ACCOUNT OF 9ULU. 
555 
The vices common to ourselves, we have been accustomed to 
look on with partiality; those we are not accustomed to, we 
consider with abhorrence; this may perhaps be the reason of my 
opinion, that out of the dunghills of humanity, it would scarcely 
be possibly to scrape up a more infamous race than the Stilus. 
The only virtue they boast, is courage, which, unaccompanied 
with principle, is at best but negative, and in this instance doubtful. 
Honesty, industry, hospitality, are unknown to the mass of them, 
at least in practice, but they are distinguished by civil-dissensions, 
treacherous assassinations, vain-boasting, theft, laziness, dirt, envy, 
and dissimulation, or rather inconnected falsehood. 
The Sulus do not, like the Mahometans of Hindostan, confine 
their women; on the contrary, they mix in society as in Europe. 
. There is a race of people, in some part of the Sulu dominions, 
on. Borneo, so peculiar in customs and opinions, that they claim 
particular attention ; these are called Idaan: it is proper, however, 
to observe, that what I know of them, is only from the reports 
of the Sulus. 
The Idaan, of different places, go under different denominations, 
and have different languages; but in their manners and customs 
seem to be nearly alike : all objects, seen through different ends 
of the perspective, appear dissimilar, and none more than the 
people now under consideration. 
The name Idaan is, in some measure, peculiar to those of the 
north part of Borneo; the inland people of Passir are called 
Darat; those of Benjar, Biajoos: the Subanos of Magindanao 
appear to be the same people; perhaps where the aborigines, in 
the several islands of the Oriental Polynesia, are not negroes, they 
are little different from the Idaan of Borneo. 
The Idaan are reckoned fairer than the inhabitants of the coast; 
this has given rise to an opinion that they are desendants of the 
Chinese; however, this descent from the Chinese appears to have 
as little foundation in truth, as the story they tell in confirmation of 
.it, “• That the Emperor of China sent a great fleet for the stone of a 
snake, which had its residence at Keeney-Bailoo; that the number 
of people landed was so great, as to form a continued chain from 
the Sea, and when the snake’s stone was stolen, it was handed from 
one to the other, till it reached the boat, which immediately put off 
from the shore, and carried the prize to the junks ; they immediately 
sailing, left all those who were ashore behind; though their dispatch 
was not enough to prevent the snake’s pursuit, who came up with 
the junks, and regained his treasure.” The origin of all nations is 
hid in the obscurity of fable ; it is not therefore wonderful that a 
people, so uncultivated as the Idaan, should be unacquainted with 
their antiquity. 
The proper Idaan language is described to be very soft and 
this list ; I only meant to express, that those named I knew, by experience, to be 
truly good men: whose words were truth. 
