Sultan. The wily Sultan recognized that in this stranger he had found a man who
would be able to collect his revenue, and much to Brooke’s surprise, a courier
entered Kuching, the capital, one day and summarily dismissed the native Rajah
and proclaimed the young Englishman Rajah of Sarawak.
Brooke was a king at last. His empire was before him, but he was only king
because the reigning Sultan relinquished a part of his dominions that he was
unable to control. The tasks to be accomplished before he could make his word
law were ones that England, Holland, and the navies of Europe had shirked. His
so-called subjects were the most notorious and daring pirates in the history of the
world; they were head-hunters, they practised slavery, and they were cruel and
blood-thirsty on land and sea. Out of such elements this boy king built his
kingdom. How he did it would furnish tales that would outdo Verne, Kingston,
and Stevenson.
He abolished military marauding and every form of slavery, established courts,
missions, and school houses, and waged war, single-handed, against head-
hunting and piracy.
Head-hunting is to the Dyaks what amok is to the Malays or scalping to the
American Indians. It is even more. No Dyak woman would marry a man who
could not decorate their home with at least one human head. Often bands of
Dyaks, numbering from five to seven thousand, would sally forth from their
fortifications and cruise along the coast four or five hundred miles, to surprise a
village and carry the inhabitants’ heads back in triumph.
To-day head-hunting is practically stamped out, as is running amok among the
Malays, although cases of each occur from time to time.
As his subjects in the jungles were head-hunters, so those of the coast were
pirates. Every harbor was a pirate haven. They lived in big towns, possessed
forts and cannon, and acknowledged neither the suzerainty of the Sultan or the
domination of the Dutch. They were stronger than the native rulers, and no
European nation would go to the great expense of life and treasure needed to
break their power. Brooke knew that his title would be but a mockery as long as
the pirates commanded the mouths of all his rivers.
With his little schooner, armed with three small guns and manned by a crew of