238 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
solid a dominion. It is not necessary, however, to 
conclude that the Malay power was established by the 
single invasion of a conquering host, and it was more 
probably the outcome of the long-continued immigration 
and settlement of a trading people. The tradition 
current among these people is that they are the 
descendants of Malays from the great kingdom of 
Menangkabo in Sumatra, who left their country about 
600 years ago. Whatever may have been the case, they 
are now found as settlers on the seaboard of the greater 
part of the island, gradually—though slowly—extending 
their influence over the tribes brought in contact with 
them, and converting them to Mohammedanism. Their 
headquarters are, as in bygone days, at Brunei. The 
Sultan of Brunei was in Pigafetta’s time a great monarch, 
ruling actually a very large portion, and theoretically the 
whole of Borneo, and it is from his capital (the Burnai, 
Porne, Bornei, etc., of the old writers) that the whole 
island has obtained its name. It is on the western and 
north-western coasts that the Malay is most numerous 
and has made most progress. In the south he has mixed 
with and almost absorbed the Javanese, of which people 
there must at one time have been a considerable immi¬ 
gration, as is shown not only from the evidence of 
language, but possibly also from the numerous temple 
ruins; for by some writers the Javanese are credited 
with the introduction into Borneo of the Buddhist 
and Brahman cults. 
The Sulus are found almost exclusively in British 
North Borneo, over part of which country their sultan 
ruled until the Company purchased his rights. They have 
preserved their own language, akin, as we have seen, to 
another widely spoken Philippine tongue, Bisayan, but 
Malay is used by most as the lingua franca of that 
