[218] — This Company has enjoyed, for more than half a century, the right to work minerals in Sarawak, paying royalty to the government; it has been and is the principal channel through which the natural products of the country have been brought into the world's markets. It has always worked in harmony with the government, and to the judicious conduct of its affairs the present material prosperity of the country is largely due. An important development of the Company's activity in recent years has been the planting of large areas with the Para rubber-plant.

[219] — The beneficent and active interest taken by the Rajah in the prosperity of the natives, and the paternal character of his government, are well illustrated by a recently issued order. It is within the memory of all that in the years 1910 and 1911 occurred the great rubber "boom" in the markets of Europe. With the hope of vast profits, speculators hurried to every region where rubber was known to grow. The seeds of the Para rubber-plant had been introduced to Sarawak many years before; the suitability of the soil and climate for the production of the best quality of Para rubber had been abundantly demonstrated and the natives had been encouraged to plant for their own profit the seeds and young plants which were distributed to them from the government stations, so that when the boom came many of them possessed small plantations of the trees that "lay the golden eggs." The speculators were everywhere seeking to buy these plantations at prices which, though they seemed handsome to the natives, were low enough to provide a very large profit to the buyers. The Rajah caused warnings to be published and brought to the notice of the natives, and informed them that they were at full liberty to appropriate jungle. land for the formation of rubber plantations, and that their tenure of such lands would be secured to them so long as they cared for the trees and worked the rubber properly. He further ordered that no sales of rubber plantations should be effected without the knowledge and approval of the government.

[220] — The Rajahs of Sarawak have personally chosen and appointed their white officers with the greatest care; and their good judgment has secured for, their country the services of a number of Englishmen of high abilities and sterling moral quality. Of those members of the Sarawak service who have passed away, the following have pre-eminent claims to be gratefully remembered by the people of the country: James Brooke Brooke (nephew of the first Rajah), W. Brereton, A. C. Crookshank, J. B. Cruickshank, C. C. de Crespigny, A. H. Everett, H. Brooke Low, C. S. Pearse, and, above all, F. R. O. Maxwell.

[221] — Crawford, a leading authority on the history of the East Indian Islands, wrote of the Dutch in Borneo of the early times — "Their sole object, according to the commercial principles of the time, was to obtain, through arrangements with the native prince, the staple products of the country at prices below their natural cost, and to sell them above it… . The result of these (arrangements) was the decline of the trade of Banjermasin; its staple product, pepper, which had at one time been considerable, having become nearly extinct" (DICTIONARY OF THE INDIAN ISLANDS, Lond., 1865, p. 65).

[222] — 'QUER DURCH BORNEO,' by A. W. Nieuwenhuis.

[223] — Dr. A. W. Nieuwenhuis, "Anthropometrische Untersuchungen bei den Dajak." Bearbeitet durch Dr. J. H. F. Kohlbrugge, MITT. AUS DEM NIEDERL. REICHSMUS. FUR VOLKERK. ser. ii. No. 5, Haarlem, 1903. Owing to the inaccessibility of this memoir, I have incorporated his more important observations in this essay.

[224] — Swaving, G., NATUURK. TIJDSCHR. V. NED. IND., xxiii., 1861, xxiv., 1862.

Hoeven, J. van der, CATALOGUS CRANIORUM DIVERSARUM GENTIUM.

Virchow, R., Z.F.E., xvii., 1885, p. (270), in which he states that of 47 "Dayak" skulls in the museums of Paris, Amsterdam, and the Royal College of Surgeons, London, 20 were dolichocephalic, 12 mesaticephalic, and 15 brachycephalic. Cf. also Z.F.E., xxiv., 1892, p. (435).

Hagen, B., VERH. D. KON. AKAD. D. WETENSCH. NATUURKUND, xxviii.,
Amsterdam, 1890.