When the father heard of it, he sent a great deputation of nobles to entreat the Murut to turn Mahomedan, and marry his daughter according to the custom of that religion. He made no difficulty, but, on the contrary, invited the nobles to remain and take wives in the country. Many did, and it soon became a great rendezvous for the Malays; in fact, the other twenty kampongs are descended from odds and ends of strangers, together with their wives, taken among the aborigines. The rajahs all say they are of Johore descent. Bujang affirms that the Pablats muster nearly a thousand fighting men; and that, with the Kadayans, or Mahomedans of the Hills, they have an offensive and defensive alliance, which enables them to hold their own, and not be treated as the other kampongs are. He was very proud that they would not suffer the rajahs to take their women, except with the parents’ consent. It is a fact that an unbetrothed girl, of decent appearance, can never be kept by her parents. A rajah sees her, and orders her to be sent to his harïm, that he may honour her by taking her as a concubine. They, therefore, betroth their children in childhood, and then they are usually safe. He says, and the Bisayas have a similar tradition, that Brunei was formerly a lake, that burst through into the sea near the island of Iñgaran. 3 p.m.--We have only walked two hours and a half to-day, as, when we arrived at the hut of the Adang hunters, our Muruts were unwilling to go farther, hoping to come in for a very good share of the flesh of the wild pig that was hung up around: so we stopped, though anxious to get to a river. It is a great luxury, after a walk, to get a bathe in a fresh, running stream. Now we are encamped on an elevation of 3,000 feet, with only a very tiny spring of water near. With the party of Adang Muruts there is an old chief who has agreed to return with us to his village, leaving his young men to gather honey and wax. The few Adangs that we have met have rather a heavy, forbidding appearance, except the old chief and another.