pt to their new-raised enemy. The occasion soon presented itself.
Seven of the Kuchin Malays, having ventured in a canoe up the Sakarron
river, were all murdered, and their heads cut off, and kept, as usual,
as trophies; and the intelligence of this outrage communicated by them
to Mr. Brooke, with defiance.

Captain Keppell, of the Dido, had just arrived at Sarawak when this news
was brought to Mr. Brooke. Captain Keppell had been sent by Admiral Sir
Thomas Cochrane to the island on purpose to look out for pirates, and to
destroy them and their nests wherever he could find them. He therefore
gladly offered his assistance to Mr. Brooke to punish these murderous
wretches; and the Phlegethon steamer coming in while they were preparing
for the expedition, was, of course, added to the force employed. This
fortunate accession of strength, assisted by all the Malay war boats
which Mr. Brooke could muster, enabled them to give an effectual check
to a band of pirates, so numerous and so warlike as to have become most
formidable. To proceed:--

That night we anchored with the last of the flood at the entrance of the
Sakarron. We had great fear, from the intelligence we had received from
time to time, from boats we fell in with on our passage, that we should
arrive too late to be partakers of the affray; and so it proved, for the
next morning, while proceeding higher up the river, we perceived a large
force of native boats coming down with the ebb, and all of them filled
to the gunwale with plunder.

The Malay and Dyak canoes are made out of a hollowed tree, or, as they
are termed in many ports of India, "dug-outs." They are long and narrow,
and are capable of being propelled with great swiftness. Although very
easy to capsize, they are constantly loaded till so deep that at the
least inclination the water pours over the gunwale, and one man is
usually employed baling with a scoop made out of a banana leaf. Custom,
however, makes them so used to keep the equilibrium, that you often see
the Dyaks, whose canoes are similar to the Malays', standing upright and
propelling them with their spears.

[Illustration: NATIVE BOAT--BORNEO.]

The Malay war-boat, or _prahu_, is built of timber at the lower part,
the upper is of bamboo, rattan, and kedgang (the dried leaf of the Nepa
palm). Outside the bends, about a foot from the water line, runs a
strong gallery, in which the rowers sit cross-legged. At the after-part
of the boat is a cab