With the aid of these and

questions was profound. other able and loyal colleagues, the foundations of the British Protectorate in the Malay Peninsula were laid; but it is to Sir Frederick Weld that the credit for the raising of the structure is due. To his wise administration the native States owe their present unexampled prosperity, and the fair prospect which lies. before them.

The contact between the civilisation of the European races and effete semi-barbarous States has occurred all over the world. Its immediate results have differed widely. Some races have succeeded, others have signally failed. This contact has, in some cases, been marked by mutual savagery, in others by mutual deterioration. I do not pretend that in our dealings with the native States of the Malay Peninsula, we have been actuated by a spirit of pure disinterestedness. I do claim that our action will bear a close scrutiny, and that it has resulted in almost unmixed good to the States themselves, while a new and rich field has been opened out to the commerce of all nations.

BRITISH NORTH BORNEO

BY SIR HUGH LOW, G.C.M.G.

THE territory of which I am desirous of giving some account comprises the northern part of the great island of Borneo, and extends from the Sipitong River, which falls into the Bay of Brunei, opposite the British island of Labuan, to the Sibuku River, on the east coast. The Sipitong boundary is in about 5°, and the Sibuku in 4°, north latitude; the most westerly point is that of Kaleas, in 115° 20′, and the most easterly, Hog Point, in 119° 16', east longitude. Its area is computed to be 31,000 square miles. The coast-line is more than 600 miles in length, and all the islands within three leagues of the mainland are included in it.

The district forms part of the ancient kingdom of Brunei, the capital of which is situated on a river about twenty miles to the westward. In 1521 this town was first visited by Europeans, the companions of the first circumnavigator, Magellan, after the death of their chief in the Philippine Islands, having touched at it, and Pigafetta, the historian of the first voyage round the world, has left an interesting account of the city.

He describes it as a city built entirely on the mud banks of the river, in salt water. It contains 25,000 families, and the houses are all of wood, and stand on strong piles to keep them high from the ground. When the flood makes, the women in boats go through the city selling necessaries. So far the description of

the Spanish officer, except as to the number of the houses, would do for the city of the present day.

He further says that the king had elephants, and the officers of the Spanish fleet were conducted on them from the landing-place to the king's palace, where they were received with great ceremony, the king being seated on a carpet-covered daïs in a smaller apartment, hung with silks and brocades, opening from the end of the large hall, with his little son beside him; behind him, women only were seen. Between the king and the Europeans a guard of 300 men were seated, holding naked poniards in their hands, and all communication was carried on by the conversation being passed from one to the other through several officers, until it at last reached the king.

Such a court and city is proof of the extent and power of the kingdom of Borneo in the early part of the sixteenth century, and it is certain that its dominions extended east, west, and south along the whole coast of the island, included the Sooloo Islands, and reached even to the Philippines, the son of the King of Luzon being mentioned by Pigafetta as the admiral of the Borneo fleet.

This favourable opening of intercourse with European nations was succeeded by misunderstandings, and Borneo was at least on two occasions attacked by Spanish expeditions from Manila. By the last of these it was quite destroyed, and the town was subsequently removed to its present position, in a wide reach of the river surrounded by picturesque hills from 300 to 700 feet high, and resembling a beautiful lake, with the palm-leaf houses of the people built on piles of the Nibong palin, covering the numerous mud flats which are exposed at low water.

The action of the Spaniards, though they made no settlement in the country, entirely destroyed the trade of the place. This had been conducted by Chinese

junks with China, and by large well-found Malay vessels with Malacca, Java, and both sides of the Malay Peninsula. One Sultan, probably he who reigned during the Spanish visit, was called "Nakoda Ragam," or the " сарtain of many caprices," and he is celebrated in tradition as having spent a great deal of his time in distant voyages of commerce and discovery.

The Dutch have at various times settled on the west, the south, and the south-east sides of Borneo, and now claim the whole of the island lying south of the States of Sarawak, Brunei, and the territories of the British North Borneo Company, which are under the protection of England. They have done little to develop the territory they claim, and the selfish and unscrupulous policy of all the early European visitors and settlers in the Eastern Archipelago has been utterly destructive of the prosperity of the Native States and of their commerce.

In 1762 the Sultan of the Sooloo Islands, lying to the eastward of North Borneo, ceded the island of Balambangan to the English as a reward for releasing him from captivity when they took Manila, and in 1775 it was taken possession of by the East India Company; but soon after the garrison and establishment were driven out by Sooloo pirates. In 1803 it was again taken possession of, but soon after abandoned as useless, and Crawford, writing so late as 1856, describes it as situated in the most piratical and barbarous neighbourhood of the whole archipelago.

As the influence of the Government of Brunei declined, the various provinces that had belonged to it were appropriated by the heads of the noble families which had formed the governing body, and from which the Sultans were chosen. These administered their estates through unscrupulous agents, by whose oppressions the people were impoverished and enslaved. Occasionally they were driven into rebellion, but this

I only increased their misery, as the Sultan and Rajas could always call in the assistance of the ferocious headhunting tribes of the interior, who, being more warlike than the more settled races, destroyed the people and devastated the country, carrying off the heads of the grown-up men as trophies, and the women and children as slaves.

The people of Magindanau, a bold Mohamedan race from the southern Philippine Islands, sailed round Borneo in powerful fleets, and the kindred people of the Sooloo Islands on a smaller scale imitated these pirates, attacking vessels or villages for plunder and slaves whenever they felt themselves strong enough to do so. The Dyaks from the interior of the Sakarran and Sarebas Rivers at the same time ravaged the coasts and inland districts on their head-hunting expeditions; but while the Llanuns of Magindanau had powerful vessels with guns and muskets, the Dyaks were armed only with swords and spears, and the tubes through which they blew poisoned darts.

Such was the condition of the coast when in 1839 an English gentleman, Sir James Brooke, appeared in his yacht the Royalist in the river of Sarawak, where he met with the Brunei Raja Muda Hassim, the uncle of the Sultan, who was endeavouring to reduce the place from a state of chronic rebellion. After careful consideration of all the circumstances, and being appealed to by both parties, he succeeded in 1841 in bringing about a pacification, and was induced by the Raja, who had become tired of the country, to take over its government, with the full consent of all the people.

Sir James Brooke, in the energetic manner characteristic of him, devoted himself and his fortune to the restoration of confidence in the oppressed people, and of peace and security to the whole coast. In this he was most ably and effectively assisted by his friend, Captain, now Admiral, the Hon. Sir Harry Keppel, who, on the