But the meanings cleave to the lake,
Cannot be carried in book or urn;
Go thy ways now, come later back,
On waves and hedges still they burn.

These the fates of men forecast,
Of better men than live to-day;
If who can read them comes at last,
He will spell in the sculpture, "Stay."

* * * * *

BORNEO AND RAJAH BROOKE.

Off the southeastern extremity of Asia, and separated from it by the
Chinese Sea, lies a cluster of great islands, comprising that portion of
Oceanica commonly called Malaysia. Of these islands Borneo is the most
extensive, and, if you call Australia a continent, it is by far the
largest island in the world. Situated on the equator, stretching from 7 deg.
of north to 4 deg. of south latitude, and from 108 deg. to 119 deg. of east
longitude, its extreme length is 800 miles, its breadth 700, and it
contains 320,000 square miles,--an area seven times as great as that of
the populous State of New York.

But though its size and importance are so great, though it was
discovered by the Portuguese as early as 1518, though several European
nations have at various times had settlements on its coasts, though it
is rich in all the products of a tropical clime, and in base and
precious metals, diamonds and stones, and though its climate, contrary
to what might have been expected, is in many localities salubrious even
to an American or European constitution, yet until recently almost
nothing was known by the world of its surface, its products, or its
inhabitants.

The causes of this ignorance are obvious. The very shape of Borneo is
unfavorable to discovery. A lumpish mass, like Africa and Australia, the
ocean has nowhere pierced it with those deep bays and gulfs in which
commerce delights to find a shelter and a home. And though it has
navigable rivers, their course is through the almost impenetrable
verdure of the tropics, and they reach the sea amid unwholesome jungles.
The coast, moreover, is in most places marshy and unhealthy, for the
distance of twenty or thirty miles inland; while the interior is filled
with vast forests and great mountain ranges, almost trackless to any but
native feet. Besides, the absence of all just and stable government has
reduced society to a state of chaos. And to all this must be added
piracy, from time immemorial sweeping the sea and ravaging the land.
Under such circumstances, if there were little opportunity