38 THE SULU ISLANDS. [chap. 



to take the field. His august Majesty is not supposed to engage in 

 warfare, so lie gets some one to do his fighting for hiin. There is 

 usually not much difficulty about these matters in Sulu, and in this 

 case a lean and unpleasing-looking warrior who came to ^dsit us on 

 board was about to act as generalissimo of the forces. The causa 

 belli apparently led a miserable life among the other members of 

 the harem, who were intensely jealous of her. She had been 

 chosen by the Sultan to be the bearer of his present, which so 

 enraged the second favourite, a Chinese gui, that she slapped His 

 Majesty's face, and altogether declined to be present on the occasion. 

 Some little time after, before our second ^^sit to Meimbun, this 

 favourite wife died suddenly of poison, " administered by some 

 person or persons unknown," but there was very little doubt that 

 the Chinese girl, if not the actual administrator of the drug, was at 

 any rate the instigator of the crime. 



It had been arranged that the Sultan's party should arrive at 

 ten o'clock in the morning, and w^e had fondly hoped to get rid of 

 them before tiffin. But potentates and punctuality have no con- 

 nection in the far East, and it was not till four hours later that the 

 beauties of the harem appeared. We were then novices at these 

 ceremonies, and had put off" our meal from time to time, expectmg 

 our guests every moment. We were, I regret to say, both hungry 

 and short-tempered. But later, when we got to be aware that 

 these imperial idiosyncrasies were always to be depended upon, 

 we took action accordingly, and received our visitors a few hours 

 after their appointed tune with the easy smile begotten of the 

 post-prandial cheroot. 



In due course of time five large boats discharged their brilliantly- 

 coloured cargo on board, and our decks were soon so crow^ded that 

 it was almost impossible to move. The Chinese wife had thought 

 better of her resolution, and had condescended to be present after 

 all, but another of them was in a fit of the tantrums, and had 

 refused to come. Wliether in or out of the harem the Sultan 

 appeared to be equally in a state of broil, and the fear of poison, 



