168 Reviews — 2)/'. Molengraqff's Central Borneo. 



one of the greatest of the East Indian Archipelago, and having an 

 area of 280,000 square miles. Visited first by the Venetian traveller 

 Ludovico Varthema, about 1505, it was next reached by Spain in 

 1521 ; the Portuguese followed and established a few ports in 1526, 

 and carried on trade with the natives for over 150 years. The 

 Dutch reached Borneo at the close of the sixteenth century, and 

 remained there for 70 years. The English followed and settled at 

 Bandjermassin in the south till the beginning of the eighteenth 

 century, when they abandoned it owing to the hostility of the 

 natives. The Dutch then returned, and have since 1733 slowly 

 increased their territory, and now hold more than two-thirds of 

 the whole island ; but the district of Sarawak, on the west coast, 

 under Eaja H.H. Sir C. J. Brooke, the northern part called British 

 North Borneo, controlled by a Chartered Company, and the native 

 Sultanate of Brunei, all these three (covering an area of about 

 84,000 square miles) are under British protection. 



Borneo is a country of high mountains, heavy rainfall, tropical 

 forests, and big rivers everywhere ; and, although known to 

 Europeans for nearly 400 years, its interior is still a virgin field 

 for the naturalist and the explorer. 



Ethnologically it is a wonderful country, with a mixed population 

 composed mostly of Dyaks, with a large number of Malays and 

 Chinese. Here, on the coasts and in the estuaries and rivers, or 

 on the land for that matter, we have the native race, the Dyaks, 

 living in large communal pile-dwellings ; in Brunei, for instance, 

 a population of nearly 7,000 may be found to-day living in dwellings 

 built entirely on the water, communication being only possible by boat. 

 In South and East Dutch Borneo the chief town is Bandjermassin on 

 the Eiam-kina Eiver ; here, again, most of the inhabitants are found 

 living either in floating raft-houses (rising and falling with the level 

 of the water) or in pile-dwellings. Those on the land are also 

 built on piles, and are often stockaded around after the manner of 

 the neolithic palisaded and stockaded terramare discovered in the 

 Po valley between Parma and Modena ; while those on the water 

 are likewise present-day survivals of the precisely similar Swiss 

 and Italian pile-dwellings of prehistoric times. Thus the axiom 

 still holds good, " that man under analogous circumstances acts in 

 an analogous manner irrespective of time and space " (P. Troy on). 



The region of Dr. Molengraaff's geological explorations is situated 

 principally in the north-eastern portion of the political division of 

 Dutch West Borneo, and forms part of Central Borneo. It is 

 traversed from east to west by the great river Kapoewas, which 

 takes its rise in the hilly districts of the extreme north-easterly 

 margin of the division, and in its course to the sea receives the 

 waters of numerous large and important tributaries, which flow to it 

 from the mountainous regions bordering both the north and south 

 sides of its basin. The total length of this river, from its source to 

 the sea, is stated to be 1,143 kilometres (710 miles), about 24 kilo- 

 metres longer than the Rhine. On the north side of the Kapoewas 

 basin is the mountain range known as the Upper Kapoewas, which 



