Once more we board the steamer, and after touching at Kudat, a fine harbour in the great bay at the north end of the island, turn southward towards Sandakan, the capital of the Territory, where we shall end our voyage. On the deck of the little vessel is a crowd of Chinese coolies. The Chinese are the real workers on all the coasts of North Borneo, just as we found them in the Malay 63 Peninsula. We reach Sandakan, which stands on a splendid bay running fifteen miles up into the land. The entrance is only two miles wide, so that the bay is almost landlocked. Down at the water’s edge is the native town, with many of the houses built on piles; here too is the Chinese quarter, and scattered about further up a wooded slope are the houses of the Europeans. All round the sides of the harbour are smaller native villages.
Sandakan will probably in the future become an important commercial seaport, especially in view of its position on the route between Australia and China. It already boasts a shipbuilding and engineering yard, and a cutch factory which sends its products for tanning all over the world. Here also we may notice timber being floated down in great rafts for export, especially to China. Not far away up the river is one of the oldest rubber estates on the island. Borneo produces many kinds of plants giving rubber or gutta, but it has been found that the Para rubber tree of Brazil grows well, and there is a great future for its cultivation here as in the Malay Peninsula.
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[See [page 95].
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[See [page 91].
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