Borneo, the beautiful—the “garden of the sun”—is the third largest island in the world, and boasts a much larger area than that occupied by the British Isles. The equator divides it, and the climate is, perhaps, that most suitable for vegetation of any other, being uniformly hot and humid all the year round. There are no volcanoes, the tiger is unknown, and it is the only habitat of the wild elephant in the Malay Archipelago. It is also remarkable as being the home of the wild man of the forests, or the “orang utan” of the Malays. Alligators abound in the rivers, and are the most dangerous of the wild animals. Snakes exist plentifully, and in great variety, but death from snake-bites is very rare. The two-horned rhinoceros, wild cattle, pigs in abundance, and several species of deer are known.

The human inhabitants may be roughly divided into two races, the Malays and the Borneans, or aboriginals. The origin of both types is obscure. The Malays, however, are immigrants who inhabit the coasts of all the large Malay islands where, as here in Borneo, they have long held the dominant power. Some believe them to have originally been the descendants of Arabs who settled in the Celebes long before the Dutch became rulers in these seas, and this view gains some support from the fact of the Arabic character being used in writing, and their titles as Sultan, hadji, and sherrif, are of Arabic origin. They all profess Islam. The Bornean Malays may be said to have but little literature: the Koran, a few MS. poems, prayers, and tales are the only books generally seen in the island; but the people possess a vast amount of traditional lore, and many of their songs refer to the history of the country, the beauty of their women, or to the personal attributes and prowess of their former rulers.

The following may be taken as a fair sample of Malayan poetry, and was originally published in the Asiatic Journal. Many of the tales and legends of the Malays are in blank verse, with a good many repetitions; and choruses are extremely popular, as also are extemporaneous vocal performances:—

Malayan romances and minstrelsy are alike rich in imagery, as the following examples from Marsden’s Malay Grammar will suffice to show:—

The Malays of Borneo acknowledge the rule of a Sultan, who is assisted by various Ministers of State, who are principally his own relations. The Court at Brunei is kept up by taxes imposed on the few Chinese merchants, and on the native Borneans who live inland beside the rivers on the north-west coast from the Baram to Kimanis. A yearly payment is also made to the Sultan by the Rajah of Sarawak. Many of the Malays are traders. The poorer classes are sailors, fishermen, or engaged in simple domestic industries.

The true bred Malay has a penchant for building his pile dwelling over the shallow water near the mouth of or beside a river wherever such a site is procurable. The Borneans, on the other hand, prefer a clearing near the streams, and some tribes, especially the Dusan, build their huts high up in the hills.

Intermarriages with native women have helped to identify the Malays with the Borneans, and especially with the Kadyans, a tribe who live near the capital, and who long ago embraced the faith of Mahomet. The language of the Malays is soft and pleasing in sound—the “Italian of the East”—and very expressive. It is readily acquired by strangers, and forms the medium of commercial communication throughout the Straits Settlements and Malay Archipelago. Like our own tongue, Malay seems to be a conventional blending of several other languages, Arabic, Sanscrit, and the languages of the aboriginals with whom the Malays were first thrown into contact. At the present day many English and Portuguese words find their way into it but little disguised by pronunciation. Malay is the Court language at Brunei, but the inhabitants generally use a dialect similar to that of the aboriginals who live near the capital.

The clothing of the Malays of high rank is often very lavish and showy, consisting of fancy head-cloths and short jackets, often highly embroidered with gold buttons and wire or lace. White trowsers, similar to those worn by Europeans, and patent leather slippers are also affected by the rich Malays, and all, rich or poor, wear the national “sarong,” a sort of chequered petticoat wound around the waist, and allowed to fall to the feet in graceful folds. When trowsers are worn a shorter “sarong” is worn kilt-fashion, barely reaching as low as the knees. The Malay Hadjis or priests wear long green Arab coats, and green or white turbans around their shaven heads. The women when engaged in their household duties wear nothing but a “sarong” reaching from the breasts to the feet. When abroad, however, neat print sacques reaching as low as the knees are worn, having long and tight sleeves. This dress opens in front, and is fastened by a set of three silver or gold brooches. Below this a chequered, or Javanese sarong reaches from the waist to the ankles. Beautiful sarongs are made by the Brunei ladies. They are richly embroidered with gold wire, and are worn by the well-to-do women along the coast.

Slippers of European or Chinese manufacture are sometimes worn. Their black hair is oiled profusely, and secured behind with silver pins. It is often perfumed by tying up in it flowers of the champaca, jasmine, gardenia, or other scented blossoms over night. Both men and women bathe at least twice daily, morning and evening, and the women dye their nails with a mixture made of the red stems of a common balsam, mixed with lime juice, as a substitute for the henna so largely used in Persia and Egypt.

There are some very singular liberties allowed to loving swains in out of the way places in Wales and Cornwall, but those allowed by the Malay and native girls of Borneo to their favourite lovers are of a yet more faithful kind. A Bornean youth may enter the house of his loved one’s parents and awaken her if she be really sleeping, to sit and talk with him in the dark, or to eat betel-nut and the finest of sirih-leaves from his garden. A similar custom, so far as nocturnal visits are concerned, formerly existed in the country districts of Scotland. It is but seldom that immorality results from this custom in Borneo, even according to European ideas on the subject, and the parents think no more of putting a stop to these nightly meetings than do those of our own fair daughters in the case of the “morning call” of an eligible suitor at home. There was a grand wedding at the capital during one of my visits there, the bride being a relation of his Highness the Sultan. There was a grand procession of boats on the river, and a large lighter had been decorated with parti-coloured flags and streamers, and in the centre a raised daÏs and a canopy overhead of red cloth had been erected for the parties mainly concerned. In the case of the Malays there is the usual religious ceremony, at which the “hadjis” appear and chant the prayers in gorgeous apparel of green Arabic coat and ample turban. There was much firing of cannon throughout the town, the whole event lasting nearly a week, and there was a grand reception, the bride and bridegroom being seated in state on a raised daÏs, and covered with finery and gold ornaments, mostly borrowed for the occasion. In the interior, where nearly all enjoy “liberty, equality, and fraternity,” in a way one can only dream of in civilised “society,” marriage is very simple, and monogamy the rule. The celebration of a marriage consists of a notification of the fact, and it is acknowledged by all in the village, who meet for feasting. A couple of fowls or a goat is killed, and the appearances presented by these after death furnish auguries of good or ill fortune for the newly married pair.

The native Borneans proper are sparsely scattered over the whole country, and are divided into various tribes, each inhabiting a particular district, and speaking a dialect peculiar to itself. These tribes have been compared with the natives of our English counties, but they are much more distinct, each having its own customs, dress, mode of life, weapons, and in many cases a language unknown to the tribes only a few miles distant. The Dyaks, Kayans, Muruts, Kadyans, Dusun, and Lanun, are a few only of these tribes. Another peculiar race are the Badjows, or “Sea Gipsies,” common to all the islands of these seas. They are nomadic—water rovers—and engaged in diving for pearls, or pearl shell, fishing, or in petty trade. They rarely settle down on shore, or remain long in one place, but live in their boats. Indeed they are the gipsies of the sea in every sense of the word, and given to pilfering like their namesakes on shore. The Badjows, Lanun, Balagnini, and Sulus, who inhabit the north of Borneo and the islands to the north-east are an adventurous people given to piracy, and, of course, excellent sailors. The Muruts are the only existing race of head-hunters north of the capital. The Dusun and Kadyans, although formerly head-hunters, have now taken to agricultural pursuits, and are well fed and prosperous compared to the Muruts, who, although they clear and plant the land around their immensely long pile dwellings, still depend much on their skill in hunting wild pig, deer, and other game for food. The Dyaks of Sarawak, although formerly fierce and warlike, are now peaceful and industriously engaged in seafaring or agricultural pursuits. The Kayans are still warlike, and a fine race of straight-limbed powerful people. They formerly inhabited the country inland near the Limbang and used to plunder the villages of the Muruts and Sabayans, killing the men, and taking the women and children into slavery. Of late years, however, they have migrated further south, and their head-quarters are now on the Baram river. The Lanuns live on the coasts north of Menkabong, and are petty traders or cultivators. Like the Badjows, however, they have a lingering affection for the sea. The Dusun, who live in the hills further from the coast, give them a bad character and assert that formerly they used to steal their children.

Land culture is becoming much more general among the natives inland than formerly, security of life and property having also increased. Rice, kaladi, sweet potatoes, and Indian corn and sago are the principal food products cultivated. Tobacco, cotton, sugar-cane, tapioca, and fruit are also grown here.

The implements used for purposes of land culture in the island are of the most rude description. On the plains of Menkabong, Tawaran, and Tampassuk, near the coast, ploughs and harrows drawn by buffaloes are employed, and their produce is carried to market in light bamboo sledges. Further inland, however, the implements are yet more primitive, nearly all the necessary labour of cultivation being performed with a blunt-pointed iron chopper, or a sharp-pointed bamboo.

The hoe, another implement used, may be taken as the type of that adopted by the Chinese emigrants in the Straits Settlements and Eastern Archipelago generally; indeed, wherever a Chinaman sets his foot in a new locality for cultural purposes, a chopper and a blade or two of his national “chunkal” or spade-hoe are sure to form a part of his extremely small belonging. He sets to work cutting the brushwood and small timber on his future clearing, and piling this at the base of the large trees, he fires the whole until only a few great black stumps, and here and there a gaunt leafless durian or dryobalanops remains of the old forest. Now, the “chunkal” is used to stir the virgin soil by chopping it up, a much quicker process than digging; indeed, a spade would have no chance in a competition where, as in this case, the soil is full of roots. If desirable, the soil can be thus chopped up to a depth of 12 in. or 14 in., the only drawback being that the operator stands on the freshly cultivated land. Armed with a chopper and one of these spade-hoes, a solitary Chinaman will not unfrequently build a miserable little palm-leaf hut on a well-watered bit of forest near a river, and in a month or two he will have cleared several acres, to which, when planted with gambier or pepper, he looks for a fair return. Here, alone in the forest, or at the best with a companion or two equally poor as himself, he subsists on a little boiled rice, until his crops of sweet potatoes, bananas, sugar-cane, egg fruit, maize, and yams, are fit for use; for one of his first cares has been to clear the bit of land around his hut, on which to plant the few roots and seeds which he has brought with him, most probably the gift of one of his richer countrymen, perchance of the trader of whom he bought the bag of rice, which with a little freshly caught fish from the river, are the only “stores” which stand between him and starvation, until his garden produce is available. I have often come across these clearings right in the heart of the forest, miles away from any other human habitation, and have been as much astonished at the amount of labour performed with such a simple tool, as the thrifty labourer himself was to see me.

The Dusun villagers keep bees and export wax in quantity, and most of the tribes collect the varied natural products of the sea or of the forests in their respective districts. The Sulus were until quite recently a warlike race inhabiting the large island of Sulu, between Borneo and the Philippines. They were independent and ruled by a Sultan, who held Sulu, Tawi Tawi, and the north of Borneo, including the fine harbour of Sandakan. The Sulus, however, are now practically under the Manilla Government. Slavery, although not yet abolished in Borneo, is not nearly so common as was formerly the case. The native government at Brunei is practically under the eye of the British governor of Labuan, and thus many former abuses have become mitigated merely by the moral influence of a British colony being located thus near to the capital.

It must not be imagined that either the Malays or the native Borneans are the bloodthirsty savages they are sometimes made out to be. The Malays generally are courteous, dignified, and hospitable. Many of them have made long journeys for purposes of trade, and have a tolerably good idea of the manners and customs of Europeans. Others have taken to the use of European commodities after observing them used by the Chinese traders and settlers, and one can rarely visit a native of any consideration without finding him the hospitable possessor of a chair or two, plates, dishes, water bottles and glasses, and very often of excellent brandy and cigars. They are most sensitive, innately polite and gentle in manners, and very quick to understand and appreciate any little courtesies or civilities one may offer them. All but the poorest carry their national weapon, “the murderous crease,” a sort of long sinuous-edged dagger, generally as sharp as a razor, and most deadly when wielded by a skilful hand. In many cases where the owners are rich or of high rank these weapons are beautifully finished—rarely damascened—and the handles of ivory or gold set with pearls, diamonds, and other precious stones. The running “amok,” so often cited as an instance of their savage bloodthirsty nature is really a very rare occurrence, and is generally attributed to the excessive use of opium, or to some great disappointment or dishonour having befallen the frantic creature who, drawing his kriss, rushes at friend and foe alike until either shot down like a mad dog or run through the body with a spear. Jealousy is the main cause of all the bloodshed of which the Malays are guilty. The co-respondent in Borneo must either have a tacit understanding with the husband or rather proprietor of the frail one, or his adventures may end very suddenly. I saw one man in the hospital at Labuan who paid the penalty of his indiscretion. One night a kriss or spear had been driven into his thigh through the interstices of the floor of the house in which he was sleeping with his Helen, and with such force that the bone was completely severed. It is possible the weapon was poisoned, at any rate he died some little time afterwards, notwithstanding all that surgical skill could suggest. In the case of the Malays their women are, as a rule, secluded from the gaze of strangers in private apartments, but in the interior the women of the aboriginal tribes enjoy equal freedom with the men, and often join in discussions and trading difficulties with great tact. Monogamy is the rule with the Borneans and polygamy with the Malays. In Borneo, as in Europe, the female exceeds the male population, and here, too, the women do a large proportion of the field labour in addition to their domestic duties.

Some of the little villages of the native tribes inland present a pleasant and prosperous exterior. Little palm-leaf houses stand here and there beneath groves of cocoa-nut trees, betel-palms, tree-ferns, or graceful willow-like bamboo. Breadths of fresh greensward occur among the clumps of low brush or scrubby vegetations, the remains of the old jungle, and here buffaloes or goats, and occasionally other cattle, browse around the houses. Pigs, bees, and poultry are domesticated, and are often very abundant. The houses are built on piles, and a sloping hill-side or knoll is generally selected as a site, so that all superfluous surface water may readily escape. The fowls are caught every evening and placed in open-work baskets of either rattan or bamboo, suspended beneath the eaves of the houses. This care is essential in order to guard them from the attacks of large snakes and iguanas, or other poultry-stealing saurians.

The main food product is rice, of which two distinct races are grown. One kind only prospers in the rich alluvial deposits of the valleys near the streams, where it can be irrigated at particular stages of its growth. The other kind, or “hill-rice,” will grow on the hills up to 3000 feet elevation, and prospers in dry red earth, and when growing it closely resembles a barley-field at home. One of the most important of the women’s duties is to clean and prepare daily the “padi” or rice in the husk, which, with fish and fruit, forms the main food supply of these islanders. The “padi” is placed in large wooden mortars and beaten with wooden pestles a yard or more in length. This beating or pounding separates the husk from the white grain within. It is a very pretty sight to see the girls of the villages inland thus engaged. As many as three may sometimes be seen beating the rice in one of these large wooden mortars. With one hand they grasp the pestle about the centre, while the other hand is rested on the hip. One woman commences to beat the rice with a steady, regular stroke, then another one joins her, and then a third. Of course, the most exact time has to be observed, and the graceful motions of their slightly-draped figures, the dancing pestles, and the regular thudding sounds produced, are very interesting to a stranger. After the rice has been sufficiently beaten, one of the girls scoops it out of the mortar with her little hands into a shallow tray of closely-woven rattan work of circular form and about two feet in diameter. Standing on the verandah or platform between the houses so as to catch the breeze, the rice is sifted, and now and then dexterously thrown up into the air so that the chaff and refuse is blown away, but the rice falls back into the tray. When finished the rice is as clean and as white as that dressed by the finest machinery in England. Two or three girls will soon clean the day’s supply, and by the laughing and gossip indulged in one may infer that the task is not a very unpleasant one to them.

The farther one proceeds inland the more extensive are the clearings devoted to rice culture. This is accounted for by the fact that near the coast rice is often imported in exchange for jungle produce, but far inland the natives are obliged to grow all the food they require, and in some cases as in the district to the south of Kina Balu most of the hills up to 3000 feet are either under rice culture, or are lying fallow, covered with low brushwood or jungle. Virgin land or old forests are rare here, unless on the slopes of the great mountain itself. The clothing of the aboriginals is in most cases very scanty, now and then “sarongs” and white calico are obtained from the coast in return for wax, gutta, tobacco, or other produce of the hills, but, as a rule, the clothing of the native tribes of the north of Borneo inland is a short “sarong” made of a strong indigo-dyed cloth, which is woven by the women from the strong fibres of the “Lamba” (Curculigo latifolia), a yellow-flowered broad-leaved weed, often seen in great abundance on old cultivated plots near the houses. Many of the men, especially those of the Murut tribes, who are perhaps the most primitive of all the northern Borneans, wear nothing but a strip of bark-cloth or “chawat” around the loins, and I have no doubt but that this was the first clothing ever worn by the natives of the island. This bark-cloth is the produce of Artocarpus elastica, a tall tree with a trunk two feet in diameter, and leaves closely resembling those of the bread-fruit, but rough instead of glossy. The inner bark is stripped off and soaked in water, being afterwards beaten to render it soft and pliable. Of this “chawats” or loin-cloths and jackets are commonly made by the Muruts on the Lawas and the Limbang rivers, and it is also still used by the Dusan villagers on the Tampassuk, notwithstanding their skill in preparing, weaving, and dyeing the “Lamba” fibre.

The native women inland wear short “sarongs” of “Lamba” cloth reaching from the waist nearly to their knees, and a profusion of stained rattan coils, brass wire, coloured beads, and other trinkets around their waists, and heavy rings of brass on their legs, or coils of brass wire on their plump and dusky arms. The younger ones wear a strip of dark cloth across the breast. All have glossy black hair and dark eyes. Some of the Murut women are fine muscular creatures, and either in boats or afield they appear to be as strong and active as the men. Their hair is often very gracefully wreathed up with a string of red or amber-coloured beads, sometimes with a strip of the pale yellow nipa leaf in its young state, and the colour contrast is then very effective. The physique of the inland tribes, especially of the Dyaks, Kayans, and Muruts, is superior to that of the Malays. The Kayans and Muruts are especially lithe and active—bronzy, straight-limbed, and statuesque. This is the result of an active life spent hunting in the forest, climbing after gutta, rubber, jungle-fruit, or beeswax, or in cultivating the clearings around their dwellings, or in fishing in the rivers. The aboriginals are active, while, as a class, the Malays are lethargic and luxurious, and rarely exert themselves or make long foot journeys unless actually compelled to do so, and the richer ones spend much of their time in opium smoking or with their women instead of trying to ameliorate the condition of their poorer neighbours, who in one way or another have to “pay the piper.”

It is sad to see such a lovely and fertile island impoverished to a great extent by the avaricious Malays, who ought to encourage the natives to improve themselves and the country in which they live, instead of which they wring their property from them whenever possible under all manner of pretences. The harsh treatment to which the aboriginals, and even the poorer of the Malays, were formerly subjected by the petty chiefs and Pangerans, is now much moderated, as many natives have visited Labuan, and it has now become known as a sanctuary from their unjust oppressors.

The climate of Borneo although hot and wet, is fairly healthy, especially on the hills inland, where the air is much fresher and cooler than on the lowlands near the coast; the mean annual temperature is about 84°. The hot and dry monsoon lasts from December to May, and the cool and wet one from June to November; the rainfall is very heavy, especially on the hills. The economic products for which the soil and climate are suitable are coffee, cinchona, cocoa, cotton, tobacco, sugar-cane, indigo, gambier, cocoa-nuts for oil, and manilla hemp. Fine timber, gutta, caoutchouc, rattans, and camphor, are the indigenous products of the forests primÆval. Among the introduced fruits which succeed well are oranges, limes, pomoloes, mangoes, pine-apples, and bananas. The animal products are edible swallows’ nests, ivory, sea-slug or beche de mer, (Holothuria), fine fish of many kinds, pearls, and pearl-shell. Among minerals, coal, antimony, cinnabar, and gold seem the most promising; diamonds, tin, copper, plumbago, and iron are reported; and if one may judge of the iron by the old weapons, such as krisses, parongs, and spears as made by the Bruneis and the Kayans, it must be of excellent quality.

I made a pen and ink sketch of a Kayan war knife which I saw in the collection of native weapons in the possession of Mr. Treacher at Government House, Labuan. Of this sketch Mr. Cooper has made me this careful fac-simile on wood. It had a finely-tempered blade, ornamented along the back for about half its length. One side of the blade was flat, the other rounded; the sheath was elaborately carved and, as is generally the case in Borneo, made of two flat pieces of wood bound tightly together by neatly worked rattan cane; the hilt was ornamented with tufts of red and black hair, and it was furnished with a girdle of rattan plaited—altogether a most handy and formidable implement in the paw of a lusty naked savage.

Gold, diamonds, and antimony have been obtained in remunerative quantities at the Sarawak mines, which were originally worked by the Chinese settlers, but are now in the hands of a company. Mining operations are very difficult owing to the enormous rainfall; and it is only the abundance of cheap Chinese or native labour which renders it possible in such a climate. Coolies from Hong Kong may be obtained for seven to eight dollars per month, or for less if their food is provided; and natives will work sometimes for five to seven dollars per month. A good Chinaman as a labourer, is however worth two Malays.

The largest rivers in the island are supposed to be the Kinabatangan and the Pontianak; the former is said to be navigable over two hundred miles from its mouth, and at the farthest point reached it was fifty yards wide, and there was seven fathoms of water. Dutch steamers have ascended a long way inland up the Pontianak which lies south of Sarawak. Most of the rivers on the north-west coast are very shallow, having dangerous bars at their mouths; and that at the mouth of the Brunei was partly blocked by large rocks about the time of the siege of that city by the English.

Gambling and opium smoking are the bane of the Chinese settlers and of many of the well-to-do Malays; and of all forms of intemperance surely this last must be the most degrading and otherwise hurtful in its effects. The manufactured drug as imported from Benares and other opium producing districts, is in the form of balls six inches in diameter, covered with the dried petals of poppy flowers. This product is the inspissated juice of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum), and is of a dark brown or black colour. Before it is used for smoking, however, it has to be still further prepared by boiling and stirring in shallow pans over a bright fire; and as the pure product is very high in price, it is often subjected to adulteration. In our eastern colonies it is usual to let or farm out the right to prepare and sell or export opium to an enterprising native or Chinese merchant, and the revenue thus obtained is often enormous as compared with that on spirits and tobacco, or other duty-paying goods.

An opium-smoking establishment consists of a few gloomy rooms furnished with cane-bottomed couches, and on little stands are the pipes, tiny lamps, and other implements used by the smokers. The smell is generally sufficient to deter Europeans entering an opium-smoker’s haunt from motives of curiosity; or if under guidance one does venture into the ill-ventilated and malodorous apartments behind, it is with feelings of relief that the sweet outer air is again gained. The smokers lie on the bamboo couches, and a little stand is brought, on which are one or two flute-like pipes, a pill or two of the drug, and a little glass lamp. In some cases an attendant manipulates the drug and fills the pipes; as a rule, however, this is done by the smokers themselves. There is no mistaking an habitual opium smoker; his eyes are dull, his complexion sallow, and in general a listless bearing, with a frame more or less emaciated, betokens his being a degraded victim. Without a supply of his favourite drug he is miserable; and when under its influence he is useless. Here he lies holding a morsel of the black drug on a needle over the flame of the lamp, twirling it round and round, and toasting it in the flame until the proper consistence is attained. It is then introduced into the pipe, and the needle, on being withdrawn, leaves a tiny air-hole through the mass as it fits like a plug in the bowl. The smoker now holds the bowl to the lamp, and obtains a light, and then he draws a long whiff or two as the burning morsel of opium rapidly decreases in the bowl.