270 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
an average breadth of about 250 miles, thus exceeding 
in area all the other territories of the island. To the 
north they are bounded for a great part of their extent 
by the main, but nameless, range of the island, which 
runs from north-east to south-west. The seaboard thus 
extends from Tanjong Datu on the Sarawak border to a 
point high up on the east coast. The exact boundary 
on this side was for long a matter of dispute, the British 
North Borneo Company claiming as far as the Sibuku 
Biver in about 4° N. lat., while in their maps the Dutch 
marked the limit of their territory as extending to the 
southern horn of Darvel Bay; but the parallel of 4° 10' 
has lately been determined as the boundary. 
As has been already stated, the acquisition of these 
large possessions has been an affair of time, dating its 
commencement from 1606, when the Dutch were first 
attracted to the coast by the pepper trade. It was not 
till many years later, at the end of the last century, that 
they aimed at the possession of something more than 
sites for their factories. The territory of the Sultan of 
Banjarmasin was the first to come under their suzerainty 
in 1785, and from this beginning they have become the 
owners of more than two-thirds of the island, although 
their rule in a great part of it is almost nominal. The 
only districts really settled are, roughly speaking, the 
basin of the Negara, an affluent of the Barito, and the 
country lying between Pontianak and the Sarawak 
territory. 
Dutch Borneo is divided for political purposes into 
two “Residencies”— those of “West Borneo” and 
“ South and East Borneo,” of which the latter is con¬ 
siderably the larger. The former comprises the country 
drained by the Kapuas, and has its southern boundary 
near Cape Sambur. It is believed to contain about 
