BRITISH BORNEO. 25 
dred toa hundred and fifty feet without a branch, in their 
endeavour to get their share of the sun-light, and supporting 
on their trunks and branches enormous creepers, rattans, 
graceful ferns and lovely orchids and other luxuriant epiphytal 
growths. Such is the typical North Borneo river, to which, 
however, the Brunai is a solitary exception. The mouth of 
the Brunai river is approached between pretty verdant islets, 
and after passing through a narrow and tortuous passage, 
formed naturally by sandbanks and artificially by a barrier of 
stones, bare at low water, laid down in former days to keep 
out the restless European, you find your vessel, which to 
cross the bar should not draw more than thirteen or fourteen 
feet, in deep water between green, grassy, hilly, picturesque 
banks, with scarcely a sign of the abominable mangrove, or 
even of the zzfa, which, however, to specially mark the con- 
trast formed by this stream, are both to be found in abundance 
in the wpper portion of the river, which the steamer cannot 
enter. After passing a small village or two, the first object 
which used to attract attention was the brick ruins of a Roman 
Catholic Church, which had been erected here by the late 
Father CUARTERON, a Spanish Missionary of the Society of the 
Propaganda Fide, who, originally a jovial sea captain, had 
the good fortune to light upon a wrecked treasure ship in the 
Eastern seas, and, feeling presumably unwonted twinges of 
conscience, decided to devote the greater part of his wealth 
to the Church, in which he took orders, eventually attaining 
the rank of Prefect Apostolic. His Mission, unfortunately, 
was a complete failure, but though his assistants were with- 
drawn, he stuck to his post to the last and, no doubt, did a 
certain amount of good in liberating, from time to time, 
Spanish subjects he found in slavery on the Borneo Coast. 
Had the poor fellow settled in the interior, amongst the 
Pagans, he might, by his patience and the example of his good 
life, have made some converts, but amongst the Mahome- 
dans of the coast it was labour in vain. The bricks of his 
Brunai Church have since been sold to form the foundation of 
a steam sawmill. 
Turning a sharp corner, the British Consulate is reached, 
