THE DUTCH GENERALLY DISLIKED.

87

them;—such brass guns; such long pendants; such creeses! Allah-il-Allah! our Datoos were indeed great men!

66

Sailing along the coast up as high as Patani, we then crossed over to Borneo, two Illanoon prahus acting as pilots, and reached a place called Sambas: there we fought the Chinese and Dutchmen, who ill-treat our countrymen, and are trying to drive the Malays out of that country. Gold-dust and slaves in large quantities were here taken; most of the latter being our countrymen of Sumatra and Java, who are captured and sold to the planters and miners of the Dutch settlements."

"Do you mean to say," I asked, "that the Dutch countenance such traffic?"

"The Hollanders," replied Jadee, “have been the bane of the Malay race; no one knows the amount of villany, the bloody cruelty of their system towards us. They drive us into our prahus to escape their taxes and their laws, and then declare us pirates, and put us to death. There are natives in our crew, Touhan, of Sumatra and Java, of Bianca and Borneo; ask them why they hate the Dutchmen ; why they would kill a Dutchman. It is because the Dutchman is a false man, not like the white man (English). The Hollander stabs in the dark: he

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JADEE'S PIRATE FLEET

is a liar! However, from Borneo we sailed to Biliton and Bianca, and there waited for some large junks that were expected. Our cruise had been so far successful, and we feasted away,-fighting cocks, smoking opium, and eating white rice. At last our scouts told us that a junk was in sight. She came ; a lofty-sided one of Fokien. We knew those Amoy men would fight like tiger-cats for their sugar and silks; and, as the breeze was fresh, we only kept her in sight by keeping close in shore and following her. Not to frighten the Chinamen, we did not hoist sail, but made our slaves pull. Oh!" said Jadee, warming up with the recollection of the event, "oh! it was fine to feel what brave fellows we then were !

"Towards night we made sail, and closed upon the junk, and at daylight it fell a stark calm, and we went at our prize like sharks. All our fighting men put on their war dresses; the Illanoons danced their war dance, and all our gongs sounded, as we opened out to attack her on different sides.

"But those Amoy men are pigs! They burnt josspaper, sounded their gongs, and received us with such showers of stones, hot water, long pikes, and one or two well-directed shots, that we hauled off to try the effect of our guns; sorry though we were to

ATTACK A JUNK.

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do it; for it was sure to bring down the Dutchmen upon us. Bang! bang! we fired at them, and they at us; three hours did we persevere, and whenever we tried to board, the Chinese beat us back every time, for her side was as high and smooth as a wall, with galleries overhanging. We had several men killed and hurt; a council was called; a certain charm was performed by one of our holy men, a famous chief, and twenty of our best men devoted themselves to effecting a landing on the junk's deck, when our look-out prahus made the signal that the Dutchmen were coming; and sure enough some Dutch gun-boats came sweeping round a headland. In a moment we were round and pulling like demons for the shores of Biliton, the gun-boats in chase of us, and the Chinese howling with delight. The scabreeze freshened, and brought up a schooner-rigged boat very fast we had been at work twenty-four hours, and were heartily tired; our slaves could work no longer, so we prepared for the Hollanders ; they were afraid to close upon us, and commenced firing at a distance. This was just what we wanted; we had guns as well as they, and, by keeping up the fight until dark, we felt sure of escape. The Dutchmen, however, knew this too, and kept closing gradually upon us, and when they saw our prahus