v.] PAPAR AXD KIMANIS. 115 



capsizing upon the bar of the river, the occupants were nearly 

 drowned. On the passage one of the crew died of cholera. Aid 

 and medicine were at length obtained, and the epidemic shortly 

 afterwards ceased. 



Hardly recovered from this calamity, however, Kimanis was 

 visited by yet another. On the night of the 31st of December of 

 the same year a tremendous flood canied away a nmnber of houses, 

 and the neighbouring district of Papar suffered even more severely, 

 over sixty natives being drowned. The crops were either entirely 

 destroyed or greatly injured, and the course of the river so altered 

 that it now debouches by another mouth. Such disasters as these 

 would seem almost sufficient to prove the death-blow of a young 

 settlement, but the station had already begmi to recover itself. 

 The population had risen again to nearly two hundred, and trade 

 had re-commenced. 



At the time of the formation of the North Borneo Company 



the Kimanis formed the limit of their territory to the south-west. 



Lately, however, they have acquired an additional tract of land 



which extends their boundary to the Sipitong, a small stream 



emptying itself into Brunei Bay. This acquisition adds about 



sixty miles of coast-line to the Company's territories, and includes 



what is supposed to be one of the richest mineral districts in 



Borneo. Grave accusations have, however, lately been made 



against the Company in the English journals, and the action by 



which their Government seized and condemned to penal servitude 



certain chiefs who resisted their annexation of the new territory 



was, if the facts have been accurately stated, at least high-handed.^ 



The experiment of permitting the foundation of a nineteenth 



century East India Company in such an out-of-the-way corner of 



the world was a somewhat risky one, for the British Government 



is morally responsible for its acts. That it is a good thing that 



^ A check has been lately placed on any further annexation by the Company. 

 The Rajah of Sarawak has acquired the belt of country which is drained by the 

 Trusun and Panderuan Rivers, and intervenes between British North Borneo and 

 the now fast-disappearing Kingdom of Brunei. 



