104 KINGDOMS ON THE WESTERN COAST. 



Sambas, on the western coast, formerly a piratical 

 station, but destroyed by the English, has become a 

 kingdom of some consideration: the Dutch established 

 themselves there in 1823, for the purpose of hemming 

 in, and thus stopping all the supplies of the refractory 

 Chinese gold-workers of the country situated between 

 the Sambas and Pontianak rivers, whom they could 

 not otherwise reduce : they pay the sultan an annual 

 sum for the monopoly of the trade, which they farm 

 out to the Malays at a great profit. 



Prom the preceding sketch of the several and as 

 they are generally called collectively and to distinguish 

 them from the Aborigines the Malayan nations, it 

 will be seen that the principal kingdoms on the western 

 coast are those of Sambas and Pontianak, to the latter 

 of which the large settlements in the diamond and 

 gold districts of Landak and Sangau are nominally 

 tributary. On the southern coast Banjarmasin is the 

 most powerful, Sucadana having fallen into insignifi- 

 cance, and on the eastern the kingdom of Coti ; and 

 on the northern and north-western the state of Bruni, or 

 Borneo Proper, of which the principality of Sarawak is 

 a large and flourishing settlement. 



As it is not our wish or in our power to furnish 

 complete histories of these kingdoms, we shall pass 

 on to the description of the inhabitants of the island, 

 in their different classes, merely premising, that what 

 is said of the Malays applies more particularly to the 

 descendants of the Javanese on the western coast, 

 except when it is stated expressly to the contrary ; 



