THE GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP OF BORNEO.* 
(Continued from p. 371 j 
CHAP. II, 
Notices on the Statistics of Borneo.—Limits of the subject or de¬ 
pendant countries.—Precis of the States of the ivest coast .— 
The Chinese.—Precis of the States of the south and east 
coasts.-—Sketch of the domains of the independent Princes. 
The indicia! relative to statistics do not yet rest upon positive and 
official facts; we offer such as it has been possible to derive from the 
reports of the employes of the government of India, who have filled 
different missions in some of the possessions of the state on Borneo. 
A very vague estimate makes the presumed number of all the in¬ 
habitants of Borneo, not comprising those of the islands of the geo¬ 
graphical group, 3,000,000; but this estimate appears to me exag¬ 
gerated, because it is certain that those portions of the interior for 
which we have been able to obtain indicke are very thinly peopled; 
with relation particularly to the considerable extent of those districts 
which only reckon a small number of hordes established along the ri¬ 
vers i some low parts exposed to inundations of rivers and large lakes 
in the interior are wholly uninhabited; the country along the coasts is 
generally low and the formation alluvial; the immense extent of the 
wooded deltas which stretch many miles from the mouths of the ri¬ 
vers, wdiich intersect the country in all directions, make a large part 
of the southern, western and eastern coasts, are only inhabitable dur¬ 
ing certain seasons of the year, and when the rivers have retired to 
their beds ; during these periods they may serve for the temporary 
sojourn of some nomadic hordes. The elevated parts of the interior, 
those occupied by chains of high mountains whence proceed the great 
bodies of water which the numerous rivers bear to the sea, are still 
unknown to us ; they should not, consequently, enter into the calcu- 
* Translated from Temminck’s Coup d’Oeil General sur les Possessions 
Pieerlandaiscs dans ITnde Archipelagique, tome 2d. Lcide, 1817. 
