necessary in the first
instance. Carping critics. Cordial support from Sir Cecil Clementi
Smith and the Government of the Straits Settlements. Visit of Lord
Brassey--his article in the 'Nineteenth Century.' Further
expenditure for roads, &c., will be necessary. What the Company
has done for Borneo. Geographical exploration. Witti and Hatton.
The lake struck off the map. Witti's murder. Hatton's accidental
death. Admiral Mayne, C.B. The _Sumpitan_ or Blow-pipe. Errors
made in opening most colonies, e.g. the Straits Settlements. The
future of the country. The climate not unhealthy as a rule.
Ladies. Game. No tigers. Crocodiles. The native dog. Pig and deer.
Wild cattle. Elephants and Rhinoceros. Bear. Orang-utan.
Long-nosed ape. Pheasants. The Company's motto--_Pergo et perago_.
Governor Creagh. Mr. Kindersley.

BRITISH BORNEO:
SKETCHES OF
BRUNAI, SARAWAK, LABUAN
AND
NORTH BORNEO.

CHAPTER I.

In 1670 CHARLES II granted to the Hudson's Bay Company a Charter of
Incorporation, His Majesty delegating to the Company actual sovereignty
over a very large portion of British North America, and assigning to
them the exclusive monopoly of trade and mining in the territory.
Writing in 1869, Mr. WILLIAM FORSYTH, Q.C., says:--"I have endeavoured
to give an account of the constitution and history of the _last_ of the
great proprietary companies of England, to whom a kind of delegated
authority was granted by the Crown. It was by some of these that distant
Colonies were founded, and one, the most powerful of them all,
established our Empire in the East and held the sceptre of the Great
Mogul. But they have passed away

----fuit Ilium et ingens
Gloria Teucrorum--

and the Hudson's Bay Company will be no exception to the rule. It may
continue to exist as a Trading Company, but as a Territorial Power it
must make up its mind to fold its (buffalo) robes round it and die with
dignity." Prophesying is hazardous work. In November, 1881, two hundred
and eleven years after the Hudson's Bay Charter, and twelve years after
the date of Mr. FORSYTH'S article, Queen VICTORIA granted a Charter of
Incorporation to the British North Borneo Company, which, by confirming
the grants and concessions acquired from the Sultans of Brunai and Sulu,
constitutes the Company the sovereign ruler over a territory of 31,000
square miles, and, as the permission to trade, included in the Charter,
has not been take