ry is
told in Borneo of a dissolute planter who died from sunstroke. The day
after the funeral a spirit message reached the widow of the dear
departed. "Please send down my blankets" it said. But it is the
terrible humidity which makes the climate dangerous; a humidity due to
the innumerable swamps, the source of pestilence and fever, and to the
incredible rainfall, which _averages over six and a half feet a year_.
No wonder that in the Indies Borneo is known as "The White Man's
Graveyard."

[Map: Malaysia]

Imbedded in the northern coast of the island, like a row of
semi-precious stones set in a barbaric brooch, are the states of
British North Borneo, Brunei, and Sarawak. Their back-doors open on the
wilderness of mountain, forest and jungle which marks the northern
boundary of Dutch Borneo; their front windows look out upon the Sulu
and the China Seas. Of these three territories, the first is under the
jurisdiction of the British North Borneo Company, a private
corporation, which administers it under the terms of a royal charter.
The second is ruled by the Sultan of Brunei, whose once vast dominions
have steadily dwindled through cession and conquest until they are now
no larger than Connecticut. On the throne of the last sits one of the
most romantic and picturesque figures in the world, His Highness James
Vyner Brooke, a descendant of that Sir James Brooke who, in the middle
years of the last century, made himself the "White Rajah" of Sarawak,
and who might well have been the original of _The Man Who Would Be
King_. Though all three governments are permitted virtually a free hand
so far as their domestic affairs are concerned, they are under the
protection of Great Britain and their foreign affairs are controlled
from Westminster. The remaining three-quarters of Borneo, which
contains the richest mines, the finest forests, the largest rivers,
and, most important of all, the great oil-fields of Balik-Papan, forms
one of the Outer Possessions, or Outposts, of Holland's East Indian
Empire.

Long before the yellow ribbon of the coast, with its fringe of palms,
became visible we could make out the towering outline of Kina Balu, the
sacred mountain, fourteen thousand feet high, which, seen from the
north, bears a rather striking resemblance in its general contour to
Gibraltar. The natives regard Kina Balu with awe and veneration as the
home of departed spirits, believing that it exercises a powerful
influence on thei