ch. xi.] Audience of the Sultan. 215 



and asked for some brandy. I gave him half a tumblerful, 

 which he drank and became very communicative. He 

 lighted one of the cigars he had appropriated last night 

 — indeed he had been smoking them all the morning — 

 and then he told us that many of the Sulus were bad men 

 and great thieves, adding that he was a good man him- 

 self, and that was why the Sultan liked him. He then 

 helped himself to more brandy, tossing it off undiluted 

 as before. He then launched out into a long story of a 

 pirate fleet having left Tawi-Tawi about a year before, 

 and remarked that they had but just returned with a good 

 deal of plunder. Wallace mentions* that these Sulu 

 pirates sometimes visit the Aru islands near New Guinea 

 and Ceram on their predatory expeditions. They only 

 attack small trading prahus now, but in former times 

 even large sailing vessels were not safe from their 

 attacks. 



We now mounted our ponies and retraced our steps to 

 the Istana, which we reached at dusk pretty well tired. 

 We rested some time and gave the Sultan an account of 

 our ascent. He pressed us to remain all night, but this 

 we did not care to do, and thanking him for his hospi- 

 tality and assistance, we mounted our ponies once more 

 and rode back to Meimbong in the moonlight. Arriving 

 at the Orang Kayu's house we found the boat there to 

 meet us and take us on board, but it was then low water 

 in the river, and we had to wait some hours, so we went 

 into the headman's house, and lying down, slept until 

 near midnight, when our men awoke us and rowed us up 

 the river and across to the ship. It is a common opinion, 

 and in the main I believe a correct one, that the Sulus 

 are great thieves. I never lost anything among them, 



* " Malay Archipelago," vol. ii. p. 212. 



