504 NOTICES OP EUROPEAN INTERCOURSE WITH BORNEO, 
“ it appears clear from other writings that from time to time, they 
traded here very vigorously, and made great profits, just as they still 
drive a strong trade between Macao and Borneo in cloths, which they 
barter for so large a quantity of Pepper and other costly wares, that 
one year with another they load here 3, 4 or 5 ships with Pepper.” 
Mr. Hunt, writing in 1812, mentions that there still remained at 
Brun4 two bastions and a curtain of a regular stone fort built by the 
Portuguese, and that they also had one on the island of Labuan.* 
According to him, they were expelled from Sambas in the year 
1690 by the Dutch, and nearly about the same time from all their 
other possessions in Borneo. The year intended must be 1609. 
From the time the Portugeuse began to trade with Borneo, they oc¬ 
casionally sent priests, who succeeded in converting some of the na¬ 
tives principally pagans, for they made little impression on the Ma- 
homedans. Some time before the year 1690 a priest from Macao 
came to Caljong Cayamp, apparently in the Banjarmassing territory, 
and made 3 or 4000 Christians, but he was expelled by the kings 
of Banjarmassing, and no other priest having afterwards come, the 
converts relapsed into their old religion, retaining no other vestige of 
Christianity than the crosses suspended from their necks.f 
Early Dutch intercourse with Borneo Proper. 
The first Dutch navigator who visited Borneo appears to have 
been Olivier van Noort. On the 26th December 1600 he brought 
his ship to anchor in the large bay of the town of Borneo, before 
which are some islands inhabited by fishermen. The king gene¬ 
rally maintained here a flotilla of armed praus to protect these 
fishermen, the fish being very abundant, as well as to keep the river 
free of pirates, and to convey information to him at the town, which 
* It is more probable that these were Spanish works. 
-{■ Yalentyn, p. 252. Dr. Leyden in bis Sketch of Borneo, p. 24. (pub¬ 
lished in the Yerhandelingen van het Bataviasch Genootschap, Yol. viiO 
gives a careless and incorrect version of Yalentyn’s statement, 
