180 ANECDOTE OF LINGTE. 



mander of the fleet heard that he had gone to give 

 this intelligence, and followed him for about fifty 

 miles j if he had been caught, his life, with that of his 

 people, would have been sacrificed to his anxiety to 

 maintain peace. 



In several conversations I have had with Lingie 

 he has painted, in striking colours, the benefits 

 which would arise to this great agricultural country 

 from the preservation of peace, and the miseries 

 entailed upon them by being at war with Sarawak, 

 which prevents them bringing their padi and bees'- 

 wax, cloths, &c., to market, and supplying them- 

 selves with salt, which is almost as necessary as rice 

 to the existence of a Dyak, and their supply of which, 

 being all obtained from the coast, is easily, and gene- 

 rally, stopped on their rupture with the Malayan 

 powers. This man related to me an anecdote of himself, 

 which, notwithstanding the defence they made, proves 

 the actual fear in which they held the force under 

 Captain Keppel. Lingie was in his house cooking 

 a pot of rice (his wife and family having been pre- 

 viously sent into the jungle for security, together with 

 those of the other men inhabiting his village), and 

 listening anxiously for information of the English 

 force, which had attacked the town of Pa-mutus, and 

 which Sereib Sahib, who defended it, had assured the 

 Dyaks could never be taken by the orang putih, or 

 white men, when a gun, discharged below his resi- 

 dence on the river, informed him that Pa-mutus was 



