308 A NATURALIST IN BORNEO 



their sources. The Malays, a maritime, trading people, 

 are found on the coasts and cannot be regarded as an 

 indigenous race ; they have spread all over the Malay 

 Archipelago and Malay Peninsula from a centre which 

 has been fixed by universal consent at Menangkabau, in 

 Sumatra. Their civilization is of a much higher order 

 than that of any of the savage tribes, and at one time 

 they exercised a nominal sway over the whole island 

 of Borneo. If we plot out roughly on a map of Borneo 

 the distribution of the various tribes at the present day, 

 we get a sort of epitome of the changes that have taken 

 place in the past. We see that the Kalamantans are 

 congregated in some force in two parts of the island, 

 the north-east and the west ; we see furthermore that 

 there are no large rivers in these parts, and this gives 

 us the clue. The great rivers of a densely forested land 

 are its highways, and up these rivers have poured the 

 waves of immigration, not up the small rivers ; the 

 lands watered by small rivers are then the last refuges 

 of the Kalamantans, now weakly and decadent ; either 

 they have been driven here by Kenyahs, Kayans, and 

 Sea-Dayaks, or they have lived here ever since the time 

 when in the heyday of their vigour they spread all over 

 Borneo. Other Kalamantan tribes, as, for example, the 

 Kalabits, Ot-Danum, and Kahayan, linger on in the 

 interior highlands, mere flotsam and jetsam thrown 

 high and dry by the rushing tide that submerged so 

 many others, such as the Long Utan, now only a 

 memory. Some of these people, living far from great 

 rivers, are ignorant of the way in which to handle a 

 canoe, and are struck dumb with awe and fear when at 

 the instance of the white man they have been brought 

 down from their mountain homes and have viewed 



