house I came across our host’s coffin standing on supports
in one of the sheds. It was large and curiously
shaped, and made of some dark durable wood highly
valued by the wealthy Chinese. Most Chinese settlers
here, when sufficiently wealthy, send to China for one of
these coffins, which is preserved until their death. Nearly
all the Chinese settlers here in the capital are married to
Malay women, and healthy children generally result from
these unions. On the other hand, the Malay or Bornean
women rarely bear children when married to Europeans,
and if so, the children are generally unhealthy, and they
themselves rarely have offspring. No doubt the Malays
of the capital are gradually becoming absorbed by intermarrying
with the native Bornean women of the Murut,
Kadyan, and other inland tribes. Many of the Malays,
so called, closely resemble the aboriginals in physiognomy,
and the common people or Bruneis may be characterised
as an ugly and immoral lot of mongrels. Now and then
traces of African blood are seen.
Nowhere else in Borneo are the men such liars and
thieves as here, and the Brunei women have been described
by a former writer as being perhaps “ the most
immoral in the whole world.” Of classical celebrities,
Cato and Phryne are certainly well represented in this
great water city of the far East. The climate is sultry.
A large upas tree is pointed out to all comers, and it is a
fine specimen, standing on the right bank of the river,
just below the town, near some ancient tombs. A burial-
ground, indeed, occupies nearly the whole right bank of
the river from just beyond the Consulate as far as the
sago factory. One or two of the tombs are large, and
built of stone, with entrance gates; but most are small,
with perhaps only a large stone to mark the spot.
The capital, as also the towns all along the coast, suffer
now and then from epidemic diseases, cholera and smallpox
being the most common. Senor Quateron, the old
padre, now resident in Labuan, formerly had a mission
here, and the remains of his chapel still stand on the left
bank of the Brunei river, a little below the town. As seen
coming down the stream, it forms a picturesque object, a
white campanile standing on a grassy knoll, the blue peaks
of Molu towering up into the sky behind. I should think
that Brunei, of all other places in Borneo, is the last at
which missionaries of any denomination would be likely
to succeed. Their sphere is not with Mahomedans,
whose faith is good, so far as it teaches cleanliness and
temperance; but with the aboriginals of the interior, who
are thrifty, honest, and truthful to a fault, and who have
no systematic faith unless their belief in the cries and
motions of birds and animals, and other omens can be so
called. With these people missionaries would doubtless
be successful, but they must be hard-working men who
could teach these gentle savages the benefits of civilisation
without introducing its vices.
A missionary has thus recorded his impressions of life
among the natives near Sarawak :—“ A message came to
me from one of the Christians on the Kabo, asking me to
go up and see them., Accordingly, as soon as I could
get a boat ready we were on our way down the Sebetan
river . . . . the wild, sombre, solitary feeling of the
primeval forest, the easy motion of the boat, the cheeriness
of the paddling Dyaks, united to produce a sensation
of repose and awe. . Next morning we soon
came to the first waterfall rushing and roaring over the
rocks. Here we had to halt and stow away the palm-leaf
awnings, and pull the boat over the fall. Then one could
not help feeling the charms of tropical scenery,—the clear
stream running over a pebbly bottom, rocks here and