240 General Notes. 
others, and 30 Europeans. Hardly any trouble has been experi- 
enced with the natives. The British North Borneo Company was 
chartered November 1, 1881. Tobacco is the principal crop yet 
cultivated, and Chinese contract labor furnishes the means, for the 
climate is not one in which the white man can perform hard work 
in the open air. The larger half of the island belongs to the 
Dutch, who are not taking steps to encourage the opening up of 
their territory. The remainder consists of British North Borneo, 
Sarawak, and the small independent sultanate of Brunei. 
Mr. Daly (August, 1884) entered the Kinabatangan, the largest 
navigable river of the territory, in a steam-launch. Malapi, about 
half a degree up this river, is the depot for the edible birds’ nests- 
brought from the Gomanton caves, about twelve miles farther 
north. The value of the nests collected is $25,000 per annum. 
The height of one of the vaults of these caves has been estimated 
at 900 feet, and a steady column of Collocalias has been seen to fly 
from one of the apertures for forty-five minutes. All the birds’ 
nests caves (there are many others) are in isolated mountains of 
limestone in a country of secondary formation. The settlements 
along this river and its tributary, the Lokan, which rises near 
Mount Kinabalu (13,680 feet), seem to be flourishing, durians, 
langsat, rambutans, mangoes, limes, oranges, lichee and pulasans 
saya 
fields. Higher up live the Muruts, who wear no clothes, and are 
still, where not yet reached by British influence, addicted to head- 
hunting. The Murut Chief Zalmiboh put his house at Mr. Daly’s 
disposal. It was fifty feet square, and very clean ; but from the 
rafters dangled fifty human heads and pieces of human bones. 
