APPENDIX.

No. I.

NATURAL HISTORY.

Mr. Brookeʼs Report on the Mias. (From the Transactions of the Zoological Society.)

JAMES BROOKE, Esq., to Mr. WATERHOUSE.

My dear Sir:—Singapore, 25th March, 1841.

I am happy to announce the departure of five live ourang-outangs by the ship Martin Luther, Captain Swan; and I trust they will reach you alive. In case they die, I have directed Captain Swan to put them into spirits, that you may still have an opportunity of seeing them. The whole of the five are from Borneo: one large female adult from Sambas; two, with slight cheek-callosities, from Pontiana; a small male, without any sign of callosities, from Pontiana likewise; and the smallest of all, a very young male with callosities, from Sadung. I will shortly forward a fine collection of skulls and skeletons from the northwest coast of Borneo, either shot by myself or brought by the natives; and I beg you will do me the favor to present the live ourangs and this collection to the Zoological Society. I have made many inquiries and gained some information regarding these animals, and I can, beyond a doubt, prove the existence of two, if not three, distinct species in Borneo.

First, I will re-state the native account: secondly, give you my own observations; and thirdly, enter into a brief detail of the specimens hereafter to be forwarded.

1st. The natives of the northwest coast of Borneo are all positive as to the existence of two distinct species, which I formerly gave you by the names of the Mias pappan and Mias rombi; but I have since received information from a few natives of intelligence that there are three sorts, and what is vulgarly called the Mias rombi is in reality the Mias kassar, the rombi being a distinct and third species. The Mias pappan is the Simia Wurmbii of Mr. Owen, having callosities on the sides of the face: the natives treat with derision the idea of the Mias kassar, or Simia morio, being the female of the Mias pappan or Simia Wurmbii; and I consider the fact can be established so clearly that I will not trouble you with their statements: both Malays and Dyaks are positive that the female of the Mias pappan has cheek-callosities the same as the male; and if on inquiry it prove to be so, the existence of three distinct species in Borneo will be established. The existence of the Mias rombi is vouched by a few natives only, but they were men of intelligence, and well acquainted with the animals in the wild state. They represent the Mias rombi to be as tall as the pappan, or even taller, but not so stout, with longer hair, a smaller face, and no callosities either on the male or female; and they always insisted that it was not the female of the pappan.

The Mias kassar or Simia morio is of the same color as the Mias pappan, but altogether smaller, and devoid of callosities either on the male or female adults.

By the native statements, therefore, we find three distinct species, viz. the Mias pappan or Simia Wurmbii, the Mias kassar or Simia morio, and the Mias rombi, which is either the Simia Abelii, or a fourth species. The existence of the Sumatran ourang in Borneo is by no means impossible; and I have already compared so many of the native statements, that I place more confidence in them than I did formerly, more especially as their account is in a great measure borne out by the skulls in my possession. I had an opportunity of seeing the Mias pappan and the Mias kassar in their native woods, and killing one of the former and several of the latter species. The distribution of these animals is worthy of notice, as they are found both at Pontiana and Sambas in considerable numbers, and at Sadung on the northwest coast, but are unknown in the intermediate country which includes the rivers of Sarāwak and Samarahan. I confess myself at a loss to account for their absence on the Sarāwak and Samarahan rivers, which abound with fruit, and have forests similar and contiguous to the Sadung, Linga, and other rivers. The distance from Samarahan to Sadung does not exceed twenty-five miles; and though pretty abundant on the latter, they are unknown on the former river. From Sadung, proceeding to the northward and eastward, they are found for about 100 miles, but beyond that distance do not inhabit the forests. The Mias pappan and Mias kassar inhabit the same woods, but I never met them on the same day; both species, according to the natives, are equally common, but from my own experience the Mias kassar is the most plentiful. The Mias rombi is represented as unfrequent and rarely to be met with. The pappan is justly named Satyrus, from the ugly face and disgusting callosities. The adult male I killed was seated lazily on a tree, and when approached only took the trouble to interpose the trunk between us, peeping at me, and dodging as I dodged. I hit him on the wrist, and he was afterward dispatched. I send you his proportions, enormous relative to his height; and until I came to actual measurement my impression was that he was nearly six feet in stature. The following is an extract from my journal relating to him, noted down directly after he was killed:—

“Great was our triumph as we gazed on the huge animal dead at our feet, and proud were we of having shot the first ourang we had seen, and shot him in his native woods, in a Borneo forest, hitherto untrodden by European feet. The animal was adult, having four incisors, two canines, and ten molars in each jaw; but by his general appearance he was not old. We were struck by the length of his arms, the enormous neck, and the expanse of face, which altogether gave the impression of great height, whereas it was only great power. The hair was long, reddish, and thin; the face remarkably broad and fleshy, and on each side, in the place of a manʼs whiskers, were the callosities or rather fleshy protuberances, which I was so desirous to see, and which were nearly two inches in thickness. The ears were small and well shaped, the nose quite flat, mouth prominent, lips thick, teeth large and discolored, eyes small and roundish, face and hands black, the latter being very powerful. The following are the dimensions:

ft. in.
Height from head to heel 4 1
Length of foot 1 0
Ditto hand 0 10½
Length of arm from shoulder-blade to finger-end 3 5¾
Shoulder-blade to elbow 1 6
Elbow to wrist 1 1½
Hip to heel 1 9
Head to os coccygia 2 5½
Across the shoulders 1 5½
Circumference of neck 2 4
Ditto below the ribs 3 3¼
Ditto under the arms 3 0
From forehead to chin 0 9¾
Across the face, below the eyes, including callosities 1 1
From ear to ear across the top of the head 0 9½
From ear to ear behind the head 0 9¾

The natives asserted the animal to be a small one; but I am skeptical of their ever attaining the growth of a tall man, though I bear in mind that full-grown animals will probably differ as much in height as man.”

Some days after this, and about thirty miles distant, I was fortunate enough to kill two adult females (one with her young), and a male nearly adult, all the Mias kassar. The young male was not measured, owing to my having waded up to my neck in pursuit of him, and thereby destroyed my paper and lost my measure; but he certainly did not exceed 3 feet, while the two females were about 3 ft. 1 in. and 3 ft. 2 in. in height. The male was just cutting his two posterior molars: the color of all resembled that of the Mias pappan, but the difference between the two animals was apparent even to our seamen. The kassar has no callosities either on the male or female, whereas the young pappans dispatched by the Martin Luther (one of them not a year old, with two first molars) show them prominently. The great difference between the kassar and the pappan in size would prove at once the distinction of the two species; the kassar being a small, slight animal, by no means formidable in his appearance, with hands and feet proportioned to the body, and they do not approach the gigantic extremities of the pappan either in size or power; and, in short, a moderately strong man would readily overpower one, when he would not stand the shadow of a chance with the pappan. Beside these decisive differences may be mentioned the appearance of the face, which in the Mias kassar is more prominent in the lower part, and the eyes exteriorly larger, in proportion to the size of the animal, than in the pappan. The color of the skin in the adult pappan is black, while the kassar, in his face and hands, has the dirty color common to the young of both species. If further evidence was wanted, the skulls will fully prove the distinction of species; for the skulls of two adult animals compared will show a difference in size alone which must preclude all supposition of their being one species. Mr. Owenʼs remarks are, however, so conclusive, that I need not dwell on this point; and with a suite of skulls, male and female, from the adult to the infant, of the Mias kassar, which I shall have the pleasure to forward, there can remain, I should think, little further room for discussion. I may mention, however, that two young animals I had in my possession alive, one a kassar, the other a pappan, fully bore out these remarks by their proportionate size. The pappan, with two molars, showed the callosities distinctly, and was as tall and far stouter than the kassar with three molars, while the kassar had no vestige of the callosities. Their mode of progression likewise was different, as the kassar doubled his fists and dragged his hind quarters after him, while the pappan supported himself on the open hands sideways placed on the ground, and moved one leg before the other in the erect sitting attitude; but this was only observed in the two young ones, and cannot be considered as certainly applicable to all.

On the habits of the ourangs, as far as I have been able to observe them, I may remark, that they are as dull and as slothful as can well be conceived, and on no occasion when pursuing them did they move so fast as to preclude my keeping pace with them easily through a moderately clear forest; and even when obstructions below (such as wading up to the neck) allowed them to get way some distance, they were sure to stop and allow us to come up. I never observed the slightest attempt at defence; and the wood, which sometimes rattled about our ears, was broken by their weight, and not thrown, as some persons represent. If pushed to extremity, however, the pappan could not be otherwise than formidable; and one unfortunate man, who with a party was trying to catch a large one alive, lost two of his fingers, beside being severely bitten on the face, while the animal finally beat off his pursuers and escaped. When they wish to catch an adult, they cut down a circle of trees round the one on which he is seated, and then fell that also, and close before he can recover himself, and endeavor to bind him.

In a small work entitled “The Menageries,” published in 1838, there is a good account of the Borneon ourang, with a brief extract from Mr. Owenʼs valuable paper on the Simia morio; but, after dwelling on the lazy and apathetic disposition of the animal, it states in the same page that they can make their way amid the branches of the trees with surprising agility; whereas they are the slowest and least active of all the monkey tribe, and their motions are surprisingly awkward and uncouth. The natives on the northwest coast entertain no dread, and always represent the ourangs as harmless and inoffensive animals; and from what I saw, they would never attack a man unless brought to the ground. The rude hut which they are stated to build in the trees would be more properly called a seat or nest, for it has no roof or cover of any sort. The facility with which they form this seat is curious, and I had an opportunity of seeing a wounded female weave the branches together, and seat herself within a minute; she afterward received our fire without moving, and expired in her lofty abode, whence it cost us much trouble to dislodge her. I have seen some individuals with nails on the posterior thumbs, but generally speaking, they are devoid of them: of the five animals sent home, two have the nails, and three are without them; one has the nail well formed, and in the other it is merely rudimentary. The length of my letter precludes my dwelling on many particulars which, as I have not seen the recent publications on the subject, might be mere repetitions; and I will only mention, as briefly as I can, the skulls of these animals in my possession. From my late sad experience I am induced to this, that some brief record may be preserved from shipwreck. These skulls may be divided into three distinct sorts. The first presents two ridges, one rising from each frontal bone, which, joining on the top of the head, form an elevated crest, which runs backward to the cerebral portion of the skull.

The second variety is the Simia morio; and nothing need be added to Mr. Owenʼs account, save that it presents no ridge whatever beyond the frontal part of the head. No. 9 in the collection is the skull of an adult male: No. 2 the male, nearly adult, killed by myself: Nos. 11 and 3 adult females, killed by myself: No. 12 a young male, with three molars, killed by myself: No. 21 a young male, died aboard, with three molars: No. 19, young male, died aboard, with two molars. There are many other skulls of the Simia morio which exactly coincide with this suite, and this suite so remarkably coincides through the different stages of age, one with another, that no doubt can exist of the Simia morio being a distinct species. The different character of the skull, its small size and small teeth, put the matter beyond doubt, and completely establish Mr. Owenʼs acute and triumphant argument, drawn from a single specimen.

The third distinction of the skulls is, that the ridges rising from the frontal bones do not meet, but converge toward the top of the head, and again diverge toward the posterior portion of the skull. These ridges are less elevated than in the first-mentioned skulls, but the size of the adult skulls is equal, and both present specimens of aged animals. For a long time I was inclined to think the skulls with the double ridge were the females of the animals with the single and more prominent ridge; but No. 1 (already described as killed by myself) will show that the double ridge belongs to an adult and not young male animal, and that it belongs to the Simia Wurmbii with the huge callosities. The distinction therefore cannot be a distinction of sex, unless we suppose the skulls with the greater development of the single ridge to belong to the female, which is improbable in the highest degree. The skulls with the double and less elevated ridges belong, as proved by No. 1, to the Simia Wurmbii; and I am of opinion the single and higher ridge must be referred to another and distinct species, unless we can account for this difference on the score of age. This, I conceive, will be found impossible, as Nos. 7 and 20 are specimens similar to No. 1, with the double and less elevated ridges decidedly old, and Nos. 4 and 5 are specimens of the single high ridge, likewise decidedly old.

These three characters in the skulls coincide with the native statements of there being three distinct species in Borneo, and this third Borneon species may probably be found to be the Simia Abelii, or Sumatran ourang. This probability is strengthened by the adult female on her way home: her color is dark brown, with black face and hands; and in color of hair, contour, and expression, she differs from the male ourangs with the callosities to a degree that makes me doubt her being the female of the same species. I offer you these remarks for fear of accident; but should the specimens, living and dead, arrive in safety, they will give a fresh impetus to the inquiry, and on my next return to Borneo I shall, in all probability, be able to set the question at rest, whether there be two or three species in that country. Believe me, my dear sir, with best wishes, to remain,

Yours very truly, J. Brooke.

Borneo, like Celebes, teems with Natural History unknown to European science; and Mr. Brooke has sent some remarkable specimens to England, though his own large collection was, unfortunately, wrecked on its voyage homeward. Every arrival, however, is now adding to the stores we already possess. The British Museum has been much enriched, even within the last year, with rare specimens of zoology and botany; and at the Entomological Society there have been exhibited and described many curious insects hitherto strange and unclassified.

No. II.

PHILOLOGY.

It was intended in this work to convey to the studious in philology,—upon which science, rationally investigated, so much depends on our ability to ascertain the origin and trace the earliest relations of mankind,—as copious a vocabulary of the Dyak language, with definitions of meaning and cognate references, as might be considered a useful contribution to that important branch of learning. But various considerations have induced us to forego the design; and not the least of them has been, not the difficulty, but the impossibility of reducing the whole collection to a system, or of laying down any certain rule of orthography in this Oriental confusion. Nearly all the vowels, for example, have been found of equal value; and as they have but one general Malay name, so it happens that (for instance) the consonants b dmight be pronounced with the intervening sound, bad, bed, bid, bod, bud, and sundry variations beside, unknown to the English tongue. This will in a great degree account for the universally vexatious, because puzzling, spelling, inflections, and pronunciation of Eastern names, which is so injurious to the literature and knowledge of those countries among Europeans.

The vowel-sounds adopted are:

a like a in father.
e ” a in fan.
ĭ ” Italian i, or ee in thee.
ĭ ” i in pin.
o ” o in spoke.
u ” oo in cool.
ŭ ” u in run.
y occasionally like ĭ.
ow (ou) like ow in cow.

The final k in Malayan is frequently mute: thus Dyak is pronounced Dyaa, with the slightest possible aspiration.

gn is a liquid sound.

We add an alphabetical list of some of the words which have occurred in the preceding pages.

Arafuras, or Haraforas, natives of Papua.

Balanian, wild tribes in Borneo.

Bandar, or Bandhāra, treasurer, high steward, high officer of state.

Basaya, tribes in the interior of Borneo Proper, locating near and resembling the Murut.

Battara, one of the Dyak names of God (the Hindu Avatara).

Borneo, the island of, written “Brūnī” by the inhabitants.

Borneo Proper, the northern and northwestern part of the island; an independent Malay state.

Borneons, the Malay inhabitants of Borneo Proper.

Brūnī, the native name for Borneo.

Bugis, natives of Celebes.

Bulan, the Moon, a poetical title of honor to a pirate-chief.

Campong, a native village, or town.

Datu, a cape or point of land to the northwest of the river Banjamassim.

Datus, strictly, native chiefs, heads of tribes.

Dusun, agricultural villagers on the northern extremity of Borneo.

Dyaks; or Dyak, aborigines of Borneo, and generally pronounced Dyah.

Dyak Darrat, Land Dyaks.

Dyak Laut, Sea Dyaks.

Gantong, a Malay measure for rice.

Gunong, a mountain.

Hadji, a Mahomedan who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Haraforas, or Arafuras, natives of Papua.

Idaāns [Kadiens], Borneon tribes, and the name generally given to most of the varieties of the Indian Archipelago.

Illanuns or Lanuns, pirates inhabiting the small cluster of islands between Borneo and Magindano.

Jovata, a Dyak name of God, of Hindu origin.

Kadiens, Borneon tribes, Mahomedans, the Idaan of preceding voyagers and writers. See [Idaans].

Kalamantan, an original name of Borneo.

Kanowit, wild tribes in Borneo.

Kaya, a title of authority, Orang Kaya de Gadong, chief man of Gadong.

Kayans, the most powerful and warlike people of Borneo, living inland.

Kuching, the former name of the town of Sarāwak.

Lubuan, the island off Borneo river, ceded by the sultan to the British crown.

Lelas, guns.

Magindano, an island off the northeast of Borneo, the natives of which are pirates.

Makassar, the straits of, usually written Macassar, but more accurately Mangkassar.

Malays, settled on the Malayan peninsula, coasts of Borneo, &c. &c., a race of seafaring character, often piratical, and conquerors of various native tribes in the Indian Archipelago.

Malukus, pirates from a bay in Gillolo, whose country is in the possession of the Dutch.

Marundum, an island off Borneo.

Matari, or Mata-hari (the eye of day), the Sun, a poetical title of honor to a pirate-chief.

Mias Rombi and M. Pappan, two species of ourang-outang, determined by Mr. Brooke.

Millanows, a tribe resembling the Kayans, living near the river Meri, river Bentulu, tolerably civilized, and fairer than the Malays.

Minkokas, a wild tribe near the Bay of Boni.

Morotaba river, one of the mouths of the Sarāwak.

Montrado, a very large and populous Chinese settlement near Point Data.

Murut, inhabitants of the interior of Borneo Proper.

Natunas, islands off Borneo.

Ondong-ondong, the written law of Borneo.

Orang, a man.

Orang outang, a wild man.

Pangeran, or Pangiran, the title of a high Malay authority.

Panglima, the head warrior of a Dyak tribe.

Patingi, or Patingus, a high local officer.

Patobong, the name of the ranjows and sudas, defences in war.

Patakan Dyaks, said by the Malays to be cannibals.

Pontiana, one of the finest rivers in Borneo; also the name of natives on its banks. The Dutch have a settlement on this river.

Ranjows, bamboo-spikes stuck in the ground to wound the feet of attacking enemies, or concealed in pits to wound or destroy them.

Rhio, a Malay settlement, under Dutch control.

Sadung, a river adjoining the Sarāwak.

Sakarra, a Dyak god, residing in the Pleiades.

Sakarran, a river like the [Sarebus] (which see), with a similar native population on its banks.

Satīgī, a wooden spear, or dart.

Sampan, a small prahu.

Sarebus, a river flowing into the deep bay between Tanjong Sipang and Tanjong Sirak.

Sarebus, powerful Dyak tribes and pirates, located on the above, and other rivers flowing into the bay. They have thrown off the Malay yoke, and plunder as far as Celebes.

Seriff, or Sheriff, a high Malay title, peculiar to persons of Arab descent.

Sibnowans, or Sibnyons, Mr. Brookeʼs favorite tribe of Dyaks, of superior character.

Singè, Dyak tribes.

Songi Besar, large river.

Sooloo, on the northeast of Borneo, a powerful piratical nest, the natives of which massacred the garrison of Balambangan in 1775.

Sudahs, defences to wound the feet of attacking enemies.

Sumpitan, or Simpote, a tube seven or eight feet in length, through which the Borneons blow small sharp-pointed arrows.

Tanjong, a point of land.

Turaj, or Tarajahs, natives of Celebes.

Tatows, wild tribes in the interior of Borneo.

Tiran, natives on the north of Borneo, reported (on doubtful authority) to be pirates and cannibals.

Tuan, sir, an exclamation of assent to an approved speaker, instead of “hear, hear,” or “yes.”

Tuan Besar, sir, great, great chief, higher applause and deference.

Tumangong, a local Malay officer.

Tumbilans, a beautiful group of about 150 small islands between Borneo and Singapore.

Tuppa, a Dyak god.

Wakil, a deputy.

Zedong, like the Tiran, which [see].