78 
NORTH BORNEO. 
The Kilias and Padas districts are noted for the sago industry, which is carried on 
both by Chinese and natives. The sago-palm is indigenous in the Malay Archipelago, and 
grows freely with little or no care on the part of the native cultivators, the young palms 
springing from the roots of the old one: it does best in low swampy districts above the 
reach of salt water; but it also grew plentifully at an altitude of 1000 feet on Kina Balu in 
some swampy land, where I imagine it had been introduced. 
The palms grow to a height of about thirty feet, and take between ten to fifteen years 
to reach maturity, when they are cut down and split in half, the reddish fibrous pith being 
chipped out with a bamboo hatchet fashioned for the purpose. The pith, now reduced to 
minute chips, is rubbed through a coarse cloth and water is poured over it during this 
operation; thus the starch becomes dissolved and is allowed to settle at the end of a trough, 
the water being gradually poured off. The sago of European commerce, however, goes 
through many processes, that eaten by the Bornean native being a thick clear glutinous 
paste, known as “ boyat.” To see natives feasting on “ boyat ” is not a pleasing sight, as the 
bowl containing the sago is placed on the floor, into which they dip sticks, winding the 
mess round until a ball accumulates, which with difficulty they manage to place in their 
mouths. 
The Kilias is a fine stretch of salt water bordered on both sides rvith miles of nipa- 
swamps ; after rowing all day its breadth is no narrower than when we started early this 
morning (20th). My crew were afraid to sleep in the Kilias during the night, so they 
paddled slowly most of the time, fearing “ hantus,” which they say often draw prahus below 
the waters of this stream, never to be seen again. Many long-tailed monkeys howled on 
the edges of the swamps, and were the only hantus that troubled my slumbers. On the 
left bank we entered next morning a small stream which had been enlarged and channelled 
by the natives, and thus connected with the mangrove-swamps and creeks which run inland 
several miles from Qualla Penyu (qualla =mouth of a river, pevyu— turtle). So tortuous are 
some Bornean rivers when they flow through the alluvial plains, that by cutting a canal 
of forty or fifty yards through the bank the river is again met with, and several miles of 
paddling are thus saved to the natives. 
The canal passed for several miles through flat uninteresting country: after this 
mosquito-swarming district has been passed a mangrove-swamp is reached; the mangroves 
here are no longer the dwarfed shrubs of the sea-coast, but fine trees, and at low water the 
quaint shapes of the roots form a most wonderful sight. Through this forest a passage has 
been cut, which leads to a large open lagoon; this is connected with the sea by a broad 
creek. The country is of such a low level that the whole of this journey is performed in 
salt water, and then only at high tide. This passage, though somewhat neglected and full of 
snags, is a great convenience to traders during the monsoon, when they can cut off many 
miles of rough sea and reach Labuan with little danger. 
We stopped the night at Qualla Penyu, where the Company are building a spacious 
police-station for the purpose of levying duties on the produce carried by Chinese and other 
trading prahus which pass either in or out of the Qualla. Like all other stations on the 
coast, the water at Qualla Penyu is brackish and undrinkable. When travelling on the 
