NORTH BORNEO. 
Gl 
over these tribes, for God’s sake leave them alone and avoid the stirring up of strife by 
placing such unprincipled blackguards, as I believe all native Mohammedan chiefs to be, in 
authority. For years there has been open war between the Tampassuk Bajows and the inland 
Dusuns, none of the men in Datu Tumanggong’s campong daring to accompany me to 
Kina Balu. In days past, when these Bajows were more powerful, they used to attack the 
villages of the mountaineers and carry off their women and children to be sold into slavery. 
Even a month before my visit the Dusuns killed a Bajow in retaliation for an old blood- 
feud. It is useless to think that these people will become friends, except by the lengthened 
residence of Europeans amongst them, and the impartial administration of justice to Bajow 
and Dusun, which would be impossible under Mohammedan chiefs. The Tampassuk, at the 
time of my visit, had not been visited for over a year by Europeans, and it was another year 
later, or in ail over two years, before any officer in the Company’s employ made a tour of 
inspection through this district. 
On Saturday, the 13th February, the Tampassuk Bajows began to collect soon after 
daybreak in small numbers on the opposite side of the creek under a large Casuarina tree, 
for the purpose of holding their weekly “ tamel.” A “ tamel ” in Borneo is the same as a 
market day in this country; there are a number of localities fixed upon by the different 
tribes and villages at which to meet once a week or at longer intervals, where they barter 
produce of various sorts. At Abai the Tampassuk Bajows obtained salt and salted fish in 
exchange for rice, cooking-pots, and native cloth; the salt is exchanged by them at the next 
tamel held amongst the lowland Dusuns for jungle-produce, bamboo, sun-hats, baskets, 
tobacco, and many other necessaries, which have been bartered for previously by them with 
Kina-Balu tribes. Tam els are also the great centres for the distribution of news in these 
countries, and on Kina Balu in 1888 the Dusuns knew all about the Company’s attack on 
the Padas Muruts, though nearly 100 miles distant. As enemies sometimes come into 
contact at these meetings a fight occasionally occurs in which one or more lives are lost. 
It was not until eleven o’clock that the Bajows were ready to start; after two hours’ walk 
under the mid-day sun, our pace being regulated by that of the buffaloes, we reached the 
Datu’s house. Our route for the most part traversed the level plain, skirting the foot of a 
low sandstone range of hills: this road, though longer than that which crosses these hills, 
is easier for the buffaloes; the other path is used by the Bajows during the wet season, the 
one we now followed being then impassable. On arriving at the river we crossed over and 
followed the opposite bank for some distance up stream to the Datu’s campong, where the 
now weary buffaloes were relieved of their loads. Buffaloes make good beasts of burden on 
level ground and in cool weather, but if the sun is powerful the fatter animals if they are 
pressed will sometimes fall dead in their tracks from heat-apoplexy; their hoofs also soon 
become chipped and tender on rough ground, when the animal becomes useless. Amongst 
most Bornean people buffaloes are one of the chief forms of wealth; they are valued from 
ten dollars upwards, according to the way in which they have been trained for carrying 
purposes, as much as twenty dollars being paid for perfectly trained animals. The Bajows 
never seem to relish walking the shortest distances, always riding some animal, even a cow 
if nothing else is procurable; this habit has probably come about by their being formerly a 
sea-loving race, and the ease with which the plains may be traversed without the necessity 
