people: it lies an unknown lump on our earth, and an undefined line on our charts. Think of the northern coast of China, 'willing, as is reported, to open an intercourse and trade with Europeans, spite of their arbitrary government. Stretch your

pencil over the Pacific Ocean, which Cook himself declares a 'field of discovery for ages to come! Proceed to the coast of South America, from the region of gold dust to the region of furs ;-the land ravaged by the cruel Spaniard, and the no less 'cruel Bucanier; the scene of the adventures of Drake, and 'the descriptions of Dampier. The places I have enumerated are mere names, with no specific ideas attached to them; lands ' and seas where the boldest navigators gained a reputation, and ' where hundreds may yet do so, if they have the same courage ' and the same perseverance. Imagination whispers to ambition, that there are yet lands unknown which might be discovered. Tell me, would not a man's life be well spent-tell me, would it not be well sacrificed-in an endeavour to explore these regions? When I think on dangers and death, I think of them only because they would remove me from such a field for 'ambition, for energy, and for knowledge.'

6

6

،

We have inserted these striking sentences of Mr Brooke's Journal without introduction, because, in truth, they serve by themselves as the best of introductions to the narrative of his under takings, and furnish the best key to the character of the writer. He affords a fresh exemplification of the truth, that great things are rarely accomplished in new and strange fields, except by men with a strong tendency to romance in their composition. His powerful imagination first opened the road which he has followed with eminently practical conduct and sagacity. Every page of his Journal bears the impress of vivid and almost passionate sensibility; his whole heart and soul are in each successive portion of his Narratives. Chivalrous almost to Quixotism, he sets out as the very Knight-Errant of justice and humanity, among Tribes abandoned to the extremest evils of barbarous oppression. He makes his way among them, as if really possessed of those magical powers which his simple observers attribute to him; beats down opposition; wins over suspicion; draws to him the hearts of races of men so outwardly different from ourselves as to seem like inhabitants of another planet, by appeals to those feelings and principles which form the basis of our nature every where; and lights up, like a new Prometheus, in the hearts of Savages the common fire of humanity. He founds a little state, enacts laws, conquers neighbouring chiefs, establishes an asylum for the oppressed; becomes famed, courted, and feared, over a considerable district of this great Island;-all by the force of a resolute will and clear head, and an armed power consisting of a yacht's

crew and six six-pounders!' Yet his narrative exhibits no consciousness of having done great things, but rather that perpetual craving after more extensive success, and a wider field of action, which has so strongly characterised the most distinguished missionaries of humanity-most of whom, like those of religion, have never sought or found rest on this side of the grave. The greater his success in rescuing some portion of his fellow creatures from their miserable lot, the greater is his impatience of all the remaining iniquity which is done under the sun. As his Journal commences, so, after six years of most successful endeavours, it ends, with longings after greater things to be accomplished Oh, for power to pursue the course pointed out!'

We have spoken of Mr Brooke and his great and humane undertakings somewhat abruptly, and as if presuming that they were already familiar to our readers; and, in fact, so general is the interest which Captain Keppel's work has excited, that we suspect there are few now to whom his name at least, and that of his Settlement, have not become known. To those, however, who have not yet acquired this knowledge, a few prefatory explanation may be acceptable.

Mr Brooke is the son of a gentleman in the East India Company's civil employment, and commenced life as a Cadet in that excellent service. After fighting through the Burmese war, he made a casual visit to China; and it was on that voyage, that the passion for exploring and mastering the great Asiatic Archipelago first took hold of his soaring imagination. For eight years he cherished his projects with all the peculiar tenacity of his character. He fitted out a vessel, the Royalistbelonging originally, as we believe, to the Yacht squadrontested her powers, and those of his crew, by three years' cruising in the Mediterranean, and elsewhere; and, having trained his men and himself into a thorough comprehension of, and mutual reliance on each other, set sail as independent as a Bucanier of old, though with far different objects, and made the coast of Borneo on the first of August 1839.

Except the interior of Australia and Africa, there is no portion of the earth which presents such a blank on our maps, as this vast island. Borneo, or Bruni, is properly the name of a kingdom and city on its north-western coast-a great and wealthy state in the days of the old Portuguese navigators, but now much decayed. Palo Kalamantan is (or was) the general name of the island among the Malays. The climate is equatorial, that is to say, moist to excess; and subject to showers at almost all periods of the year, but with a very small range of temperature; generally resembling that of Ceylon.

The perennial rains nourish a great number of fine rivers, up

which the tide rises for many miles, affording the only communications with the interior of which Europeans have hitherto been able to avail themselves. For beyond the banks of the tide rivers, all that is known is covered with the thickest forests; nor is it ascertained whether the interior consists of mountain, table land, or low country; nor has any thing been discovered with greater certainty of its inhabitants. It is a mere blank, peopled. by fancy and tradition with strange animals, and stranger menthe Old Man of the Wood, or Pongo of Buffon, (termed Mias rombi by Mr Brooke, who has collected some curious details respecting the animal, the most powerful and fiercest of the OrangOutang race,) and tribes of men dwelling in trees, scarcely superior to the Orang in intelligence. The coast is every where fertile, and highly productive in the few parts where cultivation has penetrated. That its climate is healthy may be inferred from the fact that the volumes of Captain Keppel, in all their details of adventure, contain scarcely any allusions to suffering from sickness; though the chief work performed by him and his crew lay in the exploring of marshy inlets and tide rivers, such as, in tropical Africa, form the very haunts of death.

The

As far as hitherto explored, the population of Borneo seems to consist of two races-Malays and Dyaks. The former have spread themselves all over the Eastern Archipelago, much as the Pelasgian race did in the early days of Greece;-issuing from its original mountain fastnesses of Sumatra, where the cradle of this great nation is supposed to exist. Superior to the original inhabitants in civilization and in energy, they have subjugated the Dyaks, wherever they came within their reach; and have established a number of small commercial states on the coast. Malays have generally embraced the Mahometan religion; some of their states are governed by Arab Seriffs, proud of their descent from the Prophet; and these were among Mr Brooke's worst opponents. Guilty of inconceivable oppression toward their subject tribes; remorseless pirates by sea, and tyrants at home; false, vindictive, cunning, and rapacious, the Malays have hitherto borne a very black character in the estimation of European traders; and form the heroes of numberless dark narratives of maritime adventure. But Mr Brooke, whose singularly large sympathy is one of the most attractive points of his benevolent character, has a good word even for the Malays. After speaking of the judgment formed by European traders, eager after gain, probably not over-scrupulous about the means of attain

6

* But certainly not, if we may trust Mr Davidson. Who taught the native' (in Sumatra) his roguish tricks? who introduced false weights? who brought to the coast 56 lb. weights with a screw in the bot

ing it, of the Rajahs and Courtiers with whom they are brought into contact, always ready to repay cheating with treachery, he adds, that when removed from the immediate influence of their governors, the Malays in general are neither treacherous nor bloodthirsty. Cheerful, polite, hospitable, gentle in their 'manners, they live in communities with fewer crimes and fewer 'punishments than most other people of the globe. They are passionately fond of their children, and indulgent even to a fault; and the ties of family relationship and good feeling continue in force for several generations. The feeling of the Malay, fostered by education, is acute, and his passions are 'roused if shame be put upon him: indeed, this dread of shame amounts to a disease; and the evil is, that it has taken a wrong direction, the dread of shame being more of exposure or abuse, than contrition for any offence, I have always found them good-tempered and obliging, wonderfully amenable to authority, and quite as sensible of benefits conferred, and as ' grateful, as other people of more favoured countries. Of course there is a reverse to this picture. The worst feature of Malay character is the want of all candour or openness, and the restless spirit of cunning intrigue, which animates them from the highest to the lowest. Like other Asiatics, truth is a rare quality among them. They are superstitious; somewhat inclined to deceit in the ordinary concerns of life; and they ' have neither principle nor conscience when they have the means ' of oppressing an infidel and a Dyak, who is their inferior in 'civilization and intellect.'-(Keppel, vol. ii. p. 128.)

tom, which opened for the insertion of from 10 to 15 lb. of lead, after their correctness had been tried by the native in comparison with his own weights?' I challenge contradiction when I assert, that English and American shipmasters have been for thirty years addicted to these dishonest practices.'-(Trade and Travel, p. 90.) Yet Mr Davidson is no very sensitive observer;-witness his vaunting and sophistical defence of the wretched opium trade, p. 240; and his suggestions for our treatment of the Japanese, p. 286! Every thing, says Socrates, has two handles and it must be confessed, that if commercial enterprise has made an opening for the introduction of European civilization in the East, commercial morality seems likely to neutralize much of the benefit. We are not ignorant of the movement on the part of some of our Hong Kong residents, to induce Government to break faith with China, on some shuffling plea of non-performance by the Chinese of their part of the treaty, by retaining the Island of Chusan for the advantage of British trade. But this is too important a subject for discussion in a Note. In the mean time, the reader may consult, if he is in quest of immediate information, Mr Montgomery Martin's lately published Reports, Minutes, and Despatches on the British Position and Prospects in China.'

J

The Dyaks, who form the mass of the population, seem to be of the same original race with the Bugis of Celebes-a branch of the great and problematical Polynesian family of mankind. They are of two sorts-the land and sea Dyaks. The latter, as their name indicates, are a maritime people. Their homes are in places difficult of access- -far up the estuaries of their numerous rivers; whence, under Malay leadership, they sally in those innumerable pirate Prahus, which have so long been the terror of the Eastern seas. As in Homeric days-and it is scarcely conceivable how many passages of Captain Keppel and Mr Brooke's narrative, as of all narratives which treat of a fresh and rarely visited race in a state of rudimental civilization, bring us back to the days of Homer-piracy is the great outlet of the spirit of warlike adventure; and so rooted is it in the habits of the people, that its extirpation will be a work of the greatest difficulty-of which we shall have more to say presently.

The Datus, or chiefs,' says Captain Keppel, are incorrigible; for they are pirates by descent, robbers from pride as well as taste, and they look upon their occupation as the most honourable hereditary pursuit. They are indifferent to blood, fond of plunder, but fondest of slaves: they despise trade, though its profits be greater, and, as I have said, they look upon piracy as their calling, and the noblest occupation of chiefs and freemen. Their swords they show with boasts as having belonged to their ancestors who were pirates, renowned and terrible in their day; and they always speak of their ancestral heir-loom as decayed from its pristine vigour, but still the wielding of it as the highest of earthly existences.'

The Sarebus and Sakarrans (two of the fiercest pirate tribes) are described as fine men, fairer than the Malays; with sharp, keen eyes, thin lips, and handsome countenances, though frequently marked by an expression of cunning.'

The Dyak Darrat, or land Dyaks, seem to differ in no essential particular, of language or customs, from the men of the sea, except in as far as depends on their inland position. The only remarkable difference of usage noticed by Mr Brooke is, that the latter use, and the former do not, the curious weapon called the sumpitan, or blowpipe, for shooting poisoned arrows. • The wounds inflicted by these are curable,' says Mr Brooke, by antidotes known to the natives; nor are they regarded, apparently, with much terror.' And we suspect the whole romantic history of the poisonous trees of the Indian isles must be banished, with so many other marvels, to the province of legends; since a friend of Mr Davidson in Java, to prove their absurdity, climbed up 'an upas-tree, and passed two hours in its branches, where he ' took his lunch and smoked a cigar!'

The Dyaks have from time immemorial been looked upon as the