The piratical cruises of the Malays have been stopped by the Anglo-Saxon overlord, and their exploiting trading has had to give way before the more legitimate commerce of the Chinaman.
Note.—For the most recent information on the geology of Dutch Borneo the reader is referred to Dr. G. A. F. Molengraaf’s Geologische Verkenningstochten in Centraal-Borneo. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
CHAPTER XXI
A TRIP INTO THE INTERIOR OF BORNEO
The following is an account of some experiences on an up-river trip, when McDougall, Ray, and myself accompanied Dr. Charles Hose, the Resident of the Baram District of Sarawak, Borneo, on one of his administrative journeys.
The Baram is the second largest river in Sarawak; it rises about 3° 10′ north latitude in the unnamed and unexplored mountains which form the division between Sarawak and Dutch Borneo, and enters the China Sea at the end of a prominent spit at 114° east longitude.
The Government station and fort are situated at Marudi, or Claudetown, about seventy miles up the river; here is also a large Chinese bazaar. Hose and the Assistant Resident, Mr. Douglas, are the only two Europeans resident in a district that comprises at least ten thousand square miles.
About thirty miles above Marudi the Tinjar joins the Baram; this affluent is almost as large as the main stream, and for a hundred miles it runs a course roughly parallel to the sea coast, but distant from it about thirty to sixty miles, as the crow flies.
On February 6th (1899) we started for a trip up the Tinjar. Only three or four white men had previously been up this river, and practically nothing has been written about it; consequently we were to all intents and purposes breaking fresh ground. But my object in writing this account is not solely to describe a few incidents of our visit to some of the interesting and unspoiled aborigines of Borneo, but also to give an idea of the personal method of dealing with native peoples, which is the keynote of the Sarawak theory of government.
