620 GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES IN MALAYSIA AND ASIA, 



to arrange with the Sultan's enemies, who were quite peaceably 

 disposed, the Sultan treacherously incited the wild Dyaks 

 (Muruts] to attack them, so that seven people were killed, and 

 the Governor himself put in some peril. So glaring an insult 

 could hardly be jiassed over, so that immediately after our arrival 

 the Governor formally applied for the assistance of Captain 

 Bickford in obtaining at least an apology. 



Brunei. — Accordingly we sailed at once for Brunei, the mouth 

 of which river is about 40 miles from Labuan. There all the ship's 

 boats were manned and armed, and an expedition of about sixty 

 blue-jackets under Captain Bickford, accompanied the Governor to 

 demand some redress from the sultan. We found the mouth of 

 the river almost blocked up by a kind of breakwater, by which 

 the river was barred against the Spaniards a century or two ago. 

 The sult:\n's people did not take our demonstration very seriously, 

 for his prime minister sent his launch to meet us and to assist in 

 towing the boats ; but he had his revenge, for we slept on board 

 this boat, and I have never, in the moderate experience of a life- 

 time, seen a steam launch iafested with so many cockroaches. Our 

 boots were nearly eaten off" our feet. 



It was somewhat interesting to be upon the river described so 

 graphically by Pigafetta nearly 400 yeai\s ago. There has not been 

 much cbauge since then. The river is broad, with high ridges of 

 serrated hills on each side, and villages built over water on high 

 piles. But the city itself was just as Pigafetta saw it : a sort of 

 bamboo Venice, the streets and squares, the courts and palaces 

 were all built in the midst of the water without any means of 

 approach except by boats. T suppose there is no city in the world 

 so peculiarly constructed. The origin of this mode of residence 

 doubtless arose from the bad habits of the Brunei people. They 

 were in reality sea-gipsies who had given the inhabitants of the 

 land so much reason for complaint that they could not trust them- 

 selves unreservedly on the shore. 



The officers of the sultan gave a private audience to us on the 

 evening of our visit, receiving us with what may have been 



