparatively recent times, and after their conversion to Mahomedanism by the Arabs, from whom, as well as from the Bhuddist [sic] missionaries who preceded them, they acquired arts and an elementary civilization, spread to Borneo and other parts of Malaysia and quickly asserted their superiority over the less advanced portion of their race already settled there. This theory fits in well with the native account of the distribution of the Malay race, which makes Menangkabau, in Southern Sumatra, the centre whence they spread over the Malayan islands and peninsula.

The Professor further points out, that in prehistoric times the Malay and Indonesian stock spread westwards to Madagascar and castwards to the Philippines and Formosa, Micronesia and Polynesia. "This astonishing expansion of the Malaysian people throughout the Oceanic area is sufficiently attested by the diffusion of common (Malayo-Polynesian) speech from Madagascar to Easter Island and from Hawaii to New Zealand."

The headquarters of the true Malay in Northern Borneo is the City of Brunai, on the river of that name, on the North-West Coast of the island, where resides the Court of the only nominally independent Sultan now remaining in the Archipelago.

The Brunai river is probably the former mouth of the Limbang, and is now more a salt water inlet than a river.


text: Talk:Away in a Manger (unsourced)

title: Talk:Away in a Manger (unsourced)


text:
Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/50

34 field near Downley, Bucks, above-mentioned: I am not aware that it has previously observed. The pink hue occasionally assumed by the blossoms of the Milfoil (Achillea millefolium) is, I believe, caused by a peculiarity in the soil in which it grows; I have noticed a similar occurrence in the flowers of the Whitehorn (Cratægus Oxyacantha), though only on one or two occasions. The only other variety in this order worthy of note is one of the Great Knapweed (Centaurea scabiosa), having white flowers, which I have once or twice met with near Wycombe.

I may here mention a peculiar form of the Common Calamint (Calamintha officinalis) which occurs near Wycombe, and which has already been noticed in the Botanist's Chronicle. I first observed it in 1861, when I labelled it without hesitation C. officinalis, having found it to agree pretty well with the description of that plant, and not being acquainted with the ordinary form of it. Last year I received specimens of the same plant from the same locality, ticketed C. nepeta: I of course made inquiries, and was informed that they really belonged to that species. Later in the season, I found the ordinary form of C. officinalis, which certainly appeared very different from the plant which I had previously named as such, though it agreed at least equally well with the description given of that species. Thus in doubt, I sent specimens of each to a botanical friend, who kindly informed me that he believed both plants to be the Common Calamint (C. officinalis), and the discovery of a specimen, combining the characteristics of both forms satisfied me that the above conclusion was correct. The forms certainly differed widely in appearance; that which I had been induced to consider the Lesser Calamint (C. nepeta) being a larger plant, with hoary leaves and stems, and having pale lilac blossoms, spotted with purple; while the true officinalis had leaves of a brighter green, and deep pink flowers, mottled with white and red, and was altogether a more slender and graceful plant. It has been suggested to me that the former of these is but the second year's growth of C. officinalis; but I do not think that such is the case, though another year will settle the question,—it is certainly a persistent form, and grows in three or four places about High Wycombe, while the latter is apparently less common in the neighbourhood.

A pretty variety of the common bugle (Ajuga reptans), having white blossoms, occurs near Buttsbury, Essex, where it has appeared in some plenty for several years. The Forget-me-not (Myosotis palustris) occasionally retains the pink colour, which its buds frequently assume throughout the entire period of blossoming. At Medmenham, by the Thames, last year, I observed a form of Loosestrife (Lysimachia vulgaris), which had a red spot at the base of each division of the corolla; the whole plant was slenderer than is usual in the species; and a form of the great plantain (Plantago major), having a leafy flower-spike, was recently gathered at Chelsea. I have noticed that the entire habit of the English Blue-bell (Agraphis nutans) is changed by the cultivation: the flower-stalk becomes shorter, and the blossoms fail to retain their drooping position, becoming erect, and changing in colour from dark to pale blue. A variety, having white flowers may be found in most neighbourhoods; and near Bristol this is said to be as common as the ordinary form: one with pink flowers is cultivated in cottage gardens, but I have never seen it in a wild state: and another with yellow blossoms is recorded as having occurred; if this was really the case, it affords a curious exception to one of the laws of colour. B.

.—The cultivation of Ferns and In-door Plants has led to a curious article of importation. The outer bark of the Cork-tree, hitherto looked upon as waste, has recently been brought to this country in large quantities. From its lightness and durability, it makes an excellent article for rustic work where wood and other heavy materials are inadmissible.

.—Clemence Isaure, a lady of Toulouse, who lived in the fifteenth century, and who had often presided at the celebrated Floral Games of that ancient city, presented the citizens with magnificent markets, erected at her own cost, on condition that the games should be held in future within the hall which formed part of her donation, and that roses should be strewed upon her tomb. Her statue now adorns the hall of the Academy of Floral Games in Toulouse, and is annually crowned with brilliant flowers.—Edwin Lees' Botanical Looker-Out.

.—The superstitious practice of informing the bees of a death that takes place in a family, is very well known, and still prevails among the lower orders in some countries. The disastrous consequence to be apprehended from noncompliance with this strange custom is said to be that the bees will dwindle and die. The manner of communicating the intelligence to the little community, with due form and ceremony, is this: to take the key of the house, and knock with it three times against the hive, telling the inmates, at the same time, that their master or mistress, &c. (as the case may be) is dead!


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/286

, perhaps, to the general idea, an ordinary eastern river, at any rate until the limit of navigability for European craft is attained, is not, as a rule, a thing of beauty by any means.

The typical Malay river debouches through flat, fever-haunted swampy country, where, for miles, nothing meets the eye but the monotonous dark green of the level, interminable mangrove forest, with its fantastic, interlacing roots, whose function it appears to be to extend seaward, year by year, its dismal kingdom of black fetid mud, and to veil from the rude eye of the intruder the tropical charms of the country at its back. After some miles of this cheerless scenery, and at a point where the fresh water begins to mingle with the salt, the handsome and useful nipa palm, with leaves twenty to thirty feet in length, which supply the native with the material for the walls and roof of his house, the wrapper for his cigarette, the sugar for his breakfast table, the salt for his daily needs and the strong drink to gladden his heart on his feast days, becomes intermixed with the mangrove and finally takes its place—a pleasing change, but still monotonous, as it is so dense that, itself growing in the water, it quite shuts out all view of the bank and surrounding country.

One of the first signs of the fresh river water, is the occurrence on the bank of the graceful nibong palm, with its straight, slender, round stem, twenty to thirty feet in height, surmounted with a plume of green leaves. This palm, cut into lengths and requiring no further preparation, is universally employed by the Malay for the posts and beams of his house, always raised several feet above the level of the ground, or of the water, as the case may be, and, split up into lathes of the requisite size, forms the frame-work of the walls and roof, and constitutes the flooring throughout. With the pithy centre removed, the nibong forms an efficient aqueduct, in the absence of bambu, and its young, growing shoot affords a cabbage, or salad, second only to that furnished by the coconut, which will next come into view, together with the betel (Areca) nut palm, if the river visited is an inhabited one; but if uninhabited, the traveller will find nothing but thick, almost impenetrable jungle, with mighty trees shooting up one


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/287

 to a hundred and fifty feet without a branch, in their endeavour to get their share of the sun-light, and supporting on their trunks and branches enormous creepers, rattans, graceful ferns and lovely orchids and other luxuriant epiphytal growths. Such is the typical North Borneo river, to which, however, the Brunai is a solitary exception. The mouth of the Brunai river is approached between pretty verdant islets, and after passing through a narrow and tortuous passage, formed naturally by sandbanks and artificially by a barrier of stones, bare at low water, laid down in former days to keep out the restless European, you find your vessel, which to cross the bar should not draw more than thirteen or fourteen feet, in deep water between green, grassy, hilly, picturesque banks, with scarcely a sign of the abominable mangrove, or even of the nipa, which, however, to specially mark the contrast formed by this stream, are both to be found in abundance in the upper portion of the river, which the steamer cannot After passing a small village or two, the first_object which used to attract attention was the brick ruins of a Roman Catholic Church, which had been erected here by the late Father, a Spanish Missionary of the Society of the Propaganda Fide, who, originally a jovial sca captain, had the good fortune to light upon a wrecked treasure ship in the Eastern seas, and, feeling presumably unwonted twinges of conscience, decided to devote the greater part of his wealth to the Church, in which he took orders, eventually attaining the rank of Prefect Apostolic. His Mission, unfortunately, was a complete failure, but though his assistants were with. drawn, he stuck to his post to the last and, no doubt, did a certain amount of good in liberating, from time to time, Spanish subjects he found in slavery on the Borneo Coast.

Had the poor fellow settled in the interior, amongst the Pagans, he might, by his patience and the example of his good life, have made some converts, but amongst the Mahomedans of the coast it was labour in vain. The bricks of his Brunai Church have since been sold to form the foundation of a steam sawmill.

Turning a sharp corner, the British Consulate is reached,


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/288

 where presides, and flies with pride the Union Jack, Her Majesty's Consular Agent, Mr. or Inche, with his three wives and thirteen children. He is a native of Malacca and a clever, zcalous, courteous and hospitable official, well versed in the political history of Brunai since the advent of Sir.

The British is the only Consulate now established at Brunai, but once the stars and stripes proudly waved over the Consulate of an unpaid American Consul. There was little scope. at Brunai for a white man in pursuit of the fleeting dollar, and one day the Consulate was burnt to the ground, and a heavy claim for compensation for this alleged act of incendiarism was sent in to the Sultan. His Highness disputed the claim, and an American man-of-war was despatched to make enquiries on the spot. In the end, the compensation claimed was not enforced, and Mr., the Consul, was not subsequently, I think, appointed to any other diplomatic or consular post by the President of the Republic. A little further on are the palaces, shops and houses of the city of Brunai, all, with the exception of a few brick shops belonging to Chinamen, built over the water in a reach where the river broadens out, and a vessel can steam up the High Street and anchor abreast of the Royal Palace. When visited the port in 1521, he estimated the number of houses at 25,000, which, at the low average of six to a house, would give Brunai a population of 150,000 people, many of whom were Chinese, cultivating pepper gardens, traces of which can still be seen on the now deserted hills. Sir, formerly H. B. M. Consul-General in Borneo, and who put the population at 25,000 at the lowest in 1863, asserts that fifteen is a fair average to assign to a Brunai house, which would make the population in time 375,000. From his enquiries he found that the highest number was seventy, in the Sultan's palace, and the lowest seven, in a fisherman's small hut. , however, probably alluded to families, fires I think is the word he makes use of, and more than one family is often found occupying a Brunai house. The present population perhaps does not number


text:
Page:Scarface.pdf/213

awhile, almost four months in fact, things were quiet. Everybody was making money and there were no killings. Then the men began to grow restive, as men of action will after a certain period of inactivity. The resumption of hostilities began with minor affrays between insignificant members of the various gangs which usually resulted in nothing more serious than bloody noses and black eyes. Then an occasional stabbing began to creep in among the hitherto comparatively harmless sport, and finally a shooting or two. The anxiety for action, for war and vengeance, became more marked. A tense air of watchful waiting, of incipient menace, hung over the headquarters of the various gangs. The men mentally were like bloodhounds straining at the leash.

Tony sensed the situation. He was weary of inactivity himself. And he was becoming suspicious of the prolonged quietude of his enemies. He knew that they and their men were no more capable of interminable peace than were he and

title: Page:Scarface.pdf/213


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/289

 more than 12,000 or 15,000 natives, and about eighty Chinese and a few Kling shop-keepers, as natives of India are here styled. Writing in 1845, Sir, then the Queen's first Commissioner to Brunai, says with reference to this Sul- tanate:—"Here the experiment may be fairly tried, on the smallest possible scale of expense, whether a beneficial Eu- ropean influence may not re-animate a falling State and at the same time extend our commerce. If this tendency to decay and extinction be inevitable, if this approximation of European policy to native Government should be unable to arrest the fall of the Bornean dynasty, yet we shall retrieve a people already habituated to European habits and manners, industrious interior races; and if it become necessary, a Colo- ny gradually formed and ready to our hand in a rich and fer- tile country," and elsewhere he admits that the regeneration of the Borneo Malays through themselves was a hobby of his. The experiment has been tried and, so far as concerns the re-animation of the Malay Government of Brunai, the verdict must be "a complete failure." The English are a practical race, and self-interest is the guide of nations in their inter- course with one another; it was not to be supposed that they would go out of their way to teach the degenerate Brunai aristocracy how to govern in accordance with modern ideas; indeed, the Treaty we made with them, by prohibiting, for instance, their levying customs duties, or royalties, on the export of such jungle products as gutta percha and India rubber, in the collection of which the trees yielding them are entirely destroyed, and by practically suggesting to them the policy, or rather the impolicy, of imposing the heavy due of $1 per registered ton on all European Shipping entering their ports, whether in cargo or in ballast, scarcely tended to stave off their collapse, and the Borneans must have formed their own conclusions from the fact that when they gave up portions of their territory to the and to the British North Borneo Company, the British Government no longer called for the observance of these provisions of the Treaty in the ceded districts. The English have got all they wanted from Brunai, but I think it can scarcely be said that they have


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/290

 done very much for it in return. I remember that the late Sultan thought it an inexplicable thing that we could not assist him to recover a debt due to him by one of the British Coal Companies which tried their luck in Borneo. Moreover, even the cession to their good and noble friend Sir of the Brunai Province of Sarawak has been itself also, to a certain extent, a factor in their Government's decay, that State, under the rule of the Rája——having attained its present prosperous condition at the expense of Brunai and by gradually absorbing its territory.

Between British North Borneo, on the one side, and Sarawak, on the other, the sea-board of Brunai, which, when we first appeared on the scene, extended from Cape Datu to Marudu Bay—some 700 miles—is now reduced to 125 or 130 miles, and, besides the river on which it is built, Brunai retains but two others of any importance, both of which are in rebellion of a more or less vigorous character, and the whole State of Brunai is so sick that its case is now under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government.

Thus ends in collapse the history of the last independent Malay Government. Excepting only Johor (which is prosperous owing to its being under the wing of Singapore, which fact gives confidence to European and Chinese capitalists and Chinese labourers, and to its good fortune in having a wise and just ruler in its Sultan, who owes his elevation to British influences), all the Malay Governments throughout the Malay Archipelago and in the Malay Peninsula are now subject either to the English, the Dutch, the Spanish or the Portuguese. This decadence is not due to any want of vitality in the race, for under European rule the Malay increases his numbers, as witness the dense population of Java and the rapidly growing Malay population of the Straits Settlements.

That the Malay does so flourish in contact with the European and the Chinese is no doubt to some extent due to his attachment to the Mahomedan faith, which as a tee-total religion is, so far, the most suitable one for a tropical race; it has also to be remembered that he inhabits tropical countries, where the white man cannot perform out-door labour


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/291

 and appears only as a Government Official, a merchant or a planter.

But the decay of the Brunai aristocracy was probably inevitable. Take the life of a young noble. He is the son of one of perhaps thirty women in his father's harem, his mother is entirely without education, can neither read nor write, is never allowed to appear in public or have any influence in public affairs, indeed scarcely ever leaves her house, and one of her principal excitements, perhaps, is the carrying on of an intrigue, an excitement enhanced by the fact that discovery means certain death to herself and her lover.

Brunai being a water town, the youngster has little or no chance of a run and game ashore, and any exercise he takes is confined to being paddled up and down the river in a canoe, for to paddle himself would be deemed much too degrading—a Brunai noble should never put his hand to any honest physical work—even for his own recreation. I once imported a Rob Roy canoe from England and amused myself by making long paddling excursions, and I would also sometimes, to relieve the monotony of a journey in a native boat, take a spell at the paddle with the men, and I was gravely warned by a native friend that by such action I was seriously compromising myself and lowering my position in the eyes of the higher class of natives. At an early age the young noble becomes an object of servile adulation to the numerous retainers and slaves, both male and female, and is by them initiated in vicious practices and, while still a boy, acquires from them some of the knowledge of a fast man of the world. As a rule he receives no sort of school education. He neither rides nor joins in the chase and, since the advent of Europeans, there have been no wars to brace his nerves, or call out any of the higher qualities of mind or body which may be latent in him; nor is there any standing army or navy in which he might receive a beneficial training. No political career, in the sense we attach to the term, is open to him, and he has no feelings of patriotism whatever. That an aristocracy thus nurtured should degenerate can cause no surprise. The general term for the nobles amongst the Brunais is Pangeran, and their numbers may be


text:
Page:Ginzburg - The Legends of the Jews - Volume 1.djvu/50

 The ruler over the sea-animals is leviathan. With all the other fishes he was made on the fifth day. Originally he was created male and female like all the other animals. But when it appeared that a pair of these monsters might annihilate the whole earth with their united strength, God killed the female. So enormous is leviathan that to quench his thirst he needs all the water that flows from the Jordan into the sea. His food consists of the fish which go between his jaws of their own accord. When he is hungry, a hot breath blows from his nostrils, and it makes the waters of the great sea seething hot. Formidable though behemot, the other monster, is, he feels insecure until he is certain that leviathan has satisfied his thirst. The only thing that can keep him in check is the stickleback, a little fish which was created for the purpose, and of which he stands in great awe. But leviathan is more than merely large and strong; he is wonderfully made besides. His fins radiate brilliant light, the very sun is obscured by it, and also his eyes shed such splendor that frequently the sea is illuminated suddenly by it. No wonder that this marvellousmarvelous [sic] beast is the plaything of God, in whom He takes His pastime.

There is but one thing that makes leviathan repulsive, his foul smell, which is so strong that if it penetrated thither, it would render Paradise itself an impossible abode.

The real purpose of leviathan is to be served up as a dainty to the pious in the world to come. The female was put into brine as soon as she was killed, to be preserved against the time when her flesh will be needed. The male is destined to offer a delectable sight to all beholders before he is consumed. When his last hour arrives, God will sum-


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/336

 rain were pluckily surmounted, it was found impossible to come up with the Royal fugitive. Negotiations were subsequently entered into with the Prime Minister, Pangeran, an intelligent noble, who afterwards became Sultan, and on the 19th July, 1846, the batteries were razed to the ground and the Admiral issued a Proclamation to the effect that hostilities would cease if the Sultan would return and govern lawfully, suppress piracy and respect his engagements with the British Government; but that if he persisted in his evil courses the squadron would return and burn down the capital. The same day Admiral and his squadron steamed away. It is perhaps superfluous to add that this was the first and the last time that the Brunai Government attempted to try conclusions with the British, and in the following year a formal treaty was concluded to which reference will be made hereafter.


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/335

 interest. In the early part of 1845 appears to have been in favour with the Sultan, and was publicly announced as successor to the throne with the title of Sultan Muda (muda=young, the usual Malay title for the heir apparent to the Crown), and the document recognising the appointment of Mr. as the Queen's Confidential Agent in Borneo was written in the name of the Sultan and of conjointly, and concludes by saying that the two writers express the hope that through the Queen's assistance they will be enabled to settle the Government of Borneo. In April, 1846, however, Mr. received the startling intelligence that in the December, or January previous, the Sultan had ordered the murder of his uncle and of several of the Ràja's brothers and nobles of his party, in all some thirteen Ràjas and many of their followers. , finding resistance useless, retreated to his boat and ignited a cask of powder, but the explosion not killing him, he blew his brains out with a pistol. His brother, Pangeran, one of the most enlightened nobles in Brunai, likewise terminated his existence by an explosion of gunpowder. Representations being made to Sir, the Admiral in command of the station, he proceeded in person to Borneo with a squadron of eight vessels, including two steamers. The Sultan, foreseeing the punishment that was inevitable, erected some well-placed batteries. to defend his town. Only the two steamers and one sailing vessel of war, together with boats from the other vessels and a force of six hundred men were able to ascend the river and, such was the rotten state of the kingdom of Borneo Proper and so unwarlike the disposition of its degenerate people that after firing a few shots, whereby two of the British force were killed and a few wounded, the batteries were deserted, the Sultan and his followers fled to the jungle, and the capital remained at the Admiral's disposition. Captain, accompanied by Mr. , with a force of five hundred men was despatched in pursuit of His Highness, but it is needless to add that, though the difficulties of marching through a trackless country under a tropical downpour of


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/334

 conviction of doing right which nothing can shake. I see the benefits I am conferring. The oppressed, the wretched, the outlawed have found in me their only protector. They now hope and trust; and they shall not be disappointed while I have life to uphold them. God has so far used me as a humble instrument of his hidden Providence; and whatever be the result, whatever my fate, I know the example will not be thrown away. I know it tends to a good end in His own time. He can open a path for me through all difficulties, raise me up friends who will share with me in the task, awaken the energies of the great and powerful, so that they may protect this unhappy people. I trust it may be so: but if God wills otherwise; if the time be not yet arrived; if it be the Almighty's will that the flickering taper shall be extinguished ere it be replaced by a steady beacon, I submit, in the firm and humble assurance that His ways are better than my ways, and that the term of my life is better in His hands than in my own." On the 1st August, 1842, this cession of Sarawak to Mr. was confirmed by His Highness Sultan, under the Great Seal.  was the uncle of the Sultan, who was a sovereign of weak, vacillating disposition, at one time guided by the advice of his uncle, who was the leader of the "English party," and expressing his desire for the Queen's assistance to put down piracy and disorder and offering, in return, to cede to the British the island of Labuan; at another following his own natural inclinations and siding altogether with the party of disorder, who were resolved to maintain affairs as they were in the "good old times," knowing that when the reign of law and order should be established their day and their power and ability to aggrandize and enrich themselves at the expense of the aborigines and the common people would come to an end. There is no doubt that Mr. himself considered it would be for the good of the country that  should be raised to the throne and the Sultan certainly entertained a not altogether ill-founded dread that it was intended to depose him in the latter's favour, the more so as a large majority of the Brunai people were known to be in his


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/292

 guessed when it is understood that every son and daughter of every many-wived noble is also a Pangeran.

Some of these unfortunate noblemen have nothing wherewith to support their position, and in very recent times I have actually seen a needy Pangeran, in a British Colony where he could not live by oppression or theft, driven to work in a coal mine or drive a buffalo cart.

With the ordinary freeborn citizen of Brunai life opens under better auspices. The children are left much to themselves and are merry, precocious, naked little imps, able to look out for themselves at a very much earlier age than is the case with European infants, and it is wonderful to see quite little babies clambering up the rickety stairs leading from the river to the house, or crawling unheeded on the tottering verandahs. Almost before they can walk they can swim, and they have been known to share their mother's cigarettes while still in arms. All day long they amuse themselves in miniature canoes, rolling over and over in the water, regardless of crocodiles. Happy children! they have no school and no clothes—one might, perhaps, exclaim happy parents, too! Malays are very kind and indulgent to their children and I do not think I have seen or heard of a case of the application of the parental hand to any part of the infant person. As soon as he is strong enough, say eight or nine years of age, the young Malay, according to the kampong, or division of the town, in which his lot has been cast, joins in his father's trade and becomes a fisherman, a trader, or a worker in brass or in iron as the case may be. The girls have an equally free and easy time while young, their only garments being a silver fig leaf, fastened to a chain or girdle round the waist. As they grow up they help their mothers in their household duties, or by selling their goods in the daily floating market; they marry young and are, as a rule, kindly treated by their husbands. Although Mahomedans, they can go about freely and unveiled, a privilege denied to their sisters of the higher classes. The greatest misfortune for such a girl is, perhaps, the possession of a pretty face and figure, which may result in her being honoured with the attentions of a noble, in whose harem she


text:
Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/51

]

HE subject of our illustration is a small fungus which is very common on dead twings of beech, lime, &c. It occurs in the form of black pustiles which break through the bark, forming small orifices with a ragged, irregular mouth, within which the black mass of spores, about the size of a cabbage seed, is contained. The spores appear to be agglutinated together into a hard friable heap soon after the bursting of the cuticle, but at first they ooze out in a pasty mass. These spores are of a star-like form with three or four limbs, each of which is divided transversely by septa. When viewed by transmitted light they are almost of an amber colour. During the summer the pustules may be found on nearly every dead twig of beech or lime which still remains attached to the parent tree.

Mounting.—A little fragment of the black mass, taken out from one of the pustules, on the point of a penknife, may be laid on a glass slide, and a drop of spirit added, which assists in breaking it up into its constituent spores, whilst at the same time it expels the air. A portion of this muddy-looking fluid may be transferred to a clean slide, and as the spirit evaporates a drop of balsam may be let fall upon it, and covered with thin glass; or it may be mounted in the ordinary way with glycerine in a shallow cell. A piece of twig may be preserved for years with this fungus upon it, and will be as good as ever. Our figure is magnified 420 diameters. M. C. C.

often thought that a complete collection of the names by which our British plants and animals are known in country places would be interesting, and would be, besides, not without its utility.

Many of these names are exceedingly pretty,—far prettier than those by which they are generally known,—at any rate in works on Natural History. Some conjure up poetical associations, or remind us of traditions or stories connected with the plants themselves, or point out uses which have, perhaps, now become obsolete. Many local names, too, are no doubt very ancient; some being of Saxon, some of Norse, and others of Celtic origin; and these ancient names would be a very sure means of determining whether the plants which bear them were true natives, or were introduced amongst us, and by whom, in later times.

One fact would be very observable in such a collection, namely, that many different plants are known in different places by the same name; and, no doubt, the same would be true to a certain extent with regard to animals. Thus "Robin run by the hedge" is a name which, I believe, is generally applied to the ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea); but I have heard the same name given to red campion (Lychnis dioica). Harebells, or hairbells, or airbells (Campanula rotundifolia, but which may be the correct English name I have not yet been able to make out) are often called "bluebells," and the same name is frequently applied to the wild hyacinth (Hyacinthus nonscriptus). I am told that in Sussex the greater bindweed (Convolvulus sepium) is called "woodbine," the name which in most places serves to distinguish the honeysuckle (Lonicera), which in Cumberland is called "bindwood"—a name not quite so euphonious as woodbine, but evidently meaning the same, and merely differing in the transposition of its parts. In Chesire "bindweed" means the twining knotgrass (Polygonum convolvulus); but all these plants are characterised by their twining around others for support, and it is only likely that they should have received the same, or very similar names. As a rule, labouring men do not recognise minute differences in plants, and classify much more by similarity of leaves or habit than by resemblance in the flowers; thus many plants that have large coarse leaves are called "docks"—as "burdock;" while, in Cheshire, waterlilies are "flatter-docks" or floating docks. In that county, too, Polygonum amphibium is called ground willow because its leaves are just the shape of willow leaes, and the different kinds of Lamium are everywhere called "dead nettles" only because their leaves are like the leaves of the true or stinging nettle.

A source of error probably exists in this fact of the same name being given to different plants in different places, for it is not at all unlikely that localities have been erroneously recorded for both plants and animals from a confusion of English names. I can quite well remember that for years I mistook the eggs of the black-headed bunting (Emberiza schæniclus) for those of the blackcap warbler (Curuca atricapilla), because some of my schoolfellows who found them were accustomed to hear the black-headed bunting, otherwise red sparrow, called black-cap, whereas I understood by that name a very different bird.

Such mistakes would be very much obviated by some good-natured naturalist taking the trouble


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/293

 may be secluded for the rest of her life, and, as her charms wane her supply of both food and clothing is reduced to the lowest limit.

By the treaty with Great Britain traffic in slaves is put down, that is, Borneo is no longer the mart where, as in former days, the pirates can bring in their captives for sale; but the slaves already in the place have not been liberated, and a slave's children are slaves, so that domestic slavery, as it is termed, exists on a very considerable scale in Brunai. Slaves were acquired in the old days by purchase from pirates and, on any pretext, from the Pagan tribes of Borneo. For instance, if a feudal chief of an outlying river was in want of some cash, nothing was easier than for him to convict a man, who was the father of several children, of some imaginary offence, or neglect of duty, and his children, girls and boys, would be seized and carried off to Brunai as slaves. A favourite method was that of "forced trade." The chief would send a large quantity of trade goods to a Pagan village and leave. them there to be sold at one hundred per cent. or more above their proper value, all legitimate trade being prohibited meanwhile, and if the money or barter goods were not forthcoming when demanded, the deficiency would be made up in slaves. This kind of oppression was very rife in the neighbourhood of the capital when I first became acquainted with Borneo in 1871, but the power of the chiefs has been much curtailed of late, owing to the extensive cessions of territory to Sarawak and the British North Borneo Company, and their hold on the rivers left to them has become very precarious, since the war-like Kyans passed under Rája sway. This tribe, once the most powerful in Borneo, was always ready at the Sultan's call to raid on any tribe who had incurred his displeasure and revelled in the easy acquisition of fresh heads, over which to hold the triumphal dance. The Brunai Malays are not a warlike race, and the Rájas find that, without the Kyans, they are as a tiger with its teeth drawn and its claws. pared, and the Pagan tribes have not been slow to make the discovery for themselves. Those on the Limbang river have been in open rebellion for the last three or four years


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/294

 and are crying out to be taken under the protection of the Queen, or, failing that, then under the "Kompani," as the British North Borneo Company's Government like that of the East India Company in days gone by, is styled, or under Sarawak.

The condition of the domestic slaves is not a particularly hard one unless, in the case of a girl, she is compelled to join the harem, when she becomes technically free, but really only changes one sort of servitude for another and more degrading one. With this exception, the slaves live on friendly terms with their masters' families, and the propinquity of a British Colony—Labuan—has tended to ameliorate their condition, as an ill-used slave can generally find means to escape thither and, so long as he remains there, he is a free man.

The scientific description of a typical Malay has already been given, and it answers well on almost all points for the Brunai specimen, except that the nose, as well as being small, is, in European eyes, deficient as to "bridge," and the legs cannot be described as weak, indeed the Brunai Malay, male and female, is a somewhat fleshy animal. In temperament, the Malay is described as "taciturn, undemonstrative, little given to outward manifestations of joy or sorrow, courteous towards each other, kind to their women and children. Not elated by good or depressed by bad fortune, but capable of excesses when roused. Under the influence of religious excitement, losses at gambling, jealousy or other domestic troubles they are liable to amok or run-a-muck, an expression which appears to have passed into the English language." With strangers, the Brunai Malay is doubtless taciturn, but I have heard Brunai ladies among themselves, while enjoying their betel-nut, rival any old English gossips over their cup of tea, and on an expedition the men will sometimes keep up a conversation long into the night till begged to desist. Courtesy seems to be innate in every Malay of whatever rank, both in their intercourse with one another and with strangers. The meeting at Court of two Brunai nobles who, perhaps, entertain feelings of the greatest hatred towards each other, is an interesting study, and the display of mutual courtesy unrivalled.


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/295

 I need scarcely say that horseplay and practical joking are unknown, contradiction is rarely resorted to and "chaff" is only known in its mildest form. The lowest Malay will never pass in front of you if it can be avoided, nor hand anything to another across you. Unless in case of necessity, a Malay will not arouse his friend from slumber, and then only in the gentlest manner possible. It is bad manners to point at all, but, if it is absolutely necessary to do so, the forefinger is never employed, but the person or object is indicated, in a sort of shamefaced way, with the thumb. It is impolite to bare a weapon in public, and Europeans often show their ignorance of native etiquette by asking a Malay visitor to let them examine the blade of the kris he is wearing. It is not considered polite to enquire after the welfare of the female members of a Brunai gentleman's household. For a Malay to uncover his head in your presence would be an impertinence, but a guttural noise in his throat after lunching with you is a polite way of expressing pleased satisfaction with the excellence of the repast. This latter piece of etiquette has probably been adopted from the Chinese. The low social position assigned to women by Brunai Malays, as by nearly all Mahomedan races, is of course a partial set-off to the general courtesy that characterises them. The average intelligence of what may be called the working class Malay is almost as far superior to that, say, of the British country bumpkin as are his manners. Mr. says in his "Naturalist in the Eastern Archipelago" that he was struck with the natives' acute observation in natural history and the accuracy with which they could give the names, habits and uses of animals and plants in the jungle, and the traveller cannot but admire the general handiness and adapability to changed circumstances and customs and quickness of understanding of the Malay coolies whom he engages to accompany him.

Cannot one imagine the stolid surprise and complete obfuscation of the English peasant if an intelligent Malay traveller were to be suddenly set down in his district, making enquiries as to the, to him, novel forms of plants and animals and asking for minute information as to the manners and customs of


text:
Page:Midland naturalist (IA midlandnaturalis01lond).pdf/222

 large collection of boulders of North British and Welsh reeks, found in the midland counties, and brought from considerable distances by the icebergs that drifted over the Midland sea. The extensive collection of the fauna exhibited might be divided into three groups:— Specimens of the fauna of the extreme Glacial Epoch, from Scotland, Norway, and Canada, including Leda arctica, Pecten aratus, Pecten islandicus, Panopæa Norvegica, Astarte borealis, Velutina lævigata, Trophoa elathratus, Littorina irrorata, and very many extremely rare Arctic species. A mass of the northern coral, Lophohelia prolifera, was also exhibited, taken from a glacial bed in the Christiania Fjord, Specimens of the fauna that immediately succeeded that of the Glacial Epoch, showing the coming of milder climatic conditions, both in Britain and in Norway. Specimens of the fauna of the most modern raised sea beaches. Any one who carefully examined the numerous and very interesting specimens contained in these three great groups of beds could readily trace the physical and climatic changes of the epoch.

The Biological specimens were numerous and very fine. Mr. D. W. Crompton exhibited a complete collection of British Hawks, (excepting the Jer-falcon, now supposed extinct in Great Britain;) foreign pheasants, including Gold and Silver Pheasants, East Indian: Lyre bird, Australian; Lady Amherst Pheasant, having remarkable long tail: Peacock Pheasant of Tibet, having two embossed eyes on each feather of tail; Impeyan Pheasant from Himalayan Mountains, fine colouring and metallic lustre; Scarlet and White Ibises of South America; Sacred Ibis of Egypt; Glossy Ibis of Europe; Egret, from South America. very delicate white feathers in two plumes from shoulder. Mr. Montagu Browne, Naturalist, Birmingham, made a magnificent display with an extensive collection of Animals, birds, Fishes. Reptiles. Insects, &c., including the following:—Animals,—Badger, (Meles Taxus, L.,) from Northampton; Otter, (Lutra Vulgaris,) with young, from Ireland; Wild Cat, (Felis Catus,) from Scotland; Ermine, (Mustela Erminea, L.,) from Sutton Park; Mole, (Talpa Europea,) with cream-coloured variety of same, from King’s Norton; Fox, (Canis Vulpes,} and young, from Scotland; pair of Duck-billed Platypus, (Platypus Anatus.) from Gipp's Land, Australia. Birds—Pair of Imperial Eagles, (Aquila Adalberti.) from Spain; pair of Peregrine Falcons. (Falco peregrinus, Briss.) Scotland; pair of Snowy Owls, (Surnia nycctea, L.,) Labrador; Eagle Owl, (Bubo ignavus, Forst,) Archangel; pair of Little Owls, (Athene noctua, Metz.) Spain: pair of Bee-eaters, (Merops apiaster, L.,) Spain: Great Grey Shrike, Lanius excubitor, L.,) Wylde Green; pair of Long-tailed Tits, (Acredula rosea. Blyth.) with nest, Lichfield; pair of Pintail Sand Grouse, (Pterocles alchata, L.,) from Spain; pair of Willow Grouse, (Lagopus albus, Gm.,) Norway; pair of Greek Partridge, (Caccabis Graca, or Chucar ?) Cyprus: pair of Buff-backed Herons, (Bulbulens ibis, Hasselq.) Spain; Phalarope (Phalaropus fulicarius. L.,) Hampshire; common Swan (Cygnus olor, Gm.,) District; common Sheldrake (Cedorns, econata, Gm.;) Pintail Duck (Dafila acuta, L.;) Teal (Querguedala erevea, L.); Eider duck (Somateria mollissima. L.;) pair of Puffins, (Movruon Arctica, L.,) Wales; little Auk, (Mergulus alba, B.,) Handsworth; Pomarine Skua. (Stercerartus Pomearinus, Temm,.) from: Lichfield Racecourse; pair of Arctic Tern (Sterna Hirunda, L..) from District, and many others; three ornamental mounts, illustrating Birds of Australia, South America, and the Malayan Peninsula, respectively: some of the latter very rare. Eggs.—Cettis Warbler with nest. (Pietamodus Cetti, Marin.;) Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus, Lin.) Osprey, (Pandion haliætus), and other rare ones. Fish.—Pike, (Esox lucius, Lin.) weight 20lbs., from Sutton. Reptiles.—Gangetic Crocodile, Gavialis Gangeticus.) 12ft. long from India. Insects.—The whole of the British Butterflies in one


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/296

 the new people amongst whom he found himself, and, generally, seeking for information as the reasons for this and for that?

Their religion sits somewhat lightly on the Brunai Malays; the Mahomedan Mosque in the capital was always in a very dirty and neglected state, though prayers were said there daily, and I have never seen a Borneo Malay under the influence of religious excitement.

Gambling prevails, doubtless, and so does cock-fighting, but neither is the absorbing passion which it seems, from travellers' accounts, to be with Malays elsewhere.

When visiting the Spanish settlements in Sulu and Balabac, I was surprised to find regular officially licensed cock-fighting pits, with a special seat for the Spanish Governor, who was expected to be present on high days and holidays. I have never come across a regular cockpit in Brunai, or in any part of northern Borneo.

The amoks that I have been cognisant of have, consequently, not been due to either religious excitement, or to losses at gambling, but, in nearly every case, to jealousy and domestic trouble, and their occurrence almost entirely confined to the British Colony of Labuan where, of course, the Mahomedan pains and penalties for female delinquencies could not be enforced. I remember one poor fellow whom I pitied very much. He had good reason to be jealous of his wife and, in our courts, could not get the redress he sought. He explained. to me that a mist seemed to gather before his eyes and that he became utterly unconscious of what he was doing—his will was quite out of his control. Some half dozen people—children, men and women—were killed, or desperately wounded before he was overpowered. He acknowledged his guilt, and suffered death at the hands of the hangman with quiet dignity. Many tragical incidents in the otherwise uneventful history of Labuan may be traced to the manner in which marriages are contracted amongst the Borneo Malays. Marriages of mere love are almost unknown; they are generally a matter of bargain between the girls' parents and the expectant bridegroom, or his parents, and, practically, everything depends on


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/297

 the amount of the dowry or brihan—literally "gift"—which the swain can pay to the former. In their own country there exist certain safeguards which prevent any abuse of this system, but it was found that under the English law a clever parent could manage to dispose of his daughter's hand several times over, so that really the plot of Mrs. somewhat unpleasant play "Arianne" was anticipated in the little colony of Labuan. I was once called upon, as Coroner, to inquire into the deaths of a young man and his handsome young wife, who were discovered lying dead, side by side, on the floor of their house. The woman was found to be fearfully cut about; the man had but one wound, in his abdomen, penetrating the bowels. There was only one weapon by which the double murder could have been committed, a knife with a six inch blade, and circumstances seemed to point to the probability that the woman had first stabbed the man, who had then wrenched the knife from her grasp and hacked her to death. The man was not quite dead when found and he accused the dead woman of stabbing him. It was found, that they had not long been married and that, apparently with the girl's consent, her father had been negociating for her marriage with another. The father himself was subsequently the first man murdered in British North Borneo after the assumption of the Government by the Company, and his murderer was the first victim of the law in the new Colony. Altogether a tragical story.

Many years ago another amok, which was near being tragical, had an almost comical termination. The then Colonial Treasurer was an entertaining Irishman of rather mature age. Walking down to his office one day he found in the road a Malay hacking at his wife and another man. Home rule not being then in fashion with the Irish, the Treasurer, armed only with his sun umbrella, attempted to interfere, when the amoker turned furiously on him and the Irish official, who was of spare build, took to his heels and made good his escape, the chase, though a serious matter to him, causing irrepressible mirth to onlookers. The man was never captured, and his victims, though disfigured, recovered. I


text:
Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/298

 being struck by the contemptuous reply of Sir  Chinese servant when he warned him to be on his guard, as there was an amoker at large, and alluded to Mr. C.'s narrow escape—it was to the effect that the Treasurer was foolish to interfere in other people's concerns. This unwillingness to busy oneself in others' affairs, which sometimes has the appearance of callousness, is characteristic of Malays and Chinese.

The readers of a book of travels are somewhat under a disadvantage in forming their opinion of a country, in that incidents are focussed for them by those of the same nature being grouped together. I do not wish it to be thought that murders and amoks are at all common occurrences in Northern Borneo, indeed they are very few and far between, and criminal acts of all kinds are remarkably infrequent, that is, of course, if we regard head-hunting as an amusement sanctioned by usage, especially as, in the parts under native government, there is a total absence of any kind of police force, while every man carries arms, and houses with palm leaf walls and innocent of locks, bolts and bars, offer unusual temptations to the burglariously inclined. My wife and I nearly always slept without a watchman and with the doors and windows unclosed, the servants' offices being detached from the house, and we have never had any of our property stolen except by a "boy."

Brunai is governed by a Sultan styled lang-di-pertuan, "he who rules," and four principal Ministers of State, "Wazirs"—the Pangeran Bandahara, the Pangeran di Gadong, the Pangeran Pamancha and the Pangeran Temenggong. These Ministers are generally men of the royal blood, and fly distinctive flags at their residences, that of the Bandahara being white, of the di Gadong, green, and of the Temenggong, red. The flags are remarkably simple and inexpensive, but quite distinctive, each consisting of a square bit of bunting or cloth of the requisite colour, with the exception of the Temenggong's, which is cut in the shape of a burgee. The Sultan's flag is a plain piece of yellow bunting, yellow being the Brunei royal colour, and no man, except the