Sarawak lies southwest of Brunei, and ex tends along the northwestern coast of Borneo for a distance of 400 miles. from Cape Baram to Cape Datu. Its southern limit is the watershed of the Krumbang and Kiinkang mountains. it covers an area of about 50,000 square miles. and has a mixed population of about 600,000. The chief town is Kuching or Sarawak, with a population of 20.000, about 25 miles from the coast, on the Sarawak River. Sibu, on the Rejang River. which is navigated for some distance by large steamers, is another important town. The territory is governed by a rajah. but is under British protection. Commercially. Sarawak is of considerable importance, the import trade (1899) amounting to $3,250,000, and the export trade to $4,500.000. The Government budget amounts to about $S'50,000, the revenue being derived from both import and export duties and various personal taxes. The chief products are tobacco, sago, rice, gums, coffee, spices, jungle produce, :,nd dried fish. Coal is abundant, and the pre cious metals, diamonds, and mercury are found. Both the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church have established missions and built churches. A boys' and girls' school has been established at Kuching.
Dutch Borneo, which occupies the southern and most of the eastern part of the island, has a coast-line extending from Saint Lucia Bay (latitude 10' N.) in northeast Borneo to Cape Datu on the west coast. It has an area of about 213.000 square miles and a population estimated to be 1,180,000. The country is divided into two rf'S i ene Borneo and South and East Borneo. The Dutch govern the country, so far as possible, through the native rulers. West Borneo embraces the valley of the Kapuas, and has great mountain ranges on the northern and southeastern boundaries; on the coast it extends from Cape Ditto on the north to Cape Sambur on the south. It has an area of 55.825 square miles and a population of (approximately) 370. 800. There are two provinces — Pontianak and Montrado. The chief city is Pontianak. on the Kapuas River. Sambas. Sintang, and Sukadana are important towns. The exports amount to over a million and a half dollars a year. The chief of these are copra, gutta-percha. rattan, and cocoanut-oil.
South and East Borneo, which extends from Cape Sambur to Saint Lucia Bay. and occupies the southeastern half of the island, has an area of 15(1,900 square miles and a population of S09. SOO. The chief city and capital is Banjarwntsin. Other important towns are Kota•ingin in the southwest. \latapura in the south, Pasir in the southeast, Tangarung. Somarinda. and Kati in the east, and Gunung Tebui in the northeast. The regions hest known and most densely popu lated are in the south and west. North of the Pasir River the interior and even the coast is but little known. The exports amount to $750. 000 a year, gutta-percha and rattan being the most important.
Inhabitants.—Although the vast extent of the island, with its numerous cave and other shelters, shell-heaps, etc., has not been completely ex plored, the human remains and evidences of man's industry so far discovered go to prove that man is a mueh less ancient resident than in Java and Sumatra. The native population. re
cent immigrants of other races like the Arabs and Chinese excluded, belong, as their languages show, without exception, to the Malayan family, no traces of a previous Negrito occupation hieing discernible. The interior and certain portions of the coast are peopled by the Dyaks (nomadic and sedentary. land and sea Dyaks, the farther away from the coast, the less mixed with other Malayan peoples, Chinese, etc.), the character istic aborigines of the island. A. great part of the coast region is controlled by Malays, the descendants of colonists from the peninsula of Malacca, the islands of .Java, Sumatra, and other islands of the great East Indian Archipelago. Bugis from Celebes. and, in the extreme north, Suluans front .the Sulu Archipelago in the Philippines. The Malays and the Bugis are the more civilized classes, and are more devoted to trade, commerce. and a sedentary life: and it is from the Malay State of Brunei, north of Sara wak. that the island has received its name. The Malays profess Islam; the Dyaks, those of the interior especially. retain much of their primitive Shamanism and nature-worship. Borneo has been the classic land of the 'head-hunter,' and here are to be found in their purity many other curious Malayan customs. It is also the home of a species of blowgun and the poisoned arrows that belong with it.
Borneo was first discovered by Europeans in the early part of the Sixteenth Century. when both the Portuguese and Spaniards visited it. The Portm.ruese soon established commercial re lations with the natives. In the latter part of the century the Spaniards also entered 'upon similar relations. Neither of these European peoples, however, had any very marked influ ence on the country. The Dutch began trading in Borneo in 1604. and five years later the English appeared and gained a foothold in the south, which they held for nearly a century. in the early part of the Eighteenth Century the Dutch forced the English out of this section; but about. the middle of the century the latter reappeared in the northern part. Then, after a lapse of about twenty-five years, the English in fluence waned for half a century, to he renewed in the early part of the Nineteenth Century, chiefly through the activity of Sir James Brooke. Meanwhile the Dutch slowly but surely strength ened their position in the southern and eastern parts of the island, by affiliating their govern ing officers with the native chiefs, through whom they controlled the people.
Consult: l'eth, Borneo's Westerof