The tale of Robert Burns, a grandson of the Bard, who sailed to Singapore in 1846 and worked as a trader in Singapore, Labuan and along the North-West coast of Borneo. He was the first European to explore a major river system in the country that is now the East Malaysian State of Sarawak and which was then controlled by the Kayan, one of the fiercest tribes of headhunters. He lost his job as an agent of a Scots-based firm in Singapore. Undaunted, Burns traded on his own account, but on his last voyage in the schooner Dolphin, he was murdered by pirates at sea, off the Northern tip of Borneo.
