146 AUSTRALASIA. 



annual surplus devoted to public works and instruction. The rajah exercises 

 almost absolute power, choosing his own council of Europeans or Malays, and 

 holding himself responsible to no man. By a slow process of extinction slavery 

 died out with the year 1888. The regular army of about three hundred native 

 soldiers draws its officers from a civil and military school attended by one hundred 

 and fifty students. 



The territorial divisions of Sarawak, named from the chief rivers watering 

 them, are, Lundu, Sarawak, Sadong, Batang Lupar, Saribas, Kalukah, Rejang, 

 Mukah, and Bintulu. 



North Borneo. 



The British territory of Sabah, better known as North Borneo, has been con- 

 stituted by successive acquisitions by purchase. In 1865 a United States consul 

 had already obtained from the Sultan of Brunei the grant of a portion of this 

 region, and founded an American company for its development. But these 

 essays ended in financial ruin, and an English corporation had little difficulty in 

 securing the privileges of the bankrupt American speculators. Fresh concessions 

 made in 1877 and 1878 enlarged the area of the districts detached from Brunei and 

 ceded to a small group of British capitalists, who also obtained from the Sultan of 

 the Sulu Archipelago the domains which he possessed or claimed on the mainland. 

 By means of a few pensions they thus acquired a whole kingdom, for which they, 

 moreover, procured recognition and a charter from the English Crown. 



The limits of the new state are fixed on the west coast by Mount Marapok near 

 Brunei Bay, and on the east side by the course of the Sibuko River. Numerous 

 travellers have been encouraged by the Company to explore the interior, to trace 

 the rivers to their sources, scale the mountains and passes, study the mineral and 

 agricultural resources of the land, and select the best sites for future plantations. 



Thanks to these explorations North Borneo is now known to be the finest, most 

 picturesque, and promising region of the whole island, although at the time of the 

 British occupation one of the least peopled. In the Kina-Batangan basin Pryer 

 found only three villages and one isolated house for a space of two hundred and 

 ninety miles, and the whole population, scattered along the coasts and river-banks, 

 scarcely numbered one hundred and fifty thousand souls ten years ago. But the 

 suppression of tribal wars and piratical expeditions, the introduction of vaccination, 

 the arrival of Chinese immigrants, and the establishment of orderly government 

 have been followed by a rapid increase of the free and enslaved inhabitants. By 

 the terms of its charter the Company engages to prevent all foreigners, European 

 or Chinese, from holding slaves ; but it is not bound to suppress servitude amongst 

 the tribes. 



In any case the social condition of the people cannot fiiil to be rapidly modified 

 under the influence of the Chinese, who flock to the recently founded towns and 

 take the management of all new enterprises. To the Chinese is even attributed the 

 old Bornean civilisation, traces of which still survive here and there, and which is 



