British Borneo

ish North America, and assigning to them the exclusive monopoly of trade and mining in the territory. Writing in 1869, Mr. William Forsyth, Q.C., says:-"I have endeavoured t

, the most powerful of them all, established our Empire in the East

Ilium e

a Teu

eleven years after the Hudson's Bay Charter, and twelve years after the date of Mr. Forsyth's article, Queen Victoria granted a Charter of Incorporation to the British North Borneo Company, which, by confirming the grants and concessions acquired from the Sultans of Brunai and Sulu, co

s, have been incorporated by their Government on both coasts of Africa and in the Pacific; and another Bri

egarding Australia as a continent, and yielding to the claims recently set up by New Guinea, is the second largest island in the world, within whose limits could be comfortably

in 1521 by the Spanish expedition, which under the leadership of the celebrated Portuguese circumnavigator Magellan, had discovered the Philippines, where, on the island of Mactan, their leader was killed in April, 1520. An account of the voyage was written by Pigafetta, an Italian volunteer in the expedition, who accompanied the fleet to Brunai after Magellan's d

th the importance of the place that they gave the name of Borneo-a corruption of the native name Bruna

the native name for Borneo, but it is quite unknown, at any rate throughout North Bo

ter an expedition from Manila attacked the place and, deposing a usurping Sultan, re-instated

r the Spaniards seem to have made any decided attempt to gain a footing in Borneo, and it is not until the early part of the 17th century that we find the two great rivals in the eastern seas-the English and the Dutch East India Trading Companies-turning their attention to the island

609, when trade was opened with Sukadana, diamond

he South Coast, but were expelled by the natives in 1706. Their rivals, the

nuary of the following year Mr. Dalrymple was deputed to take possession of it and hoist the British flag. Towards the close of 1763, the Sultan of Sulu added to his cession the northern portion of Borneo and the southern half of Palawan, together with all the intermediate islands. Against all these cessions the Spanish entered their protest, as they claimed the suzerainty over the Sulu Archipelago and

he China trade, of drawing to it the produce of the adjoining countries, and of opening a port for the introduction of spices, etc. by the Bugis, and for the sale of Indian commodities. The actual date of the foundation of the settlement is not known, but Mr. F. C. Danvers states that i

ound writing to Madras, to which Balambangan was subordinate, complaining

the island of Labuan, now a British Crown Colony, and established a factory, which was maintained but for a short time, at Brunai itself. In 1803 Balambangan was again occupied,

e Sultan of Brunai, and on undertaking to protect him against Sulu and Mindana

h granted, and was followed, in the natural course of events, by political intervention, resulting in the brilliant and exciting episode whereby the modern successor of the olden heroes-Sir James Brooke-obtained for his family, in 1840, the kingdom of Sarawak, on the west coast of the island, which he in time purged of its two plague spots-head-hunting on shore, and piracy and slave-dealing afloat-and left to his heir, who has worthily taken up and carried on his work, the unique inheritance of a settled Eastern Kingdom, inhabited by the once dreaded head-hunting Dyaks and piratical Mahomedan Malays, the government of whom now rests a

he tenor of the treaty of London of 1824, and they took steps to define more accurately the boundaries of their own dependencies in such other parts of Borneo as were still open to them. What we now call Br

family, the Dutch have acquired a nominal suzerainty over the whole of the rest of Borneo, by treaties with the independent rulers-an ar

atra, that beyond posting Government Residents at some of the more important points, they have hitherto done nothing to attract European capital and enterprise to Borneo, but it would now seem tha

claimants and been seated on the throne. The Sulus, on their side, would own no allegiance to the Spaniards, with whom they had been more or less at war for almost three centuries, and their actual hold over any portion of North Borneo was of the slightest. Matters were in this position when Mr. Alfred Dent, now Sir Alfred Dent, K.C.M.G., fitted

he time when the country first became generally known to Europeans-in 1518-

other islands of the Malay Archipelago received a blow from which at any rate that of Borneo is only now recovering. By the terms of its Charter, the British North Borneo Company is prohibited from creating trade monopolies, and of its own accord it has decided not to engage itself in trading transac

ng the clause prohibiting cessions of territory without the consent of the other party to the treaty, and, in 1878, Commodore Schufeldt was ordered by his Government to visit Borneo and report on the cessions

which itself is a variety of the Mongolian and indeed, when inspecting prisoners, I have often been puzzled to distinguish the Chinese

on these points, prefers the title of Indonesians. The scientific descriptions of a typical Malay is as follows:-"Stature little over five feet, complexion olive yellow, head brachy-cephalous or round, cheek-bones prominent, eyes black and slightly oblique, nose small but not flat, nostrils dilated, hands small and delicate, legs thin and weak, hair black, coarse and lank, beard absent or scant;" but these Indonesians to whom belong most of the indigenous inhabitants of Celebes, are taller and have fairer or light brown complexions and regular features, connecting them

of the Bul

over, the child jumped down from the house (native houses are raised on piles off the ground), and went up to look at a half burnt opih log, and suddenly disappeared and was never seen again. But the parents heard the voice of a spirit issue from the log, announcing that it ha

of this history that the Buludupihs are dist

to numerous tribes, speaking very different dialects of the Malayo-Polynesian stock, and known by distinctive names, the origin of which is g

omedan brethren, who are ahead of them in point of civilization, but are more reserved, more proud and altogether less "jolly," and appear, with their religion, to have acquired also some of the characteristics of the modern or true Malays. A Pagan can sit, or rather squat, with you and tell you legends, or, perhaps, on an occasion join in a glass of grog, whereas the Mahomedan, especially the true Malay, looks upon the Englishman as little removed from a "Kafir"-an uncircumcised Philistine-who through ignorance constantly offends in minor points of et

ia who settled in Sumatra, attained there a real national development in comparatively recent times, and after their conversion to Mahomedanism by the Arabs, from whom, as well as from the Bhuddist missionaries who preceded them, they acquired arts and an elementary civilization, spread to Borneo and other parts of

the Philippines and Formosa, Micronesia and Polynesia. "This astonishing expansion of the Malaysian people throughout the Oceanic area is s

tno

n given, lamantah being the native term

rneo on the 12th May, over Sarawak on the 14th June, and

Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, says that it is probable that in former days the Chinese had a Settlement or Factory at