CHAPTER XL 



LABUAN. 



Bruni, the Capital of Borneo— Piracy— Establishment of the Colony of Lahiian 

 —Its Objects— Natural Pi-oduotions— Pigs— Monkeys— Kahau, or Pro- 

 boscis Monkey — Birds — Megapode — Chick-chack — Barking Lizard — 

 Iguanas — Cobra — Pythons — Electric Snake — Scorpions — Centipedes — 

 Cicadas — Beetles— Hemiptera — Desecration of European Graves — Iso- 

 lated Position of the Residents of Labuan. 



The island of Labuan was ceded to the English Govern- 

 ment in 1846 by the Sultan of Bruni, the nominal ruler of 

 Borneo. Bruni, the capital of Borneo, and from which the 

 whole island takes its European name, situated a short 

 distance south of Labuan, is a town of some 25,000 inhabit- 

 ants, governed, or rather misgoverned, by a Eajah and sub- 

 ordinate chiefs, whose sole aim is their own aggrandisement, 

 and the increase, by fair or foul means, of their own revenues. 

 By a system of peculation and persecution, which is for tlie 

 most part delegated from the chiefs to certain inferior de- 

 pendents, the in effects of their rapacity are spread through 

 the population in such a way that few escape, and justice is 

 a commodity almost unlmown, unless it happens to side 

 with self-interest. Were it not that the nobles themselves 

 find it impossible to agree, and therefore do not unite largely 

 in their avaricious projects, the country would almost be re- 

 duced to a state of savagery and unproductiveness ; as it is, 

 it is only saved by a kind of patriarchal feeling, which keeps 



