runai use of the term, there is always some idea of a
Northerly direction; for instance, I have heard a Brunai man who was
passing from the South to the Northern side of his river, say he was
going _Saba_. When the Company's Government was first inaugurated, the
territory was, in official documents, mentioned as Sabah, a name which
is still current amongst the natives, to whom the now officially
accepted designation of _North Borneo_ is meaningless and difficult of
pronunciation.

Having settled with the Brunai authorities, Baron VON OVERBECK next
proceeded to Sulu, and found the Sultan driven out of his capital, Sugh
or Jolo, by the Spaniards, with whom he was still at war, and residing
at Maibun, in the principal island of the Sulu Archipelago. After brief
negotiations, the Sultan made to Baron VON OVERBECK and Mr. ALFRED DENT
a grant of his rights and powers over the territories and lands
tributary to him on the mainland of the island of Borneo, from the
Pandassan River on the North West Coast to the Sibuko River on the East,
and further invested the Baron, or his duly appointed successor in the
office of supreme ruler of the Company's territories in Borneo, with the
high sounding titles of Datu Bandahara and Raja of Sandakan.

On a company being formed to work the concessions, Baron VON OVERBECK
resigned these titles from the Brunai and Sulu Potentates and they have
not since been made use of, and the Baron himself terminated his
connection with the country.

The grant from the Sultan of Sulu bears date the 22nd January, 1878, and
on the 22nd July of the same year he signed a treaty, or act of
re-submission to Spain. The Spanish Government claimed that, by previous
treaties with Sulu, the suzerainty of Spain over Sulu and its
dependencies in Borneo had been recognised and that consequently the
grant to Mr. DENT was void. The British Government did not, however,
fall in with this view, and in the early part of 1879, being then Acting
Consul-General in Borneo, I was despatched to Sulu and to different
points in North Borneo to publish, on behalf of our Government, a
protest against the claim of Spain to any portion of the country. In
March, 1885, a protocol was signed by which, in return for the
recognition by England and Germany of Spanish sovereignty throughout the
Archipelago of Sulu, Spain renounced all claims of sovereignty over
territories on the Continent of Borneo which had belonged to the Sultan
of Sulu, i