TRACES OF THE ORIGIN.OF THE MALAY KINGDOM 
v>4 
souls”. We think in may be concluded that the Malay population 
for the last 300 years has remained nearly the same. 
Whatever may have been the population in the sixteenth century, 
there is no doubt that Brun6 has always been the largest Malay 
town in the whole island. This circumstance probably contributed 
greatly to repel Europeans from attempting to form settlements, or 
rob the raja of his revenue by exacting trading monopolies, as they 
did at other places.* 
The town of Bruntf .—'The best description of the town that has 
yet been published is that given by Forrest: 
“ The town of Borneo is situate, as has been said, about ten miles 
up the river from Pulo Chiming. The houses are built on each 
side the river upon posts, and you ascend to them by stairs and lad¬ 
ders, as to back doors of warehouses in Wapping. The houses on 
the left side, going up, extend backwards to the land, each in a nar¬ 
row slip. The land is not steep, but shelving; every house has 
therefore a kind of stage, erected for connexion with the land. 
There is little intercourse from house to house by land, or what may 
be called behind; as there is no path, and the ground is swampy ; 
the chief communication proves thus in front, by boats. 
“ On the right, going up, the houses extend about half a mile 
backwards, with channels like lanes, between the rows; so that it 
would seem, the river, before the houses were built, made a wide 
bason of shallow water, in which have arisen three quarters of the 
town, resembling Venice; with many water lanes, if I may so say, 
perpendicular and parallel to the main river, which here is almost as 
wide as the Thames at London bridge, with six fathom water in the 
channel; and here lie moored, head and stern, the China junks; four 
* Most of the many failures of both the English and Dutch to form esta¬ 
blishments in the Archipelago are attributable to the short sighted and too 
greedy mercantile policy by which the great monopolist Companies were 
actuated. They employed means inadequate to their ends, and thus pro¬ 
voked disasters. At the present day we may trace the taint of the same 
policy in the administration of Netherlands India. The only true prin¬ 
ciple in the Archipelago when hostility is manifested by the natives is to 
employ such a force as to insure rapid and complete success. It would 
be better still if such a force could always be displayed as to overawe op¬ 
position and prevent bloodshed. 
