"They are a sort of cross between an elephant and a hog. They are found all over South American tropical regions and in this part of Asia. The animal is more like a hog than like an elephant, though it has the same kind of a skin as the latter. It is about the size of the average donkey. It has a snout which is prehensile, like the trunk of an elephant, but on a very small scale.
"What does that mean?" asked Mrs. Blossom.
"Capable of taking hold of anything, as the elephant does with his proboscis. The tapir is one of the gentler animals, and may be easily tamed; though it will fight and bite hard when attacked, or harried by dogs. They take to the water readily, though the American swims, while the Asiatic only walk on the bottom. One book I consulted calls the tapir a kind of tiger, to which he bears hardly any resemblance.
"The other animals are small Malay bears, wild swine, horned cattle, and puny deer. The elephant and rhinoceros are found, few in number, in the north. The birds are the eagle, vulture, argus-pheasant,—a singular and beautiful bird,—peacocks, flamingoes, and swifts."
"What in the world are swifts?" inquired Mrs. Woolridge.
"They are a kind of swallow, of which you may have seen some as we came down from Rangoon. They make the edible birds'-nests which are so great a delicacy among the Chinese when made into soup. The rivers, lakes, and swamps swarm with crocodiles, the real man-eaters. Leeches are a nuisance when you bathe in the rivers and ponds, and various kinds of snakes abound. There are plenty of fish in the sea, lakes, and rivers. Diamonds, gold, coal, copper, are mined in the island.
"All of New England and the Middle States, with Maryland, could be set down in Borneo, still leaving a considerable border of swamp and jungle all around them. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland could be slapped down upon it like a flapjack, and there would still be more than space for another United Kingdom, without covering up all the mud of Borneo. We do not see how big it is when we look on the map.
"The larger portion of the island is included in the Dutch possessions. Banjermassin, of which something was said as we passed the mouth of the Barito River, on which it is located, contains 30,000 inhabitants, and is the most important in the island. Borneo proper is in the north-west, and is under the government of the Sultan of Bruneï. He lost nearly one-half of his territory, taken by the North Borneo Company, and that in the west, which is now Sarawak, of which I shall have something more to say later. The island of Labuan lies six miles west of the northern portion of Bruneï. It was ceded to the English by the sultan, and is principally valuable as a coaling-station, though it has a considerable trade.
"Sabah is the country of the North Borneo Company. An American obtained the right to this territory in 1865, and transferred it to the present company. It has an area somewhat larger than the State of Maine. No doubt they will develop and improve the country.
"Sarawak has a territory nearly as large as that of the State of Pennsylvania, and larger than the State of Ohio. Its history is involved in the life of Sir James Brooke, who was originally created the rajah, or governor of the country, by the Sultan of Bruneï, and retained the title till his death in 1868. He was born in Benares in 1803, and educated at Norwich, England. In 1819 he entered the East Indian army, and was severely wounded in the Burmese war. He returned to England; and his furlough lapsed before he could rejoin his regiment, and with it his appointment. He left the service. He next conceived a plan for putting down piracy in the Indian Archipelago, and of civilizing the savage inhabitants of these islands, a grand and noble scheme to be carried out by a single individual on his own responsibility.