They are very tenacious of their dignity, and only the royal family can use yellow; and for a trader to fly streamers or flags from the mast-head is a great offence to the nobles. It used to be, and will probably be again after the present sultan’s death, a punishable offence for a person of inferior rank to pass the palace steps with his umbrella spread, or to sit in the after-part of a boat, that being the place for nobles. A man wearing yellow would be punished, while even the slave girls may dress in that colour. The distinctions of rank are kept up with great strictness, yet the sultan will talk to the people with perfect familiarity, but they always reply in a most respectful tone; though during the evening free conversation is encouraged. The sultan and nobles deplore the decay of their country, but cannot, or rather will not, understand that it is their own unreflecting rapacity which destroys the springs of industry. There are no fixed impositions, but the aborigines suffer from the exactions of all, until, they have told me that, in despair, they are planting yearly less and less, and trusting to the jungle for a subsistence. The price of uncleaned rice has risen four hundred per cent. during my experience of Brunei. This partly arises from the ravages of the Kayans, who have lessened the agricultural population, and greatly narrowed the area of cultivation; and partly, as I have observed, from the dependencies ceasing to yield so much to the nobles, they are compelled to depend more on the neighbouring tribes. I have not yet mentioned the people who inhabit the hills which surround the capital; they are called Kadayans, and are evidently aborigines converted to Islamism. It is a tradition among them that they and the Perambat and Pablat sections of the city inhabited by the fishermen were formerly Muruts, and joined the Mahomedans about four hundred years ago. In digging near the consulate, I found a large jar, with the remains of bones and a skull, almost dissolved by time, very similar to the ones used for the same purpose by the Muruts of the present day. It is supposed by the Kadayans to have been buried there before their conversion.