334 TWO YEARS IN THE JUNGLE. 



Politically, the island is divided into the Dutch Territory, which 

 embraces the whole southern, central, and western parts of the is- 

 land, fully one-half its entire area ; the Territory of Sarawak on 

 the north coast, ruled by an English rajah ; the sultanate of Bru- 

 nei, or Borneo Proper, northeast of Sarawak ; and beyond that a 

 fine tract of territory, now called Sabah, almost as large as Sara- 

 wak, which has had the good fortune to pass from the protection 

 of the sultan of Sulu into the hands of a new mercantile organiza- 

 tion called the British North Borneo Company. This territory has 

 the Kimanis River (between Gaya Bay and Labuan Island) for its 

 western boundary, and the Sibuco River on the east coast, for its 

 southern boundary. Its area is between twenty and twenty-five 

 thousand square miles. Its five hundred miles of coast line include a 

 great many finely sheltered bays and harbors, and its interior has not 

 only a number of large rivers, but, also, the highest mountains in 

 Borneo, including Kina Balu, It is extremely gratifying that such 

 a naturally rich and promising country should have fallen into such 

 good hands as those of Sir Rutherford Alcock, and Messrs. Dent, 

 Martin, Read, and Mayne. Success and long life to the British 

 North Borneo Company ! 



South of Brunei Hes Kotei, a large triangular temtory, ruled 

 by a Malay sultan, under Dutch protection, but as independent of 

 the Dutch Government as Nicaragua is of the United States, and 

 which should have boundaries and a color of its own on every map. 

 Above Kotei lies another independent territory of similar shape, 

 also under Dutch protection, but about as little known as the Kina 

 Balu country which joins it on the north. 



Even in this age of venturesome and persistent travellers, no 

 white man has crossed Borneo from side to side, and its interior 

 remains in great measure a sealed book. No European has ever 

 succeeded in doing more than to ascend one river to near its 

 source, cross a narrow water-shed and descend a contiguous stream 

 to the same coast from which he started. In this way Von Gafiron 

 ascended the Barito and descended the Kapooas, Bock journeyed 

 up the Mahakkam and down the Barito, and Wallace traversed the 

 Sadong and the Sarawak. An energetic Scotchman, prospecting 

 for diamonds, also crossed from the Kapooas River to the Sarawak, 

 St. John thoroughly explored to their sources the Limbang and 

 Baram Rivers on the north coast, and both he and Hugh Low as- 

 cended the great mountain of Kina Balu, near the northeastern 

 extremity of the island. 



