The Malay is the latest immigrant. He is of mixed breed, and the link that holds the Malays together is religion, for they are Mahomedans, whereas the Kayans, Land and Sea-Dayaks, and other tribes, are pagans. To accept their own traditions, the Bruni Malays came from Johore, whereas the Sarawak Malays, like those of the Malay peninsula, came direct from the ancient kingdom of Menangkabau. Between them there is a very marked difference in language, character, and appearance. Whence the proto-Malay stock came is a moot point, but it may be of Mongolian origin, subsequently blended with many other distinct ethnic types, such as the Arab and Hindu, and in the case of the Bornean Malay with the Indonesian peoples of their and the neighbouring islands. The Malays form the main population of Kuching, the capital, and of the towns Sadong, Simanggang, Kalaka, and Sibu. They have villages on the Lundu, Saribas, and lower Rejang, are scattered along the coast between Capes Datu and Sirik, and are to be found in the principal settlements beyond. The Malay has been very variously judged. The Malay Pangiran, or noble, was rapacious, cruel, and often cowardly. But he had a grace of manner, a courtesy, and hospitality that were pleasing as a varnish. The evil repute that the Malay has acquired has been due to his possession of power, and to his unscrupulous use of it to oppress the aboriginal races. But the Malay out of power is by no means an objectionable character. Sir James Brooke, the first Rajah, thus paints him:— The feeling of the Malay fostered by education is acute, and his passions are roused if shame be put upon him; indeed the dread of shame amounts to a disease, and the evil is that it has taken a wrong direction, being more the dread of exposure or abuse, than shame or contrition for any offence. Like other Asiatics truth is a rare quality among them, and they have neither principle nor conscience when they have the means of oppressing an infidel. They are thus depicted by Mr. Horace St. John in a work somewhat ambitiously entitled, _The Indian Archipelago, its History and present State_, vol. ii. p. 267 (published 1853). Under the heading "Malays," we find the following:— The Malays are Mahomedans, living under the rule of the Prophet's descendants, a mongrel race of tyrants, gamblers, opium-smokers, pirates, and chiefs, who divide their time between cockfighting, smoking, concubines, and collecting taxes.