LIFE IN BORNEO.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1289, 12 November 1896, Page 9

LIFE IN BORNEO.

[Jean Theodore Van Gestel ]

In the fall of 1880, while in the service of the Dutch Government in its East Indian possessions as a civil engineer, I was ordered to survey and build a fortified military post, a "kraton," as it is called, in Malay, on the south-west coa3t of Borneo, at Pontianak. A battalion of soldiers had been ordered to the spot, and was quartered in bamboo barracks ne*r the ground which had been selected. I had a bamboo house belonging to the Government and called a " passagran," close to the locality of the prospective stockade, and located on the corner of an open space occupying an area of about five or six acres of ground, which the natives had surrounded by a fence, and which served them as a market-place once a week—the " passar baroe," the new market, as the Malays designated it. A. j u passar " isno small affaireven in Borneo, and erery week the oddest and most ! interesting assortment of articles of barter was brought to market there. A weird figure, always surrounded by an awestricken crowd, was the " joeko obat," the medicine-man, offering his herbs* roota, and native decoctions for sale with the cunning of a down East trader and the impressive "lam the great I am" mien of a shaman ; yet I often fancied I observod on his solemn face the peculiar twinkle of the eye which the Roman augurs indulged in when meeting on the Via Appia. Here bows and arrows, pikes (cancigs), shields, and the machete-like klewang swords are exposed for sale, with the curved kris dagger, the point of which is often dipped in some deadly vegetable poison. Besides the weapons of war lie the fruits of the soil—edibles, gambir, and tobacco. The natives mix the latter with quick-lime, and roll it into a chew or carry it between the gum and the under lip. The articles of commerce which are collected by the natives and finally reach the warehouses of exporting firms in the ports are cocoa nut oil, gum damar, gummi gutti, and gutta-percha, which are Drought to Batavia by Chinamen in their coasting junks. Bimboo and rattan baskets are offered, and the spirit of a sharp bargain is just as lively if not as noisy with these guileless natives of Borneo as it is on 'Change. The natives of twenty miles distance would come to the market once a week in their carta (grobaks) drawn by a couple of karbaws (Borneo oxen), bringing their produce for sale or barter. They would arrive the evening before market-day, and unhitching the oxen, tie them to the whaels of the carts. Swarms of flies always accompanied them, and these pests, which almost covered the bodies of the poor karbaws, did not hesitate to pay me a visit. The karbaws bellowed, mephitic odours rose to heaven, the winged torturers buzzed, and the only being which endeavoured to do good, at least in one way, was th© karbaw-bird, who feasted on the vermin and the flies, which gave him ample food, on the backs of the oxen. If wishes could have killed, the native men and beasts would have vanished from the face of Borneo then and there.

Hardly had the sun risen when I hied to the radanario, the native regent or governor, and requested him to abate the nuisance of allowing the cattle on the market-place during the night. My complaints were met politely, but week by week the same torture repeated itself. At last I threatened that I would stop in my work, commanded by my government, report my reasons to the governor of Borneo, and lay the responsibility at the door of the radanario. This worthy remonstrated that he had ordered the natives away several times, but that they would not obey his orders. I insisted, and finally we made a compromise. As his means for abating the nuisance were exhausted, he authorised me to resort to any measures I might devise, aside from actual force or disturbance of the peace. 1 revolved many a plan in my brain ; I used diplomacy, strategy, kindness, and threats; but the untutored savages just salaamed, and were at their old stand as soon as the "psssar" day fell due. One stifling, pitch dark night, when the atmosphere was fairly thick with the stench of the oxen and the paculiar musky smell of the insect pests, patience ceaied to be a virtue ; despair sent me a saving 3park of thought, and I arose from the couch where i had been almost suffocating. Among my stores were several square cans of petroleum which a New York firm had exported to Java. Each held about five or six gallons. I punched a hole in the bottom of two of the cans, and, carrying one in each hand, I walked from my house through the market camp, between every pair of grobaks or carta. The ground and the sparse grass were absolutely dry, parched by the heat, so that the earth absorbed hardly any of the precious fluid. Having crossed and recrossed the spaces between the carts, I carried the empty cans back to my house, struck a match, and in less than five minutes the entire camp was lighted by an endless chain of flame ; flashes of serpentine fire shot hither and thither—a scene never to be forgotten. The effect of my pyrotechnic display was thorough. In a space of time so short that it could scarcely be confined tc minutes, every karbaw was hitched to its grobak, and suddenly carts, karbaws, and natives had disappeared as if swallowed by the earth. The exodus was complete. I was. master of the field, and patted

myself on the back. When I told the fadanario in the morning of my stratagem and its success, he derived as good a laugh from it as I had indulged in myself. The superstitious natives -would not return to the haunter! place, but they all schemed thenceforth to revenge themselves on me, whom they all knew to be the perpetrator or instigator of the creeping fire. Lippincottfs Magazine.