Again, in 1850, the nephew of the late Sultan was dunning a Bisaya for an imaginary debt; the man, to escape annoyance, tried to jump out of the verandah, when a follower of the noble wounded him with a sharp stick. This roused his friends, and they killed the whole party. Directly they had done so, they remembered the gravity of the act, and formed a league with the neighbouring villages to resist the force that was sure to attack them from the capital. They erected a stockade, and a few of their bravest men defended it for a short time: there was much firing and great beating of gongs, but little damage. The noise, however, frightened the Bisayas and Muruts, and they fled; but as they left the stockade, Orang Kaya Upit fired his musket, and killed a Bornean. This was enough to prevent all idea of pursuit. Now was the time for the wily Makota to settle matters: he sent a flag of truce, and after some discussion, it was agreed that four persons should be given up to suffer death in satisfaction for those who were killed with the Sultan’s nephew. Now comes the infamous part of the story. The aborigines gave up a stranger, who had married in the country, and who had had nothing whatever to do with the original murders: they gave him up, with his wife, his grandfather, and grandmother, and his two children--the last were kept as slaves by Makota, the other four executed. I mentioned the Sultan’s nephew was dunning for an imaginary debt: I must explain this. There is a system in this country called “serra,” or “serra dagang,” or forced trade, which I have before referred to, but it is carried on in the neighbourhood of the capital to an extent unknown elsewhere. Every noble of any influence that thinks proper goes to a tribe with some cloth, and calling the chief, orders him to divide it among his tribe; he then demands as its price from twenty to a hundred times its value. He does not expect to get the whole at once, but it enables him to dun the tribe for years after. Not content with taking their goods for these imaginary debts, they constantly seize their young children and carry them off as slaves. The tribe who killed the Sultan’s nephew had actually paid their serra to thirty-three different nobles that year, and had been literally stripped of all their food, before giving way to passion, they destroyed the whole party above referred to. Makota was enabled to settle the matter quickly, because without the food they get from Limbang, the capital would starve. I little thought that within three months of my writing the above lines, Makota would likewise have lost his life by his infamous oppressions.