VI.] SCENES IX THE CITY. 127 



worn round the neck by the children of those of high rank, and 

 inscribed with sentences from the Koran. Both the sarongs and 

 krisses seemed very dear. The former w^ere in many instances 

 liberally worked with gold thread, so liberally indeed as to make 

 them extremely heavy, and for these as much as $40 was asked. 

 Good krisses will cost even more, especially if the handle be much 

 decorated with gold, but inferior weapons can be obtained for a 

 couple of dollars or less. Brunei gongs are likewise celebrated, 

 their tone being supposed to be peculiarly sweet, but the traveller 

 in this part of the world has generally suffered too much from their 

 incessant noise to be at all anxious to purchase them. 



We made our first acquaintance with the city in a " dug-out " 

 procured for us by our friend the Datu. It was manned by four 

 paddlers and a steersman, and giving ourselves up to their guidance, 

 we threaded our way through the narrow and crowded thorough- 

 fares with a speed and skill which would have astonished a 

 Venetian gondolier. I have never seen anything equal to the 

 dexterity with which our men worked their paddles. From a 

 rapid and beautifully clean stroke of forty or more to the minute, 

 they would drop instantaneously to a long steady swing of twenty, 

 without any apparent signal having been given, and without a 

 hair's breadth of deviation from the perfect time. 



There is but little to see in Brunei with the exception of the 

 market ; little at least for a traveller to whom the Malay pile- built 

 dwellings are no longer a novelty. Eickety huts with slippery 

 steps leading to their dilapidated entrances, canoes of all shapes and 

 sizes, stretches of fishing-stakes, Chinese stores, little brown urchins 

 gambolling and splashing in the water, and a multiplicity of 

 intolerable stenches, — these are the most strilving features of the 

 city. A little round island with coconuts on it is nearly the only 

 break m the regular monotony of the huts. Here and there a tall 

 cross raised above the platform of one of them tells, not of the 

 Christianity of the occupants, but of their industry in fishing. 

 Here and there too a light bamboo bridge connects one group of 



