Having alluded to the circumstances under which the Government of
Sarawak became vested in the BROOKE family, it may be of interest if I
give a brief outline of the history of that State under its European
rulers up to the present time. The territory acquired by Sir JAMES
BROOKE in 1841 and known as Sarawak Proper, was a small district with a
coast line of sixty miles and with an average depth inland of fifty
miles--an area of three thousand square miles. Since that date, however,
rivers and districts lying to the northward have been acquired by
cessions for annual payments from the Brunai Government and have been
incorporated with the original district of Sarawak, which has given its
name to the enlarged territory, and the present area of Raja BROOKE'S
possessions is stated to be about 40,000 square miles, supporting a
population of 280,000 souls, and possessing a coast line of 380 miles.
The most recent acquisition of territory was in 1884, so that the young
State has shewn a very vigorous growth since its birth in 1841--at the
rate of about 860 square miles a year, or an increase of thirteen times
its original size in the space of forty-three years.
Now, alas, there are no "more lands to conquer," or acquire, unless the
present kingdom of Brunai, or Borneo Proper, as it is styled by the old
geographers, is altogether swallowed up by its offspring, which, under
its white ruler, has developed a vitality never evinced under the rule
of the Royal house of Brunai in its best days.[10]
The limit of Sarawak's coast line to the South-West is Cape, or
_Tanjong_, Datu, on the other side of which commences the Dutch portion
of Borneo, so that expansion in that direction is barred. To the
North-East the boundary is Labuk Pulai the Eastern limit of the
watershed, on the coast, of the important river Barram which was
acquired by Raja BROOKE, in 1881, for an annual payment of £1,000.
Beyond this commences what is left of the Brunai Sultanate, there being
but one stream of any importance between the Barram river and that on
which the capital--Brunai--is situated. But Sarawak does not rest here;
it acquired, in 1884, from the then Pangeran Tumonggong, who is now
Sultan, the Trusan, a river to the East of the Brunai, under somewhat
exceptional circumstances. The natives of the river were in rebellion
against the Brunai Government, and in November, 1884, a party of Sarawak
Dyaks, who had been trading and collecting jungle produce in the
neighbourhood of the capital, having been warned by their own Government
to leave the country because of its disturbed condition, and having
further been warned also by the Sultan not to enter the Trusan, could
not refrain from visiting that river on their homeward journey, in order
to collect some outstanding trade debts. They were received is so
friendly a manner, that their suspicions were not in the slightest
degree aroused, and they took no precautions, believing themselves to be
amongst friends. Suddenly in the night they were attacked while asleep
in their boats, and the whole party, numbering about seventeen,
massacred, with the exception of one man who, though wounded, managed to
effect his escape and ultimately found his way to Labuan, where he was
treated in the Government Hospital and made a recovery. The heads of the
murdered men were, as is customary, taken by the murderers. No very
distinct reason can be given for the attack, except that the Trusan
people were in a "slaying" mood, being on the "war-path" and in arms
against their own Government, and it has also been said that those
particular Dyaks happened to be wearing trowsers instead of their
ordinary _chawat_, or loin cloth, and, as their enemies, the Brunais,
were trowser-wearers, the Trusan people thought fit to consider all
natives wearing such extravagant clothing as their enemies. The Sarawak
Government, on hearing of the incident, at once despatched Mr. MAXWELL,
the Chief Resident, to demand redress. The Brunai Government, having no
longer the warlike Kyans at their beck and call, that tribe having
passed to Raja BROOKE with the river Barram, were wholly unable to
undertake the punishment of the offenders. Mr. MAXWELL then demanded as
compensation the sum of $22,000, basing his calculations on the amount
which some time previously the British Government had exacted in the
case of some British subjects who had been murdered in another river.
This demand the bankrupt Government of Brunai was equally incompetent to
comply with, and, thereupon, the matter was settled by the transfer of
the river to Raja BROOKE in consideration of the large annual payment of
$4,500, two years' rental--$9,000, being paid in advance, and Sarawak
thus acquired, as much by good luck as through good management, a _pied
à terre_ in the very centre of the Brunai Sultanate and practically
blocked the advance of their northern rivals--the Company--on the
capital. This river was the _kouripan_ (see _ante_, page 26) of the
present Sultan, and a feeling of pique which he then entertained against
the Government of British North Borneo, on account of their refusing him
a monetary loan to which he conceived he had a claim, caused him to make
this cession with a better grace and more readily than might otherwise
have been the case, for he was well aware that the British North Borneo
Company viewed with some jealousy the extension of Sarawak territory in
this direction, having, more than probably, themselves an ambition to
carry their own southern boundary as near to Brunai as circumstances
would admit. The same feeling on the part of the Tumonggong induced him
to listen to Mr. MAXWELL'S proposals for the cession to Sarawak of a
still more important river--the Limbang--one on which the existence of
Brunai itself as an independent State may be said to depend. But the
then reigning Sultan and the other Ministers of State refused their
sanction, and the Tumonggong, since his accession to the throne, has
also very decidedly changed his point of view, and is now in accord with
the large majority of his Brunai subjects to whom such a cession would
be most distasteful. It should be explained that the Limbang is an
important sago-producing river, close to the capital and forming an
actual portion of the Brunai river itself, with the waters of which it
mingles; indeed, the Brunai river is probably the former mouth of the
Limbang, and is itself but a salt-water inlet, producing nothing but
fish and prawns. As the Brunais themselves put it, the Limbang is their
_priuk nasi_, their rice pot, an expression which gains the greater
force when it is remembered that rice is the chief food with this
eastern people, in a more emphatic sense even than bread is with us.
This question of the Limbang river will afford a good instance and
specimen of the oppressive government, or want of government, on the
part of the Brunai rulers, and I will return to it again, continuing now
my short glance at Sarawak's progress. Raja BROOKE has had little
difficulty in establishing his authority in the districts acquired from
time to time, for not only were the people glad to be freed from the
tyranny of the Brunai Rajas, but the fame of both the present Raja and
of his famous uncle Sir JAMES had spread far and wide in Borneo, and, in
addition, it was well known that the Sarawak Government had at its back
its war-like Dyak tribes, who, now that "head-hunting" has been stopped
amongst them, would have heartily welcomed the chance of a little
legitimate fighting and "at the commandment of the Magistrate to wear
weapons and serve in the wars," as the XXXVIIth Article of our Church
permits. In the Trusan, the Sarawak flag was freely distributed and
joyfully accepted, and in a short time the Brunai river was dotted with
little roughly "dug-out" canoes, manned by repulsive-looking, naked,
skin-diseased savages, each proudly flying an enormous Sarawak ensign,
with its Christian symbol of the Cross, in the Muhammadan capital.
A fine was imposed and paid for the murder of the Sarawak Dyaks, and the
heads delivered up to Mr. A. H. EVERETT, the Resident of the new
district, who thus found his little launch on one occasion decorated in
an unusual manner with these ghastly trophies, which were, I believe,
forwarded to the sorrowing relatives at home.
In addition to these levies of warriors expert in jungle fighting, on
which the Government can always count, the Raja has a small standing
army known as the "Sarawak Rangers," recruited from excellent
material--the natives of the country--under European Officers, armed
with breech-loading rifles, and numbering two hundred and fifty or three
hundred men. There is, in addition, a small Police Force, likewise
composed of natives, as also are the crews of the small steamers and
launches which form the Sarawak Navy. With the exception, therefore, of
the European Officers, there is no foreign element in the military,
naval and civil forces of the State, and the peace of the people is kept
by the people themselves, a state of things which makes for the
stability and popularity of the Government, besides enabling it to
provide for the defence of the country and the preservation of internal
order at a lower relative cost than probably any other Asiatic country
the Government of which is in the hand of Europeans. Sir JAMES BROOKE
did not marry, and died in 1868, having appointed as his successor the
present Raja CHARLES JOHNSON, who has taken the name of BROOKE, and has
proclaimed his eldest son, a youth of sixteen, heir apparent, with the
title of Raja Muda. The form of Government is that of an absolute
monarchy, but the Raja is assisted by a Supreme Council composed of two
European officials and four natives nominated by himself. There is also
a General Council of some fifty members, which is not usually convened
more frequently than once in two or three years. For administrative
purposes, the country is divided into Divisions, each under a European
Resident with European and Native Assistants. The Resident administers
justice, and is responsible for the collection of the Revenue and the
preservation of order in the district, reporting direct to the Raja.
Salaries are on an equitable scale, and the regulations for leave and
pension on retirement are conceived in a liberal spirit.
There is no published Code of Laws, but the Raja, when the occasion
arises, issues regulations and proclamations for the guidance of
officials, who, in criminal cases, follow as much as possible the Indian
Criminal Code. Much is left to the common sense of the Judicial
Officers, native customs and religious prejudices receive due
consideration, and there is a right of appeal to the Raja. Slavery was
in full force when Sir JAMES BROOKE assumed the Government, all captives
in the numerous tribal wars and piratical expeditions being kept or sold
as slaves.
Means were taken to mitigate as much as possible the condition of the
slaves, not, as a rule, a very hard one in these countries, and to
gradually abolish the system altogether, which latter object was to be
accomplished by 1888.
The principal item of revenue is the annual sum paid by the person who
secures from the Government the sole right of importing, preparing for
consumption, and retailing opium throughout the State. The holder of
this monopoly is known as the "Opium Farmer" and the monopoly is termed
the "Opium Farm." These expressions have occasionally given rise to the
notion that the opium-producing poppy is cultivated locally under
Government supervision, and I have seen it included among the list of
Borneo products in a recent geographical work. It is evident that the
system of farming out this monopoly has a tendency to limit the
consumption of the drug, as, owing to the heavy rental paid to the
Government, the retail price of the article to the consumer is very much
enhanced.
Were the monopoly abolished, it would be impossible for the Government
efficiently to check the contraband importation of so easily smuggled an
article as prepared opium, or _chandu_, and by lowering the price the
consumption would be increased.
The use of the drug is almost entirely confined to the Chinese portion
of the population. A poll-tax, customs and excise duties, mining
royalties and fines and fees make up the rest of the revenue, which in
1884 amounted to $237,752 and in 1885 to $315,264. The expenditure for
the same years is given by Vice-Consul CADELL as $234,161 and $321,264,
respectively. In the early days of Sarawak, it was a very serious
problem to find the money to pay the expenses of a most economical
Government. Sir JAMES BROOKE sunk all his own fortune--£30,000--in the
country, and took so gloomy a view of the financial prospects of his
kingdom that, on the refusal of England to annex it, he offered it first
to France and then to Holland. Fortunately these offers were never
carried into effect, and, with the assistance of the Borneo Company (not
to be confused with the British North Borneo Company), who acquired the
concession of the right to work the minerals in Sarawak, bad times were
tided over, and, by patient perseverance, the finances of the State have
been brought to their present satisfactory condition. What the amount of
the national public debt is, I am not in a position to say, but, like
all other countries aspiring to be civilized, it possesses a small one.
The improvement in the financial position was undoubtedly chiefly due to
the influx of Chinese, especially of gambier and pepper planters, who
were attracted by liberal concessions of land and monetary assistance in
the first instance from the Government. The present Raja has himself
said that "without the Chinese we can do nothing," and we have only to
turn to the British possession in the far East--the Straits Settlements,
the Malay Peninsula, and Hongkong--to see that this is the case. For
instance, the revenue of the Straits Settlements in 1887 was $3,847,475,
of which the opium farm alone--that is a tax practically speaking borne
by the Chinese population--contributed $1,779,600, or not very short of
one half of the whole, and they of course contribute in many other ways
as well. The frugal, patient, industrious, go-ahead, money-making
Chinaman is undoubtedly the colonist for the sparsely inhabited islands
of the Malay archipelago. Where, as in Java, there is a large native
population and the struggle for existence has compelled the natives to
adopt habits of industry, the presence of the Chinaman is not a
necessity, but in a country like Borneo, where the inhabitants, from
time immemorial, except during unusual periods of drought or epidemic
sickness, have never found the problem of existence bear hard upon them,
it is impossible to impress upon the natives that they ought to have
"wants," whether they feel them or not, and that the pursuit of the
dollar for the sake of mere possession is an ennobling object,
differentiating the simple savage from the complicated product of the
higher civilization. The Malay, in his ignorance, thinks that if he can
obtain clothing suitable to the climate, a hut which adequately protects
him from sun and rain, and a wife to be the mother of his children and
the cooker of his meals, he should therewith rest content; but, then, no
country made up of units possessed of this simple faith can ever come to
anything--can ever be civilized, and hence the necessity for the Chinese
immigrant in Eastern Colonies that want to shew an annual revenue
advancing by leaps and bounds. The Chinaman, too, in addition to his
valuable properties as a keen trader and a man of business, collecting
from the natives the products of the country, which he passes on to the
European merchant, from whom he obtains the European fabrics and
American "notions" to barter with the natives, is also a good
agriculturist, whether on a large or small scale; he is muscular and can
endure both heat and cold, and so is, at any rate in the tropics, far
and away a superior animal to the white labourer, whether for
agricultural or mining work, as an artizan, or as a hewer of wood and
drawer of water, as a cook, a housemaid or a washerwoman. He can learn
any trade that a white man can teach him, from ship-building to
watchmaking, and he does not drink and requires scarcely any holidays or
Sundays, occasionally only a day to worship his ancestors.
It will be said that if he does not drink he smokes opium. Yes! he does,
and this, as we have seen, is what makes him so beloved of the Colonial
Chancellors of the Exchequer. At the same time he is, if strict justice
and firmness are shewn him, wonderfully law-abiding and orderly. Faction
fights, and serious ones no doubt, do occur between rival classes and
rival secret societies, but to nothing like the extent that would be the
case were they white men. It is not, I think, sufficiently borne in
mind, that a very large proportion of the Chinese there are of the
lower, I may say of the lowest, orders, many of them of the criminal
class and the scourings of some of the large cities of China, who arrive
at their destination in possession of nothing but a pair of trowsers and
a jacket and, may be, an opium pipe; in addition to this they come from
different provinces, between the inhabitants of which there has always
been rivalry, and the languages of which are so entirely different that
it is a usual thing to find Chinese of different provinces compelled to
carry on their conversation in Malay or "pidgeon" English, and finally,
as though the elements of danger were not already sufficient, they are
pressed on their arrival to join rival secret societies, between which
the utmost enmity and hatred exists. Taking all these things into
consideration, I maintain that the Chinaman is a good and orderly
citizen and that his good qualities, especially as a revenue-payer in
the Far East, much more than counterbalance his bad ones. The secret
societies, whose organization permeates Chinese society from the top to
the bottom, are the worst feature in the social condition of the Chinese
colonists, and in Sarawak a summary method of suppressing them has been
adopted. The penalty for belonging to one of these societies is death.
When Sir JAMES BROOKE took over Sarawak, there was a considerable
Chinese population, settled for generations in the country and recruited
from Dutch territory, where they had been subject to no supervision by
the Government, whose hold over the country was merely nominal. They
were principally gold diggers, and being accustomed to manage their own
affairs and settle their disputes amongst themselves, they resented any
interference from the new rulers, and, in 1857, a misunderstanding
concerning the opium revenue having occurred, they suddenly rose in arms
and seized the capital. It was some time before the Raja's forces could
be collected and let loose upon them, when large numbers were killed and
the majority of the survivors took refuge in Dutch territory.
The scheme for introducing Chinese pepper and gambier planters into
Sarawak was set on foot in 1878 or 1879, and has proved a decided
success, though, as Vice-Consul CADELL remarked in 1886, it is difficult
to understand why even larger numbers have not availed themselves of the
terms offered "since coolies have the protection of the Sarawak
Government, which further grants them free passages from Singapore,
whilst the climate is a healthy one, and there are no dangers to be
feared from wild animals, tigers being unknown in Sarawak." The fact
remains that, though there is plenty of available land, there is an
insufficiency of Chinese labour still. The quantity of pepper exported
in 1885 was 392 tons, valued at £19,067, and of gambier 1,370 tons,
valued at £23,772.
Sarawak is said to supply more than half of the sago produce of the
world. The value of the sago it exported in 1885 is returned at £35,953.
Of the purely uncultivated jungle products that figure in the exports
the principal are gutta-percha, India rubber, and rattans.
Both antimony ores and cinnabar (an ore of quicksilver) are worked by
the Borneo Company, but the exports of the former ore and of quicksilver
are steadily decreasing, and fresh deposits are being sought for. Only
one deposit of cinnabar has so far been discovered, that was in 1867.
Antimony was first discovered in Sarawak in 1824, and-for a long time it
was from this source that the principal supplies for Europe and America
were obtained. The ores are found "generally as boulders deep in clayey
soil, or perched on tower-like summits and craggy pinnacles and,
sometimes, in dykes _in situ_." The ores, too poor for shipment, are
reduced locally, and the _regulus_ exported to London. Coal is abundant,
but is not yet worked on any considerable scale.[11] The Borneo Company
excepted, all the trade of the country is in the hands of Chinese and
Natives, nor has the Government hitherto taken steps to attract European
capital for planting, but experiments are being made with the public
funds under European supervision in the planting of cinchona, coffee,
and tobacco. The capital of Sarawak is _Kuching_, which in Malay
signifies a "cat." It is situated about fifteen miles up the Sarawak
river and, when Sir JAMES first arrived, was a wretched native town,
with palm leaf huts and a population, including a few Chinese and Klings
(natives of India), of some two thousand. Kuching now possesses a well
built "Istana," or Palace of the Raja, a Fort, impregnable to natives, a
substantial Gaol, Court House, Government Offices, Public Market and
Church, and is the headquarters of the Bishop of Singapore and Sarawak,
who is the head of the Protestant Mission in the country. There is a
well built brick Chinese trading quarter, or "bazaar," the Europeans
have comfortable bungalows, and the present population is said to number
twelve thousand.
In the early days of his reign, Sir JAMES BROOKE was energetically
assisted in his great work of suppressing piracy and rendering the seas
and rivers safe for the passage of the peaceful trader, by the British
men-of-war on the China Station, and was singularly fortunate in having
an energetic co-adjutor in Captain (now Admiral) Sir HENRY KEPPEL,
K.C.B.
It will give some idea of the extent to which piracy, then almost the
sole occupation of the Illanun, Balinini, and Sea Dyak tribes, was
indulged in that the "Headmoney," then paid by the British Government
for pirates destroyed, amounted in these expeditions to the large total
of £20,000, the awarding of which sum occasioned a great stir at the
time and led to the abolition of this system of "payment by results."
Mr. HUME took exception altogether to the action of Sir JAMES BROOKE,
and, in 1851, charges were brought against him, and a Royal Commission
appointed to take evidence on the spot, or rather at Singapore.
A man like BROOKE, of an enthusiastic, impulsive, unselfish and almost
Quixotic disposition, who wore his heart on his sleeve and let his
opinions of men and their actions be freely known, could not but have
incurred the enmity of many meaner, self-seeking minds. The Commission,
after hearing all that could be brought against him, found that there
was nothing proved, but it was not deemed advisable that Sir JAMES
should continue to act as the British representative in Borneo and as
Governor of the Colony of Labuan, positions which were indeed
incompatible with that of the independent ruler of Sarawak. Sarawak
independence was first recognised by the Americans, and the British
followed suit in 1863, when a Vice-Consulate was established there. The
question of formally proclaiming a British Protectorate over Sarawak is
now being considered, and it is to be hoped, will be carried into
effect.[12] The _personel_ of the Government is purely British, most of
the merchants and traders are of British nationality, and the whole
trade of the country finds its way to the British Colony of the Straits
Settlements.
We can scarcely let a country such as this, with its local and other
resources, so close to Singapore and on the route to China, fall into
the hands of any other European Power, and the only means of preventing
such a catastrophe is by the proclamation of a Protectorate over it--a
Protectorate which, so long as the successors of Raja BROOKE prove their
competence to govern, should be worked so as to interfere as little as
possible in the internal affairs of the State. The virulently hostile
and ignorant criticisms to which Sir JAMES BROOKE was subjected in
England, and the financial difficulties of this little kingdom, coupled
with a serious dispute with a nephew whom he had appointed his
successor, but whom he was compelled to depose, embittered the last
years of his life. To the end he fought his foes in his old, plucky,
honest, vigorous and straightforward style. He died in June, 1868, from
a paralytic stroke, and was succeeded by his nephew, the present Raja.
What Sir JAMES BROOKE might have accomplished had he not been hampered
by an opposition based on ignorance and imperfect knowledge at home, we
cannot say; what he did achieve, I have endeavoured briefly to sketch,
and unprejudiced minds cannot but deem the founding of a prosperous
State and the total extirpation of piracy, slavery and head-hunting, a
monument worthy of a high, noble and unselfish nature.
In addition to that of the Church of England, there has, within the last
few years, been established a Roman Catholic Mission, under the auspices
of the St. Joseph's College, Mill Hill.
The Muhammadans, including all the true Malay inhabitants, do not make
any concerted effort to disseminate the doctrines of their faith.
The following information relative to the Church of England Mission has
been kindly furnished me by the Right Reverend Dr. HOSE, the present
Bishop of "Singapore, Labuan and Sarawak," which is the official title
of his extensive See which includes the Colony of the Straits
Settlements--Penang, Province Wellesley, Malacca and Singapore and--its
Dependencies, the Protected States of the Malay Peninsula, the State of
Sarawak, the Crown Colony of Labuan, the Territories of the British
North Borneo Company and the Congregation of English people scattered
over Malaya.
The Mission was, in the first instance, set on foot by the efforts of
Lady BURDETT-COUTTS and others in 1847, when Sir JAMES BROOKE was in
England and his doings in the Far East had excited much interest and
enthusiasm, and was specially organized under the name of the "Borneo
Church Mission." The late Reverend T. MCDOUGALL, was the first
Missionary, and subsequently became the first Bishop. His name was once
well known, owing to a wrong construction put upon his action, on one
occasion, in making use of fire arms when a vessel, on which he was
aboard, came across a fleet of pirates. He was a gifted, practical and
energetic man and had the interest of his Mission at heart, and, in
addition to other qualifications, added the very useful one, in his
position, of being a qualified medical man. Bishop MCDOUGALL was
succeeded on his retirement by Bishop CHAMBERS, who had experience
gained while a Missionary in the country. The present Bishop was
appointed in 1881. The Mission was eventually taken over by the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel, and this Society defrays, with
unimportant exceptions, the whole cost of the See.
Dr. HOSE has under him in Sarawak eight men in holy orders, of whom six
are Europeans, one Chinese and one Eurasian. The influence of the
Missionaries has spread over the Skerang, Balau and Sibuyan tribes of
_Sea_-Dyaks, and also among the _Land_-Dyaks near Kuching, the Capital,
and among the Chinese of that town and the neighbouring pepper
plantations.
There are now seven churches and twenty-five Mission chapels in Sarawak,
and about 4,000 baptized Christians of the Church of England. The
Mission also provides means of education and, through its press,
publishes translations of the Bible, the Prayer Book and other religious
and educational works, in Malay and in two Dyak dialects, which latter
have only become written languages since the establishment of the
Mission. In their Boys' School, at Kuching, over a hundred boys are
under instruction by an English Master, assisted by a staff of Native
Assistants; there is also a Girls' School, under a European Mistress,
and schools at all the Mission Stations. The Government of Sarawak
allows a small grant-in-aid to the schools and a salary of £200 a year
to one of the Missionaries, who acts as Government Chaplain.
The Roman Catholic Mission commenced its works in Sarawak in 1881, and
is under the direction of the Reverend Father JACKSON, Prefect
Apostolic, who has also two or three Missionaries employed in British
North Borneo. In Sarawak there are six or eight European priests and
schoolmasters and a sisterhood of four or five nuns. In Kuching they
have a Chapel and School and a station among the Land-Dyaks in the
vicinity. They have recently established a station and erected a Chapel
on the Kanowit River, an affluent of the Rejang. The Missionaries are
mostly foreigners and, I believe, are under a vow to spend the remainder
of their days in the East, without returning to Europe.
Their only reward is their consciousness of doing, or trying to do good,
and any surplus of their meagre stipends which remains, after providing
the barest necessaries of life, is refunded to the Society. I do not
know what success is attending them in Sarawak, but in British North
Borneo and Labuan, where they found that Father QUARTERON'S labours had
left scarcely any impression, their efforts up to present have met with
little success, and experiments in several rivers have had to be
abandoned, owing to the utter carelessness of the Pagan natives as to
matters relating to religion. When I left North Borneo in 1887, their
only station which appeared to show a prospect of success was one under
Father PUNDLEIDER, amongst the semi-Chinese of Bundu, to whom reference
has been made on a previous page. But these people, while permitting
their children to be educated and baptized by the Father, did not think
it worth their while to join the Church themselves.
Neither Mission has attempted to convert the Muhammadan tribes, and
indeed it would, at present, be perfectly useless to do so and, from the
Government point of view, impolitic and inadvisable as well.
Footnotes:
[Footnote 10: On the 17th March, 1890 the Limbang River was forcibly
annexed by Sarawak, subject to the Queen's sanction.]
[Footnote 11: Since this was written, Raja Sir CHARLES BROOKE has
acquired valuable coal concessions at Muara, at the mouth of the Brunai
river, and the development of the coal resources of the State is being
energetically pushed forward.]
[Footnote 12: This has since been formally proclaimed.]