It is not a little singular, however, that although they display so much courage and indifference to death in naval warfare, their military tactics are of the very meanest order and are executed with such lukewarmness that to see them as soldiers and nothing else would be to conceive them to be the greatest curs on the face of the earth. Of this Rajah Brooke had most rueful yet ludicrous experience. Thanks to his own indomitable pluck and the assistance (sparse enough at best) granted him by the British government, together with that of the various Bornean tribes whom Brooke had won over to his interest, the marauding Dayaks were very considerably lessened in numbers and, better still, damped in piratical ardour; still there were a few very formidable bodies inhabiting forts along the coast whose interest it was to favour piracy and who were known to do their earnest best to thwart the endeavours of the European Rajah. Therefore a grand council of war was held, at which were present various Malay, Chinese, and Dayak leaders, and Sir J. Brooke, and it was formally resolved to combine the various forces and to proceed to storm and carry the obnoxious forts in a regular way. All were willing enough to give their word; but our countryman seems from the very onset to have had a dismal foreboding of what would be the result. “To judge,” says he, “by the sample of the council, I should form a very unfavourable expectation of their conduct in action. Macota (a chief, as are the rest whose names are here mentioned) is lively and active, but, either from indisposition or want of authority, undecided. The Capitan China is lazy and silent; Abong Mia and Datu Naraja stupid.... I may here state my motives for being a spectator of, or participator (as may turn out) in, this scene. In the first place, I must confess that curiosity strongly prompted me; since to witness the Malays, Chinese, and Dayaks in warfare was so new that the novelty alone might plead an excuse for this desire. But it was not the only motive, for my presence is a stimulus to our own party, and will probably depress the others in proportion.”