20 
XOETH BOENEO. 
and the Bornean ports for the purpose of collecting the valuable jungle-products from 
these islands; they also, as in Singapore, farm the opium, tobacco, spirits, and the 
pawnbroking from the Government; these farms are put up to auction, the purchaser 
keeping his own spies to guard his interests. The farming-out of imposts is, I think, an 
objectionable practice, especially with regard to the necessaries of life. 
In Labuan it is often impossible to buy fish, as there can be no object to the native 
fishermen in supplying the fish-market at the low prices paid by the Chinese, who retail it 
often at exorbitant prices ; consequently most of the fish caught is not brought into the 
market, but sold amongst the natives themselves, or a quantity sufficient only for the 
household wants is captured. The Chinese also do a good deal of vegetable-growing and 
pig-rearing. 
Labuan is noted for its fruit-gardens, in which quantities of oranges, mangoes, 
mangosteens, pine-apples, and pisangs (East-India name for bananas) are grown, besides 
numbers of other sorts of fruits peculiar to the East. Coco- and betel-nuts, the most 
necessary articles to the aborigines, are also largely cultivated : a coco-nut tree in full bearing 
brings in about one dollar a year to the owner. The sago-palm is also freely cultivated in 
suitable localities. 
This island was at one time covered with virgin forest, but frequent fires have long 
since destroyed all the timber; the dead stumps of the most durable trees still remain 
standing, bleached white by the sun. Whenever the land is not under constant cultivation, 
it soon becomes covered with a species of sword-grass, called by the natives “ Lalang”; this 
grass, when once it takes possession, soon smothers all other growths, being itself killed 
only by the shade of large trees : setting fire to it seems only to strengthen the roots, which 
spring up the ranker with the next rain. 
Besides the Chinese, several Bornean aborigines have settled in the island; they are 
called Kadyans, Bruneis, or Brunei Malays, and occasionally Sarawak Dyaks visit it. 
The Kadyans are Mohammedans by faith ; they make good colonists, occupying them¬ 
selves with agriculture, forming gardens in which they grow quantities of vegetables, also 
sugar-cane and ceri-leaves, to be sold in Port Victoria. The dress of the women is rather 
pretty (see illustration, page 128), consisting of a loose dark blue skirt, a jacket of the same 
material, ornamented at the wrists for some distance up the sleeve with strips of red and 
white cloth, and numerous silver bell-like buttons. Their hair is twisted in a knot at the 
back of the head, covered generally by a red handkerchief. The men dress in the usual 
Malay style, loose trousers and coat. Amongst the Kadyans I formed my trusty contingent 
of hunters and servants, and found them most trustworthy and intelligent, hardworking and 
willing to please; and to them I owed much of my success hereafter. The Kadyans 
generally leave the main island owing to the persecutions of the head-hunting Kyans and 
Muruts, or the squeezing of the ever tax-collecting Brunei nobles ; once settled in Labuan 
they seldom return home. 
The Bruneis or Brunei Malays are deserters from the once far-famed town of Brunei 
on the main island. In Labuan they have more freedom than in Brunei, so generally settle 
down for good. Their houses are built on piles over the sea (see illustration opposite): being 
by nature a sea-loving race, and occupying themselves with fishing, this is perhaps the most 
