98 BRITISH BORNEO. 
ity have taken to building houses and residing on the shore, 
but when Mr. PRYER first settled at Sandakan, there was a 
considerable community of them in the Bay, who had no 
houses at all, but were born, bred, married and died in their 
small canoes. 
On the West Coast, the Bajows, who have for a long time 
been settled ashore, appear to be of smaller build and darker 
colour than the other Malays, with small sparkling black eyes, 
but on the East Coast, where their condition is more primi- 
tive, Mr. PRYER thinks they are much larger in stature and 
stronger and more swarthy than ordinary Malays. 
On the East Coast, there are no buffaloes or horned cattle, 
so that the Bajows there have, or I should say had, to be con- 
tent with kidnapping only, and as an example of their daring 
I may relate that in, I think, the year 1875, the Austrian Frigate 
Friederich, Captain Baron OESTERREICHER, was surveying to 
the South of Darvel Bay, and, running short of coal, sent an 
armed party ashore to cut firewood. The Bajows watched 
their opportunity and, when the frigate was out of sight, seized 
the cutter, notwithstanding the fire of the party on the shore, 
who expended all their ammunition in vain, and carried off 
the two boat-keepers, whose heads were subsequently shewn 
round in triumph in the neighbouring islands. Baron OES- 
TERREICHER was unable to discover the retreat of these Ba- 
jows, and they remain unpunished to this day, and are at pre- 
sent numbered among the subjects of the British North Bor- 
neo Company. I have been since told that I have more than 
once unwittingly shaken hands and had friendly intercourse 
with some of them. In fairness to them I should add that it 
is more than probable that they mistook the /rzederich for a 
vessel belonging to Spain, with whom their sovereign, the Sultan 
of Sulu, was at that time at war. After this incident, and by 
order of his Government, Baron OESTERREICHER visited San- 
dakan Bay and, I believe, reported that he could discover no 
population there other than monkeys. Altogether, he could 
not have carried away with him avery favourable impres- 
sion of Northern Borneo. On the West Coast, gambling 
and cattle-lifting are the main pursuits of the gentlemanly 
Bajow, pursuits which soon brought him into close and 
