The public have already been introduced to Mr. Brooke in the volumes published by Captain Henry Keppel. Mr. Brooke is a gentleman of independent fortune, who was formerly in the service of the Company. The usefulness and philanthropy of his public career are well known: if the private history which induced him to quit the service, and afterwards expatriate himself, could with propriety, and also regard to Mr. Brooke's feelings, be made known, it would redound still more to his honour and his high principle; but these I have no right to make public. Mr. Brooke, having made up his mind to the high task of civilising a barbarous people, and by every means in his power of putting an end to the wholesale annual murders committed by a nation of pirates, whose hands were, like Ishmael's, against every man, sailed from England in his yacht, the Royalist schooner, with a crew of picked and tried men, and proceeded to Sarawak, where he found the rajah, Muda Hassein, the uncle to the reigning sultan of Borneo, engaged in putting down the insurrection of various chiefs of the neighbouring territory. Mr. Brooke, with his small force, gave his assistance to the rajah; and through his efforts, and those of his well-armed band, the refractory chiefs were reduced to obedience. Willing to retain such a powerful ally, and partial to the English, the rajah made Mr. Brooke most splendid promises to induce him to remain; but the rajah, like all Asiatics, did not fulfil the performance of these promises until after much delay and vexation to Mr. Brooke, who required all the courage and patience with which he is so eminently gifted, before he could obtain his ends. At last he was successful: Muda Hassein made over to him a large tract of land, over which he was constituted rajah, and Mr. Brooke took up his residence at Kuchin; and this grant was ultimately confirmed by the seal of the sultan of Borneo. Such, in few words, is the history of Mr. Brooke: if the reader should wish for a more detailed account, I must refer him to Capt. Henry Keppel's work, in which is published a great portion of Mr. Brooke's own private memoranda. [Illustration: LOONDOO DYAK. (N. W. COAST OF BORNEO.) F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] On the morning of the 29th June we saw the high land of Borneo, but for several days were unsuccessful in discovering the mouth of the river. On the night of July the 4th we anchored off the entrance of a river, which the captain supposed to be the Sarawak. The next morning the two barges, well armed, were sent up the river to obtain information. After pulling with the stream six or eight miles, they discovered a small canoe, which, on their approach, retreated up the river with great speed. Mr. Heard, the officer in charge of the boats, had taken the precaution, as he ascended the river, of cutting a palm branch for each boat, and these were now displayed at the bows as a sign of peaceable intentions.