or of their house.
The woman was found to be fearfully cut about; the man had but one
wound, in his abdomen, penetrating the bowels. There was only one weapon
by which the double murder could have been committed, a knife with a six
inch blade, and circumstances seemed to point to the probability that
the woman had first stabbed the man, who had then wrenched the knife
from her grasp and hacked her to death. The man was not quite dead when
found and he accused the dead woman of stabbing him. It was found, that
they had not long been married and that, apparently with the girl's
consent, her father had been negociating for her marriage with another.
The father himself was subsequently the first man murdered in British
North Borneo after the assumption of the Government by the Company, and
his murderer was the first victim of the law in the new Colony.
Altogether a tragical story.

Many years ago another _amok_, which was near being tragical, had an
almost comical termination. The then Colonial Treasurer was an
entertaining Irishman of rather mature age. Walking down to his office
one day he found in the road a Malay hacking at his wife and another
man. Home rule not being then in fashion with the Irish, the Treasurer,
armed only with his sun umbrella, attempted to interfere, when the
_amoker_ turned furiously on him and the Irish official, who was of
spare build, took to his heels and made good his escape, the chase,
though a serious matter to him, causing irrepressible mirth to
onlookers. The man was never captured, and his victims, though
disfigured, recovered. I remember being struck by the contemptuous
reply of Sir HUGH LOW'S Chinese servant when he warned him to be on his
guard, as there was an _amoker_ at large, and alluded to Mr. C.'s narrow
escape--it was to the effect that the Treasurer was foolish to interfere
in other people's concerns. This unwillingness to busy oneself in
others' affairs, which sometimes has the appearance of callousness, is
characteristic of Malays and Chinese.

The readers of a book of travels are somewhat under a disadvantage in
forming their opinion of a country, in that incidents are focussed for
them by those of the same nature being grouped together. I do not wish
it to be thought that murders and _amoks_ are at all common occurrences
in Northern Borneo, indeed they are very few and far between, and
criminal acts of all kinds are remarkably infrequent, that is, of
course, if we regard