darling project."' Having procured and manned a yacht, he set out on his
expedition to the Eastern seas, in spite of all sarcasms from croakers;
and 'when the news came home that he had truly engaged in the
suppression of the Malay sea-robbers, and had been rewarded by the
cession to him, by a grateful native prince, of the territory and
governorship of Sarawak--a tract embracing about 3000 square miles of
country, with a sea-board of about fifty miles--said croakers began to
think the adventurous undertaking not so wild after all. The steps by
which he became rajah of Sarawak may be here recounted. When in his
vessel, the _Royalist_, he reached the coast of that country, he found
its ruler engaged in the suppression of one of the rebellions frequent
in uncivilised regions. His aid was solicited by the Rajah Muda Hassim,
and that aid being given, secured the triumph of the authorities. Muda
being soon afterwards called by the sultan to the post of
prime-minister, suggested the making the English captain his successor
at Sarawak--a step eventually taken. The newly-acquired territory was
swampy and ill cultivated by the native Dyaks, who varied their
occupations, as tillers of the land, by excursions amongst neighbouring
villages, _in search of heads_. To rob the native of a neighbouring town
of his cranium, was regarded in much the same light as the capture of a
scalp would be amongst North American savages. Brooke saw at once that
no improvement could arise whilst murder was regarded not only as a
pleasant amusement, but to some extent as a religious duty. He declared
head-hunting a crime punishable by death to the offender. With some
trouble and much risk he succeeded to a great extent in effecting a
reform. Attacking at the same time another custom of the country--that
of piracy--he acted with such vigour, that a class of well-meaning
people at home, stimulated to some extent by the private enemies of
Brooke, accused him of wholesale butchery. The fact that the destruction
of pirates was rewarded by the English executive by the payment of what