60 BRITISH BORNEO. 
Of the three mentioned, the more striking is that of Sanda- 
_ kan, which is 15 miles in length, with a width varying from 
14 miles, at its entrance, to 5 miles at the broadest part. It 
is here that the present capital is situated—Sandakan, a town 
containing a population of not more than 5,000 people, of 
whom perhaps thirty are Europeans and a thousand Chinese. 
For its age, Sandakan has suffered serious vicissitudes. It 
was founded by Mr. PRYER, in 1878, well up the bay, but was 
soon afterwards burnt to the ground. It was then transferred 
to its present position, nearer the mouth of the harbour, but 
in May, 1886, the whole of what was known as the “ Old 
Town’’ was utterly consumed by fire; in about a couple of 
hours there being nothing left of the atap-built shops and 
houses but the charred piles and posts on which they had 
been raised above the ground. When a fire has once laid 
hold of an atap town, probably no exertions would much 
avail to check it; certainly our Chinese held this opinion, and 
it was impossible to get them to move hand or foot in assist- 
ing the Europeans and Police in their efforts to confine its 
ravages to as limited an area as possible. They entertain 
the idea that such futile efforts tend only to aggra- 
vate the evil spirits and increase their fury. he pein 
shopkeepers were successful in saving their quarter of the 
town by means of looking glasses, long prayers and chants. 
It is now forbidden to any one to erect atap houses in the 
town, except in one specified area to which such structures 
are confined. Most of the present houses are of plank, with 
tile, or corrugated iron roofs, and the majority of the shops are 
built over the sea, on substantial wooden piles, some of the 
principal “streets,” including that to which the ambitious name 
of “The Praya’’ has been given, being similarly constructed 
on piles raised three or four feet above high water mark. The 
reason is that, owing to the steep hills at the back of the site, 
there is little available flat land for building on, and, moreover, 
the pushing Chinese trader always likes to get his shops as 
near as possible to the sea—the highway of the ‘“ prahus”’ 
which bring him the products of the neighbouring rivers and 
islands. In time, ne doubt, the Sandakan hills will be used 
to reclaim more land from the sea, and the town will cease to 
