The following day we went to other ground for deer; but the Dyaks had now enjoyed peace so long that the whole country was in a state of cultivation; and after scrambling over tracts of wild-looking country, in which Mr. Brooke, two years before, had seen the deer in hundreds, we returned to our boats, and down the river to Sarawak. We now began to prepare in earnest for work of another sort. The news of our intended attack on the Sarebus pirates had soon reached them, and spread all over the country; and we had daily accounts of the formidable resistance they intended to make. By the 4th July our preparations were complete, and the ship had dropped down to the mouth of the river. I forgot to mention that all the adjoining seriffs had, in the greatest consternation, sent me assurances of their future good intentions. Seriff Jaffer, who lived with an industrious but warlike race of Dyaks up the Linga river, a branch of the Batang Lupar, had never been known to commit piracy, and had been frequently at war with both the Sarebus and Sakarrans, offered to join our expedition. From Seriff Sahib, who lived up a river at Sadong, adjoining the Sarebus territory, and to whom the "Serpent" Macota had gone, Mr. Brooke and myself had invitations to partake of a feast on our way to the Sarebus river. This was accompanied with a present of a couple of handsome spears and a porcupine, and also an offer to give up the women and children he had, with the assistance of the Sakarran pirates, captured from the poor Sow Dyaks up the Sarawak. Farther to the eastward, and up the Batang Lupar, into which the Sakarran runs, lived another powerful seriff by the name of Muller, elder brother and coadjutor of Seriff Sahib. These all, however, through fear at the moment, sent in submissive messages; but their turn had not yet come, and we proceeded toward the Sarebus. The island of Burong, off which the Dido was to remain at anchor, we made the first place of rendezvous. The force from the Dido consisted of her pinnace, two cutters, and a gig; beside which Mr. Brooke lent us his native-built boat, the Jolly Bachelor, carrying a long six-pounder brass gun and thirty of our men; also a large tope of thirty-five tons, which carried a well-supplied commissariat, as well as ammunition.