124 LABUAN AND BRUNEI. [chap. 



characteristic of the tropics. Eonndiiio; a sharp bend, we suddenly 

 came in sight of the city, and a few minutes later we were safely 

 at anchor in the main street. 



Scarcely a traveller has described Brunei without speaking of 

 it as the " Venice of the East," and it is, on the whole, a not inapt 

 comparison. The palaces, it is true, are of a somewhat different 

 order, and their architecture decidedly utilitarian, but the main 

 features of the " Queen of the Waters " are there. The Grand 

 Canal, crowded with boats, intersects the city, and tlie vii are 

 represented Ijy side -canals of a similarly puzzling nature. The 

 life, indeed, is even more aquatic than in Venice, for it is generally 

 uupossible to enter or leave a house except by canoe. As for 

 mal-odourousness, it is perhaps one of the few points in which the 

 resemblance between the two cities fails. Venice can hardly be 

 called deficient in tliis respect, but even the worst vio cannot 

 approach the horrors of low tide in the main street of the Bornean 

 capital. 



The vast collection of houses, which is said to give shelter to a 

 population of between twenty and thiity thousand people, lies in 

 the middle of a lake -like expansion of the river, shut in on all 

 sides by hills, which, though of insignificant height, are not un- 

 picturesque. But the most striking \\&vf is of course obtained 

 when looking down from them upon the city below. Hardly any- 

 where is an inch of ground to be seen, and many of the houses are 

 l)uilt in deep water. To the north some large patches of man- 

 gTOves mark out the position of a shallow bank, and here and 

 there a coco palm, which is presumably rooted in dry ground, rises 

 above the sea of huts. MjTiads of canoes dart about in every 

 direction, from the Pangerang's barges propelled by twenty paddles, 

 to the little flat " dusj-out " with a bare inch of freeboard, manned 

 by a solitary naked native. The Brunei people are practically 

 amphibious, and the children cruise about in miniature canoes 

 almost before they are weaned. The safety of these craft is per- 

 fectly immaterial. At the age of five or six these little urchins 



