XXII GOVERNMENT 259 



seriously threatened in 1857 by the insurrection of 

 Chinese gold -workers at Bau in Sarawak proper. 

 But this rebellion, in the course of which Sir James 

 Brooke narrowly escaped death at the hands of the 

 rebels, was soon suppressed, largely by the energy 

 of the Tuan Muda (the present Rajah), who came to 

 the aid of Sir James with a strong force of Sea 

 Dayaks and Malays. 



The process of establishing order and good 

 government in the new territory was complicated by 

 the intrigues of the Bruni nobles ox pangirans and 

 of the independent Malay chiefs, who, seeing their 

 power to oppress and misrule the coast districts 

 seriously curtailed, and indeed threatened with 

 extinction, by the growing influence of the 

 Europeans in Borneo, conspired with others of 

 similar status in Dutch Borneo to rid the island of 

 these unwelcome innovators. In the year 1859 two 

 English officers of the Sarawak government at 

 Kanowit on the lower Rejang (Messrs. Fox and 

 Steele) were murdered by a gang of Malanaus. 

 There was good reason to believe that this incident, 

 together with several murders of Europeans in 

 Dutch Borneo, was the result of a loosely concerted 

 action of the Malay chiefs, and that the Kanowit 

 murders were directly instigated by Serif Masahor 

 and Pangiran Dipa ; the latter a Bruni noble who 

 misruled Muka and the surrounding area. Rajah 

 Brooke visited the Sultan of Bruni and secured his 

 authorisation for the punishment of these and others 

 concerned in the murders ; and in i860 an expedi- 

 tion, led by his two nephews, captured Muka and 

 would have expelled the Serif and the Pangiran but 

 for the untimely interference of the British Consul 

 at Bruni, who seems to have been misinformed of 

 the nature of the situation.^ In the following year 



^ For a full account of these transactions and for the later history of Sarawak 

 in general the reader may be referred to the recently published Sarawak under 

 two White Rajahs^ by Messrs. Bampfylde and Baring-Gould, London, 1909. 



