T^ 



26 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



had with difficulty preserved from the vengeance 

 of the Bruni nobles, insisted upon it with some 

 show of force ; and on September 24, 1841, he was 

 proclaimed Rajah and governor of Sarawak amid 

 the rejoicings of the populace. Muda Hasim, as 

 representative of the Sultan, signed the document 

 which conferred this title and authority ; but since 

 he was not in any proper sense Rajah of Sarawak, 

 which in fact was not a raj, but a district hitherto 

 ruled or misruled by Bruni governors not bearing 

 the title of Rajah, this transaction cannot properly 

 be described as an abdication by Muda Hasim in 

 favour of Brooke. Brooke accordingly felt that it 

 was desirable to secure from the Sultan himself a 

 formal recognition of his authority and title. To 

 this end he visited the Sultan in the year 1842, and 

 obtained from him the desired confirmation of the 

 action of his agent Muda Hasim. The way in 

 which the raj of Sarawak has since been extended, 

 until it now comprises a territory of nearly 60,000 

 square miles (approximately equal to the area of 

 England and Wales), will be briefly described in a 

 later chapter (XXH.). 



The northern end of Borneo had long been a 

 hunting-ground for slaves for the nobles of Bruni 

 and Sulu, whose Sultans claimed but did not 

 exercise the right to rule over it. In 1877 Mr. 

 Alfred Dent, a Shanghai merchant, induced the 

 two Sultans to resign to him their sovereign 

 rights over this territory in return for a money 

 payment. The British North Borneo Company, 

 which was formed for the commercial development 

 of it, necessarily undertook the task of pacifica- 

 tion and administration. In 1881 the company 

 was granted a royal charter by the British Govern- 

 ment ; and it now administers with success and 

 a fair prospect of continued commercial profit a 

 territory which, with the exception of a small 



