270 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL 



au average breadth of about 250 miles, thus exceeding 

 in area all the other territories of the island. To the 

 north they are bounded for a great part of their extent 

 by the main, but nameless, range of the island, which 

 runs from north-east to south-west. The seaboard thus 

 extends from Tanjong Datu on the Saraw\ak border to a 

 point high up on the east coast. The exact boundary 

 on this side was for long a matter of dispute, the British 

 ISTorth Borneo Company claiming as far as the Sibuku 

 Eiver in about 4° IST. lat., while in their maps the Dutch 

 marked the limit of their territory as extending to the 

 southern horn of Darvel Bay; but the parallel of 4° 10' 

 has lately been determined as the boundary. 



As has been already stated, the acquisition of these 

 large possessions has been an affair of time, dating its 

 commencement from 1606, when the Dutch were jfirst 

 attracted to the coast by the pepper trade. It was not 

 till many years later, at the end of the last century, that 

 they aimed at the possession of something more than 

 sites for their factories. The territory of the Sultan of 

 Banjarmasin was the first to come under their suzerainty 

 in 1785, and from this beginning they have become the 

 owners of more than two-thirds of the island, although 

 their rule in a great part of it is almost nominal. The 

 only districts really settled are, roughly speaking, the 

 basin of the Negara, an affluent of the Barito, and the 

 country lying between Pontianak and the Sarawak 

 territory. 



Dutch Borneo is divided for political purposes into 

 two " Presidencies " — those of " West Borneo " and 

 " South and East Borneo," of which the latter is con- 

 siderably the larger. The former comprises the country 

 drained by the Kapuas, and has its southern boundary 

 near Cape Sambur. It is belie^'ed to contain about 



