For many years the Chinese had attempted to form secret societies in Sarawak; but every effort was made to check their spread among the people, and it appeared as if success had attended that policy. To a considerable extent it was the case: but up in the interior, among the gold workers, the kunsi or company stood in the place of a secret society, and its members carried on an extensive intercourse with their fellow-countrymen in Sambas and Pontianak, and with the Tien Ti secret society in Singapore. I have described in the last chapter a tour which Mr. Fox and I made among the settlements of the Chinese in the interior of Sarawak, during which we became convinced that smuggling was carried on to a great extent, for, however numerous might be the new immigrants, the opium revenue did not increase. At last it was discovered that opium was sent from Singapore to the Natuna islands, and from thence smuggled into Sarawak and the Dutch territories; it was traced to the kunsi, which was thereupon fined 150_l._: a very trifling amount, considering the thousands they had gained by defrauding the revenue, and measures were immediately taken to suppress the traffic, which, together with the punishment of three of its members for a gross assault on another Chinese, were the only grounds of complaint they had against the Sarawak government. To show their arrogance, I will enter into the details of this case. A Chinese woman ran away from her husband, a member of the kunsi, who followed her to Kuching, and obtained an order from the police magistrate that she should return with him, but on her refusal, she was ordered to remain within the stockade. As the case was peculiar, she was not confined to a cell, but suffered to move about in the inner court; and some of her friends supplying her with men’s clothes, she managed to slip out unperceived by the sentry, and obtained a passage on board a Chinese boat bound for one of the villages on the coast. Her husband hearing of the place to which she had removed, followed her with a strong party of the members of the kunsi, and recovered her. Not satisfied with this, they seized all the boatmen, and flogged them in the most unmerciful manner, and then placed them in irons. When let go, they of course brought their complaint before the police magistrate, and three of the party were punished for taking the law into their own hands.