The present orang kaya de gadong is now very old, but all his life he has been a consistent opponent of any intercourse with Christian nations; and when forced by business to sit and converse with Europeans, the expression of his face is most offensive, and he looks as if he loathed the duty in which he was engaged, and he is one of the few natives I have met who appeared to long to insult you. He was one of the most active of those engaged in the conspiracy to assassinate the rajah Muda Hasim, partly on account of his supposed attachment to the English alliance. Every descendant of a noble family, whether legitimate or illegitimate, is entitled to call himself pañgeran, or ampuan, which causes the country to swarm with these poverty-stricken gentlemen, who are a curse to the industrious classes. Nearly every district belongs to some particular family, which by usage possesses an almost unchallenged power over the people, and is thus removed from the control of the government. Many districts are divided among various families, who have each certain villages, and live on the amount they can obtain by taxes or forced trade. The sultan possesses a large number, and each of the principal nobles has several, while many, formerly wealthy, have dissipated their property, and sold their rights to others. Those who do not possess any particular districts, endeavour to obtain a living by pressing from the aborigines all that their Malay chiefs have left them. As, however, the central government is gradually falling into decay, the more distant dependencies are throwing off the yoke of the absent nobles, and asserting an amount of independence which is measured by distance and their own power. Agents of the nobles still visit them, but the produce collected is but small. This, however, tells heavily on the districts nearer the capital, and the unfortunate Muruts and Bisayas are ground to the dust to support a useless and idle population. I have given some anecdotes of this state of things in my journal up the Limbang. The divisions among the nobles themselves prevent them ever uniting to regain an influence over their distant provinces, which one by one are falling from them. There is a poverty among these men which is almost inconceivable in a rich country, as whatever the amount obtained from the neighbouring villages, it can but support the idlers who throng round the chiefs. Brunei contains at least 25,000 inhabitants, half of whom depend, directly or indirectly, on the nobles, and in their name carry on a system of plunder unintelligible in other countries. If the followers be sent to make a demand on a certain village, they will obtain double the amount for their own shares. If the inhabitants refuse to pay, their children are seized; and if their means are really exhausted, the little ones are carried off into slavery.[12]