The Dutch, contented with the fabulously rich island of Java and its twenty-six
millions of mild-mannered natives, left the great islands of Sumatra, Borneo, and
Papua to the savage rulers and savage nations that held them.
The son of an English clergyman, on a little schooner, with a friend or two and a
dozen sailors, sailed into these little known and dangerous waters one day
nineteen years later. His mind was filled with dreams of an East-Indian empire;
he was burning to emulate Cortez and Pizarro, without practising their abuses.
He had entered the English army and had been so dangerously wounded while
leading a charge in India after his superiors had fallen that he had been retired on
a pension before his twenty-first year. While regaining his health, he had
travelled through India, Malaya, and China, and had written a journal of his
wanderings. During this period his ambitions were crowding him on to an
enterprise that was as foolhardy as the first voyage of Columbus.
He had spied those great tropical islands that touched the equator, and he
coveted them.
After his father’s death he invested his little fortune in a schooner, and in spite of
all the protests and prayers of his family and friends, he sailed for Singapore, and
thence across to the northwest coast of Borneo, landing at Kuching, on the
Sarawak River, in 1838.
He had no clearly outlined plan of operations,—he was simply waiting his
chance. The province of Sarawak, a dependency of the Sultan of Borneo, was
governed by an old native rajah, whose authority was menaced by the fierce,
head-hunting Dyaks of the interior. Brooke’s chance had come. He boldly
offered to put down the rebellion if the Rajah would make him his general and
second to the throne. The Rajah cunningly accepted the offer, eager to let the
hair-brained young infidel annoy his foes, but with no intention of keeping his
promise.
After days of marching with his little crew and a small army of natives, through
the almost impenetrable rubber jungles, after a dozen hard-fought battles and
deeds of personal heroism, any one of which would make a story, the head-
hunters were crushed and some kind of order restored. He refused to allow the
Rajah to torture the prisoners,—thereby winning their gratitude,—and he refused
to be dismissed from his office. He had won his rank, and he appealed to the