Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846

Insignificant as the account may read, the difficulties of Mr Brooke, as commander-in-chief, were formidable enough, surrounded as he was by perils threatening not only from the enemy, but from the rank cowardice of his supporters, and the envy, spite, hatred, and machinations of his allies, the Rajah's ministers. The operations are admirably described in Mr Brooke's journal. Let it suffice to say, that the energy and bravery of the English leader brought them to a satisfactory issue, and, finally, the war to a happy close. At his intercession the lives of many of the offenders were spared, and the rebels suffered to deliver up their arms, and to return in peace to Sarāwak.

It is now necessary to state, that at the commencement of the war, Muda Hassim, unsolicited by Mr Brooke, had undertaken to confer upon the latter the governorship of Sarāwak, in the event of success crowning the efforts of his "friend from England." Mr Brooke had not demanded from the unfortunate Rajah a written agreement to this effect; nor at the time even desired a recompense, which was likely to bring with it much more of difficulty and vexation than profit and power. He respectfully declined an honour which he informed the Rajah it did not become him to accept whilst his highness was in his hands. The war being over, and Muda Hassim reinstated, the negotiation recommenced. No sooner was it discussed, however, than Mr Brooke informed the rajah that Malay institutions were so faulty, the high being allowed by them so much license, and the poor so oppressed, that any attempt to govern without a removal of abuses, was, on his part at least, impossible; and as a condition of his acceptance, he insisted that the Rajah should use all his exertions to establish the principle, that one man must not take from another, and that all men were free to enjoy the produce of their labour, save and except when they were working for the revenue. This revenue, too, he submitted, it was necessary to fix at a certain amount for three years, as well as the salaries of the government officers. The same rights should be conceded to the Dyak and Malay, and the property of the former must be protected, their taxes fixed, and labour free. The rajah acquiesced in the propriety of these measures, and bargained only for the maintenance of the national faith and customs. Mr Brooke remained in Sarāwak, but the office which had been offered with so much eagerness and pressing love, was after all slow in being conferred. Bad advisers, envious ministers, and weakness in Muda Hassim himself, all prevented the conclusion of a business upon which Mr Brooke had never entered of his own accord; but which, having entered upon it, had rendered him liable for many engagements which his anticipated new position had made essential.

"I found myself," writes Mr Brooke, "clipped like Samson, while delay was heaped upon delay, excuse piled upon excuse. It was provoking beyond sufferance. I remonstrated firmly but mildly on the waste of my money, and on the impossibility of any good to the country whilst the rajah conducted himself as he had done. I might as well have whistled to the winds, or have talked reason to stones. I had trusted – my eyes gradually opened – I feared I was betrayed and robbed, and had at length determined to be observant and watchful." Upon the faith of the Rajah, Mr Brooke had purchased in Singapore a schooner of ninety tons, called The Swift, which he had laden with a suitable cargo. Upon its arrival at Sarāwak, the rajah petitioned to have the cargo ashore, assuring Mr Brooke of a good and quick return: part of such return being immediately promised in the shape of antimony ore. Three months elapsed, and the rajah's share in this mercantile transaction had yet to be fulfilled. Disgusted with his treatment, and hopeless of justice, Mr Brooke dispatched the Swift to Singapore; and hearing that the crew of a shipwrecked vessel were detained in Borneo Proper, sent his only remaining vessel, the Royalist, to the city of Borneo, in order to obtain such information as might lead to the rescue of his countrymen. "I resolved," the journal informs us, "to remain here, to endeavour, if I could, to obtain my own. Each vessel was to return as quickly as possible from her place of destination; and I then determined to give two additional months to the rajah, and to urge him in every way in my power to do what he was bound to do as an act of common honesty. Should these means fail, after making the strongest representations, and giving amplest time, I considered myself free to extort by force what I could not gain by fair means."

"I need hardly remark," writes Captain Keppel, "on the singular courage and disregard of personal safety, and life itself, evinced by my friend on this occasion. At issue with the rajah on points of great temptation to him, beset by intrigues, and surrounded by a fierce and lawless people, Mr Brooke did not hesitate to dispatch his vessels and protectors, – the one on a mission of pure humanity, and the other in calm pursuance of the objects he had proposed to himself to accomplish; and, with three companions, place himself at the mercy of such circumstances, regardless of the danger, and relying on the overruling Providence in which he trusted, to bring him safely through all his difficulties and perils."

On the 16th of August 1841, the Royalist returned, and three days afterwards it was followed by the Swift. The former reported that the prisoners had been heard of in Borneo, but, unfortunately, not released. The Swift was accompanied by the Diana steamer. The formidable squadron alarmed the rajah and his ministers. Mr Brooke learned that the difficulties of the rajah's situation were increased, and his conduct towards himself, in a manner, excused, by the intrigues and evil doings of the latter. Macota, of whom mention has been made, was the most vindictive and unscrupulous amongst them. He had attempted to poison the interpreter of Mr Brooke, and had been discovered as the abettor of even more fearful crimes. Mr Brooke, strengthened by his late arrivals, resolved to bring matters to a crisis, and to test at once the strength of the respective parties. He landed a party of men fully armed, and loaded the ship's guns with grape and canister; he then proceeded to Muda Hassim, protested that he was well disposed towards the rajah, but assured him, at the same time, that neither he nor himself was safe against the practices of the artful and desperate Macota. Muda Hassim was frightened. One of the Dyak tribes took part with Mr Brooke, two hundred of them, with their chiefs, placing themselves unreservedly at his disposal, whilst Macota was deserted by all but his immediate slaves. The Chinese and the rest of the inhabitants looked on. The upshot may be anticipated. The rajah became suddenly active and eager for an arrangement. The old agreement was drawn out, sealed, and signed; guns fired, flags waved, and on the 24th of September 1841 Mr Brooke became Rajah of Sarāwak.

The first acts of Mr Brooke, after his accession to power, were suggested by humanity, and a tender consideration for the savage people whom he so singularly and unexpectedly had been called upon to govern. He inquired into the state of the Dyaks, endeavoured to gain their confidence, and to protect them from the brutal onslaught of the Malays and of each other, and at once relieved them of the burdens of taxation which weighed so cruelly upon them. He opened a court for the administration of justice, at which he presided with the late rajah's brothers, and maintained strict equity amongst the highest and lowest of his people. He decreed that murder, robbery, and other heinous crimes, should, for the future, be punished according to the written law of Borneo; that all men, irrespectively of race, should be permitted to trade and labour according to their pleasure, and to enjoy their gains; that all roads should be open, and that all boats coming to the river should be free to enter and depart without let or hindrance; that trade should be free; that the Dyaks should be suffered to live unmolested; together with other salutary measures for the general welfare. Difficulty and vexation met the governor at every step; but he persevered in his schemes of amelioration, and with a success which is not yet complete, and for years cannot be fairly estimated.

Muda Hassim, the former rajah of Sarāwak, was also presumptive heir to the throne of Borneo; but, unfortunately for him, under the displeasure of his nephew, the reigning sultan. The confirmation of Mr Brooke's appointment, it was absolutely necessary to receive from the latter; and Mr Brooke accordingly resolved to pay a visit to the prince, in the first place, to obtain a reconciliation, if possible, with the offending Muda, and secondly, to consolidate his own infant government. There was another object, too. The sultan had power to release the prisoners who had been spared in the wreck already mentioned; and this power Mr Brooke hoped, by discretion, to prevail upon his majesty to exercise. The picture of this potentate is thus drawn by Mr Brooke:

"The sultan is a man past fifty years of age, short and puffy in person, with a countenance which expresses, very obviously, the imbecility of his mind. His right hand is garnished with an extra diminutive thumb – the natural member being crooked and distorted. His mind, indeed, by his face, seems to be a chaos of confusion – without acuteness, without dignity, and without good sense. He can neither read nor write; is guided by the last speaker; and his advisers, as might be expected, are of the lower order, and mischievous from their ignorance and greediness. He is always talking, and generally joking; and the most serious subjects never meet with five minutes' consecutive attention. The favourable side of his character is, that he is good-tempered and good-natured – by no means cruel – and, in a certain way, generous, though rapacious to as high a degree. His rapacity, indeed, is carried to such an excess as to astonish a European, and is evinced in a thousand mean ways. The presents I made him were unquestionably handsome; but he was not content without begging from me the share I had reserved for the other Pangerans; and afterwards, through Mr Williamson, solicited more trifles – such as sugar, penknives, and the like. I may note one other feature that marks the man. He requested as the greatest favour – he urged with the earnestness of a child – that I would send back the schooner before the month Ramban, (Ramadan of the Turks,) remarking, 'What shall I do during the fast without soft sugar and dates?'"

The delivery of the prisoners, and the forgiveness of Muda Hassim, were quickly obtained; the more personal matter found opposition with the advisers of the Crown, but was ultimately conceded. On the 1st of August 1842, the letters to Muda Hassim were sealed and signed; and at the same council the contract, which gave Mr Brooke the government of Sarāwak, was fully discussed; and by ten o'clock at night was signed, sealed and witnessed. Mr Brooke returned to his government and people on the following day.

On the 1st of January 1843, the following entry appears in the diary so often quoted: – "Another year passed and gone! – a year with all its anxieties, its troubles, its dangers, upon which I can look back with satisfaction – a year in which I have been usefully employed in doing good to others. Since I last wrote, the Dyaks have been quiet, settled, and improving; the Chinese advancing towards prosperity; and the Sarāwak people wonderfully contented and industrious, relieved from oppression, and fields of labour allowed them. Justice I have executed with an unflinching hand."

It was in the month of March 1843, at the conclusion of the Chinese war, that Captain Keppel was ordered in the Dido to the Malacca Straits and the island of Borneo. Daring acts of piracy had been committed, and were still committing, on the Borneon coast; and, becoming engaged in the suppression of these crimes, he fell in with the English rajah of Sarāwak, and obtained from him the information which he has recently given to the world, and enabled us to place succinctly before our readers.

The piracy of the Eastern Archipelago is very different to that of the western world. The former obtains an importance unknown to the latter. The hordes who conduct it issue from their islands and coasts in fleets, rove from place to place, intercept the native trade, enslave whole towns at the entrance of rivers, and attack ill-armed or stranded European vessels. The native governments, if they are not participators in the crime, are made its victims, and in many cases, we are told, they are both – purchasing from one set of pirates, and plundered and enslaved by another. Captain Keppel has well related more than one engagement in which he was concerned with the ferocious marauders of these eastern seas – scenes of blood and horror, justified only by the enormity of the offence, and the ultimate advantages likely to be obtained from an extirpation of the deeply-rooted evil. As we have hinted at the commencement of this article, our present object is not so much to draw attention to the battle-scenes described by Mr Keppel, and which may be read with peculiar though painful interest in his book, as to obtain for Mr Brooke, the peaceful and unselfish disposer of so many blessings amongst a benighted and neglected people, that admiration and regard which he has so nobly earned. He has done much, but our government may enable him to do more. He has shown the capabilities of his distant home, and called upon his mother-country to improve them to the uttermost. We hear that her Majesty's government have not been deaf to his appeal, and that aid will be given for the development of his plans, equal to his warmest expectations. We trust it may be so. Nothing is wanting but the assistance which a government alone can afford, to render Borneo a friendly and valuable ally, and to constitute Mr Brooke one of the most useful benefactors of modern times; a benefactor in the best sense of the term – an improver of his species – an intelligent messenger and expounder of God's purpose to man.

THE SMUGGLER'S LEAP

A Passage in the Pyrenees

"Oh! there's not in this wide world," I exclaimed, quite unintentionally quoting Tom Moore; "there never has been, nor can ever be again, so charming a creature. No nymph, or sylph, or winged Ariel, or syren with song and mirror, was ever so fascinating – no daughter of Eve so pretty and provoking!"

This apostrophe, which certainly appears, now that in cooler moments I recall it, rather rhapsodical, was not uttered viva voce, nor even sotto voce, seeing that its object, Miss Dora M'Dermot, was riding along only three paces in front of me, whilst her brother walked by my side. It was a mere mental ejaculation, elicited by the surpassing perfections of the aforesaid Dora, who assuredly was the most charming girl I had ever beheld. But for the Pyrenean scenery around us, and the rough ill-conditioned mule, with its clumsy side-saddle of discoloured leather, on which she was mounted, instead of the Spanish jennet or well-bred English palfrey that would best have suited so fair an equestrian, I could, without any great exertion of fancy, have dreamed myself back to the days of the M'Gregor, and fancied that it was Die Vernon riding up the mountain side, gaily chatting as she went with the handsome cavalier who walked by her stirrup, and who might have been Frank Osbaldistone, only that he was too manly-looking for Scott's somewhat effeminate hero. How beautifully moulded was the form which her dark-green habit set off to such advantage; how fairy-like the foot that pressed the clumsy stirrup; how slender the fingers that grasped the rein! She had discarded the heavy riding-hat and senseless bonnet, those graceless inventions of some cunning milliner, and had adopted a head-dress not unusual in the country in which she then was. This was a beret or flat cap, woven of snow-white wool, and surmounted by a crimson tassel spread out over the top. From beneath this elegant coiffure her dark eyes flashed and sparkled, whilst her luxuriant chestnut curls fell down over her neck, the alabaster fairness of which made her white head-dress look almost tawny. Either because the air, although we were still in the month of September, was fresh on the mountains, or else because she was pretty and a woman, and therefore not sorry to show herself to the best advantage, she had twisted round her waist a very long cashmere scarf, previously passing it over one shoulder in the manner of a sword-belt, the ends hanging down nearly to her stirrup; and this gave something peculiarly picturesque, almost fantastical, to her whole appearance.

Upon the second day of my arrival at the baths of St Sauveur, in the Pyrenees, I had fallen in with my old friend and college chum, Jack M'Dermot, who was taking his sister the round of the French watering-places. Dora's health had been delicate, the faculty had recommended the excursion; and Jack, who doated upon his only sister, had dragged her away from the gaieties of London and brought her off to the Pyrenees. M'Dermot was an excellent fellow, neither a wit nor a Solomon; but a good-hearted dog who had been much liked at Trin. Coll., Dublin, where he had thought very little of his studies, and a good deal of his horses and dogs. An Irishman, to be sure, occasionally a slight touch of the brogue was perceptible in his talk; but from this his sister, who had been brought up in England, was entirely free. Jack had a snug estate of three thousand a-year; Miss Dora had twenty thousand pounds from her mother. She had passed two seasons in London; and if she was not already married, it was because not one of the fifty aspirants to her hand had found favour in her bright eyes. Lively and high-spirited, with a slight turn for the satirical, she loved her independence, and was difficult to please.

I had been absent from England for nearly two years, on a continental tour; and although I had heard much of Miss M'Dermot, I had never seen her till her brother introduced me to her at St Sauveur. I had not known her an hour, before I found myself in a fair way to add another to the list of the poor moths who had singed their wings at the perilous light of her beauty. When M'Dermot, learning that, like themselves, I was on a desultory sort of ramble, and had not marked out any particular route, offered me a seat in their carriage, and urged me to accompany them, instead of prudently flying from the danger, I foolishly exposed myself to it, and lo! what might have been anticipated came to pass. Before I had been two days in Dora's society, my doom was sealed; I had ceased to belong to myself; I was her slave, the slave of her sunny smile and bright eyes – talisman more potent than any lamp or ring that djinn or fairy ever obeyed.

A fortnight had passed, and we were at B – . During that time, the spell that bound me had been each day gaining strength. As an intimate friend of her brother, I was already, with Dora, on the footing of an old acquaintance; she seemed well enough pleased with my society, and chatted with me willingly and familiarly; but in vain did I watch for some slight indication, a glance or an intonation, whence to derive hope. None such were perceptible; nor could the most egregious coxcomb have fancied that they were. We once or twice fell in with other acquaintances of her's and her brother's, and with them she had just the same frank friendly manner, as with me. I had not sufficient vanity, however, to expect a woman, especially one so much admired as Miss M'Dermot, to fall in love at first sight with my humble personality, and I patiently waited, trusting to time and assiduity to advance my cause.

Things were in this state, when one morning, whilst taking an early walk to the springs, I ran up against an English friend, by name Walter Ashley. He was the son of a country gentleman of moderate fortune, at whose house I had more than once passed a week in the shooting season. Walter was an excellent fellow, and a perfect model of the class to which he belonged. By no means unpolished in his manners, he had yet a sort of plain frankness and bonhomie, which was peculiarly agreeable and prepossessing. He was not a university man, nor had he received an education of the highest order; spoke no language but his own with any degree of correctness; neither played the fiddle, painted pictures, nor wrote poetry. On the other hand, in all manly exercises he was a proficient; shot, rode, walked, and danced to perfection; and the fresh originality, and pleasant tone of his conversation, redeemed any deficiency of reading or accomplishment. In personal appearance he was a splendid fellow, nearly six feet in his boots, strongly, but, at the same time, symmetrically built; although his size of limb and width of shoulder rendered him, at six-and-twenty, rather what is called a fine man, than a slender or elegant one. He had the true Anglo-Saxon physiognomy, blue eyes, and light brown hair that waved, rather than curled, round his broad handsome forehead. And, then, what a mustache the fellow had! (He was officer in a crack yeomanry corps.) Not one of the composite order, made up of pomatum and lamp-black, such as may be seen sauntering down St James's Street on a spring afternoon, with incipient guardsmen behind them – but worthy of an Italian painter or Hungarian hussar; full, well-grown, and glossy. Who was the idiot who first set afloat the notion – now become an established prejudice in England – that mustaches were unseemly? To nine faces out of ten, they are a most becoming addition, increasing physiognomical character, almost giving it where there is none; relieving the monotony of broad flat cheeks, and abridging the abomination of a long upper-lip. Uncleanly, say you? Not a bit of it, if judiciously trimmed and trained. What, Sir! are they not at least as proper looking as those foxy thickets extending from jawbone to temple, which you yourself, each morning of your life, take such pains to comb and curl into shape?

Delighted to meet Ashley, I dragged him off to the hotel, to introduce him to M'Dermot and his sister. As a friend of mine they gave him a cordial welcome, and we passed that day and the following ones together. I soon, however, I must confess, began to repent a little having brought my handsome friend into the society of Dora. She seemed better pleased with him than I altogether liked, nor could I wonder at it. Walter Ashley was exactly the man to please a woman of Dora's character. She was of rather a romantic turn, and about him there was a dash of the chivalrous, well calculated to captivate her imagination. Although perfectly feminine, she was an excellent horsewoman, and an ardent admirer of feats of address and courage, and she had heard me tell her brother of Ashley's perfection in such matters. On his part, Ashley, like every one else who saw her, was evidently greatly struck with her beauty and fascination of manner. I cannot say that I was jealous; I had no right to be so, for Dora had never given me encouragement; but I certainly more than once regretted having introduced a third person into what – honest Jack M'Dermot counting, of course, for nothing – had previously been a sort of tête-à-tête society. I began to fear that, thanks to myself, my occupation was gone, and Ashley had got it.

It was the fifth day after our meeting with Walter, and we had started early in the morning upon an excursion to a neighbouring lake, the scenery around which, we were told, was particularly wild and beautiful. It was situated on a piece of table-land on the top of a mountain, which we could see from the hotel window. The distance was barely ten miles, and the road being rough and precipitous, M'Dermot, Ashley, and myself, had chosen to walk rather than to risk our necks by riding the broken-knee'd ponies that were offered to us. A sure-footed mule, and indifferent side-saddle, had been procured for Miss M'Dermot, and was attended by a wild-looking Bearnese boy, or gossoon, as her brother called him, a creature like a grasshopper, all legs and arms, with a scared countenance, and long lank black hair hanging in irregular shreds about his face.

There is no season more agreeable in the Pyrenees than the month of September. People are very apt to expatiate on the delights of autumn, its mellow beauty, pensive charms, and suchlike. I confess that in a general way I like the youth of the year better than its decline, and prefer the bright green tints of spring, with the summer in prospective, to the melancholy autumn, its russet hues and falling leaves; its regrets for fine weather past, and anticipations of bad to come. But if there be any place where I should be tempted to reverse my judgment, it would be in Southern France, and especially its western and central portion. The clear cloudless sky, the moderate heat succeeding to the sultriness, often overpowering, of the summer months, the magnificent vineyards and merry vintage time, the noble groves of chestnut, clothing the lower slopes of the mountains, the bright streams and flower-spangled meadows of Bearn and Languedoc, render no part of the year more delightful in those countries than the months of September and October.