88 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO. [chap. 



of Malay and L'liiuese huts. The former race comprises individuals 

 of many nations, — Borneans, Sulus, true Malays from the Straits 

 Settlements, and " Manila men," as the natives of the Philippines 

 are called — but of all these the Sulus were, at the period of our visit, 

 by far the most numerous, though compared with the Chinese they 

 were in the minority. The huts are mere sheds built with mats 

 or " attaps " of Nipa leaves, and the streets between, if streets 

 they can be called, are palm-stem gangways, elevated on piles to a 

 height of six or eight feet above the water. 



We disembarked — I had almost said landed — on one of these 

 erections late in the afternoon of April 3rd, and made our way 

 landwards with a certain sense of insecurity as the pliant palm- 

 laths bent beneath our feet. Clattering over these somewhat rickety 

 roads through a motley crowd of natives congregated around the 

 little booths where vendors of dried fish, bananas, and Chinese 

 small o-oods were drivino- a brisk trade, it seemed some tune before 

 we reached terra jirma, for the houses are built for a considerable 

 distance over the water, and the odours that arose from the sea of 

 black mud beneath us were none of the pleasantest. We found 

 some friends whom we had pre^'iously met in Singapore, and it was 

 not long before we had exliausted all the sights of Elopura. Behind 

 the native town the hills rise steeply to the height of a couple of 

 hundred feet or more, and were being cleared of the jungle as fast 

 as possible, the sound of the axe and the crash of falling timber 

 being audible in all directions. The houses of the Europeans 

 were placed upon the hill-side. They were built, like those of 

 the natives, of palm-leaf mats, and were about ten or twelve in 

 number. " Government House," which served the purpose of a 

 dak -bungalow, or rest-house, was a more pretentious building, 

 but the palm was borne by the store of the Sabah Mutual Supply 

 Association, gay with tins of potted meats within, and proud in the 

 consciousness of its corrugated zinc roof. Cliinamen were trotting 

 about in every direction with an affair^ au\ The town was 

 neither picturesque nor beautiful, and even for a new settlement 



