was a sad day for the little Colony at Sandakan when Mr. WHITEHEAD, a naturalist who happened to be travelling in the neighbourhood at the time, brought us the news of the melancholy affray, and the wounded Captain DE FONTAINE and several Sikhs, to whose comfort and relief he had, at much personal inconvenience, attended on the tedious voyage in a small steam-launch from the Kawang to the Capital. On the East Coast, also, their slave-dealing and kidnapping propensities brought the Bajows into unfriendly relations with the Government, and their lawlessness culminated in their kidnapping several Eraan birds' nest collectors, whom they refused to surrender, and making preparations for resisting any measures which might be taken to coerce them. As these same people had, a short time previously, captured at sea some five Dutch subjects, it was deemed that their offences brought them within the cognizance of the Naval authorities, and Captain A. K. HOPE, R.N., at my request, visited the district, in 1886, in H. M. S. _Zephyr_ and, finding that the people of two of the Bajow villages refused to hold communication with us, but prepared their boats for action, he opened fire on them under the protection of which a party of the North Borneo Constabulary landed and destroyed the villages, which were quickly deserted, and many of the boats which had been used on piratical excursions. Happily, there was no loss of life on either side, and a very wholesome and useful lesson was given to the pirates without the shedding of blood, thanks to the good arrangements and tact of Captain HOPE. In order that the good results of this lesson should not be wasted, I revisited the scene of the little engagement in the _Zephyr_ a few weeks subsequently, and not long afterwards the British flag was again shewn in the district, by Captain A. H. ALINGTON in H. M. S. _Satellite_, who interviewed the offending chiefs and gave them sound advice as to their conduct in future. Akin to the Bajows are the Illanuns and Balinini, Muhammadan peoples, famous in former days as the most enterprising pirates of the Malayan seas. The Balinini, Balignini or Balanguini--as their name is variously written--originally came from a small island to the north of Sulu, and the Illanuns from the south coast of the island of Mindanao--one of the Philippines, but by the action of the Spanish and British cruisers their power has been broken and they are found scattered in small numbers throughout the Sulu Islands and on the seaboard of Northern Borneo, on the West Coast of which they founded little independent settlements, arrogating to their petty chiefs such high sounding titles as Sultan, Maharajah and so forth.