94 THE KINGDOM OF 



have given their name to the whole of the people in 

 these districts ; but though it is very common to 

 call the people of each town or kingdom the Malays 

 of such or such a place, it would be much more cor- 

 rect to designate them by a term derived from the 

 name of the town or kingdom of which they are 

 inhabitants ; for though they have a very considerable 

 general resemblance to the Malays of Sumatra and the 

 peninsula, any person accustomed to see both people 

 can readily distinguish one from the other. Though this 

 distinction is so perceptible, that even the descendants 

 of the different races which have colonized the various 

 parts of the island are to this day easily separated, it is 

 more difficult to reduce it to writing. No person 

 conversant with these people would be for an instant 

 at a loss to distinguish one of the natives of the town 

 of Bruni from a person descended from the Javan 

 colonists of Sarawak, and yet these differ from the 

 present natives of their parent island, as much as from 

 the people of Bruni. 



The kingdom of Bruni is said by the natives 

 themselves to have been first formed by large settle- 

 ments of Chinese ; and in Forrest's Voyages he 

 relates that the brothers of Serif Ali, the first 

 sultan of Magindanau, of the Mahommedan religion, 

 became King of Borneo towards the latter part of the 

 fifteenth century. It is probable that these brothers, 

 with another who became Sultan of Soolu, had in 

 their capacity of zerifs, or descendants of the prophet, 

 gathered many followers on their road from Mecca at 



