NOETH BOENEO. 
49 
knife he had lost part of his elbow, and received a gash laying open half his scalp to the 
skull. I did what I could; but the man was a bad patient, utterly refusing to have his 
wounds sewn up. Another wounded man had disappeared in the forest, and when he 
managed to reach a native’s dwelling was nearly exhausted from loss of blood. 
The way this tragedy was brought about was this:—Bandeira, a Sulu from the island 
of Palawan, had been working on one of the Banguey tobacco estates ; when he was 
dismissed he came over to the Benkoker, where he remained for some months quartered on 
his friends. In this house there were a number of women and several good-lookm" girls ; 
these no doubt had a good deal to do with the final scene. Bandeira had received notice 
that he was not wanted, so one night after the evening repast he suddenly jumped up and 
commenced laying about with his “ barong.” One of the women had the presence of mind 
to upset the light, and in the darkness all managed to make their escape through the frail 
sides of the house ; the two men mentioned only receiving severe cuts. Having cleared the 
house Bandeira started for those of his neighbours, and, finding them quite unprepared, he 
killed two men. Having now cleared the small campong he tried to cross over to some houses 
on the opposite bank, but the fugitives had already taken to their canoes ; so he sat down 
on the bank and dared the people he could not reach to come over and fight him—the negro 
Fareigh being among the number. Here, on the arrival of the canoe with the two men 
who visited me, he ended his career. Whether he was shot without the chance of surrender 
is a matter of no consequence, as probably another life would have been lost in attempting 
his capture, and then he must have been hanged later on by the Company’s officials. The 
next morning when we visited the wounded they had already returned to the scene of their 
misfortunes, and were sitting looking deathly pale amongst a crowd of fully armed natives. 
As amoking is often infectious, and in some places, I believe, becomes quite a common 
occurrence, my men remained ready for any emergency. Amongst the crowd I noticed a 
man strutting about in a pair of yellow socks, which he had probably received from some 
European. The women were busily employed collecting their goods, and were quite happy 
and unconcerned, apparently having recovered from the scare of the previous evening; others 
were digging graves for Bandeira and his victims. The amoker they did not take much 
trouble about, digging a shallow grave, over which they piled a great heap of stones and logs 
to keep his ghost from troubling them any more. All these people left this spot, being 
afraid to sleep where so many ghosts were at large, and weeks after when we passed these 
huts a few chickens, which the people had been unable to catch, were the only living 
representatives of a once busy household. It was not until six days after this that I could 
find a prahu and men willing to take me to Kudat. I left my boys in charge of the house 
and my belongings, and advised Situron, the man who shot Bandeira, to come over with 
me, so that he could give his evidence to the authorities; this he consented to do. The 
first act of the Government was to place this man under arrest, and later on to hold an 
inquiry into this affair. The officer in charge did not consider I was justified in supplying 
the men with guns to shoot Bandeira, and informed me that I ought to have sent over to 
Kudat for police and had the man properly arrested. This no doubt was the correct form 
to have gone through in a civilized country, but when the ruling powers and their agents 
are many hours distant, and a prahu with its crew takes six days to get together, the amoker 
