CHAPTER VI.
LABUAN ISLAND.
Labuan—Inhabitants—Industries—Coal mines—Revenues and acreage—Oil spring—Climate—Rare ferns—Tropical flowering trees—Fruit culture—Birds—Pitcher-plants—Snakes—Sun birds—Large spiders—Ants—Salt making—Pratchan—Old gardens—Lizards—Mason wasp—A favourite horse—Annual games on the plain—Church—River travel.
Labuan is one of the smallest and least well known of all British Colonies.
This island was ceded to Great Britain by the Sultan of Borneo in 1847, and the year afterwards a settlement was established here, the late Sir James Brooke, K.C.B., being the first governor. Its area is 19,350 acres, and it is situated in lat. 5° 20′ N., being about six miles off the nearest point of Borneo, and about 700 miles from Singapore. When ceded it was uninhabited and very unhealthy, but now contains about 5,000 inhabitants, mostly Kadyans and Malays, and by clearing and draining the climate is improved. The principal traders and artificers are Chinese. Chinese coolies are imported as labourers. A few Klings or Bengalees also live here. The main object of the colony was the suppression of piracy once rife along the coast, and the working of the coal measures which exist at the northern point of the island. The quality of the coal obtainable here is very good, but the output hitherto has been comparatively small, owing to a series of adverse circumstances. At present the mines are deserted, the company having discontinued mining operations. There is a good harbour at the only town, Victoria, and this place forms a convenient coaling station for H.M. gunboats on the China station, which cruise in these seas. The trade is mainly in the hands of the Chinese, who purchase the native products of Borneo, Palawan, and the Sulu Archipelago, which is brought hither in native prahus or boats. Some of the traders also make voyages to different parts of the Bornean coast to collect sago, gutta, beeswax, edible swallows’ nests, camphor, trepang or beche de mer, mother-o’-pearl shell, and other produce, in return for which they barter cloth or cotton goods, opium and tobacco, muskets, ammunition, gongs, and crockeryware, spirits, tea and provisions, mostly derived from Singapore. The ss. “Cleator” carries the mails and most of the imports and exports between Singapore and this port, and affords the only regular means of transport. This vessel makes the voyage between Labuan and Singapore every twenty-one days, calling at this port on her way to Brunei.
TANYONG KUBONG OR COAL POINT, LABUAN.
To face page 114.
The main industries of the colony are the coal-mines, sago-washing factories, and the culture of rice, fruit, and other food products. The mines were leased by the Government to the Oriental Coal Company of London and Leith, at a yearly rental of £1000 a year for mining privileges and the right of cutting timber free of duty. £50 annually was also paid for a wharf and store sheds at the harbour, a distance of nine miles from the mines. The coal was brought down in large sailing boats or lighters, manned by Malays. In 1876 only 5824 tons were obtained, but additional workings have been opened and alterations were made by the Company’s manager, Mr. A. Boosie, which it was thought would have facilitated a much larger output. The greatest drawbacks to successful mining operations were the enormous rainfall and its effects on the workings, and the inefficiency of native labour. Chinese coolies have now, however, been to a great extent substituted for the Malays previously employed. The ships of H.M. Navy have a prior claim to coal at £1 0s. 6d. per ton, ordinary trading vessels pay a trifle more. The revenues of the Colony are derived from various monopolies, such as the sale of opium, tobacco, spirits, fish, arms, and ammunition, the rental or sale of lands, and a per centage on all timber cut in the Colony.
In 1876 the opium farmer paid £2,687 10s. for the exclusive right of importing, preparing, selling, or exporting opium in the island. Tobacco produced £750; spirits, £300; fishmarket, £550; pawnbroking, £112 10s.; licences to sell arms and ammunition, £65. A duty of ten per cent. is payable on the value of all timber cut on crown lands, except by the Coal Company, who, as already stated, have the right, free. The estimated acreage of the colony is 19,350 acres, of which 1,738 acres are supposed to be cultivatable, and 17,612 uncultivatable. Field labour, the felling of timber, &c., is carried on by Chinese and Malays, who receive 25 to 30 cents per day; carpenters, 50 cents; blacksmiths, 60 cents. The land under padi (rice) cultivation is about 11,000 acres, and consists of well watered alluvial plains near the centre of the island. Cocoanut palms and other fruit trees, 550 acres; sugarcane and vegetable gardens, about 50 acres. The Chinese here, as elsewhere eastward, monopolize the vegetable-growing industry. The largest cocoanut plantation and oil factory is on Pulu Daát, a large islet lying between Labuan and the Bornean coast. The total number of cocoanut trees in the colony is estimated at 200,000. The nuts, retail, either green or ripe, fetch two or three cents each, and the oil obtained from them fetches the uniform price of £33 per ton. A young plantation of the African oil-palm (Elæis guineensis) has been established on Pulu Daát, and the experiment promises to be a successful one. The little coarse uncrystallised sugar made in the colony fetches about 50 cents per gantang, a measure holding about 7lb. Padi, or rice in husk, fetches about £1 10s. per 100 gantangs (6 cwts.). There are three sago washing works near Victoria Harbour, where the raw pulp, as brought from the Bornean coast, is hand-washed and sifted into the dry sago-flour of commerce. Some of the low-lying well watered or marsh-land has been planted with the sago-palm.