Brunei

Brunei is southeast of Canton.

• From Java, it is 45 days’ journey.
• From Malaysia, it is 40 days’ journey.
• From South Vietnam, and Maharlika it is 30 days’ journey in either case.

All these distances are to be understood as taken with a fair wind (i. with the north-east monsoon)

Brunei has over 10,000 inhabitants and controls 14 districts. Its walls are made of wooden boards.

The king’s residence is covered with peito leaves. The dwellings of the people are covered with grass.

The king’s mode of dressing is similar to the Chinese.

wear clothes and goes barefooted, with a golden ring, his wrist with a golden wrapped charpoy).

He in a piece of cotton cloth. When less like that of the Chinese. his upper arm is encircled (^ ^), and his body is a string bedstead {^ ^ silk band sits on he goes out, they spread out a large piece of cloth unlined (H)* on which he sits; a number of men bear it aloft; they call this ajuan-

He is followed by over 500 men, those in front carrying single golden dishes and double edged swords and other weapons, those behind filled with camphor and betel-nuts. carry swords and wear armour.

The He has for his protection when they have an engagement, they over an hundred fighting boats, and latter is cast of copper and shaped like great tubes, into which they insert their bodies so as to protect the stomach 25 and the back.

Their household vessels are often made of gold.

The country produces hemp and and they use sim-hu for grain; furthermore, they have sheep, fowl and fish, but no silkworms.

They use no wheat, but the floss of the U-pei 30 the heart of the to rice plant wei-pa (J^ Q), the make cloth. They draw the sap from Ua-mong and cocoanut trees to make wine ^ The wives and daughters and of wmelted gold coloured first in rich families silk

wear sarongs of fancy brocades,

As marriage presents they give wine, then betel-nuts, then a finger ring, and after this a gift of 35 cotton cloth or a sum of gold or silver, to complete the marriage rite.1 5:6 To bury to the hills on their dead they have coffins bamboo biers und cerements, and they carry them where they are left unheeded. “When they commence ploughing in the second moon, they-offer sacrifices to their spirits but

when seven years have elapsed, they discontinue these sacrifices.

Their new years day is on lunar December 7. Most of the country has a hot climate.

The people beat drums, blow flutes, strike gongs, and by sing and dance during feasts.

Instead of dishes and cups, they use bamboo or peito leaves plaited together and throw them away when after the meal.

This country is close to the country of Timon.

It has a medicinal tree, the root of which also rubbed all the meal in is finish-ed. a ointment; the latter is taken over the body, by this means sword wounds never prove fatal. iaternally is boiled into

The country produces:

• 4 kinds of camphor
  • meihuanau
  • minau
  • sunau
  • kinkiaunau
• yellow wax
• laka-wood
• tortoise-shell

Foreign traders barter these for:

• trade-gold and silver
• imitation silk brocades
• brocades of Kien-yang
• variegated silk lustrings
• variegated silk floss
• glass beads and bottles
• tin
• leaden sinkers for nets
• ivory armlets
• rouge
• lacquered bowls and plates
• green porcelain

Three days after a foreign ship has arrived, at these shores, the king and his family, at the are styled Ta-j6n, the journey.

them The head of the court grandees, (Note= the.king’s attendants go on board to enquire concerning the hardships of ship’s people cover the reverently, treat them to all gang-plank with silk brocade, receive kinds of wine, and distribute among 25 them, according to rank, presents of gold and silver vessels, mats with cloth borders and umbrellas shore, it is ^ When the ship’s people have moored and gone on customary, before they touch upon the question of bartering, for the traders to oifer to the king daily gifts of Chinese food and liquors: for this reason that when them one or two good vessels cooks. On also attend at the king’s levee®, go to Brunei it is they must take with 30 moon and new moon days they must and all this for about a month or so, after the full which they request the king and the grandees of his suite to fix with them the prices of their goods; this being done, drums are beaten, in order to announce to all the people near and far that permission to trade with them has been granted. Clandestine trading previous to the prices being fixed punishable. It of is customary to treat the traders with great regard; them commits a capital ofiense, he is let off with a fine and is for, if is any not killed.

On when the day the vessel is about to gives out wine and has a buffalo killed by sail for way home, the king also i”, and camphor and foreign cotton cloth, corresponding to the value of the presents received from the ship’s people.

The ship, however, must makes return wait to sail moon of a farewell feast gifts of till the festival in honour of the of the sixth moon" is passed, when it Buddha on the day may leave the anchorage; for, meet with bad weather on its journey. Their god (lit., Buddha) has no image in human shape otherwise, his its will (^ M -j^); ftg, dwelling consists of a reed-covered building of several storeys, shaped a pagoda; below there 10 like called the oSacred Buddha» were at the outset quite are of the size of a a small shrine protecting two pearls; this is

The small, but that they thumb On (nail). flowers and fruits for three days, 15 of the full is natives say that the two pearls have by degrees grown till they the god’s feast the king in person offers when all the inhabitants, both men and women, attend. In the second year of the period t’ai-pHng hing-kuo (A. D. 977), this country sent as envoys P’u A-li Abu and others, Ali), to present as tribute to our Court camphor, tortoise-shell, ivory, and sandal-wood. official 20 document they submitted to the Throne was covered by a number of wrappers, the paper was like tree-bark, but thin, smooth and glossy, and of a greenish tint, several feet long and over an inch in thickness; up, it upon was just as much as one could hold it were fine and small, and were was translated into Chinese as 25 The to follows: in the hand. The characters written «The King of P*o-ni bows his Imperial Majesty thousand times ten thousand times a million years», and document rolled be read horizontally. Their meaning to the ground in obeisance, and prays that in that when it head his may live ten was further that, as in their annual tribute voyages, they were apt said to be driven by the winds to Chan-ch’ong, they therefore requested that Chan- ch’ong be instructed by His Majesty not to detain them hereafter. Their 30 envoys were lodged at the Li-pin-yiian (|§ with honour ^^. In the fifth

In 1082, they sent another tribute mission.

Their following islands trade in small boats:

• Silung
• Kungshimian
• Jilihu
• Luman
• Tousu
• Wulima
• Tanyu
• Majo

Their style of dressing and their diet are identical those of Brunei.

They produce:

• gharu-wood
• laka-wood
• yellow wax
• tortoise-shell

Foreign traders barter these for:

• white porcelain
• wine
• rice
• coarse salt
• white silk piece goods and
• trade-gold