A History of Sarawak under Its Two White Rajahs 1839-1908. S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

Husain. In former works he is incorrectly styled Moksain (for Matsain), following Mr. Brooke's published letters and journals, which were badly edited in regard to native names and words.

      88. Mr. Brooke.

      89. Mr. Brooke.

      90. The Bruni, not the Sarawak Malays.

      91. Mr. Brooke.

      92. Idem.

      93. By which he was generally referred to, both in documents and verbally, by the Malays of Bruni and Sarawak. "Rajah of Sarawak" was a complimentary title given to him by Europeans only. He has been frequently styled Muda Hasim by former writers; this would be unintelligible to a Malay.

      94. Such was this ascendency that they became the founders of the present ruling dynasties of Bruni (Chap. II., p. 1), Palembang (Sumatra), Pontianak, Sambas, Mindanau, and Sulu, and probably of other native states.

      95. Land-Dayaks.

      96. Shortly before Rajah Brooke's arrival, Sherip Sahap with a large force of Sekrang Dayaks had attacked the Sau tribe of Land-Dayaks in Upper Sarawak. Many were killed, their villages plundered and burnt, and nearly all the surviving women and children, to the number of some two hundred and fifty, carried off into slavery. The Rajah eventually recovered nearly all.

      97. Meaning Rajah Muda Hasim.

      98. Bruni.

      99. Duit, Malay for a cent.

      100. Rajah Brooke.

      101. "I admit that Bruni has its points, but what irony to compare for a moment the city of marble palaces with the mass of miserable huts which a single match could easily reduce to ashes."—Beccari, op. cit. The Rajah called the place a "Venice of hovels." Mercator in his Atlas describes it as "being situated on a saltwater lagoon like Venice," hence probably it became known as the Venice of Borneo.

      102. Kota batu, stone fort. The name still remains. It was built towards the close of the fifteenth century by Sherip Ali, the first Arab Sultan, with the aid of the Chinese subjects his wife's mother had brought to Bruni. The city was then nearer the mouth of the river. It was moved to its present position by Sultan Muadin about 200 years ago.

      103. Magellan, Hakluyt Society, and the Portuguese Jorge de Menezes, who visited Bruni five years after Pigafetta, notices that the city was surrounded with a wall of brick, and possessed some noble edifices. Other early voyagers describe the sultans and rulers of Malayan States as maintaining great style, and their equipments—such as swords of state, saddles, chairs, eating and drinking utensils—as being of pure gold. Allowing for some exaggeration, this would still point to a former condition of prosperity which enabled rulers and nobles to keep up a pageantry which has long since vanished.

      104. This malformation, according to the laws of Bruni, would have disqualified him for the throne, for these provide that no person in any way imbecile in mind or deformed in person can enjoy the regal dignity, whatever title to it his birth might have given him.—Sir Hugh Low, op. cit. p. 108.

      105. Saya, or more correctly, sahaya (mis-spelt suya in the Rajah's badly edited journals) is the Malay for I, mine; so amigo saya would be, My friend. Amigo was one of the few Spanish words the Sultan had.

      106. Established in 1855.

      107. Afterwards Admiral of the Fleet. He died, January 1904.