Preface. ix 



matter of dispute he may be referred to, and my own 

 experience of these petty rulers was on the whole very 

 satisfactory. I found them honest and just in their 

 advice, although at times a little grasping in their 

 bargains. 



The ease with which food is obtained in such a tropical 

 land is of course inimical to any great exertion or progress 

 on the part of the natives. That most generous of all 

 food-giving plants, the Banana, is everywhere naturalised 

 in Borneo up to an altitude of 3000 feet. It fruits all the 

 year, its produce being to that of wheat as 133:1, and to 

 that of the potato as 44:1. "With rice and a few esculent 

 roots, all easily grown, it gives a profusion of food at a 

 slight expenditure of labour — labour for the most part 

 performed by the women. The Malays of Borneo are 

 morally far inferior to the inland tribes ; and, wherever it 

 is possible to them, live in voluptuous ease. 



Borneo is the home of the "Orang-utan," or "wild 

 man of the woods," an animal which, with its African 

 relative, the " Gorilla," has occupied the attention of so 

 many of the first thinkers of our time. Here, in its 

 native forests, this large man-like ape lives in the great 

 natural orchards, swinging itself from bough to bough 

 with its peculiarly long arms, building. its platform or 

 nest of leafy branches, and eating its meal of fruit in peace. 

 " Let any naturalist," says a modern observer, " who is 

 prejudiced against the Darwinian views go to the forests 

 of Borneo. Let him there watch from day to day this 

 strangely human form in all its various phases of exist- 



