RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n
14

LEIGH WRIGHT

At the height of Brunei's "golden age" the earliest contacts with Europeans occurred. The best records of the early contacts are found in the account of Antonio Pigafetta, the chronicler of Magellan's circumnavigation voyage. In 1521 Magellan's fleet visited Brunei. I quote at some length a description of Brunei under Sultan Bulkiah.4

When we reached the city, we had to wait two hours in the prau, until there had arrived two elephants, caparisoned in silk-cloth, and twelve men, each furnished with a porcelain vase, covered with silk, to receive and to cover our presents. We mounted the elephants, the twelve men going before, carrying the presents. The present for the king consisted of a vest velvet in the Turkish fashion, a chair of purple velvet, five yards of red broad-cloth, one cap (beretoo), a gilded goblet, a glass vase with a lid, three quires of paper, and gilded inkstand. We brought for the queen three yards of yellow broad-cloth, a pair of silver-embroidered shoes, and a silver case filled with pins. We thus proceeded to the house of the governor, who gave us a supper of many dishes. Here we slept for the night on mattresses stuffed with cotton (Bambagic), and cased with silk. Next day, we were left at our leisure until twelve o'clock when we proceeded to the king's palace. We were mounted, as before, on elephants, the men bearing the gifts going before us. From the governor's house to the palace the streets were full of people armed with swords, lances and targets: the king had so ordered it. Still mounted on the elephants we entered the court of the palace. We then dismounted, ascended a stair, accompanied by the governor and some chiefs, and entered a great hall full of courtiers, whom we shall call barons of the realm (Baroni del regno). Here we were seated on carpets, the presents being placed near to us.

At the end of the great hall, but raised above it, there was one of less extent hung with silken cloth, in which were two curtains, on raising which, there appeared two windows, which lighted the hall. Here, as a guard to the king, there were 300 men with naked rapiers (stochi nudi) in hand resting on their thighs, at the further end of this smaller hall, there was a great window with a brocade curtain before it, on raising which, we saw the king seated at a table masticating betel, and a little boy,

Page 30

Page 31
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n
28

LEIGH WRIGHT

The state of Brunei annual report for 1956 describes the water city, Kampong Ayer, this way,

Set in a wide sweep of the river, this river town is in its way unique. At high tide under favourable conditions of light it takes on quite a remarkable beauty; viewed at close quarters it is even more remarkably ramshackle. The houses are grouped together in small villages, being connected by precarious plank walkways, and there the inhabitants carry on their multifarious activities in much the same way as if they were on land.

NOTES

1 See e.g. O. W. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce; a study of the origins of Srivijaya, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967); and D. E. Brown, Brunei: the structure and history of a Bornean Malay sultanate, (Brunei: Brunei Museum, 1970).

These works have drawn upon the earlier studies of such scholars as W. P. Groeneveldt (1880) and Lien Sung (1919).

2 See Brown, op. cit., Ch. XI.

3 The fullest account of the Moro wars is in E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson, The Philippine Islands, 1493 - 1898, (Cleveland, 1903 -09).

4 Lord Stanley of Alderley (ed.), The first voyage round the world by Magellan, by Antonio Pigafetta, (London: Hakluyt Society, 1874).

5 J. Hunt, "Some particulars relative to the Sulo islands in the Archipelago of Felicia”, in Malayan Miscellany, I, (Bencoolen, 1820).

6 James Horsburgh, Directions for sailing to and from the East Indies and China, (London, 1811), the navigational handbook for generations of British sea captains. This work drew heavily upon the surveys of eighteenth century seafarers such as Alexander Dalrymple (1774) and Thomas Forest (1780).

7 S. B. St. John, Life in the forests of the Far East. (London, 1862), Vol. 2, pp. 248-49.

8 British Parliamentary Papers, 1854-55, XXIX (253),

9 Sarawak Gazette, 26 April, 1872.

10 Henry Keppel, The expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido for the suppression of piracy, with extracts from the Journal of James Brooke, Esq. of Sarawak, (London, 1847),

11 S. Baring-Gould and C. A. Bampfylde, A History of Sarawak under its two white rajahs, (London, 1909), pp. 82-83.

12 Lennox Mills, British Malaya, 1824-67, (reprint: Kuala Lumpur, 1966), p. 248.

13 British interests in Borneo are treated extensively in, L. R. Wright, The Origins of British Borneo, (Hong Kong, 1970).

14 See L. R. Wright, "The Foreign Office and North Borneo", in Journal of Oriental Studies, Vol. VII, No. 1, (January 1969).
================================================================================