A good deal has already been said about that blot on the map of Borneo, Bruni, and of its Rulers, and in this chapter shall be given the history of the relations between the Sultans and the present Rajah since his accession, as well as of the policy of the Foreign and Colonial Offices in regard to that "wretched phantom the Bruni Government."[307] Many chapters might well be devoted to the past and present history of Daru'l Salam, the Haven of Peace, the sublime Arabic title by which, with a characteristic disregard of the fitness of things, the Brunis proudly dignify their unhappy city, as they do their Sultan with the title of Kaadil-an, the Just. But like morning dreams, these go by contraries. The story they would set forth would be a sad one, as may well be judged from what has already been related and from what will be told in this chapter, though a great deal more might be said. It would be interesting, too, as another example of British indifference to Eastern affairs. From the commencement, when nearly seventy years ago the attention of the empire was so strongly drawn to this nest of murderers and robbers, this haven of criminals, by the late Rajah, till the end, when in 1905 the British Government elected to adopt the bankrupt and depopulated remnant of the Sultanate, its policy in regard to that State has been remarkable for neither consistency nor astuteness. During the last twenty years of his reign (1852-1885) the old Sultan, Abdul Mumin, who has been described as having the soul of a huckster, and who died at the age of over a hundred, devoted his life solely to the pursuit of wealth, and the unscrupulous means he employed to enrich himself produced great oppression and misery. Affairs of State were a secondary matter with him, and the ministers and pangirans went their ways unrestrained. Some of these pangirans, who are related to royalty, a few closely, others more or less remotely, exercise "Tulin" or hereditary feudal rights over districts, the ministers holding, ex-officio, similar rights over other districts; the unhappy people therein were completely in their power, and could be squeezed at their own sweet will. Others, not possessing such rights but armed with authority from the Sultan, easily obtained at a price, enriched themselves by forced trading. The poorer classes of the Bruni Malays are hard-working and law-abiding; but when no man's property is safe from the rapacious grasp of the chiefs, thrift and hard work cease to have an object, and the country becomes dead to industry and enterprise. The inhabitants of the interior, and the Kadayans, an industrious, agricultural people, suffered under the same disadvantages. Like the Chinese, these people once cultivated pepper, but for the same cause gave up doing so, which is not surprising when even their harvests of rice were not spared to them.