PREFACE 



IN Borneo, the largest island of Malaysia, an English Rajah and 

 an English Ranee rule with pure autocracy a State which in 

 area equals England and Wales, and has its fleet and its army, yet 

 is without telegraphic communication with the rest of the world ; 

 possesses not only no railroads, but no roads, and is clothed by 

 dense and interminable forests in which wanders the orang-utan. 

 Here the natives live a primitive life, are in part still mere savages, 

 true man-hunters, who delight in hanging in their houses the 

 smoked skulls of their human victims, as a homage to imaginary 

 supernatural spirits and as a proof of their bravery. This is the 

 kingdom of Sarawak, which owes its origin to a man of great gifts 

 and a born lover of adventure, Mr., afterwards Rajah Sir James 

 Brooke, whose nephew and successor, Sir Charles Brooke, the 

 second European Rajah, now governs with a spirit of the truest 

 philanthropy, leading his subjects rapidly along the path of progress 

 towards civilisation. In this country, when it was in a much more 

 primitive and savage condition, and far less known to the world at 

 large, I landed in June 1865, in company with Giacomo Doria, with 

 the object of investigating its natural history. After the lapse of 

 so many years, I should certainly never have dreamt of putting 

 together the notes and itineraries of my juvenile travels, if a happy 

 chance had not led to my meeting in Florence, with the present 

 Ranee, H.H. Lady Brooke, who urged me to the task, assuring me 

 that the manners and customs of the people and the very localities 

 which I had visited are still to-day what they were then, and, indeed, 

 what they have been from times unknown. I may thus venture 

 to hope that it will not be thought that the publication of this book 

 has been too long delayed, the more so as the subjects to which I 

 paid special attention have, not a temporary, but a permanent 

 interest, and a large portion of the regions which I explored have 

 not been visited since by other naturalists. I have also endeavoured, 

 in a separate chapter, to give the reader an idea — as exact as informa- 

 tion from authentic sources can render it — of the present condition 

 of Sarawak. While I am comforted by the hope that I may in no 

 way have to repent of having followed the advice of the charming 

 and gifted Queen of Sarawak, I cannot but feel in duty bound to 

 express to her my gratitude for the help and encouragement which 

 she has so freely given me, and for the permission she has granted 

 me of using and reproducing some of the fine photographs taken 

 by Her Highness during a recent visit to her dominions. 



ODOARDO BECCARI. 

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