Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

BOENEO. 121distinguished the various prorinces alone by particular appellations, to which amore general meaning was afterwards given by foreigners. Excluding the continentaland polar regions, this island is in fact exceeded in size by New Guineaalone; but thanks to its more compact triangular form, it presents far more theappearance of a continent thnn does that elongated and deeply indented region.Borneo evidently constitutes the central nucleus ofthe former Austral-Indianland, which comprised Java and Sumatra besides the Malay peninsula and interveningshallow waters.The basin of these waters has, so to say, scarcely yet beenexcavated by the geological agencies, and still reveals the old form of the continent,over one-third of which is represented by its largest fragment, Borneo. With theadjacent islets, such as Maijang and the Karimata group, near the south-west coast,Pulo Laut and Seboku at the south-east corner, and a few others, it has a totalarea of nearly 300,000 square miles, or about two and a half times that of theBritish Isles. Excluding minor indentations, the coastline has a development ofnot less than 3,800 miles.This central region of Indonesia, although one of the most fertile, andabounding in all kinds of tropical produce, is nevertheless almost a wilderness, soslight is the population compared to its superficial extent. Java, seven or eighttimes smaller, exceeds it ten or twelve times in the number of its inhabitants ;eventhe thinly peopled island of Sumatra is more than twice as populous, at least, if anyconfidence can be placed in the summary estimates and conjectures of travellers.This relative and absolute disproportion must be attributed to the zone of swampyand malarious forests which encircles nearly the whole of the coastlands.Villagecommunities could scarcely be developed in these insalubrious regions, where mostcentres of population have remained in a rudimentary state, lacking the elementsof progress which are acquired by mutual intercourse and commercial relations.The riverain populations have risen little above the primitive social condition offishers and hunters. The period of agriculture, properly so called, has begun onlyin a limited number of clearings, and in many districts such is the savage state ofthe natives, that the various tribal groujjs still regard each other simply as so muchgame. Head-hunting is the only object with which many tribes ajiproach theirneighbours.Exploration of Borneo.— Political Divisions.The social state of the people has naturally been a great impediment to theexploration of the country, of which down to the beginning of the present centurylittle was known beyond the seaboard.Sighted by the Portuguese probably in thefirst years of the sixteenth century, Borneo remained unknown to history till 1521,when the survivors of Magellan's expedition round the globe pi-esented themselvesbefore Brunei. Soon after this event, Jorge de Menezes established a factory on thewest coast ; the Dutch made their appearance in 1598, and they were soon followedby the English. But all attempts at exploration were successively abandonedeither for lack of means or owing to the opposition of the natives and Chineseimmigrants.