I was one day walking in the grounds near the consulate, when I was annoyed by a most offensive effluvia rising from a line of low trees which skirted the river’s bank. I found that some one had placed there the body of a young girl of thirteen. I reported the case to the sultan, and heard that two women had agreed to exchange slaves, a boy for a girl, but had not yet carried out the arrangement. The owner of the female slave noticing she was ailing, sent her to the owner of the boy, who refused to receive her in that state. The unfortunate child was bandied about between the two in an open canoe during a whole day, exposed to sun and rain, and at night a mat was thrown over her, and the canoe tied to the wharf of the owner of the boy. In the morning it was discovered she was dead, and her mistress, to save the trouble of burying her, threw her corpse where I found it. The woman was nominally fined--not for her cruelty, but for neglecting to inter it. The capital is divided among the partisans of the sons of the late sultan, who hold the offices of tumanggong and pamancha, and are supported by their uncle the de gadong; leaving the bandhara, the highest minister in rank, though not in power, as the mainstay of the opposing faction, who support the sons of the late Muda Hassim, whose death is described in Captain Mundy’s volumes on Borneo. The tumanggong is the popular candidate, and he, or one of his family, may succeed to the throne without bloodshed, as the opposing candidate is daily losing ground. I liked both of them, but the former is more likely to keep things together than the latter. It is a government, however, beyond all hope of improvement.