I must notice that these Chinese are not the pure emigrants from China, but the half-breeds, descendants of the early settlers, who obtained Malay and Dayak wives, and are more warlike in their habits than the pure Chinese, and many have much of the activity of the aborigines. Settled in Sambas before the arrival of the Europeans in those seas, they gradually formed self-governing communities among the weak Malay States around, and by intermarriage with the women of the Dayak tribes in their neighbourhood, formed both political and social alliances with them. It was not to be expected that this state of things could long exist without serious disputes arising with the Malay chiefs; however, they generally managed to prevent a total estrangement; but when backed by the Dutch officials, the Sultan of Sambas endeavoured to coerce them into submission, the Chinese gold-working communities refused to obey, attacked the small force sent against them, captured the forts, and drove the Dutch troops to their steamers, and left in their possession little more than the town of Sambas. This, of course, roused the officials, and a strong expedition was sent from Java, which within a year subdued the refractory Chinese, who, in fact, submitted with very little opposition. But during their success they managed to give Sarawak a considerable lift. At the mouth of the Sambas river there is a place called Pamañgkat, where several thousand Chinese agriculturists were engaged in raising fine crops of rice. These men had not joined their countrymen in their resistance to the Sambas Government, and were therefore marked out for punishment during their brief success. In their alarm, the Pamañgkat Chinese fled to Sarawak, arriving in great numbers during the year 1850, whilst I was absent with Sir James Brooke on his mission to Siam; some came by sea, others fled overland to Lundu and to the interior. I found on my return in October, after nearly a year’s absence, that a great change had taken place in the appearance of the town of Kuching: dozens of fresh houses were built and building, while the surrounding forest was falling rapidly before the axes of the fugitives. Many of them had arrived destitute of all property, and I learnt that three hundred and ten families were entirely supported by the food and money furnished by the Sarawak government, besides hundreds of others having received presents of tools and temporary assistance. It was calculated at the time that about three thousand had arrived, many of whom immediately joined the gold-workers in the interior. We found also that the mission school had received a great addition in the form of about twenty remarkably intelligent-looking little boys and girls, whose destitute parents had gladly handed them over to the care of the clergy.