28 BRITISH BORNEO. 
done very much for it in return. I remember that the late 
Sultan thought it an inexplicable thing that we could not 
assist him to recover a debt due to him’ by one of the British 
Coal Companies which tried their luck in Borneo. Moreover, 
even the cession to their good and noble friend Sir JAMES 
BROOKE of the Brunai Province of Sarawak has been itself 
also, to a certain extent, a factor in their Government’s decay, 
that State, under the rule of the Raja—CHARLES BROOKE— 
having attained its present prosperous condition at the expense 
of Brunai and by gradually absorbing its territory. 
Between British North Borneo, on the one side, and Sara- 
wak, on the other, the sea-board of Brunai, anil, when we 
first appeared on the scene, extended from Cape Datu to 
Marudu Bay—some 700 miles—is now reduced to 125 or 130 
miles, and, besides the river on which it is built, Brunai retains 
but two others of any importance, both of which are in rebel- 
lion of a more or less vigorous character, and the whole State 
of Brunai is so sick that its case is now under the considera- 
tion of Her Majesty’s Government. 
Thus ends in collapse the history. of the last independent 
Malay Government. Excepting only Johor (which is pros- 
perous owing to its being under the wing of Singapore, which 
fact gives confidence to European and Chinese capitalists and 
Chinese labourers, and to its good fortune in having a wise 
and just ruler in its Sultan, who owes his elevation to British 
influences), all the Malay Governments throughout the Malay 
Archipelago and in the Malay Peninsula are now subject 
either to the English, the Dutch, the Spanish or the Portu- 
guese. This decadence is not due to any want of vitality 
in the race, for under European rule the Malay increases his 
numbers, as witness the dense population of Java and the 
rapidly orowing Malay population of the Straits Settlements. 
That the Malay does so flourish in contact with the Euro- 
pean and the Chinese is no doubt to some extent due to his 
attachment to the Mahomedan faith, which as a tee-total 
religion is, so far, the most suitable one for a tropical race ; 
eg as also to be remembered that he inhabits tropical coun- 
tries, where the white man cannot perform out-door labour 
