THE CHIEFS PA-MANCHA AND GASING. 183 



The sea Dyaks appear to form a connecting link 

 between the land tribes and the Kyans, showing 

 that they are all of the same family; and, perhaps, 

 these three great and distinct divisions are but the 

 descendants of three different emigrations at periods 

 remote from each other, and when peculiar causes 

 might have altered, as we now see them, the characters 

 of each. All the tribes of Sarebas, though each has 

 its particular chief, acknowledge in war the authority 

 of the orang kaya Pa-mancha ; but it does not appear 

 that, excepting when his orders and instructions agree 

 with their own wishes, the petty chiefs, who com- 

 mand their own boats and the people of their own 

 villages, pay particular attention to them, but still 

 they always look up to this old man who has distin- 

 guished himself by his bravery with respect, and his 

 opinion possesses great weight in their councils, more 

 particularly, as, from his sanguinary nature, and the 

 long practised custom of taking heads, his store of 

 which he is always anxious to increase, the counsels of 

 peace are seldom those he offers to the nation. 



In Sakarran they have several chiefs of great au- 

 thority ; that part of the country which lies nearest to 

 the sea is under the authority of one head chief, named 

 Gasing : he is a man in the prime of life, a very 

 sensible and fine-looking fellow; and is, I believe, 

 anxious to be at peace with the English, but finds it 

 impossible to control his followers, and the other 

 chiefs of tribes, who are of a different opinion. At a 

 council, which met at the junction of the Sakarran 



