er noble, and the forest
clear of brushwood, enabling us to penetrate with ease as far as
caution permitted. Traces of wild beasts numerous and recent, but
none discovered. Fresh-water streams coloured as yesterday, and the
trail of an alligator from one of them to the sea. This dark
forest, where the trees shoot up straight and tall, and are
succeeded by generation after generation varying in stature, but
struggling upward, strikes the imagination with pictures trite yet
true. It was thus I meditated in my walk. The foot of European, I
said, has never touched where my foot now presses--seldom the
native wanders here. Here, I, indeed, behold nature fresh from the
bosom of creation, unchanged by man, and stamped with the same
impress she originally bore! Here I behold God's design when He
formed this tropical land, and left its culture and improvement to
the agency of man! The Creator's gift as yet neglected by the
creature; and yet the time may be confidently looked for when the
axe shall level the forest, and the plough turn the ground."

Upon the 5th of August, a boat was sent to the island of Tulang-Talang,
where some Malays were seen; they were civil, and offered their
assistance. On the following morning the _bandar_ (or chief steward) of
the place came off in his canoe, and welcomed the new-comers. He assured
them of a happy reception from the Rajah, and took his leave, after
having been sumptuously entertained with sweetmeats and syrups, and
handsomely provided with three yards of red cloth, some tea, and a
little gunpowder. The great man himself, Muda Hassim, was, visited in
his town of Sar[=a]wak on the morning of the 15th. He received his
visitors in state, seated in his hall of audience, a large shed, erected
on piles. Sar[=a]wak is only the occasional residence of the Rajah, and
at the time of the ship's arrival he was detained there by a rebellion
in the interior. The town was found to be a mere collection of mud-huts,
containing about 1500 persons, and inhabited for the most part by the
Rajah, his family, and their attendants. The remaining population were
poor and squalid. "We sat," says Mr Brooke, "in easy and unreserved
converse, out of hearing of the rest of the circle. He expressed great
kindness to the English nation; and begged me to tell him _really_,
which was the most powerful nation, England or Holland; or, as he
sig