131 IMPORTS AND EXPORTS. 



population, and, during the year, there are now upwards 

 of 120 boats of large tonnage enter the river of Sarawak 

 for the purposes of trade. Before the present govern- 

 ment was established, the trade was carried on by about 

 one-tenth of that number. A schooner sails monthly to 

 Singapore, carrying the produce of the settlement, 

 and it is visited frequently during the year by junks, 

 and other merchant vessels, from Sambas, Java, Bali, 

 &c. Besides the above-named trading vessels a great 

 number of small boats are employed in the coasting 

 trade, which is, as is also the foreign business, 

 steadily and rapidly on the increase. The exports 

 from Sarawak are antimony, gold, diamonds, sago, 

 bees'-wax, birds'-nests, tortoise-shell, sharks' fins, 

 vegetable tallow, dammar, rice, ebony, rattans, Malacca 

 canes, salt fish, and many other articles, as the valu- 

 able camphor, which are brought here by the coasting 

 vessels from the eastward. They import, salt, opium 

 (consumed by the Chinese), silks, cocoa-nut oil, brass 

 wire, and brass cooking-pots ; with Javanese handker- 

 chiefs, and European cloths and earthenware, and 

 also much of the coarser earthen manufacture of China. 

 The Klings have a well-stocked bazaar in the town, 

 and make expeditions from it to all the towns along 

 the coast. These people and the Chinese, who culti- 

 vate gardens and work the gold and antimony mines, 

 are always found where the Europeans residing afford 

 them protection. The Klings successfully compete 

 with the native merchants for goods of European manu- 

 facture, which they bring over, of a damaged descrip- 



