164 ASSOCIATION WITH EUROPEANS. 



In conversation I have learned from the chiefs that 

 they consider dancing as an indecorous and unbecoming 

 amusement. Singing and recounting romances are 

 practised at all their festivities, and of these amuse- 

 ments they are very fond. The practice of the religion 

 of the Prophet restrains the Sarawak people from 

 drinking; but to all kinds of boisterous mirth they 

 are naturally averse. They are not, however, averse to 

 society, and are fond of associating with the Euro- 

 peans ; many of them used nightly to visit Mr. 

 Brooke's house, where chairs were placed for the 

 principal personages : they entered readily and sen- 

 sibly into all conversations on subjects which were 

 familiar to them, and always evinced a strong desire 

 to be informed on such points as they were ignorant of, 

 never, like the conceited Chinese, pretending to despise 

 what they did not comprehend. The extent and im- 

 portance of the English nation was a subject on which 

 they perpetually were asking questions. The variety 

 of our manufactures, and the application of steam- 

 power to machinery, were subjects on which they 

 exhausted us of information. There is no doubt that, 

 should nothing interfere to prevent the carrying 

 out the measures of the present ruler of Sarawak, 

 it will ere long become a state of the greatest com- 

 mercial importance : the facilities which the character 

 of the people, and the richness of its productions, offer 

 for the profitable employment of British capital and 

 skill, will doubtless soon be made available in develop- 

 ing its valuable resources. 



