LECTURE VITHE CHINESE STATIONS

Malay Peninsula: Political.

The total area of these small fragments is a little over 1,200 square miles, or less than that of the county of Kent; but outside them the whole of the southern part of the peninsula, a country about the size of England,is under British Protection. In the extreme south, opposite the island of Singapore, is the Malay state of Johor. In the middle is a group of four states, Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan and Pahang, which were federated in 1895 and are now known as the Federated Malay States. On the northern boundary are Kelantan, Trengganu, Kedah and the little state of Perlis; these by agreement with Siam, in 1909, were transferred from Siamese suzerainty to the protection of Britain. The Governor of Singapore is High Commissioner for the protected Malay States, and under him there are British residents, advisers or agents in all the States, supplemented in the Federated Malay States by a large staff of British officers.

In addition to the territory in the Peninsula, the Straits2Settlements now include various scattered and distant islands which have been attached at different times to the Colony. These are Labuan, off the coast of Borneo, with the Cocos or Keeling Islands and Christmas Island, both in the Indian Ocean. The Cocos, about 700 miles3southwest of Java, are on the route of steamers sailing from Colombo to Western Australia, and possess a submarine telegraph station. They are a mere group of coral atolls, with a population of a few hundreds, engaged chiefly in preparing copra from the coconuts with which these atolls abound. They are still ruled, under the Government of the Straits Settlements, by the head of the Scotch family, Ross by name, by which they were first colonized. Christmas Island, about as large as Jersey, lies some 200 miles south of Java; it was not inhabited until a little over twenty years ago, when it was settled from the Cocos. The attraction here lies in the valuable deposits of phosphate, though there is also some good timber in the dense forest which clothes the slopes of the mountain. The population, of about a thousand, consists mainly of Chinese miners. Here we see the harbour of Flying-Fish4Cove, on the north coast, where there is good anchorageand a break in the steep cliffs which form the coastline;5and here again is one of the quarries. The island is a great contrast to the low-lying Cocos banks, with their groves of palms.

In Borneo there is no strictly British territory other than the island of Labuan; but the State of Sarawak, whose ruler is an Englishman, and the remains of the old Sultanate of Brunei, are under British protection, while the British North Borneo Company holds its territory under a charter from the Crown.

The political relations of all these islands and territories are in charge of the hard-worked Governor of the6Straits Settlements, whose home we see in Singapore.

From the time of its cession to us, in 1824, by the local ruler on the mainland, Singapore rapidly outdistanced the older settlements of Malacca and Penang; until, in 1867, after a period of dependence on India, the whole region started a separate existence as a Crown Colony, under the name of the Straits Settlements, with Singapore as the capital. The reason for the rapid development of this obscure island is evident on the(2)map. It commands the Straits of Malacca and the southern entrance of the China Sea; the only alternative is the Strait of Sunda, beyond the Equator, five hundred miles to the southward. It is the halfway house between India and China, and its position at a corner makes it the junction point of all the routes connecting the Indian Ocean with the Pacific. It is also the natural collecting and distributing centre for much of the local trade of the Malay region. As a consequence, an island less than twice the size of the Isle of Wight, and with no resources of its own worth mentioning, has become the site of one of the greatest seaports in the world.

Singapore is not only a junction of trade routes and a strongly garrisoned naval base, it is also a meeting point of different races. The population is a strangemixture of Chinese, Malays and Indians, with a handful of Europeans controlling the whole mass. The Chinese, in numbers, industry and wealth, have been the most important factor in the growth of the whole region, and their influence increases every year. The Malays approach them in numbers, but lag far behind in intelligence and capacity for work; while the Indian element, mainly Tamil coolies as in Ceylon, is much smaller.

The town of Singapore stands on the south side of the island facing the open sea, and the Old Port is not well adapted to the needs of modern commerce; large7vessels, as we see in this picture, must anchor off shore in the roadstead and unload into barges. The coast, where it has not been reclaimed, is low and marshy, and the old wharves bear a look of neglect and decay.8But west of the Tanjong Pagar dock, now Government property, is Keppel Harbour, a narrow deep-water channel, protected on the seaward side by two small islands. Large steamers can moor at the Tanjong Pagar wharves to take in coal or merchandise, and here we find the mail boats, British, French, German and others; while the old harbour and the mouth of the little Singapore river are crowded with Chinese boats and boatmen, and with barges bringing goods from the steamers in9the roadstead. Here we have a view of a corner of the wharves in the river.

Let us land and make our way towards the town.10Commercial Square and Raffles Square, with their shops and business offices, are quite English in appearance, except for the waiting rickshas and the dress of the11natives. Then we see the cathedral and the cricket ground, which lies on part of the reclaimed foreshore, with the Raffles monument in the middle. In another direction are Chinese shops and a Chinese open-air theatre with the crowd gathered round it in spite of the rain. They are used to rain in Singapore. We pass a Chinesetemple, and more shops, and then on the outskirts of the town we may light on the suburban villa of a wealthy12Chinese merchant, standing in its own beautiful grounds. The Chinese are proud of their gardens, and the owner willingly shows us round. Here is a lake in the garden13with the magnificent Victoria Regia water-lily growing in it. Everywhere in Singapore the architecture and the people of the East and West are blended in a strange mixture.

In the hilly country, outside the city, there is nothing of very special interest for us. As we are close to the Equator and have heat all the year round, with a heavy rainfall, almost any tropical product can be grown on the island; the Chinese make a speciality of the cultivation of pineapples, which are tinned and exported.14Here we have a scene in the factory. We need not explore the country, but a visit to the botanical gardens will notbe a waste of time, as it will tell us a great deal about the Malay region in general. In one corner of the15gardens is a large collection of palms; we have seen already what an important place the trees of this group have in the life of the tropics, and we shall meet them often again. Of even greater interest, perhaps, from the European point of view, is rubber. Here we find the Government conducting experiments to discover the kind of trees most suited to the various districts, and the best methods of cultivation and preparation; we shall see some of the results of these experiments on the mainland of the Peninsula which we are now going to visit.

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We touched at Singapore first as it is by far the most important of the Settlements: the oldest is Malacca, which in the time of the Portuguese and Dutch occupation held the position which Singapore holds to-day. Under modern conditions it has declined in importance and ranks below both Singapore and Penang, though the railway and the rubber industry are now giving new16life to this old-world settlement. Here is a glimpse of the river and here a street in the town; it is picturesque17enough, but we miss the life and bustle which we have seen at Singapore.

The island of Penang, together with the strip of the mainland opposite, was leased by us from the Sultan of Kedah, over a hundred years ago, at a time when the rest of the coast was more or less under the influence of the Dutch. The rent is still paid regularly to the Sultan for the time being. In 1824, we came to an agreement with the Dutch who withdrew all claim to the Straits, while we left them undisturbed in the island region further south. This withdrawal of the Dutch, and the possession of Singapore, gave us the entire control of the Straits of Malacca. Since that time there have been some small additions to the area of British territory, but our chief work has been to bring the native States within our Sphere of Influence. The result in the last century, as we have already seen, was the formation of the Federated Malay States, governed by their native rulers with the advice and assistance of British officials. A British Civil Service, with native and Indian police, and a regiment of Indian soldiers, under British officers, assist in the work of administering the Federation. It is an interesting experiment, crowned by complete success, in the application of Western ideas and methods of organization to a semi-civilized people; and a similar system is gradually being introduced into the other Protected States. Here is a group of these native18rulers and British officials, representing the two sides of the combined administration.

Though we read a great deal about piracy and misrule in the old days, we must not think of the natives of Malaya as wholly given over to barbarism. The States, just as in India, had their own form of government and social organization, long before they came under our influence. They had their courts, palaces and public19buildings. The palace of the Sultan of Selangor, which we see here, reminds us strongly of some of the magnificent buildings in India. Side by side with it a British20Residency in the neighbouring State of Pahang seems an insignificant hut; but the hut represents efficiency in administration, while the Sikh sentry who guards it stands for the law and order which we have introduced.

Malay Peninsula: Physical.

The past development and future prospects of the21Peninsula can only be understood in the light of its geography. It has a great length of coastline, so thatno part is very far from the sea, while access to the coast is easy on the west. But a mountain chain, stretching continuously from north to south, though nearer the west coast than the east, forms a difficult barrier between the States on either side, except in Johor, where it spreads out and becomes lower. The rainfall is heavy all the year round and the temperature rather like that of the palm house at Kew Gardens. As a result of these conditions, forty years ago the whole region of the lowland was a great jungle, with the Malay inhabitants living in scattered villages and clearings along the streams which offered the only means of movement. Before we22came there were no roads except the forest tracks such as we see here, formed by wild animals and used mainly by hunters. Now there are good roads all over the western side of the Peninsula, with rest-houses at intervals, maintained by Government for the benefit of travellers. These roads connect the towns of the interior with the sea or with the lower reaches of the rivers where they are navigable for large boats; while a trunk road now runs over the mountains, linking the railway in Selangor with Kuala Lipis on the Pahang river. Here23we have a scene on this road, with the old native bullock cart and the modern motor-car side by side. We can imagine that travel will be slow in these carts; and so it is; but off the road all movement whatever is impossible. Besides the roads there is now the completed trunk railway, running from Johor Bharu, where it(1)connects by steam ferry with the short line in Singapore island, right along the west of the Peninsula to the coast opposite Penang. The railway, like the roads, has branches connecting with ports on the coast, and on the east side a line is being pushed forward into the State of Pahang; this will ultimately pass through Kelantan and connect with the Siamese system. About half-way along the trunk line, in the State of Selangor, is Kuala Lumpur, the administrative centre of the Federated States.

When road and rail are not available, our sole resource is the water, which has always been a vital element in Malay life. We may travel in canoes of various kinds, and for long journeys we may hire a roomy houseboat,24such as we see here on the Pahang river. If no boats are to be had, we may build a raft of bamboo and25on it drift down stream. Our journey will not be without excitement, as there may be rapids to be negotiated, and we must be careful where we bathe, as there are26crocodiles in plenty. Near the river mouths and along the coast we find sailing boats, often of the junk type, which remind us of China; and the larger ports have their coasting steamers, owned in some cases by Chinese capitalists in Singapore.

Malaya, with its warmth, ample rainfall and many streams, is naturally the land of the rice swamp and coconut palm. As we travel southwards from Penang, the rice fields stretch monotonously mile after mile over the flat lands between the railway and the sea. These27great levels do not make good pictures, but here is one of them. The native in the foreground is beckoning eastern fashion, with the hand pointed downwards. The ditch beside him is an irrigation channel. The water is impounded in rough reservoirs on the valley slopes and allowed to flow down to these channels; sometimes, too, it is raised from a lower level by a primitive water wheel, with bamboo tubes fixed on its rim as buckets. Experience has made the native skilful in irrigation work of this kind.

The rice field, the coconut palm and the river provide the Malay with an easy living, supplemented in the past by the proceeds of occasional piracy. He was not likely to be industrious so long as his property was liable to be seized at any moment by his rulers or their deputies. The Malay, as we find him all over the East India Islands, will hunt, fish, sail a boat or fight with considerable energy and skill, but he takes ordinary life in an easyfashion. He has no desire for the business of money-making and prefers to live in his simple fashion in his own homestead orkampong. Let us look at some of28these native houses. They are all raised above the ground on piles, and usually have a kind of verandah29on one side; the interior is dark, as the native is not fond of windows. We notice the bamboo and the coconut palm near every house and shall probably come on the stream not very far away. This is the real Malaya: the aspect of the towns is very different. Here we find streets of houses and shops, but these are largely given30up to the natives of India or China, as we may guess from the signboards in the picture before us. Here, on the31other hand, we see the typical Malay, in his national costume, the bright colouredsarongor petticoat which32is worn both by men and women, with a light jacket of some kind to complete the dress. The Malays are Mohammedans, though not perhaps of a very rigid type. Here33we see the new mosque at Kuala Lumpur, fit to stand side by side with a palace; but the simple thatched or tiled34buildings which we find everywhere in the villages seem to agree better with our pictures of ordinary Malay life.

Though the Malay is largely occupied in agriculture, yet he has taken only a small share in the most important of recent movements, the artificial cultivation of rubber. All along the railway, outside the rice swamps, we find our view shut in by the tall trees of the forest. Here35is a glimpse where the forest has been thinned out a little, and here again is a corner of the jungle showing36the dense growth of fern and creeper. The constant rainfall and high temperature which give us the jungle have been found to be well suited to the growth of the Brazilian rubber tree. So here and there from the train we catch sight of a great clearing, with perhaps the young37rubber trees growing amid the roots and fallen trunks of the older forest. Or again we pass a plantation in a38more advanced stage; and if we pay the planter avisit we may see the coolies tapping the trees by slicing39the bark, and collecting the milky latex which when coagulated and smoked becomes rubber as we know it. The planter is English, perhaps from Ceylon; the coolies40who cluster round the bungalow to receive their pay are probably Tamils from India, since the Malay, though useful in the rough work of clearing to which he is accustomed, does not take readily to the steady work of cultivation.

Clearing, planting and growing the trees is a slow process, and the progress of Malaya would have been far from rapid if it had been based on agriculture alone. The money needed for roads and railways came from another source. When we intervened, we found the Chinese coolie already in occupation, and a considerable traffic in Chinese-owned vessels along the coast to Singapore. The cause of this traffic was tin. Tin ore is everywhere in the Peninsula, though it is mined chiefly in the alluvial areas at the foot of the hills. Some of the mining is still very primitive and is carried on by groups of Chinese who work with little capital but manage to make a profit none the less. But in many places modern machinery has been introduced; the steam pump has replaced the chain and bucket of the Chinese, while hydraulic sluicing and other up-to-date methods of41mining are becoming common. We often come on a whole valley, looking like a huge quarry, turned upside42down and desolated in the search for tin. Everywhere we notice the busy Chinese coolie, in his curious sun hat, and in the distance we may catch sight of the barracks where he lives. The ore is dug out and washed, and then for the most part sent to Singapore to be smelted and reduced to the shape in which it reaches our own country. Nearly half the world’s supply of tin comes from this narrow strip of country; and we may say that Malaya has been built up on tin, though now rubber is rapidly overtaking it in value. The two togetherconstitute over nine-tenths of the total exports of the Federated States and provide a large revenue for the Government to spend on improvements.

The miner and artisan is nearly always a Chinese, so that at the present time the Chinese in the Federated States actually outnumber the natives. If we add the Indian coolies to the Chinese, we find that out of a total population of about a million, three-fifths are of foreign origin. This is how tin and rubber are translated into terms of population. Outside the Federated States we do not find the same proportions in the population, though the geographical conditions are of much the same kind. There is the same rice cultivation in the coast plains; the same plantations of coconuts and rubber, though on a smaller scale.

Trengganu has a considerable textile industry, while Kelantan exportssarongsto the neighbouring states. Tin also is everywhere, and some gold; while Europeans are already mining, prospecting and planting. The population of Kelantan is almost entirely Malay, and the native element is stronger than the Chinese all down the east coast. The whole region is rather more primitive43than the west side; the palace of the Sultan of Kelantan, with its curious wooden palisade and guard of spearmen, looks distinctly old-fashioned.

In short, eastern Malaya has been rather out of the world in the past. The coast is difficult of access; the river mouths are blocked with sandbars, and there is a continuous line of surf in the months when the Northeast Monsoon is blowing. It lies, too, out of the main track of shipping; so that we have a great contrast to the sheltered waters of the Straits of Malacca, and it is only natural that the country behind should be slower to develop.

The most backward part is naturally the pathless jungle on the mountains of the interior, which is still44given up to wild game and to the Sakai, naked savagesliving in rough forest-shelters and armed with the blowpipe and poisoned dart. These represent the lowest grade among the people of the Peninsula. But development has begun in the east and the result will be a change in the face of the country such as we have seen in the west, brought about by the Chinese and Indians of the mine and plantation, aided by European and Chinese capital, and working under sound administration.

When we turn northwards from Singapore, on the way(2)to China, we are entering a vast enclosed sea, cut off from the main Pacific by a string of islands almost continuous for fifteen hundred miles. In the northern part of this barrier there are a few narrow passages; in the south the sea is shut in by the unbroken barrier of the coast of Borneo. Some idea of the size of Borneo, which is the largest island in the Malay Archipelago, can be obtained if we compare it with our own islands, mapped45on the same scale. We shall find that Borneo can contain not only the lands of the British Islands but a large part of the surrounding seas and channels as well. The south and southeastern part of this great island belongs to Holland, so that our visit will be limited to the northern end; but even in this corner we find a country as large as Ireland.

After a voyage of seven hundred miles across the southern end of this enclosed sea, we are approaching the small island of Labuan, which lies across the mouth of a broad inlet in the larger island. In the latter part of our voyage we have sighted land to the southeast, but this is not our destination, as it is not British territory, though as regards foreign relations under our protection. This land is the native state of Sarawak, which is ruled autocratically by an Englishman, Sir Charles Brooke. The origin of this State is one of the romances of the Pacific. Seventy years ago James Brooke, uncle of the present ruler, made a voyage through the South ChinaSea. He was specially attracted by Borneo and saw that it might be wealthy and prosperous if only it could be reclaimed from the misgovernment and barbarism of its native rulers. The chance soon came to put his theories to the test. Sarawak, then nominally part of the Sultanate of Brunei, was in a state of rebellion, owing to the misrule of a local chief. Brooke, with the crew of his yacht, helped the Rajah Muda, Hassim, uncle of the Sultan of Brunei, to restore order; and as a reward was made governor of Sarawak, in 1841. Thus the younger son of an Indian Civil Servant became in a moment an Eastern Potentate. Once established, Sir James Brooke, or Rajah Brooke as he is better known to history, not only kept good order in his own district but joined with the British navy in the suppression of piracy in the neighbouring seas. As Brunei decayed, Sarawak grew stronger. Its territory was enlarged from time to time and its prosperity has proved the benefit derived by the native inhabitants from strong and firm control.

An island rather larger than Guernsey, Labuan is the only British territory, as opposed to a Protectorate, which we shall find in this region. Rounding a headland we turn northwards into a broad and deep inlet, and come to anchor opposite a small town of white houses with red roofs and a background of low hills; this is Victoria, the capital and only town. We may have time to travel by the light railway to the coal mines at the other end of the island, but we shall find nothing else to detain us, as the country is mostly occupied by swamps and decayed villages. The harbour and the coal: these two things explain why Labuan is now a British Possession. Though it had been, for a short time in the eighteenth century, a station of the East India Company, it was unoccupied and seemingly of little value when we acquired it from the Sultan of Brunei in 1846; but we looked to its position on the flank of the great route to China, with itsexcellent harbour and supplies of coal. It was thought by some that the island would become a smaller Singapore, a port of call for shipping and a collecting centre for the whole mainland of Borneo. Labuan started with great expectations; its history has been a series of disappointments. The coal business failed from the first, while the transit trade did not develop, and the reason is not far to seek. In spite of the great natural resources of Borneo, there could be no progress in trade until piracy and head-hunting had been suppressed and some form of settled government introduced. Now that this has been accomplished and the country is prospering and developing, the mainland has its own seaports from which the goods are shipped direct to Singapore or Hongkong, so that Labuan derives no benefit.

Politically Labuan has had a varied career. In 1848, it was made a Crown Colony, Sir James Brooke being the first Governor; later it was handed over to the North Borneo Company to administer for a time; and since 1907 it has been annexed to the Straits Settlements. It has been eclipsed completely by its greater neighbour.

If we cross the wide bay between the island and the mainland, we shall get a glimpse of past history, and better appreciate the reason for the failure of Labuan. At the southeast corner of the bay we enter the Brunei river. The forest comes right down to the river bank, and the trees appear to be growing in the water, with a tangle of interlaced roots showing above the surface; we are passing a swamp of mangroves, orbakau, as the natives call the tree. Then the land begins to rise in low hills covered still with forest, and the mangrove gives way to the coconut palm. We pass native canoes with their double rows of paddles, and here and there on the bank a group of native houses among the palms. Finally we round a sharp bend in the river and come46upon the old native town of Brunei. It is a kind ofeastern Venice, with its houses built on piles driven into47the mud, and its streets all waterways. Here is one of these streets. In Brunei, as all over Borneo, the bamboo, the palm and the creeping rattan provide the builder with material free of charge for posts, flooring, roofs and lashings—for the houses are tied, not nailed together. There is fish in abundance in the river, and we pass a48fleet of market boats, with women in large sun hats, bringing the catch for sale in the town; while in the forest all round there is fruit to be had for the picking. Nature has supplied the Malay with most of his necessaries at his very door.

Brunei has distinctly an air of decay. Centuries ago it was a large city, the capital of a kingdom. It gave its name to the whole island and its rulers extended their sway across the neighbouring seas. Early voyagers from Europe seem to have been much impressed by its barbaric magnificence. Now, all that remains of a past empire is a small corner of territory, with little trade or revenue, and ruled in name only by a petty chief. Most of the territory shown on the old maps has been ceded to the British North Borneo Company or to Sarawak. One local industry of some importance Brunei still possesses; this is the working of brass, particularly of brass gongs, which still pass as a kind of currency in the interior.49We can visit a whole village of brassworkers, on a creek close by, and see them working in the open air with primitive bellows made of bamboo, and producing castings of old-fashioned design. This is merely a survival; internal decay and attacks from outside have left Brunei only a shadow of its former power. The trade with China and the Malay Archipelago, which contributed to its former power, was destroyed by the attacks of the fierce pirates from the islands to the north; and British influence came too late to save the kingdom from its own internal weakness; though, under the guidance of British officials, and by the help of British capital, the fragmentwhich remains seems likely to recover some of its prosperity.

Let us turn from Borneo of the past to Borneo of the future. We are going to make a voyage round the territory of the British North Borneo Company. Our trip will be limited to the coast districts, as much of the interior is difficult to reach and indeed not yet explored. First let us see what the map can tell us about the country as a whole.

British North Borneo.

The Company’s territory is in the form of a rough50quadrilateral, with a coastline irregular and deeply indented by the sea. Inland, but nearer to the west coast than the east, stretches a long backbone of mountains; so that the rivers on the east side are longer and the lowlands broader and flatter than on the west. The Equatorcuts Borneo almost in the middle, and the whole island is truly tropical, though there are great differences between the highlands and the lowlands. The lowlands are hot all the year round, though the temperature is modified by the rain and dense vegetation and the nearness of the sea; so that the climate does not show the extremes of heat and the great variation which we find in the dry region of Northwest India, much further away from the Equator. Again, there are not two strongly marked wet and dry seasons; rain falls more or less in every month of the year, though spring and autumn are as a rule the wettest seasons. A total annual fall of from ninety to two hundred inches reminds us of the wetter parts of India and the Malay Peninsula, and combined with unvarying heat does not suggest a climate particularly adapted to occupation by the white man. In spite of this drawback the country is in course of development by British capital and under British direction. As an estate it is increasing in value every year. We will now try to see something of its products and people.

Seventy or eighty miles north of Labuan we enter another great bay, with a small island at the entrance; the bay and island of Gaya. On the south side of this bay is the town of Jesselton, the western capital of the Territory and the terminus of the only existing railway. Behind the town is hilly country, and as we approach we may see in the distance, so far as clouds permit, the great bulk of Mount Kinabalu, the highest part of the long mountain chain of the interior. At Jesselton we find European sports in progress and a mixed crowd is gathered: natives of the coast region, largely of Malay blood, Sikhs and Pathans of the Constabulary, with a few Chinese and the white officials. In the town are the Malay houses built over the water, and near them a row of Chinese51shops; on the slopes above we see the barracks, with the Constabulary at drill, and a few European residences, with Government House overlooking all. At Jesselton wehave a picture in little of the conditions of the coast districts.

Before exploring inland we will borrow the Government launch for a short trip up the coast to Usikaan Bay.52Here is a fine portrait of our skipper. He is a typical coastman; his mother a native of Brunei, his father from Sarawak. He is a Mohammedan, like most of the coastmen, and is full of the lore and legend of the island. We land at a little pier and enter a shed, which is the Custom House. There is no sign of inhabitants, as the building is used only when the local steamer calls to collect the up-country produce. We have come here to look at the scenery, not the people, so we climb the hill above the bay, from which we can look down on the Abai river, flowing out beyond the next headland. It is a typical Borneo river. On both banks is the usual tropical swamp, and all around us is tropical vegetation. Here we can53see the wonderful Pitcher Plant of these regions, though the finest specimens are to be found further inland towards Mount Kinabalu. Turning away from the sea we have a54view of the long ridge of Kinabalu, with the upper part of the Abai river in the foreground. From this outlook we can gain a very fair idea of the character of tropical Borneo.

So far we have kept to the outer edge of the island; the railway from Jesselton will carry us inland, though not very far, as it runs on the whole parallel to the coast. The inland terminus of the line is at Tenom, east of Brunei Bay and behind the coast range of mountains. Here, too, native sports are in progress, but they are a much more important business than at Jesselton; they are announced months beforehand and provide a common meeting-place for the many native tribes of the interior. The contests are also especially fitted to the tastes and occupations of the natives, so that we may learn much from them. The55raft race is one of the most popular, as the rivers are the only means of traffic in the interior and the natives areskilled in handling every form of river craft. Even more56interesting to us is the shooting matchwith thesumpitan, the long blowpipe with poisoned darts which in this region takes the place of the bow and arrow. Here we find this formidable weapon put to a harmless use in shooting at the running deer; it is a kind of native Bisley. The crowds of spectators show us every type of native face57and dress. Here is a group of Muruts withsumpitans, and here are some visitors, Sea Dyaks from Sarawak,58whose name is associated with piracy and head-hunting. The Muruts seem to be the aborigines of this part of the interior; they are unlike the coast people in appearance and they are pagans, not Mohammedans; but they share with the Sea Dyaks their liking for head-hunting, and would soon revive the practice were British control removed.

In the neighbourhood of the railway we begin to find evidence of the progress of Borneo. One of the most successful crops is tobacco. Before it can be planted there is much work to be done. The jungle must first be attacked and rough roads driven through with ditches at the side for drainage in the heavy rains. Here we see the59work of clearing in progress. Then wide spaces must be prepared for planting, and at length we get our crop.60The leaves are then picked by coolies and carried in curious baskets to the drying and fermenting sheds for further treatment before they become the tobacco leaf of commerce.

We will now return to Jesselton and resume our voyage. A short way up the coast we leave the steamer and take to a boat; we are going up a small river to attend atanuor local market, in order to see something more of native life. We call on the District Officer at his house and accompany him in his barge of state to the market.61Here a crowd of natives waits for the hoisting of a little flag, the signal that they may begin their bargaining. They have brought down the produce of the interior,resins, gums and tobacco, to sell to the Chinese dealers; in return their favourite purchase is brass. There is also a great buying and selling of fish and fruit. Here62we see a native woman of the hill tribes carrying a large crate and wearing great coils of brass wire round her waist. The husband stands by and looks on, as is usual here, where the women do most of the heavy work.

Once more we board the steamer, and after touching at Kudat, a fine harbour in the great bay at the north end of the island, turn southward towards Sandakan, the capital of the Territory, where we shall end our voyage. On the deck of the little vessel is a crowd of Chinese coolies. The Chinese are the real workers on all the coasts of North Borneo, just as we found them in the Malay63Peninsula. We reach Sandakan, which stands on a splendid bay running fifteen miles up into the land. The entrance is only two miles wide, so that the bay is almost landlocked. Down at the water’s edge is the native town, with many of the houses built on piles; here too is the Chinese quarter, and scattered about further up a wooded slope are the houses of the Europeans. All round the sides of the harbour are smaller native villages.

Sandakan will probably in the future become an important commercial seaport, especially in view of its position on the route between Australia and China. It already boasts a shipbuilding and engineering yard, and a cutch factory which sends its products for tanning all over the world. Here also we may notice timber being floated down in great rafts for export, especially to China. Not far away up the river is one of the oldest rubber estates on the island. Borneo produces many kinds of plants giving rubber or gutta, but it has been found that the Para rubber tree of Brazil grows well, and there is a great future for its cultivation here as in the Malay Peninsula.

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The East India Company made many attempts to establish factories in Borneo and the neighbouring islands;but all came to nothing, so that the early history does not concern us here. One trace of former conditions remained in the nineteenth century, in the claims of Holland in the south of the island and of Spain in the north. These claims were revived at the time of our occupation and were not finally settled until the late eighties of the nineteenth century. The modern history of the region begins with the acquisition, by an American syndicate, of certain concessions in the north from the Sultans of Brunei and Sulu. Their rights were taken over ultimately by a British company which obtained a charter from the Crown, in 1881, under the title of the British North Borneo Company. The charter was a revival of the old plan for opening up new countries without thedirect interventionor responsibility of the home Government. It was followed by other charters for African companies; but of these only one survives, and the North Borneo Company is at the present day the oldest remaining representative of the system. So we have a large piece of territory under British Protection but controlled by a private company. The Company does not trade, but confines itself to administration, and is supported like any other Government by duties and taxes of various kinds. It is largely independent, though the British Government can interfere if necessary in vital matters.

Malaya and Borneo are tropical estates and can only be developed by special methods. In dealing with these estates we have given considerable space to the subject of administration, since without order and security it is impossible to utilize those natural resources with which our geography is concerned. These resources include the minerals and the whole range of tropical products, together with the available human material, the Chinese or Indian labourer and the native Malay. Foreign capital, British or Chinese, under British direction provides the driving force for progress. In the different parts of the Malay Peninsula and in North Borneo we have varioustypes of administration and various stages of progress; but over the whole area there is a general similarity of conditions which marks it off both from the Indian Ocean and from the Chinese group which is the object of our next visit.

Fifteen hundred miles away from Singapore, guarding the northern outlet of the China Sea as Singapore guards the southern, commanding also the approach to the great commercial city of Canton and to the whole coastline of1southeastern China, lies the island harbour of Hongkong, the last fortified outpost of British power in this region of the world. The island is only one of a large group which fringes the coast round the mouth of the Canton river, and its area is less than thirty square miles,2or nearly the same as that of Labuan. It consists of a long irregular granite ridge, falling steeply to the sea, with deep-cut inlets on its southern side. To the north is the mainland, with long hill ranges ending in a mass of rocky peninsulas and headlands. Between the island and the mainland lies the narrow roadstead or harbour of Victoria.

As we round the west point of the island, the Peak is on our right, and below it are warehouses, wharves and piers, spread out for three miles along the water front. Behind is the crowded native quarter, and in the background the city rises in tier above tier of terraced houses up the lower slopes of the ridge. On the summit, too, we can see many3houses scattered about. Here is a panoramic view of the west end of the city, taken from the harbour. Notice the fine pile of offices and the European Club in the foreground4of the picture. Our next view, further east, shows the Admiralty dockyard, which makes an ugly break in the line of the sea front. The white band on the hill behind is the cable railway running up to the Peak. We pass merchantsteamers, warships, and crowds of junks at anchor, and all about us the small native boats orsampansare plying busily to and fro. Opposite the middle of the town, where the low peninsula of Kaulun juts out from the mainland, the harbour narrows to rather more than half a mile, and here is the ferry. On our left as we enter is Stonecutter Island, a long bare rock heavily fortified and guarding the passage; beyond it to the north the view is everywhere5closed in by the mountain ridges of the mainland. Here are two views from the hill, showing the west end of6the harbour, with Stonecutter Island and Kaulun; a third shows the eastern passage, known as theLai-i-mun, by7which we shall leave after our visit.

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