tax, evenly distributed, should be levied for the support of government;
that all roads and rivers should be free to all; that all molestation of
the Dyaks should be punished with severity. The proclamation which
contains these laws concludes with exhorting all persons who are
disposed to disturb the public peace to take flight speedily to some
other country, where they can break with impunity the laws of God and
man. These enactments were firmly executed, without fear and without
partiality. Wonderful were the results! Internal violence ceased. The
confidence of the natives was awakened. Industry and enterprise sprang
up on every hand as by magic. Sarawak became a city of refuge. Sometimes
as many as fifty fled thither in a day. In 1844, in the short space of
two months, five hundred families took shelter in the province. In 1850,
three thousand Chinese fled from Sambas to Sarawak. The Dyaks returned
the good-will of their Rajah with love and reverence. During one of his
tours in the interior, delegations from tribes numbering six thousand
souls came to seek his protection. "We have heard," said they, in simple
but touching language, "that a son of Europe has arrived, who is a
friend of the Dyaks." When he visited the native hamlets, the women
would throw themselves on the ground and clasp his feet, and the whole
tribe would spend the night in joyful feasting and merriment. It is
soberly affirmed by a credible witness, that on one occasion messengers
came fifteen days' journey from a distant province to see if there were
such a phenomenon as Dyaks living in comfort.

* * * * *

Mr. Brooke soon found that all his efforts for internal reform must be
in a comparative sense futile so long as piracy, that curse of Borneo,
was permitted to ravage unchecked. "It is in a Malay's nature," says the
Dutch proverb, "to rove on the seas in his prahu, as it is in that of