ct on all Borneo.

About three days' journey from Pontiana lies the celebrated mountain
of Landa, which, after Golconda, is the most valuable diamond mine
in the world. There are at least thirty thousand people, principally
Dayers, employed on the mines and agriculture; it belongs to a Malay
prince, raised to that musnud twenty-five years ago by the Dutch,
through the agency of the present Sultan of Pontiana: here also much
gold is produced; and much more might be had under proper management.

There is a very valuable gold mine in the north of Borneo, at a place
called Tampasuk, situated in the district ceded to the English by
the Sultan of Sulo; but having become the principal pirate port on
the coast, the working of the mines has been discontinued.

The whole produce of the gold mines of Sukadana is said to be
annually about twenty piculs, or a million of dollars, at twenty-five
dollars a bunkal; but no calculation of this sort can possibly be
correct. Living, as the Chinese do, under the rapacity of despotic
and ferocious freebooters, who are actuated by no one principle of
honor, justice, or good faith, it is their interest to conceal the
riches they amass, not only to preserve themselves from the clutches of
these tyrants, but as the most compact substance to transport to their
native shores, to which they repair with the fruits of their industry,
by the annual junks that arrive at Pontiana, leaving the mines to
new settlers: from two to three hundred leave Pontiana every year.

The standard of Slakow gold at Pontiana is affixed at twenty-three
Spanish dollars the bunkal, of two dollars weight. The Songo and
Laurat is twenty-five dollars the said bunkal.

Not having had an opportunity to inspect any of the gold mines
personally, I know not if the ores readily melt of themselves, or
whether they require the aid of any fluxes before they yield the metal;
but I believe the principal attention of the miners is directed to the
rich veins of pure native gold, and that no operation is performed
beyond that of pulverizing, and simple washing; all the gold about
Pontiana being in dust, though some I have met with in Borneo Proper
was run into bars. About Landa, where the diamonds are found, the whole
of the stratum is observed to be a clay of a red burnt appearance,
nearly to the same degree as that of burnt bricks, which gives to the
rivers hereabouts a peculiar tinge. Whether this has been formed by
the action of sub