srR JAMES BROOKE’S EXPEDITION. 
2 77 
* 
The flotilla next returned to Sarebas, and at the mouth of 
the Rembas, one small advance boat sent on to reconnoitre 
encountered a piratical force (or as it is here called, a balla) 
of about 40 boats, which guessing the approach of the Sara¬ 
wak expedition, returned in the utmost haste, leaving behind, 
rice, fire-wood, and some cooking pots, all which articles 
were very acceptable to our Dyaks. 
After further beating up their quarters in the Rembas to 
the full extent that prudence would permit, with so small a 
force of Europeans, the flotilla left the river Sarebas, and 
the people proceeded on their return to their separate homes. 
Ten boats from Sadong however went up to the mouth of 
the Linga river, intending to join a party of Balows in an 
excursion up the Sakarran, and as they lay at anchor, they 
were attacked during the night by from 100 to 150 Sakarran 
boats, which came down that river, for the purpose of sur¬ 
prising the town of Banting in the Linga. A conflict ensued 
of some duration, but as the Banting people and the Balow 
Dyaks with about 35 prahus hurried to the assistance of 
their allies, the Sakarrans fled, after losing four large prahus 
and some men, and when the last accounts reached Sarawak, 
the Sadong and Linga people were in hot pursuit of the 
pirates up the Sakarran. 
The Sarebas balla driven back from the mouth of the 
Rembas, was evidently to have joined this large Sakarran 
force, and one good resulting from the expedition has been 
preventing the murder and devastation which this fleet 
would have committed. 
The enemy received serious damage in the interior of the 
Rembas, and will feel sensibly the want of that first neces¬ 
sity of life^—salt, now that the intercourse with Lipat is cut 
Sarawak, 20th April, 1849, 
