soil of Java is as rich, or richer than that of Sumatra,
but owing to its much smaller rainfall, the tobacco it produces commands
nothing like the prices fetched by that of the former. The seasons and
rainfall in Borneo are found to be very similar to those of Sumatra. The
average recorded annual rainfall at Sandakan for the last seven years is
given by Dr. WALKER, the Principal Medical Officer, as 124.34 inches,
the range being from 156.9 to 101.26 inches per annum.

Being so near the equator, roughly speaking between N. Latitudes 4 and
7, North Borneo has, unfortunately for the European residents whose lot
is cast there, nothing that can be called a winter, the temperature
remaining much about the same from year's end to year's end. It used to
seem to me that during the day the thermometer was generally about 83 or
85 in the shade, but, I believe, taking the year all round, night and
day, the mean temperature is 81, and the extremes recorded on the coast
line are 67.5 and 94.5. Dr. WALKER has not yet extended his stations to
the hills in the interior, but mentions it as probable that freezing
point is occasionally reached near the top of the Kinabalu Mountains,
which is 13,700 feet high; he adds that the lowest recorded temperature
he has found is 36.5, given by Sir SPENCER ST. JOHN in his "Life in the
Forests of the Far East." Snow has never been reported even on
Kinabalu, and I am informed that the Charles Louis Mountains in Dutch
New Guinea, are the only ones in tropical Asia where the limit of
perpetual snow is attained. I must stop to say a word in praise of
Kinabalu, "the Chinese Widow,"[20] the sacred mountain of North Borneo
whither the souls of the righteous Dusuns ascend after death. It can be
seen from both coasts, and appears to rear its isolated, solid bulk
almost straight out of the level country, so dwarfed are the
neighbouring hills by its height of 13,680 feet. The best view of it is
obtained, either at sunrise or at sunset, from the deck of a ship
proceeding along the West Coast, from which it is about twenty miles
inland. During the day time the Widow, as a rule, modestly veils her
features in the clouds.

The effect when its huge mass is lighted up at evening by the last rays
of the setting sun is truly magnificent.

On the spurs of Kinabalu and on the other lofty hills, of which there is
an abundance, no doubt, as the country becomes opened up by roads many
suitable sites for sanitoria will be