A Letter From Borneo Author:James Brooke Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: scarcely any advantage, the export produce is limited to the smallest possible quantity, which will serve to satisfy the demands of their rulers and to purchase ... more »that indispensable necessary of life—salt. I may here mention the usual prices demanded of the Dyaks, besides other extortions to be noticed hereafter. One gantang of salt for three or four gantangs of rice, the value of the two articles being fourteen dollars for a royan of salt and fifty for a royan of rice ! ! When the chief has reduced the tribe to starvation, he returns the same rice and demands ten pekuls of antimony-ore for one rupee's worth of paddy or rice in the husk. Each pekul of antimony-ore may be sold for one and a half or two rupees on the spot. Half a catty of birds' nests are taken for one gantang of rice, being a moderate profit of 2,000 per cent. I would call the attention of intelligent men to this subject, and will only add that until the merchant can deal with the producer, or at any rate till the producer has the liberty of taking the best price oft'ered for his goods, there can be no hope of ameliorating the condition of the Dyaks, by developing the resources of the country. To what extent this end might be effected I shall hereafter have to mention. 2ndly. The Borneon territory is comprised between Tanjong Datu, in lat. 2 deg. 7 min. 17 sec. N., long. 109 deg. 43 min. 57 sec. E., and Mal- ludu Bay; but the northern part of the island is inhabited by a number of Piratical communities,formed from a mixture of the surrounding countries, and the authority of the Borneon government is scarcely recognized to the northward of the capital of Borneo Proper river, the entrance of which lies in lat. 5 deg. 6 min. 42 sec. N. and long. 115 deg. 24 min. 00 sec. E. Between Tanjong Datu and the Murah Basar,...« less