SARAWAK, PAST AND PRESENT. 341 



about Kuching. The principal business street is that facing the 

 river for about half a mile. The shops, which are kept almost ex- 

 clusively by Chinese and Klings (Hindoos), are filled with a moder- 

 ate assortment of European sundries, which include a gaudy array 

 of colored cotton cloth, cheap cutlery, fancy mirrors, tin boxes, 

 combs, glass beads, perfumery', belts, handkerchiefs, Malay caps, 

 tools of many kinds, thread, needles, buttons, brass wire, paddles, 

 spectacles, ammunition, etc. In the provision shops were the usual 

 food staples; and also quantities of alum, blue vitriol, washing- 

 soda, soap, indigo, and various kinds of roots, herbs and seeds " for 

 the heahng of nations." 



Fruits were abundant, but vegetables were scarce. I noticed 

 quantities of bananas, jak fruit, custard apples, watermelons and 

 dates ; also hundreds of fresh turtle eggs from an island near the 

 coast, and poultry in plenty, but in the fish market the supply of 

 fish was very scanty. 



Unlike all the other cities and towns in Borneo, Sarawak is 

 high and dry, and quite substantially built. The houses are nearly 

 all of brick, neatly whitewashed, and those of the European resi- 

 dents are nearly' always surrounded by spacious ornamental grounds 

 full of trees and flowering shrubs. The houses of the Malays Hne 

 the river-banks for a considerable distance both above and below 

 the bazaar, but there is not a Dyak residence in the place. They 

 prefer the freedom and seclusion of the jungles. 



When we compare the present condition of Sarawak Territory 

 and its people with the state of affairs which existed prior to the 

 year 1841, we are lost in wonder at the mighty changes which have 

 been effected, and admiration for the agencies by which they hava 

 been wrought. 



In the year 1839, there landed at the town of Sarawak an Eng- 

 lish gentleman of fortune with a heart full of good-will to men, in 

 shoii, a real nobleman of the highest type our modern civilization 

 is capable of producing. He found the country in a state which 

 must have awakened sympathy in any but a heart of stone. As a 

 study in political economy it is interesting to note the principal 

 features of the condition of Sarawak then and now. 



When James Brooke, Esq., an-ived from England in his little 

 vessel, the Royalist, he found the territory in an almost indescrib- 

 able state of anarchy, oppression, and murderous confusion. Forni- 

 ing, as it did at that time, a part of the Kingdom of Borneo proper, 

 and under the dominion of the Malay Sultau of Bi-uuei, Sarawak 



