lar metal stamps, and the _chop_ is affixed by oiling the stamps,
blacking it over the flame of a candle and pressing it on the document
to be sealed. The _chop_ bears, in Arabic characters, the name, style
and title of the Official using it. The Sultan's Chop is the Great Seal
of State and is distinguished by being the only one of which the
circumference can be quite round and unbroken; the edges of those of the
Wazirs are always notched.

By the aboriginal tribes of Borneo, the Brunai people are always spoken
of as _Orang Abai_, or Abai men, but though I have often enquired both
of the aborigines and of the Brunais themselves, I have not been able to
obtain any explanation of the term, nor of its derivation.

As already stated, the religion of the Brunais is Mahomedanism; but they
do not observe its precepts and forms with any very great strictness,
nor are they proselytisers, so that comparatively few of the surrounding
pagans have embraced the religion of their conquerors.

Many of their old superstitions still influence them, as, in the early
days of Christianity, the belief in the old heathen gods and goddesses
were found underlying the superstructure of the new faith and tinging
its ritual and forms of worship. There still flourishes and survives,
influencing to the present day the life of the Brunais, the old Spirit
worship and a real belief in the power of evil spirits (_hantus_) to
cause ill-luck, sickness and death, to counteract which spells, charms
and prayers are made use of, together with propitiatory offerings. Most
of them wear some charm to ward off sickness, and others to shield them
from death in battle. If you are travelling in the jungle and desire to
quench your thirst at a brook, your Brunai follower will first lay his
_parang_, or cutlass in the bed of the stream, with its point towards
the source, so that the Spirit of the brook shall be powerless to harm
you.

In caves and on small islands you frequently find platforms and little
models of houses and boats--propitiatory offerings to _hantus_. In times
of general sickness a large model of a boat is sometimes made and decked
with flags and launched out to sea in the hope that the evil spirit who
has brought the epidemic may take his departure therein. At Labuan it
was difficult to prevail on a Malay messenger to pass after sunset by
the gaol, where executions took place, or by the churchyard, for fear of
the ghosts haunting those localities.