28 BRITISH BORNEO. 
no dangers to be feared from wild animals, tigers being un- 
known in Sarawak.’ The fact remains that, though there is 
plenty of available land, there is an insufficiency of Chinese 
labour still. The quantity of pepper exported in 1885 was 
392 tons, valued at £19,067, and of gambier 1,370 tons, 
valued at. £23,772. 
Sarawak is said to supply more than half of the sago pro- 
duce of the world. The value of the sago it exported in 1885 
is returned at £35,953. Of the purely uncultivated jungle 
products that figure in the exports the principal are gutta- 
percha, India rubber, and rattans. 
Both antimony ores and cinnabar (an ore -of quicksilver) 
are worked by the Borneo Company, but the exports of the 
former ore and of quicksilver are steadily decreasing, and fresh 
deposits are being sought for. Only one deposit of cinnabar 
has so far been discovered, that was in 1867. Antimony was 
first discovered in Sarawak in 1824, and for a long time 
it was from this source that the principal supplies for Europe 
and America were obtained. The ores are found “ generally 
as boulders deep in clayey soil, or perched on tower-like 
summits and craggy pinnacles and, sometimes, in dykes zz 
situ.” The ores, too poor for shipment, are reduced locally, 
and the regul/us exported to London. Coal is abundant, 
but is not yet worked on any considerable scale.* The 
Borneo Company excepted, all the trade of the country is in 
the hands of Chinese and Natives, nor has the Government 
hitherto taken steps to attract European capital for planting, 
but expirements are being made with the public funds under 
European supervision in the planting of cinchona, coffee, and 
tobacco. ‘The capital of Sarawak is Kuching, which in Malay 
signifies a “cat.” It is situated about fifteen miles up the Sara- 
wak river and, when Sir JAMES first arrived, was a wretched 
native town, with palm leaf huts and a population, includ- 
ing a few Chinese and Klings (natives of India), of some two 
thousand. Kuching now possesses a well built ‘‘Istana,” or 
Palace of the Raja, a Fort, impregnable to natives, a substan- 
* Since this was written, Raja Sir CHARLES BRooxKE has acquired valuable 
coal concessions at Muara, at the mouth of the Brunai river, and the develop- 
ment of the coal resources of the State is being energetically pushed forward. 
