ir.] INSECURITY OF THE ISLAND. 29 



" cash," with his doUar in these countries, and has fixed the rate of 

 exchange at 80 cents in his own dominions, thus making a clear 

 o-ain of 40 per cent. "We noticed a few days later that a guard was 

 placed over a small trading vessel from the North Borneo Company's 

 territory to prevent any smuggling of cents. 



The authority of the Sultan of Sulu is practically limited by 

 the four walls of his harem. Indeed, as we discovered at a later 

 period, it does not seem absolutely undisputed even there. Formerly 

 he ruled over all the islands of the archipelago excepting Basilan, 

 together with Cagayan Sulu and a large extent of country at the 

 north of Borneo, in the neighbourhood of Sandakan and Darvel 

 Bay. Of this latter portion the Xorth Borneo Company have 

 become the possessors, in consideration of an annual payment to 

 the Sultan and his heirs in^erpetuo of five thousand dollars. His 

 influence over the chiefs in the other islands is of the slightest. 

 In Sulu itself even it is doubtful, for the people are split up into 

 innumerable factions. The island is only thirty-three miles long 

 by twelve in its extreme breadth, — smaller than the Isle of Wight 

 in fact, — yet it appears always to be, and to have been, in the 

 condition of Europe m feudal times, when every man's hand was 

 against his neighbour. The eastern peninsula is governed — if 

 indeed such a term can in any sense be used in connection with 

 the Sulus — by the Maharajah of Loc, while at the extreme west 

 lives the Panglima Dammang, a bloodthirsty old ruflian, who is 

 constantly fighting with the Maharajah Tahil. The latter warrior 

 has his headquarters at the foot of Buat Timantangis, barely a 

 couple of miles from his enemy. AU are more or less at war with 

 one another, but all join in a common hatred of the Castillan. The 

 lovely island, with its glorious wealth of fruit and flower, with a 

 soil as fertile as any in the world, with its shores lapped by a 

 stormless sea, ought, one would imagine, to drive all thoughts of 

 murder from man's breast. But the land streams with Sulu blood, 

 shed for the most part by Sulu hands, and poison appears to be 

 used with as much indifference as the ixtrang. The people are. 



