BRITISH BORNEO. 63 
canoe races are always included and are contested with the 
keenest possible excitement by the competitors. A Brunai 
Malay takes to the water and to his tiny canoe almost before 
he is able to walk. Use has with him become second nature 
and, really, I have known some Brunai men paddle all day 
long, chatting and singing and chewing betel-nut, as though 
they felt it no exertion whatever. 
In the larger canoes one sees the first step towards a fixed 
rudder and tiller, a modified form of paddle being fixed secure- 
ly to one szde of the stern, in such a way that the blade can be 
turned so as either to have its edges fore and aft, or its sides 
presented at a greater or less angle to the water, according to 
the direction in which it is desired to steer the boat. 
I was much interested, in going over the Pitt-Rivers col- 
lection, at the Oxford University Museum, to find that in the 
model of a Viking boat the steering gear is arranged in almost 
exactly the same manner as that of the modern Malay 
canoe; and indeed, the lines generally of the two boats are 
somewhat alike. 7 
To the European novice, paddling is severe work, more 
laborious than rowing; but then a Brunai man is always in 
“training,” more or less; he is a teetotaller and very tem- 
perate in eating and drinking ; indeed the amount of fluid they 
take is, considering the climate, wonderfully small. They 
scarcely drink during meals, and afterwards, as a rule, only 
wash their mouths out, instead of taking a long draught like 
the European. 
Mr. DALRYMPLE is right in saying that a State visit is like 
a Quakers’ meeting. Seldom is any important business more 
than broached on such an occasion; the details of difficult 
negotiations are generally discussed and arranged by means 
of confidential agents, who often find it to their pecuniary 
advantage to prolong matters to the limit of their employer’s 
patience. The Brunai Malays are very nice, polite fellows to 
have to deal with, but they have not the slightest conception of 
the value of time, and the expression zanti dahulu (wait a bit) 
is as often in their mouths as that of malua (by-and-by) is by 
Miss GORDON CUMMING said to be in those of the Fijians, 
