HISTORY OF BORNEO 19 



surely absorbing them. The Chinese have also played a 

 prominent part in the colonisation of Borneo, having early 

 developed gold and diamond mines and established trade, 

 and though at times they have been unruly, they are to- 

 day an element much appreciated by the Dutch in the 

 development of the country. 



As regards the time when European influence appeared 

 in Borneo, the small sultanate of Brunei in the north was 

 the first to come in contact with Europeans. Pigafetta, 

 with the survivors of Magellan's expedition, arrived here 

 from the Moluccas in 1521, and was the first to give an 

 account of it to the Western world. He calls it ** Bornei," 

 which later, with a slight change, became the name of the 

 whole island. The ever-present Portuguese early estab- 

 lished trade relations with the sultanate. Since the Na- 

 poleonic wars, when the East Indian colonies were re- 

 turned to Holland, the Dutch have gradually extended 

 their rule in Borneo to include two-thirds of the island. 

 In the remainder the British have consolidated their in- 

 terests, and in 1906, the European occupation of Borneo 

 was completed. The distribution of territory has roughly 

 been placed thus: Dutch Borneo, seventy per cent; 

 Sarawak and Brunei, twenty per cent; British North 

 Borneo, ten per cent. 



To the world at large Borneo is probably best known 

 through the romance surrounding the name of James 

 Brooke, who became Raja of Sarawak, in 1841. His 

 story has often been told, but a brief account may not 

 be out of place. He had been to the Far East and its 

 fascination, together with an impulse to benefit the na- 



