each look to me as the link which holds them together. The government
must be a patchwork between good and evil, abolishing only so much of
the latter as is consistent with safety. But never must I appear in the
light of a reformer, political or religious; for to the introduction
of new customs, apparently trivial, and the institution of new forms,
however beneficial, the disgust of the semi-barbarous races may be
traced. People settled like myself too often try to create a Utopia,
and end with a general confusion. The feeling of the native which binds
him to his chief is destroyed, and no other principle is substituted
in its stead; and as the human mind more easily learns ill than good,
they pick up the vices of their governors without their virtues, and
their own good qualities disappear, the bad of both races remaining
without the good of either.

"We are in active preparation to fit out a fleet to meet the
piratical Dyaks. The rajah has a fine prahu, which I have taken in
hand to repair, and I have purchased a second; and the two, with
three or four small canoes, will be able to cope with a hundred or
a hundred and fifty Dyak boats. The largest of these boats is worth
a description. Fifty-six feet in length and eight in breadth; built
with a great sheer, so as to raise the bow and stern out of the water,
and pulling thirty paddles, she is a dangerous customer when mounting
four swivels and carrying a crew of twenty men with small arms. She is
called the 'Snake,' or 'Ular.' The second boat, somewhat shorter and
less fast, is named the 'Dragon;' her complement of paddles twenty, and
her fighting-men twenty, make one hundred and forty in, two boats. The
long canoes carry fifteen men each, which will bring the force up to
one hundred and eighty-five; and one boat of the rajah's will complete
two hundred men, of whom nearly one hundred are armed with muskets.

"To show the system of these people, I may mention that one of the
principal men proposed to me to send to Sakarran and Sarebus, and
intimate that I was about to attack Siquong (a large interior tribe),
and invite them to assist. 'They will all come,' he said: 'nothing
they will like so well; and when they are up the Samarahan river, we
will sally forth, attack; and destroy them at one blow.' My answer was,
that I could not deceive; but if they did come, I would attack them.

"_Feb. 1st._--Matari, or 'the Sun,' the Sakarran chief I have already
mentioned, arrive