BRITISH BORNEO. iis 
such difficulties, and with several chiefs he became a sworn bro- 
ther, going through the peculiar ceremonies customary on 
such occasions. In 1883, he was ascending the Segama River 
to endeavour to verify the native reports of the existence of 
gold in the district when, landing on the bank, he shot at and 
wounded an elephant, and while following it up through the 
jungle, his repeating rifle caught in a rattan and went off, the 
bullet passing through his chest, causing almost immediate 
death. HATTON, before leaving England, had given promise 
of a distinguished scientific career, and his untimely fate was 
deeply mourned by his brother officers and a large circle of 
friends. An interesting memoir of him has been published by 
his father, Mr. JOSEPH HATTON, and a summary of his jour- 
neys and those of WITTI, and other explorers in British North 
Borneo, appeared in the “ Proceedings of the Royal Geogra- 
phical Society and Monthly Record of Geography” for March, 
1888, being the substance of a paper read before the Society by 
Admiral R. C. MAYNE, C.B., M.P. A memorial cross.has been 
erected at Sandakan, by their brother officers, to the memory 
of WiTTI, HATTON, DE FONTAINE and Sikh officers and pri- 
vates who have lost their lives in the service of the Government. 
To return for a moment to the matter of fault-finding, 
it would be ridiculous to maintain that no mistakes have 
been made in launching British North Borneo on its career 
as a British Dependency, but then I do not suppose that any 
single Colony of the Crown has been, or will be inaugurated 
without similar mistakes occurring, such, for instance, as the 
withholding money where money was needed and could have 
been profitably expended, and a too lavish expenditure in 
other and less important directions. Examples will occur to 
every reader who has studied our Colonial history. If we take 
the case of the Colony of the Straits Settlements, now 
one of our most prosperous Crown Colonies and which was 
founded by the East India Company, it will be seen that in 
1826-7 the “mistakes” of the administration were on such 
a scale that there was an annual deficit of £100,000, and the 
presence of the Governor-General of India was called for to 
abolish useless offices and effect retrenchments throughout 
the service. 
