CHAPTER VII. 



BEAUTIFUL BORNEO. 



Borneo — Wild animals — the Malays — Poetry — Romances — Dewa Inclra 

 — Native government — Pile dwellings — Intermarriage — Language — 

 Clothing — Courtship — Marriage — Inland tribes — Land culture — 

 Native villages — Food products — Textile fabrics — Bark cloth — Native 

 ■women — Climate — Native produce — Kayan weapon — Rivers — 

 Gambling — Opium smoking. 



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 re- 

 markable 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, how- 

 ever, are immigrants who inhabit the coasts of all the 

 large Malay islands where, as here in Borneo, they have 



