BRITISH BORNEO. 29 
and appears only as a Government Official, a merchant or a 
planter. 
But the decay of the Brunai aristocracy was probably inevi- 
table. Take the life of a young noble. He is the son of one 
of perhaps thirty women in his father’s harem, his mother is 
entirely without education, can neither read nor write, is never 
allowed to appear in public or have any influence in public 
affairs, indeed scarcely ever leaves her house, and one of her 
principal excitements, perhaps, is the carrying on of an 
intrigue, an excitement enhanced by the fact that discovery 
means certain death to herself and her lover. 
Brunai being a water town, the youngster has little or no 
chance of a run and game ashore, and any exercise he takes 
is confined to de¢zg paddled up and down the river in a canoe, 
for to paddle himself would be deemed much too degrading— 
a Brunai noble should never put his hand to any honest physi- 
cal work—even for his own recreation. I once imported a 
Rob Roy canoe from England and amused myself by making 
long paddling excursions, and I would also sometimes, to 
relieve the monotony of a journey in a native boat, take a 
spell at the paddle withthe men, and I was gravely warned by 
a native friend that by such action I was seriously compromis- 
ing myself and lowering my position in the eyes of the higher 
class of natives. At an early age the young noble becomes 
an object of servile adulation to the numerous retainers and 
slaves, both male and female, and is by them initiated in vicious 
practices and, while still a boy, acquires from them some of the 
knowledge of a fast man of the world. Asa rule he receives 
no sort of school education. He neither rides nor joins in the 
chase and, since the advent of Europeans, there have been no 
wars to brace his nerves, or call out any of the higher qualities 
of mind or body which may be latent in him; nor is there any 
standing army or navy in which he might receive a beneficial 
training. No political career, in the sense we attach to the 
term, is open to him, and he has no feelings of patriotism 
whatever. That an aristocracy thus nurtured should degene- 
rate can cause no surprise. The general term for the nobles 
- amongst the Brunaisis Pangeran, and their numbers may be 
