OP BORNEO ritOPER. 
323 
liis vengeance is greedy and cruel. There is a very obvious mode of 
treatment demanded by such a disposition from a race that considers 
itself superior in humanity and morality as well as in civilization and 
power. But we can hardly hope to see it fully tried until a century 
or two have passed, and meantime we must praise every attempt to 
approach it and make allowance for short comings. 
It is not surprising that the Malays of Borneo Proper exhibited 
the same manners and civilization to the first European navigators 
as they do at present, because the Johore people had received their 
Mahomedan impress about two centuries and a half, and were na¬ 
vigators and traders at least three centuries and a half, previously. 
Population ,—We cannot with Mr. Hunt and Mr. Low adopt Pi- 
gafetta’s statement that in 1521 the population of the town of Brund 
was 25,000 families. The recent works relating to Borneo Proper 
shew how much statistics are neglected even by intelligent and edu¬ 
cated Englishmen at this day, and we can hardly believe that Piga- 
fetta had time or means to make an exact estimate. It is incredible 
that while the trade continued to flourish, as it did for more than 250 
years subsequently, the population should have decreased from 25,000 
to 3,000 families. Only 80 years after Pigafetfca’s visit Van Noort 
states the number of houses to he 3000. In 1636 Mandelsloe from 
other Dutch accounts, says the number was 2000,* and Valentyn, 
early in the 18th century, gives it at 2000 to 3000, “ beside many 
country and garden houses outside.’*f In 1809 Mr. Hunt also makes 
the number of families 3000£ “ with a population altogether of 15,000 
* Harris, vol. i. p. 787. 
-f “ Where they sojourn to a great number) always armed with bows 
and arrows, and blowpipes” vol.III. p. 210. 
I Moor’s Notices p. 27. The later estimates are very discordant. In 1836 
an Armenian gentlemen who Vived in the town a year or two previously 
gives the population at 100,000 of which 20,000 are slaves (Singapore 
Free Psess I5th Sept. 1836.) Mr. Low considers 12,000 to be about the 
number at present (Sarawak <&e.) 
Mr. Low mentions that 200 years after Pigafetta’s visit (that is about 
1721) the population of the town was computed to be only 40,000 (Sara¬ 
wak <£c. p. 106) and Sir J. Brooke says that Leyden states it at 4,000 or a- 
boUt 40,000 souls (Journals by Capt. Mundy vol. i. p. 180). Leyden how¬ 
ever makes no statement of his own, but says very loosely that “ in the 
times of Valentyn it consisted of nearly 4,000 houses.” Valentyn, as we 
have seen, makes no such statement. 
