1843] CITY OF BRUNAI. 59 



although it does not offer a very apt similitude to Venice, 

 yet reminds one somewhat of that ' glorious city in the 

 sea ', for at Brunai 



" ' No trace of men, no footsteps to and fro 

 Lead to her gates.' 



" The gondola is represented by the rude canoe, and 

 the marble palaces by a mass of houses built on piles. 

 Persons entering its watery streets, may see the platforms 

 on either side thronged with swarms of swarthy beings 

 half naked, dirty, and exceedingly lazy. The city ap- 

 peared to be very populous, but at the period of our visit 

 the small-pox was raging with fearful fatality. Mr. 

 Tradescant Lay, who visited Brunai in the ' Himalch *, 

 estimates the number of souls at twenty-two thousand 

 five hundred ; and further states, that the chiefs affirmed 

 to him that they were originally a colony formed by a 

 migration from Johore in Malacca. One of the most 

 amusing features of the place is the floating bazaar, com- 

 posed of many hundred boats, which commence in small 

 numbers at one end of the city, increasing gradually as 

 they proceed ; and, finally, exhibit a dense mass of enor- 

 mous conical hats entirely concealing the female traders, 

 who thus protected from the sun, dispose of their small 

 wares. The circulating medium consists of flat square 

 pieces of iron, as heavy and cumbrous as the money 

 with which Lycurgus supplied the Spartans. 



" The appearance of Brunai as seen from the summit 

 of the Kianggi mountains is very novel and curious, par- 

 ticularly at high-water, when there is no communication 

 with the dense mass of houses in the middle of the river 



