III. 

 The Physical Features and Geology of Borneo.' 



FROM the day when the companions of the ill-fated Magellan cast 

 anchor before Brunei, in the early part of the sixteenth century, 

 down to the present time, the island of Borneo has ever provoked a 

 lively curiosity, and has been the subject of the wildest speculation. 

 Its vast size and symmetrical position on the equatorial line early 

 attracted the attention of geographers ; but the exploration of the 

 interior was long hindered by the trade policy of its first settlers, the 

 Dutch East India Company, who deemed it expedient to confine their 

 operations to the coast. 



In more recent years, the popular imagination has been kindled 

 by the romantic history of Sir James Brooke. That daring English- 

 man, arriving off the northern coast of Borneo, partly in search of 

 adventure, partly with the idea of suppressing the Malay pirates who 

 infested those seas, found himself, at the end of a few exciting years, 

 installed as Rajah of Sarawak and ruler of a turbulent crowd of 

 Malays, Dyaks, and Chinese. Strange rumours have also reached 

 us of the ferocity of the head-hunting and cannibal tribes who share 

 the forests of the interior with the orang-outang.- Lastly, the enter- 

 prise of the capitalist and the energies of the prospector have been 

 stimulated by exaggerated reports of the wealth of the island in 

 minerals and coal, of its wide-spreading gold-fields, and of its diamonds 

 of fabulous size and unparalleled lustre. And yet, in spite of these 

 manifold sources of interest, there is hardly another country of equal 

 magnitude of which we know so little. It is true that the naturalist 

 Wallace, in his " Malay Archipelago," draws a charming picture of 

 the life and vegetation of the dense tropical forests of the island; but of 

 its physical features we have, till recently, been in complete ignorance. 

 The vacuity of our knowledge of Borneo appears the more 

 remarkable when we contrast it with the exactitude and minuteness of 

 our information with regard to the neighbouring islands of Sumatra 

 and Java ; but the explanation is not far to seek. This is embraced in 



^ For the facts on which this essay is based, I have mainly relied on Dr. Theodor 

 Posewitz's " Borneo " (Berlin : Friedlander und Sohn, 1889). I have recently trans- 

 lated this invaluable work, in which the whole of the literature (principally Dutch) 

 has been admirably summarised ; and it is with considerable satisfaction that I am 

 able to announce the approaching publication of the English edition. — F. H. H. 



- See Carl Bock's " Head-hunters of Borneo." London; i88i. 



