Magindano pirates." Every year these scourges of the Archipelago
wander in one direction or another, making their rendezvous on
some uninhabited island, and carrying devastation to all the
small settlements around; robbing, destroying, killing, or taking
captive all they nee with. Their long well-manned praus escape
from the pursuit of any sailing vessel by pulling away right in
the wind's eye, and the warning smoke of a steamer generally
enables them to hide in some shallow bay, or narrow river, or
forest-covered inlet, till the danger is passed. The only
effectual way to put a stop to their depredations would be to
attack them in their strongholds and villages, and compel them to
give up piracy, and submit to strict surveillance. Sir James
Brooke did this with the pirates of the north-west coast of
Borneo, and deserves the thanks of the whole population of the
Archipelago for having rid them of half their enemies.

All along the beach here, and in the adjacent strip of sandy
lowland, is a remarkable display of Pandanaceae or Screw-pines.
Some are like huge branching candelabra, forty or fifty feet
high, and bearing at the end of each branch a tuft of immense
sword-shaped leaves, six or eight inches wide, and as many feet
long. Others have a single unbranched stem, six or seven feet
high, the upper part clothed with the spirally arranged leaves,
and bearing a single terminal fruit ac large as a swan's egg.
Others of intermediate size have irregular clusters of rough red
fruits, and all have more or less spiny-edged leaves and ringed
stems. The young plants of the larger species have smooth glossy
thick leaves, sometimes ten feet long and eight inches wide,
which are used all over the Moluccas and New Guinea, to make
"cocoyas" or sleeping mats, which are often very prettily