Brunei, the capital of Borneo and the seat of the government, is a water-city of about twenty thousand inhabitants. The palm-thatched houses of which it for the most part consists, are built on piles so as to be above the river at high tide. From one of the adjacent low hills the view of this “Venice of the East” is a most novel one—indeed, unique in its way; and although the town is nearly fifteen miles from the mouth of the river, yet a moderate-sized gunboat can anchor in the broad water-way in the very centre of the city, and within a few yards of the Sultan’s Istana. There is a rather awkward bar at the entrance to the river. A trading steamer from Singapore calls here once a month to bring letters and goods for the Sultan and a few Chinese merchants, and to take back sago, which is the main export. In some cases the blocks of houses are connected by bridges formed of long palm stems lashed together with rattans; but, as a rule, all general communication must be carried on by boats. Some of the inhabitants grow a few flowers and herbs in boxes of earth; and occasionally papaw trees and gourds of different kinds are thus cultivated. Little rafts, or floating tree-trunks, are moored to the piles which support the houses for the accommodation of ducks and fowls.

The market held on the river every morning is one of the most singular sights of the place. Here you may see a hundred or more little boats containing fruit, fish, rice, and other produce, for sale or barter. Among the petty traders the Brunei women are most prominent, and many of them present a most singular appearance, the hats they wear being made of neatly plaited Nipa leaves, and being from two to three feet in diameter, they serve the purpose of both head covering and umbrella, and they screen the whole body of the wearer from the hot sun. Most of the women to be seen in the market are old and coarse featured—in many cases positively ugly—reminding one of the orang utan as they glance at you from beneath their wrinkled foreheads, their mouths overflowing with betel-nut juice the while, their repulsive black teeth being worn off level with their gums; their more beautiful sisters are secluded according to the etiquette of Islam; the nobles and richer Malays have wives and slaves in abundance. A European lady who visited the court here and was admitted into the women’s apartments, tells me that some are passing fair, with tiny hands and feet, straight noses and liquid eyes, prototypes of those black-eyed damsels who are to attend all true believers of the Prophet in the gardens of Paradise.

The principal traders are Chinamen, who have floating warehouses singularly like the Noah’s arks of early memory. Brunei is the Sheffield of north-west Borneo, the manufacture of knives, parongs and krisses being largely carried on; and on one of the little islands is a primitive foundry where gongs, brass guns, cooking-pots, betel boxes, &c., are cast. Some of these articles are ornamented with well-designed figures in relief, and would not be any disgrace to a European manufacturer. The models and methods of casting are singularly like those of our own artizans. I visited one rude armourer’s shop, and much admired the exquisite finish of some weapons he had made. The peculiar long swivel guns or small cannon cast here are now rarely used, except as currency, being valued at about thirty dollars per cwt. In the good old times slaves could be purchased here at thirty dollars, or a picul of gun-metal each; but at the present time the Malays complain of the low purchasing power of money—i.e. of brass guns—just as do most people nearer home.

The Sultan’s palace or Istana, like nearly all the other dwellings here, is built on piles over the water, and is a shabby, tumble-down looking establishment. In front is a large audience chamber, containing a few old gilt framed mirrors and silvered globes, and there are, on occasion, a round table and a few rickety chairs. The Sultan himself is now an old man, over eighty, and so avaricious that he will do anything for the sake of a few dollars.

The Government here is corrupt, and, indeed, but little more than nominal; and if his people of the outlying districts refuse to pay tribute, or to obey his mandates, he has no means of enforcing his demands. He has a good many wives, and female slaves or concubines, but no children. I visited the palace in company with Mr. Peter Veitch and Inche Mahomed, the British Consular agent at this port. We were honoured with an audience by His Highness. His two nephews, Pangeran Matassan and Pangeran Anak Bazar, were present, and welcomed us before the Sultan appeared. They were intelligent men, and it was a pleasure to hear Malay spoken by them in all its purity. Tea was offered us, together with the long Nipa leaf cheroots so largely smoked by Malays and Borneans of all grades.

In about five minutes His Highness appeared, dressed in a long Arab coat, a sarong, and having a small black cap on his head. That the portraits of Pope Pius IX. resemble him very much has repeatedly been observed by visitors here. He walked slowly, bearing rather heavily, as I thought, on a long staff, which had two short prongs at the lower extremity. He came forward, and we shook hands, after which he sat down in an arm-chair on the opposite side of the table. He told us that he was now a very old man, and that every day found him weaker. I thanked him for a passport he had given me some months before for the journey inland to Kina Balu.

He seemed interested in hearing of the great mountain, and asked several questions. He appeared astonished to hear it was so cold there; and inquired as to the tobacco and rice crops. He also expressed his regret that being now old and infirm, he could not undertake a journey to the mountain himself, of which, he observed, he had heard several accounts derived from natives who had accompanied Mr. Low and Mr. St. John.

On leaving the Sultan’s, we visited a foundry situated near the house of the minister of war or the Tumongong; also the house of a gold worker, who made most of the trinkets, rings, and ear ornaments worn by the Brunei ladies. The proprietor, an old man, showed us some prettily designed specimens of native gold work, the ear ornaments being especially singular. It is the fashion for many of the ladies of Brunei and the interior to cut a large gash in the lobe of each ear, and in these holes are inserted gold or silver ornaments, as large as a wine cork. If of gold, they are mostly made of beaten work; the highly decorated convex ends, however, are generally cast in little moulds formed of clay and wax, or dammar. The crucibles used for melting the metal are of the size and shape of half a hen’s egg, being formed of fine porous clay. These are heated over tiny charcoal fires, the heat being augmented with a blow-pipe.

In some of the ornaments we observed rudely cut rock crystals, or Bornean diamonds; and part of a waist-belt contained a dozen fine pearls, but most of their beauty was lost by bad setting. The stock in trade of a gold-worker here is of the most simple description. A rough block of hard wood serves as a bench or anvil, and is perforated with large and small holes, into which iron pins of various sizes are inserted for various uses. Hammers of iron and wood, a chisel or two, a pair of shears, wax and clay for models, or matrices and earthen crucibles for melting up the Spanish gold pieces, are all the plant he deems necessary.

There is not much originality in the designs used. Some of the Brunei ladies must have fingers of the most delicate proportions to be able to wear some of the rings I saw here for repair. Smiths’ shops are pretty much the same all over the world. We visited one here, and except that iron and tools were less plentiful, it was pretty much like a village smithy in England. Sheffield files and rasps are used even in this out-of-the-way part of the East. Most other tools were of Brunei make. Choppers, knives, parongs, and krisses represent the manufactures. A Bornean bellows is peculiar, being made of two upright wooden cylinders four or five feet high, and connected at the bottom with the iron pipe which enters the fuel. In each cylinder is a wooden disk edged with soft feathers stuck on with glue, and to each a piston rod of wood is attached. A man standing behind the cylinders works them up and down alternately, and in this way a constant current of air is supplied to the fire. The old smith was much struck with a breech-loading Reilly shot gun Mr. Veitch had with him, and he took the trouble to go across a rickety bridge of bamboo into his dwelling-house to fetch a parong, or Brunei sword, of which he asked our opinion. Considering the rude appliances of this primitive smithy, the sword, in fine damascene work and finish, was perhaps as wonderful in its way as the gun. On returning to the ship, which was anchored in the river below the town, we saw a gathering of natives on a grassy knoll a little above the old ruined Consulate, and were informed that a public execution was going on. It appears a China trader had been murdered and robbed on the Trusan river, and two of the Trusan Muruts had been arrested, and were being executed for the crime, although it was by some thought that the murder had actually been committed by Brunei men. At any rate, of these poor Muruts scapegoats were made. A grave was dug beneath a tree, and a noose connected with a bit of board was passed over their heads. A stout stick was now inserted in the rope, and two or three turns—Spanish winch fashion—finished the poor fellows’ existence, whether innocent or guilty. We did not land, but watched the proceedings as well as we could from the bridge of the vessel with glasses. Summary justice is the rule here.

Just afterwards a ship came here and anchored in the river. It was very hot, and at night the ports were left open to secure ample ventilation. In the morning a gold watch and a revolver were missing. The thieves had dropped down the river silently in a boat and taken advantage of the darkness to put their hands in at the ports and take all they could reach. A complaint was made to the Sultan at once. In a few days the goods were recovered, and word was also brought to the effect that each of the offenders had lost one of their hands for the offence. Of course nothing so severe as this was anticipated when the charge was made, and no one more regretted the cruelty than those who were so near being losers by the dishonesty of the maimed sufferers. The principal export product is sago, of which large quantities are brought down from the Limbang and other rivers in the interior. There are two large sago-washing establishments in the town, both the property of intelligent and hospitable Chinamen. Gutta-percha, caoutchouc, edible birds’-nests, camphor, rattans, and fine timber are also obtained in small quantities from the forests of the country behind. Fine fish is obtained from the river by the natives, and fruit is very plentiful in season. Excellent drinking-water is obtained from some rocks beside the river between the town and the old Consulate. It is pure, cool, fresh, and abundant, inestimable qualities in such a hot and thirst-producing climate.

We visited one of the sago factories, and found their water remarkably good; and when I and Mr. Veitch went out one evening snipe and pigeon-shooting on a plain behind we came across an aqueduct formed of large bamboo stems, in which this water was conveyed from a spring nearly a mile away. I was very much interested in the old Chinaman’s garden, which contained a fair assortment of fruits and flowers. The lively white-flowered Pancratium zeylanicum was blooming beautifully in one of the well-watered beds. The mangoes were large, and of excellent flavour. In exploring the garden behind the house I came across our host’s coffin standing on supports in one of the sheds. It was large and curiously shaped, and made of some dark durable wood highly valued by the wealthy Chinese. Most Chinese settlers here, when sufficiently wealthy, send to China for one of these coffins, which is preserved until their death. Nearly all the Chinese settlers here in the capital are married to Malay women, and healthy children generally result from these unions. On the other hand, the Malay or Bornean women rarely bear children when married to Europeans, and if so, the children are generally unhealthy, and they themselves rarely have offspring. No doubt the Malays of the capital are gradually becoming absorbed by intermarrying with the native Bornean women of the Murut, Kadyan, and other inland tribes. Many of the Malays, so called, closely resemble the aboriginals in physiognomy, and the common people or Bruneis may be characterised as an ugly and immoral lot of mongrels. Now and then traces of African blood are seen.

Nowhere else in Borneo are the men such liars and thieves as here, and the Brunei women have been described by a former writer as being perhaps “the most immoral in the whole world.” Of classical celebrities, Cato and Phryne are certainly well represented in this great water city of the far East. The climate is sultry. A large upas tree is pointed out to all comers, and it is a fine specimen, standing on the right bank of the river, just below the town, near some ancient tombs. A burial-ground, indeed, occupies nearly the whole right bank of the river from just beyond the Consulate as far as the sago factory. One or two of the tombs are large, and built of stone, with entrance gates; but most are small, with perhaps only a large stone to mark the spot.

The capital, as also the towns all along the coast, suffers now and then from epidemic diseases, cholera and small-pox being the most common. SenÕr Quateron, the old padre, now resident in Labuan, formerly had a mission here, and the remains of his chapel still stand on the left bank of the Brunei river, a little below the town. As seen coming down the stream, it forms a picturesque object, a white campanile standing on a grassy knoll, the blue peaks of Molu towering up into the sky behind. I should think that Brunei, of all other places in Borneo, is the last at which missionaries of any denomination would be likely to succeed. Their sphere is not with Mahomedans, whose faith is good, so far as it teaches cleanliness and temperance; but with the aboriginals of the interior, who are thrifty, honest, and truthful to a fault, and who have no systematic faith unless their belief in the cries and motions of birds and animals, and other omens can be so called. With these people missionaries would doubtless be successful, but they must be hard-working men who could teach these gentle savages the benefits of civilisation without introducing its vices.

A missionary has thus recorded his impressions of life among the natives near Sarawak:—“A message came to me from one of the Christians on the Kabo, asking me to go up and see them. Accordingly, as soon as I could get a boat ready we were on our way down the Sebetan river .… the wild, sombre, solitary feeling of the primÆval forest, the easy motion of the boat, the cheeriness of the paddling Dyaks, united to produce a sensation of repose and awe.…. Next morning we soon came to the first waterfall rushing and roaring over the rocks. Here we had to halt and stow away the palm-leaf awnings, and pull the boat over the fall. Then one could not help feeling the charms of tropical scenery,—the clear stream running over a pebbly bottom, rocks here and there with occasional tufts of vegetation forming little islets in mid river, hills on each bank running down perpendicularly to the water’s edge and covered with creepers, moss, wild palms, and ferns, magnificent trees on either side stretching their branches into triumphal arches overhead. Soon the whole scene was changed, clouds gathered, and thunder rumbled, and down came the rain in a continuous torrent. Towards evening we arrived at our destination like so many drowned rats. In the evening I held service under difficulties, there being no prayer-house, and the long public verandah of the house being the only available place. The dignity of worship suffers terribly in such circumstances. No sooner do we begin than dogs begin to fight, or a child to cry, or an unsympathetic heathen at the other end of the house to make some discordant row, or a fighting cock will fly right into the midst of the kneeling assembly, and distract everyone’s attention.”

The condition of the natives near the capital is not nearly so good as at Kina Balu, a hundred and fifty miles away, if we except the Kadyans, who being Mahomedans, and having powerful friends in Brunei, are able to resist many of the taxes which the Muruts of the Limbang and elsewhere are called upon to pay. I made two visits here to the capital, and made a boat journey up the Limbang and Pandarowan rivers as far as Bukit Sagan. This trip was made in the wet season, and took twelve men three days, owing to the heavy freshes against which they had to pull. The Pandarowan river is small compared with the Limbang, of which it is a tributary; but it is, without exception, the loveliest river I ever saw. At the end of the second day after leaving the capital we reached a large house belonging to the Muruts of this district. It stood in a little clearing close beside the stream, and was nearly a hundred yards in length. A rude pathway of tree trunks lay on the muddy shore reaching to one end of the building. We landed here to cook our dinner, and clambered up into the house by a rude stair formed of a notched tree trunk. The Muruts looked rather surprised to see such visitors, but spread mats for us, and gave us some firewood and water. After dinner we had a smoke with the head-man, a fine muscular old fellow, nearly six feet high. About fifty men, women, and children swarmed round the circle, of which a wood fire was the centre, to get a peep at us. The head-man’s wife was a young and rather handsome girl, having a fine dusky little baby swung behind her, and several other of the younger married women and girls were comely, with dark eyes and luxuriant hair. Others, however, were less attractive, and many of both sexes were troubled with peculiar skin diseases. We engaged two men of this tribe to go with us as far as Bukit Sagan, as our men did not exactly know the best place at which to land. We slept by the fire until about two o’clock, when the rain, which had been coming down heavily all day, ceased, and the silver moon being nearly at the full, it quite illumined the stream as it sped past the house. The mosquitoes became very troublesome, and so I called the men and went down to the boat. After shouting for about half an hour, the Muruts came down and took their places; and pulling across the current, we crept up stream beneath the arching plumes of the Nipa palm, which is here abundant. It was hard work for the men, although we had now fourteen paddles. A sharp look-out had to be kept for snags and floating trunks of trees, several of which we saw shooting past us mid stream. Our Labuan men were rather afraid, and several times wanted to make fast until daybreak. At one place the boat struck heavily and keeled over in an alarming way, but we found the obstruction was a raft of the stems of the sago palm, which some Muruts had felled and lashed near the bank ready for floating down to their rude washing-sheds below. This heavy bump woke up our men, several of whom had previously been dozing, although paddling the while, and we got along for a mile or two in first-rate style. Then, in crossing the current, at an awkward bend we were well-nigh washed away; indeed, had it not been for the silent but strenuous exertions of our Murut guides, the alligators would possibly have had a feed. The stream for the moment got the better of our men, but by a clever touch of the paddle our guides steered us through safely, and a steady pull for an hour longer brought us to the foot of the hill where we were to land. We made our rattan-rope fast to a tree, and slept until nearly daybreak. One man told us in the morning that he had not slept a wink all night, as he was afraid our “painter” would part; but it stood the strain well, although the boat had swung about and tugged a good deal, owing to the swift current running down. The scene at sunrise was lovely; every stem and leaf was covered with dew-drops, and the hazy golden mist, through which palms, tree-ferns, and curious leafage of all descriptions loomed out more and more plainly until we saw everything in the foreground quite distinctly. It was a transformation scene on a gigantic scale, and its loveliness was such as only Turner at his best could have portrayed. The delicate arching outline of the nebong palms was sharply defined against the sky overhead, and large masses of a wild musa fringed both banks with immense leaves and clusters of delicate rosy bracts.

How comes it that none of our good landscape-painters ever visit the tropics, where the beauty of form and colour in the landscapes is more glorious than anywhere else, and yet nearly all the tropical pictures one sees remind one of the daubs of a bad scene-painter? Here and there clumps of bamboo reminded one of the early summer freshness of the weeping willow beside the silvery trout streams at home. A gorgeous scarlet-flowered climbing bauhinia draped some of the low trees which nestled down near the water. We turned out for a ramble with our guns while our people cooked breakfast. I never saw birds so numerous in Borneo before. The first shot brought down a little green tree-pigeon, with a magenta stain on its white breast and on its head. A Kadyan boy we had with us blazed away with an old Tower musket to his heart’s content, and surprised us by bringing in a long-tailed rufous-brown species of pigeon, which we had first secured in the Sulu Islands. Two or three other rare Bornean birds were obtained. Breakfast over, we set about climbing. Our path lay through the tall forest, and in places the undergrowth was so thick that our guides and men had to cut us a path with their parongs. For the first mile or two vegetation was scanty, but as we ascended ferns and selaginellas became more plentiful. We stayed here and there to examine fallen trees for epiphytal orchids, which however were far from abundant. About half way up the hill we came to a gorge, down which a considerable body of water flows, but it is screened from sight by huge boulders, which lie near together, forming a sort of “giant’s causeway,” across which we picked our way. We peered down the chasms, but could not catch a glimpse of the stream, although we could hear it quite plainly as it forced its way among the stones far below. In one wet spot several species of aroids formed a little colony all to themselves. Of those collected in flower, one proved distinct enough to be made the type of a new genus when submitted to the botanical authorities at Kew. It grew in tufts on wet mossy stones, forming rather compact plants a foot in height. The spathe is of a bright rose colour, borne on a scape nearly as long as the leaves. I was especially interested in this plant, as I had seen a species singularly like it beside the Haya Haya stream at the foot of Kina Balu. As we approached the summit, we were stopped at one place by a perpendicular wall of sandstone rock, and we had to make a wearisome detour in order to gain the crest. I had been led to explore this hill at all risks, having been told by natives that a golden large-flowered phalÆnopsis was here to be found, but after a hot and weary search on rock and tree alike, no trace of any species of this genus could be found; and as I afterwards offered my informants a month’s wages if they would bring me a flower of it without any result, I am inclined to think the thing a myth, like its “bright scarlet” congener. The only thing which consoled me for my disappointment was a beautiful golden-blossomed dendrobium, which has always been rare in our gardens; and I was also enabled to collect a large number of Vanda Hookeri. This last is the “Golden Duck” orchid of the Brunei Malays, and exists in quantity in the marshes near the river, and always, so far as I saw it, epiphytal, on a slender-stemmed red-fruited pandan.

This hill is not above five or six hundred feet above the sea, and yet on its crest the air was quite fresh and cool. We obtained extensive views from the top over a well-wooded country. Neither pitcher plants nor rhododendrons were seen, although both exist abundantly on the Lawas hills, only a few miles away. In descending a wide detour was made through the forest in search of plants, but distinct forms were rare. On reaching the boat we bathed, and changed our clothes, which was necessary, as we were drenched to the skin, and covered with dirt from the half-rotten tree-trunks, over which we had scrambled. It was about three o’clock, of course very hot; and our boat formed quite an attraction to the bees, butterflies, and some lovely blue day-flying moths, which fluttered in the sunshine. The wild bees were indeed rather troublesome; and some of the men who were nervous at their proximity, and began to buffet them, were stung. As we ate our luncheon of boiled rice and jam, they frequently settled on our plates, but they did not attack us.

The journey down the river was an easy and pleasant one. The water, which had been so high and turbid the night before, had now regained its proper level, and except exactly amid stream the surface was as smooth as a mirror. The curving nipa leaves and other vegetation were most sharply reflected from the placid surface, so clearly indeed, that one could scarcely see where reality ended, and the shadow began. The presence of the nipa palm beside the banks of eastern rivers, is almost always evidence of deep water. In the shallow parts the pink-blossomed banana and bauhinia-draped trees were most beautiful, here and there varied by elegant groups of pandanus. We stayed at intervals to examine the vegetation more closely, and did not reach the Murut settlement before nightfall.

We paid off our guides, and stayed here an hour or two to rest our men. We slept in the boat, and found the mosquitoes very voracious. When the moon rose we continued our journey. In Bornean travel, near the coast, boats form the best conveyance. There are no horses, nor indeed roads suitable for them; so that all journeys inland must be performed on foot. Buffaloes may in some places be obtained. If no heavy loads have to be carried, however, one may travel quicker without them, except where deep and rapid flowing streams have to be forded, and there they are most useful.

We stayed at one little sago station, where the natives were preparing the raw product. The process is very simple. The trees are cut down just as they attain maturity, the time being known by the production of the branched inflorescence. The leaves are removed, and then the trunks, which are ten to fifteen feet long, and as thick as a man’s body, are split longitudinally into two halves. A man then cuts out the pith, with which the whole centre of the trunk is filled. This requires some skill. The implement employed for the purpose is an axe, formed of a bamboo-stem, fixed in a stout wooden handle, and lashed with rattan. By repeated strokes of this instrument the pith and fibres are scooped out in thin layers, care being taken to cut it out as free from lumps as possible. The pulped pith is then carried in baskets to a washing apparatus. This consists of a rudely-constructed vat, elevated on piles, beside a river or brook, whence fresh and clean water is plentifully obtainable.

From the vat a spout conducts the water into a trough below. The bottom of the vat is covered with a mat or bark-strainer. The pith is now placed in the vat, and trodden, water being occasionally poured over it during the progress, and the result is that the fine sago starch is washed through, and settles in the bottom of the trough below, the coarse particles and other impurities being retained by the strainers, at the bottom of the treading-vat. After the fine sago has been allowed time to settle in the trough, the water is run off, and the white putty-looking mass below is packed up in bags, and sold to the Chinamen, by whom it is again washed and dried, previous to its being shipped to the Singapore market. Two species of sago palm grow here, forming stout-stemmed trees, thirty or forty feet in height. They are readily distinguished by the one having smooth bases to the sheathing leaf-stalks, while the other has the leaf-sheaths set with stout black spines. The smooth variety is most abundant. The dried leaf-sheaths of this palm are utilised in the manufacture of neat baskets, being neatly sown together with strips of rattan, and fitted with lids. Rattans are much used in house building, the largest timbers being secured by their aid only.

It is singular that pegs or nails are never used by the Malays, except in boat-building; and the neatness and ingenuity with which rattan is used by these people is wonderful. In one of the Kadyan villages, on the Lawas, I saw a violin, the back, front, and sides of which were actually stitched together with slender strips of rattan. It had been copied from a European model, and had a much better tone than one would expect to find under the circumstances.

The musical instruments made and used by the Malays and aboriginal Borneans are inferior to those of Burmah and Siam, or even to those used by the Javanese. The pentatonic scale is employed, and the music is monotonous and plaintive in its character. This is especially true of the women’s songs, which are mostly of a dirge-like kind. I remember a Kadyan girl used to sing sometimes during my first visit to the Lawas, and the effect at night more especially was extremely weird and melancholy. She had a rich mellow voice, rising and falling in minor cadences, and dying away sweetly tremulous as a silver bell. This poor girl’s life, however, ended suddenly. She usually walked through the clearing every day into the forest beyond to fetch in fire-wood. One day she did not return as usual, and a search was made for her along the paths in the neighbourhood without success. Some men who were returning from gutta collecting, however, found her lying beneath a large tree, and beside her was a large branch, recently broken off. It was supposed that this branch had accidentally fallen, and struck her, so causing her death.

Modifications of the “cheng,” or calabash pipes, are made both by the Kayans, on the Baram river, and also by the Dusun villagers, near Kina Balu. There are distinct differences between the instruments as made by each tribe. That from the Baram consists of seven pipes; six arranged in a circle around a long central one, all seven being furnished with a free reed at the base, where they are inserted in a calabash-gourd. Holes are cut in the six outer pipes for fingering; the central pipe is, however, an open or drone-pipe, the tone being intensified by fixing a loose cap of bamboo on the upper end. It is played by blowing air into the neck of the gourd, or by drawing the breath according to the effects desired. The Dusun pipes are formed of eight pipes, four short, and equal in length, and four long and unequal. Reeds are cut at the lower end in all the pipes, but the fingering is performed on the ends of the four equal short pipes, there being no holes cut in the pipes for this purpose, as in the Kayan instrument.

I brought home examples of both varieties; and these are now in the Veitchian Museum at Chelsea. Two or three varieties of flutes are made, also an instrument resembling the old wooden flageolet, so common in England before the advent of the tin whistle.

McNair, in his work on Perak, mentions a curiosity, in the shape of an aËolian flute, formed of a bamboo, in which holes are cut, so as to produce musical sounds when acted on by the wind. An instrument like the Jew’s harp is made of a single strip of bamboo; and a curious stringed instrument is made of a joint of large yellow bamboo, the nine or ten open strings of which produce notes similar to those of a banjo, when twanged with the fingers. A specimen of this instrument may be seen in the Veitchian Museum at Chelsea, together with one of similar design but of much more complicated and finer make from Madagascar. Wooden drums, formed of hollow tree-trunks, and having goat or deer-skin tightly stretched over the ends, are common, and of various sizes. The old war-drums were made thus; but this instrument is now nearly obsolete, being to a great extent replaced by metal gongs, of native manufacture certainly; but doubtless the idea was copied from the Chinese.

Nearly every trading prahu or boat carries one of these gongs; and the Muruts are very fond of such music, and keep up an incessant din on these instruments at their festivals. Sets of eight or ten small such are often fixed in a rattan and bamboo frame, and beaten with two sticks, dulcimer fashion; and I have seen similar contrivances formed of iron bars; and even strips of dry hard bamboo wood in the Sulu isles, the scale in this case being similar to our own.

It is very uncommon to hear performers playing in concert, unless in the case of gong-beating; indeed, music is at a low ebb throughout the island. The songs of the boatman, on the other hand, are often pleasing and melodious. A good many of their songs are Mahomedan prayers, or chants; but occasionally the theme is on secular, and often very amusing subjects. It is common for one man to strike up a song, improvising his subject as he sings, and then all the crew laughingly join in the chorus. They keep time to the music in paddling; and I always encouraged my boatmen to sing, as it relieves the monotony of the bump, bump of the paddles against the side of the vessel, which becomes very tedious after the first hour or two. One always has to be prepared for squalls when on the sea. They are especially common at night, after very hot days. You see a black cloud lowering on the horizon. Then a cool breeze fans your cheek. You at once strike all sail. The breeze gets stronger and stronger, until you find yourself rocking about on a rough “choppy” sea, amid a hurricane of wind and rain.

Thunder and lightning are especially common during the wet monsoon. The mountains behind “Thunder and Lightning Bay,” to the north of the capital, are often perfectly illuminated by lightning flashes; and at times the thunder is deafening to hear. As to the lightning latent flashes of electricity are visible most nights throughout the year; and it is not uncommon to see a continuous play of lightning on the horizon, especially after very sultry days. At times the sea is so highly phosphorescent, that the boat leaves a wake of bright light in the water, and the paddles look as though moving through a caldron of molten silver. This phenomenon is most commonly observable after calm sultry weather.

The sudden manner in which the rivers rise after heavy rain is wonderful; and the flat forests beside or near the rivers often become flooded. You may go to bed at night, and awake to find the native house in which you slept surrounded by acres of water a yard deep in the morning. This is especially true of flat tracts, through which streams flow near the great water-sheds inland. Considerable damage results to the cultivated patches on the hills from these sudden rains; and formidable land-slips not unfrequently take place on the steep hills near the rivers. Cultivation near the capital is, however, of a poor description, compared with the plains of Menkabong, Tawaran, and Tampassuk, or the hills further inland.

A lover of nature who sees a tropical country for the first time, cannot help but enjoy the bright light and heat, the vegetable glories of flower, fruit, and leaf, called forth by the rain and sunshine—of a clime where winter is unknown. And yet, with all the sunshine and showers, the tropical blossoms are in a way aristocratic and exclusive, and never mingle socially in bosky masses, as do our own wildings; and it is not possible to name half-a-dozen of them that could at all compare with the blue-bells, or heather, the buttercups, primroses, forget-me-nots, anemones, violets, and rosy lychnis of our own cool moist woods and pastures.

During a year’s rambles in one of the richest and most fertile of tropical islands, I saw nothing really fresh and spring-like; nothing like the “green and gold” of daffodils, and the tender young grass of April, or the royal glory of a summer iris, or an autumnal crocus on its mossy bed. This much is ever lacking in the forest primÆval; and even in gardens—Eastern gardens—beautiful as they undoubtedly are in many ways, the sameness, the cloying degree of permanency observable in the forests, becomes intensified, and so still more unsatisfying. The plants seem always to present the same aspect; and although most of them are at their best when revived by the rains, just after the dry season, yet the charm of freshness is destroyed by the number of evergreens everywhere, and the driblets of bloom kept up by them nearly all the year round.

Still the beauty of tropical gardens is lovely of its kind. You have, or may have, all the tropical treasures of Kew—palms, ferns, and orchids—around you in the open air; but all this is as the beauty of a lovely woman, jaded by over-enjoyment, the whirl of a whole season’s gaieties! There is elegance of form, and charm of colour, all the refinement of cultured beauty, sure enough. Victoria water-lilies, and dainty nymphÆas in open air pools, the flesh-tinted blooms, and umbrageous leafage of the sacred lotus also; the noble amherstia, with its pendants of crimson and gold,—groves of feathery-leaved palms—all this, and very much more, is common; but it is astonishing how soon one tires of this plethora of floral charms, and how eager becomes the longing to sniff the homely fragrance of pinks and wall-flowers; to stoop for a violet from a mossy hedge-bank, or a snow-drop even from a cotter’s garden. Indeed, there is no gainsaying the fact, as has been pointed out by Wallace and others, that the most lovely and satisfying, the most sociable of all flowers, are those of temperate climates.