Two years previously, Sherip Masahor and the Datu Patinggi Haji Gapur, now known as the Datu Haji, had been pardoned. The former had been allowed to return to Serikei, and the latter to live in retirement at Kuching. It was a mistaken and highly imprudent policy, for neither had forgotten his humiliation, and both commenced active intrigue against the Government; and the party of pangirans at Bruni, hostile to all reforms, were privy to these plots, of which the Sultan himself was aware, and at which he probably connived. Constant intercourse was being kept up between the Sultans of Bruni and Sambas, which could omen no good to Sarawak; and Bruni alone, now once more relapsed into its former evil condition, was without the means of open aggression. In 1859, the Europeans in Sarawak were startled by a report of the wholesale massacre of Europeans, men, women, and children, at Banjermasin, succeeded by further reports that all white men were being killed in the other Dutch settlements, and that the same fate was to be meted out to those in Sarawak and Labuan. In March, the Tuan Muda, owing to disquieting rumours having reached him, resolved upon making a tour to the different stations on the coast, and first visited the Rejang. At Serikei he was joined by Mr. Fox, and then proceeded to Kanowit, a hundred miles up the broad Rejang river. The village and fort together formed a picturesque piece of irregularity and dilapidation. Here were settled a few Malays, a gang of cut-throats who lived by swindling the Dayaks, and stood by the fort as their only means of security. Some few Chinese traders had ventured to settle in the place, but they were a mob of rapscallions. Above the village was the mouth of the Kanowit river, and on the opposite bank of this river was the large village of the Kanowit tribe, adherents of Sherip Masahor. The Kanowit, as well as the Poi and Ngmah, two branches of the main river above Kanowit, was inhabited by Sea-Dayaks from the Batang Lupar and Saribas, unfriendly to the Government. Mr. Steele had been in charge of Kanowit for eight years. It was a vastly solitary place for an Englishman during the north-east monsoon. For three or four months of the year no communication was to be had with Kuching, owing to the strong freshes and heavy seas on the coast; but Mr. Steele had grown so accustomed to the life that he would not have exchanged it for another. The fort had been often attempted both secretly and openly, people close around had been killed, and Mr. Steele had met with several narrow escapes. His fortmen were not of the best class, but they were of his own selection. The Tuan Muda felt uneasy about the place. "There was too smooth an appearance, without any substantial base." There were no reliable Malay chiefs; and he left Mr. Fox to support Mr. Steele.