for the “Life of the Rajah of Sarawak.”
There is much in this “Life” that might be read by our statesmen and
philanthropists with profit; for the building of a kingdom in a jungle of savage
men and savage beasts places the name of Brooke of Borneo among those of the
world’s great men, as it does among those of the heroes of adventure.
One evening we were pacing back and forth on the deck of the Rajah’s
magnificent gunboat, the Raneé. A soft tropical breeze was blowing off shore.
Thousands of lights from running rickshas and bullock carts were dancing along
the wide esplanade that separates the city of Singapore from the sea. The strange
old-world cries from the natives came out to us in a babel of sound.
Chinese in sampans and Malays in praus were gliding about our bows and back
and forth between the great foreign men-of-war that overshadowed us. The
Orient was on every hand, and I looked wonderingly at the slightly built, gray-
haired man at my side, with a feeling that he had stepped from out some wild
South Sea tale.
“Your Highness,” I said, as we chatted, “tell me how you made subjects out of
pirates and head-hunters, when our great nation, with all its power and gold, has
only been able after one hundred years to make paupers out of our Indians.”
“Do you see that man?” he replied, pointing to a stalwart, brown-faced Dyak,
who in the blue and gold uniform of Sarawak was leaning idly against the
bulwarks. “That is the Dato (Lord) Imaum, Judge of the Supreme Court of
Sarawak. He was one of the most redoubtable of the Suloo pirates. My uncle
fought him for eight years. In all that time he never broke his word in battle or in
truce. When Sir James was driven from his throne by the Chinese, the Dato
Imaum fought to reinstate him as his master.
“Civilization is only skin deep, and so is barbarism. Had your country never
broken its word and been as just as it is powerful, your red men would have been
to-day where our brown men are—our equals.”
An hour later I stepped into my launch, which was lying alongside. The
American flag at the peak came down, and the guns of the Raneé belched forth
the consular salute.