Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 26 - AUS-CHI.pdf/351

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BORNEO 311 Population.—The political division of Borneo is as follows :— Thence the boundary follows parallel 4° 10' N. lat. until Population. the 117th jneridian is intersected, whence it dips to the Dutch Borneo . . 1,180,580 south-east until the coast is reached at Broers Hoek, British N. Borneo . 175,000 117° 37' E., and 4° 10' N. The total area of the Sarawak . . . 500,000 Company’s territory is estimated at about 31,000 square Brunei .... 25,000 miles, with a coast-line of over 900 miles. The greater Total . . 1,880,580 portion is exceedingly mountainous, and the interior Dutch Borneo.—Dutch Borneo is divided into two parts—the consists almost entirely of highlands, with here and there western, and the south and eastern division. The (estimated) open valleys and plateaus of fifty or sixty square miles in population in each of the two divisions and their distribution extent. On the west coast the mountain range runs according to races in 1896 were :— parallel with the seashore, at a distance of from fifteen to Other twenty-five miles. Of this range the great central feature Division. European. Chinese. Arabs. Oriental Natives. Foreigners. is the mountain of Kinabalu (the Chinese Widow), built up of porphyritic granite and igneous rocks to a height of Western 302 37,735 1542 437 330,7591370,775 13,698 feet. Some fifteen or twenty miles to the north S. and Eastern 598 4,542 1534 116 803,015 809,805 rises Mount Madalon (5000 feet). Inland, across the In both divisions there is an average density of about 1 to every valley of the Pagalan river, which is itself a double row of 2 square miles. The sparseness of population throughout the whole of the Dutch territory is due in part to the physical hills from 1000 to 2000 feet in height, with a few plateaus character of the country, but in part also to historic causes: the marking the scenes of former lakes, the great peak of Trus prejudicial influence in earlier times of Malayan, Arabian, Chinese, Madi rises to a height estimated at 11,000 feet above seaand Buginese colonists; to wars, piracy, and head-hunting, now level, and between its base and the east coast the country suppressed by the Dutch Government. Among the natives, nomadic life in the wide forests, poverty, insufficient nourishment, is again covered with mountains and hills of varying height feasts and other injurious habits, have contributed to the mortality. and magnitude. The principal plateaus are those of the In Sambas, Montrado, and some parts of Pontianak, the greater Tambunan and Kaningau valleys, in the basin of the density of population is due to the greater fertility of the soil, the Pagalan, and the Ranau plain to the eastward of the base opening of mines, the navigation and trade plied on the larger of Kinabalu. Other similar plateaus of minor importrivers, and the concentration of population at the junctions of ance are also found dotted about the interior. The close rivers, the mouths of rivers, and the seats of government. Pontianak has about 9000 inhabitants; Sambas, 8000 to 9000 ; proximity of the mountain range to the seashore causes Montrado, Mampawa, Landak, between 2000 and 4000. In the the rivers on the west coast to be rapid boulder-obstructed south and eastern division, in Amuntai and Martapura, Hindu streams, which, with the single exception of the Padas, are colonization, the fertile soil, navigable rivers, and trade and industry have co-operated towards the growth of a population, in of little value as means of communication for a distance of marked contrast with that in the interior parts of the Upper more than half-a-dozen miles from their mouths. The Barito and of the more westerly rivers. Padas is navigable for light-draught steam-launches for a Only a very small part of the Europeans in Dutch Borneo live by distance of about fifty miles, and boats can be punted up agriculture and industry ; the great majority of them belong to the stream as far as Rayoh, a distance of some seventeen miles Civil Service. The Arabs and Chinese are engaged in trading, shipping, mining, fishing, and agriculture. Of the natives 90 per farther. Here further passage is stopped finally by rapids, cent, live by agriculture. Their industries are confined to the down which nothing can be brought, and even below ordinary native crafts of spinning, weaving, and dyeing, the Rayoh navigation is rendered difficult and sometimes manufacture of iron agricultural implements, shipbuilding, &c. dangerous by obstructions of a similar nature. The More particularly in the south-eastern division (in the districts of Negara, Banjermasin, Amuntai, Martapura), shipbuilding, iron- other principal rivers on the west coast are the Kalias, forging, gold- and silver - smith’s work, and the polishing of Kimanis, Benoneh, Papar, Kinarut, Putatan, Inanam, diamonds, are industries of high development in the larger centres Mengkabong, Tampassuk, and Pandasan rivers, none of of population: Banjermasin, with 40,000 inhabitants; Marabahan, which, however, are of any great importance as means of Amuntai, Negara, Samarinda, Tengarung, each with 5000 to communication. The Tampassuk is noted for a stout breed 10,000 inhabitants. of pony, and also for Kalupis waterfall (1500 feet), one of British North Borneo or Sabah1 the highest in the world. At the northern extremity of The State of North Borneo is the official term applied to the island Marudu Bay receives the waters of the Marudu, the whole of that portion of the island of Borneo formally which rises on the west side of Mount Madalon. On the recognized by the Charter of Incorporation granted in east coast the principal rivers are the Sugut, which rises November 1881 as the territory of the British North in the hills to the east of Kinabalu, and forms its delta Borneo Company (see Chartered Companies). It may near Torongohok or Pura-Pura island; the Labuk, roughly be said to form a pentagon, of which three sides, debouching in Labuk Bay, and having its sources seventy the north-west, north-east, and east sides are washed miles inland; the Kinabatangan, the largest and most by the sea, while the remaining two sides, the west and important river in the territory, which has its rise, it is the south, are bordered respectively by the independent believed, to the eastward of the range of mountains of Malayan Sultanate of Brunei, and by the territory of which Trus Madi is the principal feature, and is navigable Dutch Borneo. The western boundary, with Brunei, is by steamer for a considerable distance, and by boats for formed by a purely conventional line drawn from Gura over a hundred miles from its mouth ; the Segamah, which Peak (3 50' N. lat., 115° 10' E. long.), to the mouth rises to the west of Darvel Bay; the Kumpong, and the of the river Sipitong on the west coast. The boundary Kalabakang, which debouches in Cowie Harbour. Taking between the Company’s territory and that of Dutch it as a whole, the Company’s territory is less generously Borneo is defined by a treaty concluded on 20th June watered than are other parts of Borneo, which again com1891. It runs due east from Gura Peak to 115° 22' E. pare unfavourably in this respect with the Malayan States long., and thence in a north-easterly direction until the of the peninsula. Many of the rivers, and especially those 116th meridian is reached on parallel 4° 20' N. lat. on the west coast, are further obstructed by bars at their 1 Sabah is the name applied by the natives to certain portions of mouths, which render access to them difficult. Several of the territory in the west coast of Borneo, now under the control of the natural harbours of North Borneo, on the other hand, the Chartered Company of British North Borneo, but it is doubtful are at once accessible, safe, and commodious. Sandakan how far this term can with propriety be applied to the whole of the Harbour, on the north-east coast (5° 40' N. lat. and territory. 118° 10' E. long.), runs inland for some seventeen miles