PREFACE.
I have explained in a short introduction the object and plan of the present volumes, and have little more to say, beyond a reference to the assistance I have received, and the plates and maps which accompany and illustrate them. In order to prevent mistakes, and correct my own impressions, I submitted a series of questions to four gentlemen who were intimately acquainted with the Dayak tribes, and they gave me most useful information in reply. To Mr. Charles Johnson and the Rev. William Chalmers I am indebted for very copious and valuable notes on the Sea and Land Dayaks; and to the Rev. Walter Chambers and the Rev. William Gomez for more concise, yet still interesting accounts of the tribes with whom they live.
To Mr. Hugh Low, the Colonial Treasurer of Labuan, I am under special obligations, as he freely placed at my disposal the journals he had kept during our joint expeditions, as well as those relating to some districts which I have not visited. It is to be regretted that he has not himself prepared a work on the North-West Coast, as no man possesses more varied experience or a more intimate knowledge of the people.
With regard to the plates contained in this work, I am indebted to the courtesy of George Bentham, Esq., the President of the Linnean Society, for permission to engrave the figures of the Nepenthes from the admirable ones published in Vol. XXII. of that Society’s Transactions, and which being of the size of life are the more valuable.
I have inserted, with Dr. Hooker’s permission, his description of the Bornean Nepenthes; and it will always be a subject of regret that the British Government did not carry out their original intention of sending this able botanist to investigate the Flora of Borneo, which is perhaps as extraordinary as any in the world.
I have also to thank the Rev. Charles Johnson, of White Lackington, and Charles Benyon, Esq., for the photographs which they placed at my disposal, and which have enabled me to insert, among other plates, the most life-like pictures of the Land and Sea Dayaks I have ever seen. To the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel I am also indebted for their generous offer to place all their drawings at my disposal.
I must likewise draw attention to the exquisite manner in which the plates of the Nepenthes are coloured, and to the beauty of the engravings in general. They are admirably illustrative of the country, and do very great credit to the lithographers, Messrs. Day and Son, and to their excellent draughtsmen. I ought also to mention that the Nepenthes are drawn less than half the natural size, as it was found impracticable to introduce the full size without many folds, which would have speedily destroyed the beauty of the plates.
I will add a few words respecting the maps. The one of the districts around Kina Balu was constructed from the observations made during our two expeditions to that mountain. The map of the Limbang and Baram rivers is the result of many observations, and with regard to the position of the main mountains, I think substantially correct, as they were fixed with the aid of the best instruments. The third map is inserted in order to give a general idea of the North-West Coast, though the run of the rivers is often laid down by conjecture.