262 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 



of Englishmen, carefully selected, who took tlieir tone 

 and manner from him ; and every native knew well that 

 if he were wronged he could get redress, and that the 

 wealth or power of his oppressor would avail nothing 

 with his judges. 



The success of this system of rule was never better 

 shown than during the Chinese insurrection, when, having 

 narrowly escaped with his life — his friends killed or 

 wounded, his house burnt down, and much of the town 

 destroyed — the whole population, Malay and Dyak alike, 

 rallied round the English Eaja, drove out and almost 

 exterminated the invaders, and triumphantly brought him 

 back to rule over them. In what other country shall we 

 find rulers alien in race, language, and religion, yet so 

 endeared to their subjects ? And the phenomenon is still 

 more marvellous when we consider that these subjects 

 were themselves of two races — a superior and an inferior, 

 an oppressing and an oppressed ; yet both alike joined to 

 bring back the foreign ruler who had introduced equality 

 and had stopped oppression. This example shows us that 

 the art of governing half-civilised races is not so complex 

 and difficult as has been supposed. It requires no peculiar 

 legal, or diplomatic, or legislative training ; but chiefly 

 patience, and good feeling, and the absence of prejudice. 

 The great thing is, not to be in a hurry ; to avoid over- 

 legislation, law-forms, and legal subtleties ; to aim first to 

 make the people contented and happy in their own way, 

 even if that way should be quite opposed to European 

 theories of how they ought to be happy. On such prin- 

 ciples Sir James Brooke's success was fou^ided. It is true, 

 he spent a fortune instead of making one ; but he had 

 his reward in having brought peace, and safety, and plenty 

 where there was before war, and oppression, and famine, 

 and in leaving behind him, over the whole of Northern 



