variety of the colours which alternately prevail form conspicuous and important elements in the scenery. Gorgeous views, and rare combinations of the grand and the lovely, the stupendous and the gently picturesque, are not all that we are to look for in Sarawak. Its fertile soil is adapted to the growth of rice, sago, camphor, the cocoa palm, the mangusteen, the date palm, the aloes tree, with the nutmeg, the clove, and the cinnamon, with an infinite variety of other productions, which might easily form the materials of a great and lucrative commerce in the eastern seas. Minerals of different kinds gold, copper, and antimony abound, while diamondmines are to be sought for between the spurs of nearly all the mountains, and on the banks of many rivers and streams. At Santah, where Mr. Brooke has a plantation of nutmegs, an establishment has been formed for the purpose of working a very productive mine. When the resources of the province are amply developed, we may hope to see manufactories spring into existence, and behold the progress of our industry, now restricted within the limits of necessity.

The races which inhabit the valuable territory of Sarawak are of various names and character. The Orang Idan are somewhat more inclined to peaceful pursuits than their bolder neighbours, though crafty and superstitious to the last degree. The Malays are not over honest, but enterprising, and industrious in whatever calling they betake themselves to, whether piracy or trade. To them succeed the Chinese, the very scum and dregs of the Celestial Empire, thieves and vagabonds, almost without exception, yet laborious and persevering. Mr. Brooke finds it more difficult to manage these men, than any other class over whom his sway extends. They work well and earn sufficient livelihoods, yet cheat at every opportunity. The plan succeeded before our countryman became rajah; but his keen-sighted and determined policy immediately showed them under whose rule they were; and finding knavery not so practicable now as of yore, the number of old settlers is diminishing, though an influx of new emigrants is continually taking place. The Cochin-Chinese form another division of the population of Sarawak. Of the others, we can only here pause to mention the indigenous Dyak, rude and simple mannered, ignorant, wild in his habits, and accustomed to savage and bloody practices; possessed, notwithstanding, of a willing and amiable disposition, often perverted, it is true, by the barbarity amid which he was born and nurtured, yet offering fair promise of success to the missionary of the Christian faith, and the emissaries of civilisation.

The artist now transports us to Labuan, where the ceremony

of hoisting the British flag took place on the 24th of December, 1846. Regarding the future success of our new settlement little doubt can be entertained. The wealth and resources of the surrounding islands are well known, though there are not wanting those who consider the trifling expense we have been at, in laying the foundation of future power in the Archipelago, to have been entirely thrown away. The island of Labuan,' says Mr. St. John, 'probably destined to rival Singapore in importance, is about twenty-five miles in circumference, and occupies a commanding position at the mouth of the Borneo river. It rises in places to the height of seventy feet above the level of the sea, and is almost entirely covered with a dense forest. Of the different species of trees it possesses, little is known, except that some of them attain to a great magnitude, and that on several points of the shore, the species of laurel which produces camphor is found. The island is traversed by numerous streams, of which some are of considerable dimensions, though two only appear to flow at all seasons of the year. The rest are torrents, which become dry in the depths of the hot season. Water, however, is found everywhere, by digging, in great abundance and of excellent quality. In several places the streams are found running over beds of coal, and in a ravine, or small valley, towards the north, there exists a fine waterfall. On this part of the coast the woods stretch down to the very edge of the sea, whose waves roll inward, and break against the shore beneath their outstretched boughs. The rattans, from which the natives make cordage for their boats, are very numerous and valuable. The sea in the vicinity of the island abounds with fish of a superior quality, and between two and three hundred men, who subsist entirely by fishing, constituted, before our arrival, its only population. Their numbers are increasing rapidly, and when the coal mines begin to be worked, the island will swarm with inhabitants.'

In addition to the impulse which the establishment of a British settlement in the immediate track of commerce, must give to the trade of the Indian Archipelago, the check which that settlement, properly organised, and efficiently defended, must give to the piratical system of the eastern seas, should also be taken into consideration. For many years the formidable pirate fleets which annually range along every shore, and thread every group of islands, have committed incalculable ravages, desolating the coast towns, carrying away the inhabitants, intercepting the trading craft, and plundering every vessel not fortunate enough to escape, either murdering the crews, or conducting them into slavery. There is no estimating the prodigious extent to which this system has been carried.

Every island in the Archipelago has annually sent forth its pirates. The Sulu group is under the dominion of a freebooting sovereign, who encourages his subjects in the perpetration of every species of atrocity. The great Bay of Illanun, on the northern coast of Magindanao, is the abode of a race of men wholly given to piracy. Their system is not that of petty searobbers, who plunder each man for his own benefit; on the coutrary, they have laws and preserve them rigorously, sharing their spoil by rule. Gilolo, Luconia, Celebes, and all the other less known islands, send forth their buccaneers; while in Borneo, every river, gulf, bay, creek, inlet, and promontory, afforded, until lately, a retreat for pirates, whose depredations were carried on to an extraordinary extent. The more powerful chiefs, besides preying upon the surrounding tribes, and exacting unjust tribute in slaves and money from those over whom they possessed no right, save that of superior strength, equipped and despatched to sea large fleets to swell the number of the pirate vessels which constantly scour the Archipelago, crossing and recrossing the great highways of commerce, plundering the defenceless traders, and carrying the crews to bondage.

Nor only to native vessels were these depredations confined. A gentleman, resident on an island in the Sulu group, mentions, in a list he furnishes of the prizes brought in within the six months, several Spanish and Dutch square-rigged ships, with innumerable smaller craft under European command; and one or two triumphs over the British flag are also enumerated. The number of native boats stated as having been seized would, at first sight, appear incredible, did we not know the formidable extent to which the buccaneering system has been carried. Every year brought new additions to its strength, and had it not been for the timely check given within the last year or two, by the appearance of the British flag in these seas, there is no imagining how far the power of the pirate kings of the Indian Archipelago would have extended. Severe, however, as was the punishment inflicted on the freebooters of Borneo, by Keppel, Cochrane, and Mundy, little permanent good could have been hoped for, had not the decisive and spirited policy of the British government led to our taking possession of Labuan, and hoisting the English flag in the very centre, as it were, of the great pirate nest. Formerly, it was the practice of the buccaneers to congregate in considerable force at this island, which lying, as it does, in the direct track of the trading fleets, in which the peaceful communities constantly stake their whole wealth, afforded them good opportunity for putting out to sea, just at the moment when the unarmed vessels were gliding slowly along the waves which roll on the north western shores of

Borneo, to crowd all sail, cut off all retreat, and drive the defenceless craft into the very arms of destruction. A great change will necessarily be effected when Labuan shall become invested with the prestige of power. The trading fleets will not alter theirs, but the pirate vessels will be compelled to steer another way. This can only be the result, however, of a steady and unremitting series of efforts in the cause of commerce and civilization. The English flag should not appear in the eastern seas like an evanescent meteor, outshining all else while its brilliancy lasts, but quickly fading away in distance, and leaving behind it deeper darkness than ever. Our power and influence should burn as a beacon of undying lustre on Labuan. The world knows how Singapore has risen from being an insignificant dot on the ocean, to be the flourishing emporium of commerce in the Indian Seas. That settlement cost twenty thousand pounds per annum during the first few years of its existence. Now it pays, and has for a long period payed the whole expense of its civil establishment, and yet we find members of the House of Commons arguing now for the reduction of the proposed estimates of Labuan to a miserably inefficient sum; and now contending that no grant whatever ought to be made. This latter course would be preferable to that proposed by Mr. Hume, whose corporal's guard would certainly not comport with the dignity and power of the British empire.

It was stated in the House of Commons, when the debate on the Labuan estimate took place, that our measures in the Indian Archipelago were only a repetition of the policy which had involved us in hostility, in so many different parts of the world, with the unoffending aboriginal population, the rightful possessors of the soil. In answer to this assertion, much may be said. Have we gone into the Indian Archipelago with conquest before our eyes? Are we not courted by the natives? It is an old story among them, that formerly when the question was asked, 'If you met in the woods a Malay, a tiger, or an European, from whom would you first flee?' an universal shout of execration announced their hatred of the latter name. however, their tone is changed. 'We know,' say they, speaking of the English, 'the Dyak knows, the whole world knows, that the white man is a friend of the Dyak.' And were not the British officers pressingly solicited, in every instance by the peaceful aborigines, to return with their vessels as soon as practicable. To the pirates we are, of course, objects of alarm and hatred. That is as it should be. No one surely will argue to the contrary. Why then, should we not establish ourselves in the Indian Archipelago, on an island voluntarily ceded to us, and

Now,

which we should not, perhaps, have taken possession of, had it not been for the faithless, treacherous, and unprincely conduct of its former ruler?

Again, reference has been made to certain unhappy scenes of bloodshed and massacre of harmless natives, which are not of unfrequent occurrence.' The speaker alluded, doubtless, to the affairs of the Gilolo coast, and near Labuan. In the former, the harmless natives were pirates. Captain Sir Edward Belcher distinctly states it, and his narrative of the events places the matter beyond all doubt. And which was the aggressive party? The natives:-by whom while our countrymen were engaged in perfect peace, taking observations on a point of land, they were suddenly attacked and compelled to shelter themselves in the vessels. When out at sea the English boats were assaulted by several formidable prahus, manned with crews armed to the teeth, and devoid of every appearance of honesty and peace. Captain Belcher's party was at first compelled to make away, and if they visit a heavy retribution upon the pirates when an opportunity was afforded, who shall blame them? In the other case, the Nemesis steamer perceived eleven pirate prahus of the largest size, in pursuit of a diminutive boat, whose owner was a poor but honest man, carrying his little store for sale at the neighbouring mart. Chase was given, and a sanguinary engagement took place, in which the English steamer was victorious. We deny in toto the assertion that any massacres, of any species or description whatever, were ever perpetrated by British authority in the Indian seas, since Mr. Brooke's establishment there. We deny that any bloody scenes of devastation have been enacted there. Whenever bloodshed has taken place, it has been in open battle, in the face of day, where shot replied to shot, and blow was given for blow. Have we refused quarter to surrendering enemies? Have we attacked them indiscriminately? Was ever a town or village destroyed before its inhabitants and their chief had fair warning, that unless they would promise for ever to abstain from piracy, their homes should be made desolate, and themselves driven into the jungle. It is the duty of all nations to attack, destroy, and utterly root out pirates in every quarter of the world. If our assertions can be disproved, we court the evidence which may be brought against them, convinced that the most searching scrutiny would fail to throw obloquy on the British name, with regard to our late proceedings in the Indian Archipelago.*

Mr. Thompson, carried away by his zeal for economising the resources of the country, asserted that for every pirate killed, we raised up a hundred enemies in those seas. We know

*For a complete and faithful account of the whole system of piracy carried on in the Eastern Archipelago, see the Edinburgh Review' for July, 1848.