tribes and of all ranks. The native mode of using
tobacco has been referred to in my description of Brunai.

Fibre-yielding plants are also now attracting attention in North Borneo,
especially the Manila hemp (_Musa textilis_) a species of banana, and
pine-apples, both of which grow freely. The British Borneo Trading and
Planting Company have acquired the patent for Borneo of DEATH'S
fibre-cleaning machines, and are experimenting with these products on a
considerable scale and, apparently, with good prospects of success.[22]
For a long time past, beautiful cloths have been manufactured of
pine-apple fibre in the Philippines, and as it is said that orders have
been received from France for Borneo pine-apple fibre, we shall perhaps
soon see it used in England under the name of French _silk_.

In the Government Experimental Garden at Silam, in Darvel Bay, cocoa,
cinnamon and Liberian coffee have been found to do remarkably well.
Sappan-wood and _kapok_ or cotton flock also grow freely.

Footnotes:

[Footnote 19: Governor CREAGH tells me 600,000 acres have now been
taken up.]

[Footnote 20: For the native derivation of this appellation see page
54.]

[Footnote 21: Raised in 1890 to $6 an acre.]

[Footnote 22: The anticipated success has not been achieved as yet.]

CHAPTER X.

Many people have a very erroneous idea of the objects and intentions of
the British North Borneo Company. Some, with a dim recollection of
untold wealth having been extracted from the natives of India in the
early days of the Honourable East India Company, conceive that the
Company can have no other object than that of fleecing our natives in
order to pay dividends; but the old saying, that it is a difficult
matter to steal a Highlander's pantaloons, is applicable to North
Borneo, for only a magician could extract anything much worth having in
the shape of loot from the easy going natives of the country, who, in a
far more practical sense than the Christians of Europe, are ready to say
"sufficient for the day is the evil thereof," and who do not look
forward and provide for the future, or heap up riches to leave to their
posterity.

Some years ago, a correspondent of an English paper displayed his
ignorance on the matter by maintaining that the Company coerced the
natives and forced them to buy Manchester goods at extortionate prices.
An Oxford Don, when I first received my appointment as Governor,
imagined that I was going out a