at portion of the coast of Borneo which is the
rudest. The Borneons themselves are of the Malay nation, originally
emigrants from Sumatra, and settled here for about six centuries. They
are the most distant from their original seat of all the colonies which
have sprung from this nation. The people from the interior differ from
them in language, manners, and religion, and are divided into tribes
as numerous and as rude as the Americans when first seen by Europeans.

"From such a people we are not to expect any valuable products of art
or manufacture, for a British mercantile depot. Pepper is, however,
produced in considerable quantity, and the products of the forests
are very various, as bees-wax, gum-benjamin, fine camphor, camphor
oil, esculent swallows' nests, canes and rattans, which used to form
the staple articles of Borneon import into Singapore. The Borneon
territory opposite to Labuan abounds also, I believe, in the palm
which yields sago, and indeed the chief part of the manufactured
article was thirty years ago brought from this country. The Chinese
settlers would, no doubt, as in Singapore and Malacca, establish
factories for its preparation according to the improved processes
which they now practice at those places.

"There may be reason to expect, however, that the timber of the
portion of Borneo referred to may be found of value for ship-building;
for Mr. Dalrymple states that in his time, above seventy years ago,
Chinese junks of 500 tons burden used to be built in the river
of Borneo. As to timber well-suited for boats and house-building,
it is hardly necessary to add that the northwest coast of Borneo,
in common with almost every other part of the Archipelago, contains
a supply amounting to superfluity.

"I may take this opportunity of stating, as evidence of the conveniency
of this portion of Borneo for a commercial intercourse with China,
that down to within the last half century a considerable number of
Chinese junks were engaged in trading regularly with Borneo, and that
trade ceased only when the native government became too bad and weak
to afford it protection. Without the least doubt this trade would
again spring up on the erection of the British flag at Labuan. Not
a single Chinese junk had resorted to the Straits of Malacca before
the establishment of Singapore, and their number is now, of one size
or another, and exclusive of the junks of Siam and Cochin China,
not less than 100.

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