BORNEO 257 



deep water. In what may be termed the main street 

 the larger vessels lie at anchor, while innumerable canoes 

 dart about in every direction, from the Pangerangs' 

 barges propelled ^^ by twenty paddles to the little tlat 

 " dug-out " with a bare inch of freeboard, manned by a 

 solitary naked native. The market is, perhaps, one of 

 the most extraordinary sights the East has to show. 

 Each stall is a canoe, and it would puzzle the spectator 

 to form any estimate of their number, for the water is 

 covered with craft of all sizes in incessant motion. At 

 one moment there is a dense pack around some China- 

 man or other trader, and each vociferates the prices of 

 the produce on sale. At another there is a rush in the 

 opposite direction, and the former buyer is deserted. A 

 continuous onward movement is at the same time taking 

 place, so that in the course of an hour or two the market 

 has floated through a considerable part of the town. As 

 in other countries, the vendors are almost without excep- 

 tion women, each of whom wears a palm-leaf hat of 

 enormous size, which serves the purpose of an umbrella 

 also, for it is large enough to protect the whole body 

 from either sun or rain. Several other towns in the 

 Malay Archipelago resemble Brunei in being almost 

 entirely aquatic ; as, for example, Palembang, but they 

 are in nearly every case buUt close to a river bank, and 

 hence the appearance presented is quite difierent. The 

 population is estimated at from 12,000 to 15,000. 



The trade of Brunei is of no importance. What exists 

 is in the hands of a few prosperous Chinese. The gold- 

 smiths and brass workers are renowned, and the krisses and 

 gold-embroidered sarongs are of beautiful workmanship. 

 Fishing and the cultivation of the sago-palm and rice are 

 the chief occupations of the peasants, who have groaned 

 beneath the burden of an intolerable taxation, and still 



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