n Farquhar; H.M.'s sloop _Royalist_,
commander, Lieutenant Everest; and H.E.I.C.'s steamer _Nemesis_,
commander, Captain Wallage, were sent by Admiral Collyer to Sarawak.
Then the rajah had all his war-boats got ready to join the English
force. There was the _Lion King_, the _Royal Eagle_, the _Tiger_, the
_Big Snake_, the _Little Snake_, the _Frog_, the _Alligator_, and many
others belonging to the Datus, who, on occasions like these, are bound
to call on their servants, and a certain number of able-bodied men
living in their kampongs, to man and fight in their boats. This is their
service to the Government. The rajah supplies the whole force with rice
for the expedition, and a certain number of muskets. The English ships
were left, the _Albatross_ at Sarawak, and the _Royalist_ to guard the
entrance of the Batang Lupar River, into which the Sakarran and Sarebas
Rivers _debouche_; but their boats, and nearly all the officers,
accompanied the fleet, and the steamer _Nemesis_ went also. On the 24th
of July they left us, as many as eighteen Malay prahus, manned by from
twenty to seventy men in each, and decorated with flags and streamers
innumerable, of the brightest colours,--the Sarawak flag, a red and
black cross on a yellow ground, always at the stern. For the _Tiger_ I
made a flag, as it was Mr. Brereton's boat, with a tiger's head painted
on it, looking wonderfully ferocious. It was an exciting time, with
gongs and drums, Malay yells and English hurrahs; and our fervent
prayers for their safety and success accompanied them that night, as
they dropped down the river in gay procession. They were afterwards
joined by bangkongs of friendly Dyaks, three hundred men from Lundu,
eight hundred from Linga, some from Samarahan, Sadong, and various
places which had suffered from the pirates, and were anxious to assist
in giving them a lesson. We heard nothing of the fleet until the 2nd of
August, when I received a little note from the rajah, written in pencil,
on a scrap of paper, on the night of the 31st of July, and giving an
account of how they fell in with a great balla (war fleet) of Sarebas
and Sakarran pirates, consisting of one hundred and fifty bangkongs,
returning to their homes with plunder and captives in their boats. The
pirates found all the entrances of the river occupied by their enemies,
the English, Malay, and Dyak forces being placed in three detachments,
and the _Nemesis_ all ready to help whenever the attack