Seventeen years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo; a ... - Sabrizain.org

SARAWAK—SIR JAMES BROOKE 29
who was consecrated Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak in
1855.
My father, the Rev. W. H. Gomes, B.D., worked under
Bishop McDougall as a missionary among the Dyaks of
Lundu from 1852 to 1867, and I myself have worked,
under Bishop Hose, as a missionary in Sarawak, for seven-
teen years, and have thus gained an ultimate knowledge
of the people and of their lives, now so rapidly changing
under Western influence.
Sir James Brooke was a man of the highest personal
character. That a young English officer, with a fortune
of his own, should have been willing to devote his whole
life to improving the condition of the Dyaks was a grand
thing. That he should have been able, by perfectly
legitimate means, to do this in the teeth of much official
that he should have been able to
and other opposition ;
put down piracy and head-hunting, with their unspeakable
accompaniments of misery and cruelty, and to do
it all with the hearty good-will of the people under his
rule,— this was indeed an achievement which might have
seemed hardly possible.
The present Rajah of Sarawak, Sir Charles Brooke, is
a nephew of the first Rajah. He joined his uncle in
1852, when he held the rank of lieutenant in the British
navy. For ten years he played an important part in
the arduous work of punishing rebels and establishing a
sound government. In 1857, when the Chinese in-
surrection broke out,
it was his action that led to the
punishment of the insurgents and the restoration of peace.
In 1863, on the retirement of the first Rajah, he assumed
control of the country, and five years later, on the death
of his predecessor, he became Rajah of Sarawak. Ever
ince he became the responsible ruler of the country,