"LKTTBIt FROM BORNEO." SOfl 



tlius it is, that the more we learn of them from competent 

 authorities, tho vrorso we find them ; and the fact hero 

 ehcited tliat, besitles atrocities on their own account, 

 tliey are at the service of anj chance pirates- of-passage, 

 who may reqinrc auxiliary cut-throate and pillagers, la 

 confirmed by Mr. Brooke's earliest publication, a work 

 which is as much to his honour as anything he has ever 

 written, — his disinterested and Christian " Letter from 

 Borneo;' 1841. 



" Tho ?/wwarlike Malays,'^ he writes, ** when they would 

 without risk plunder a weak Dyak tribe, seizing also for 

 slavery the women and children, generally employ the 

 Sejiebas and Sakaerai? Dtak9, aided by a small party 

 with firearim^ to make the attack. The terms of the 

 agreement arc that the Malays get two-thirJa of tho 

 property and slaves, while the Byaks get the other tliird 

 aud all the headj^. Of twenty Dyak tribes under this 

 Crovernment more than half have been robbed of their 

 wives and children in part ; and one tribe is without 

 women and children amongst them, upwanbs of two 

 liundred having been led away into slavery at Sakarran 

 and Sadong." 



Again, 



Several of the Bornean Pangerans about six montlis 

 since * uivited ' a large party of Sakahran Dvaks to the 

 plunder of the tribes up the river. A hundred war prahus 

 of the SakaiTans, carrying 3000 men, arrived at Kuchin 

 and requested pcnuission to make the attack.'^ 



