IN BORNEAN FORESTS [chap. 



and integrity of Brooke, whose iron will and perseverance 

 have made "the country what it is. Sir James Brooke was 

 fortunate in living long enough to see his work so far advanced 

 as to feel sure of complete success in the end. From 1863 ill-health 

 obliged him to remain in England, and he placed the Government 

 of his State in the hands of his nephew, Charles Brooke, the present 

 Rajah, who became his successor in 1868, when death ended his 

 adventurous and remarkable career. 



But if it is owing to Sir James Brooke that Sarawak is now 

 a civilised State, his nephew, the present Rajah, has the high merit 

 of having completed and extended that work, following out the 

 humane and liberal views of his uncle. 



H.H. Sir Charles Brooke arrived at Kuching on July 21st, 1852, 

 being then quite a youth, but having already attained the rank 

 of Lieutenant in the British Navy. This he has himself told us in 

 a book in which — far too modestly — he relates the story of his 

 expeditions against the inland tribes who had rebelled against the 

 check placed by the Rajah's Government on their piratical and 

 head-hunting propensities. 1 His brilliant operations against the 

 Sakarrang and Batang-Lupar Dyaks, "as well as against the Kayans 

 of the Rejang — ascending this river far beyond the farthest point 

 then reached by any European — resulted not only in com- 

 pletely subjecting and pacifying these wild savages, but in converting 

 them into friends and faithful allies. And it is owing to the energy 

 and wise administration of Sir Charles Brooke that the ancient 

 custom of head-hunting is now all but extinct, and that the territory 

 of Sarawak can be travelled over in every direction in perfect safety. 

 Nor has this latter the modest dimensions it formerly had. Even 

 at the time of my first visit to Sarawak, the dominions of the Rajah 

 had been extended to Cape Kedurong, beyond Bintulu. Subsequent 

 agreements with the Sultan of Bruni added, in June, 1882, the 

 entire course of the Barram, and at the beginning of 1885, the 

 Trusan. Finally, on March 27th, 1890, to put an end to a condition 

 of things which threatened the tranquillity of Sarawak, Sir Charles 

 Brooke occupied and annexed the Limbang district. 



Thus the Sultanate of Bruni, which fifty years ago extended from 

 Tanjong Datu over all North Borneo as far as the Sibuko river, 

 the boundary with the Dutch possessions on the east coast, is now 

 reduced to the city of Bruni and a small territory around it. What 

 has not been ceded to or incorporated with Sarawak has become 

 the property of the British North Borneo Company, which also 

 took over the administration of Labuan in 1890. At present 

 Bruni has no trade of its own, and the people live miserably on 

 the produce of the fishery, while hundreds of families have left to 

 escape the rapacity of the chiefs. The boundary between British 



1 C. Brooke, Ten Years in SaraZak. London, 1866. 

 360 



