38 BRITISH BORNEO. 
inhabitants, amongst themselves, in much the same way as 
England was parcelled out among the followers of WILLIAM 
THE CONQUEROR. The people of all the rivers* and of the 
interior, up to the limits where the Brunai Malays can enforce 
their authority, own as their feudal lord and pay taxes to 
either the Sultan, in his unofficial capacity, or to one of the 
nobles, or else they are attached to the office of Sultan or one 
of the great Ministers of State, and, again theoretically speak- 
ing, all the districts in the Sultanate are known, from the fact 
of the people on them belonging to a noble, or to the reigning 
Sultan for the time being, or to one of the Ministers of 
State, as either :— 
1. Ka-rajahan—belonging to the Sultan or Raja. 
or 2. Kouripan—belonging to certain public officials during 
their term of office. 
or 3. Pusaka or Tulin—belonging to the Sultan or any of 
the nobles in their unofficial capacity. 
The crown and the feudal chiefs did not assert any claim to 
the land; there are, for instance, no ‘“ crown lands,’ and, in 
the case of land not owned or occupied, any native could set- 
tle upon and cultivate it without payment of any rent or land 
tax, either to the Sultan or to the feudal chief of the district ; 
consequently, land was comparatively little regarded, and 
what the feudal chief claimed was the people and not the 
land, so much so that, as pointed out by Mr. P. LEys ina 
Consular report, in the case of the people removing from one 
river to another, they did not become the followers of the chief 
who owned the population amongst whom they settled, but 
remained subject to their former lord, who had the right of 
following them and collecting from them his taxes as before. 
It is only of quite recent years, imitating the example of the 
English in Labuan, where all the land was assumed to be the 
property of the Sovereign and leased to individuals for a term 
of years, that the nobles have, in some instances, put forward 
a claim to ownership of the land on which their followers 
* Owing to the absence of roads and the consequent importance of rivers as 
means of getting about, nearly all districts in Borneo are named after their 
principal river. 
