BRITISH BORNEO. 21 
people were ina “slaying’’ mood, being on the “ war-path” 
andin arms against their own Government, and it has also 
been said that those particular Dyaks happened to be wear- 
ing trowsers instead of their ordinary chawat, or loin cloth, 
and, as their enemies, the Brunais, were trowser-wearers, the 
Trusan people thought fit to consider all natives wearing 
such extravagant clothing as their enemies. The Sarawak 
Government, on hearing of the incident, at once despatched 
Mr. MAXWELL, the Chief Resident, to demand redress. The 
Brunai Government, having no longer the warlike Kyans 
at their beck and call, that tribe having passed to Raja 
BROOKE with the river Barram, were wholly unable to under- 
take the punishment of the offenders. Mr. MAXWELL then 
demanded as compensation the sum of $22,000, basing his 
calculations on the amount which some time previously the 
British Government had exacted in the case of some British 
subjects who had been murdered in another river. 
This demand the bankrupt Government of Brunai was 
equally incompetent to comply with, and, thereupon, the mat- 
ter was settled by the transfer of the river to Raja BROOKE 
in consideration of the large annual payment of $4,500, two 
years’ rental—$9g,000, being paid in advance, and Sarawak thus 
acquired, as much by good luck as through good management, 
a pied a terre inthe very centre of the Brunai Sultanate and 
practically blocked the advance of their northern rivals—the 
Company—on the capital. This river was the kouripan (see 
ante, page 38 of Journal No. 20) of the present Sultan, anda 
feeling of pique which he then entertained against the Govern- 
ment of British North Borneo, on account of their refusing him 
a monetary loan to which he conceived he had a claim, caused 
him to make this cession with a better grace and more 
readily than might otherwise have been the case, for he was 
well aware that the British North Borneo Company viewed 
with some jealousy the extension of Sarawak territory in 
this direction, having, more than probably, themselves an 
ambition to carry their own southern boundary as near to 
Brunai as circumstances would admit. The same feeling on 
the part of the Tumonggong induced him to listen to Mr. 
MAXWELL’S proposals for the cession to Sarawak of a still 
