590 NOTICES OF EUROPEAN INTERCOURSE WITH UORNEO. 
does not appear t-o have made any attempt to molest Bruno or form 
a settlement in the island. In 1750 the king of Rrun4 ceded to 
the Spanish a claim which he had to part of the island of Paragua 
(Palawan)*, 
Early Portuguese intercourse with Borneo, 
It was not till eighteen years after the Portuguese had led the 
way into the Indian Archipelago, and sis years after they had taken 
possession of the Spice islands to the eastward, that these adventur¬ 
ous and rapacious discoverers turned their attention to Borneo.f 
According to the Portuguese historians de Barros and de Faria, 
Don Jorge de Menezes discovered Borneo on Ms way to the Mo¬ 
luccas, of which he had been appointed governor. Although, as we 
have seen, he had been anticipated 6 years by Magellan’s fleet, and 
he merely touched at the port of BrumS, an account of this first vo¬ 
yage by Europeans from Malacca to Brune may interest our read¬ 
ers, and we therefore give it in the words of de Barros, 
“ Don Jorge left Malacca on the 22d. of August 1526, with 60 
men, and two ships which he had brought from India, in one of which 
he himself went, and in the other Balthezar Ruposo, who was going 
as Factor. As there were two ways to go to Maluco, one via Jawa, 
(Java) and Banda, which is most frequented though longest, and a 
shorter one via the island of Borneo, which w as not yet discovered, 
Don Jorge took the latter, because Pero Mascarenhas had given 
him orders to go by the new route, to prevent the detention usual 
have war with all nations and people that were at war with the king of 
Spain : which we no sooner understood, but we went by the name of Spa¬ 
niards all the while we lay there. The natives brought us fish in great plen ¬ 
ty, with oranges, lemons, mangoes, plantains, and pine apples.” (Cap¬ 
tain Cowley’s Voyage round the Globe, p. 24 ) This treaty is not men¬ 
tioned by Zuniga. 
* Zuniga, vol. % p. 110. 
d* 1’emminck however says that Lorenzo de Gomes touched at Srun6 in 
1518. (Coup d'OeUfyc. vol. ii. p. 134.) As he gives no authority for 
this statement, and it does not occur in de Barros, or any other writer to 
whom we have access, we hesitate to adopt it. 
