Identifier: countriesofworld04brow (find matches)
Title: The countries of the world : being a popular description of the various continents, islands, rivers, seas, and peoples of the globe
Year: 1876 (1870s)
Authors: Brown, Robert, 1842-1895
Subjects:
Publisher: London New York : Cassell, Petter, Galpin & co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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fected by meansof canoes—the gondolas of the city—and there is a market held, in which the shops aregoods-laden praus and canoes. There is not a path outside the city in any direction. Onevery side is trackless jungle. How the people all manage to live is a mystery, for a little ricewill suffice a Malay for a whole week. One might be driven to suppose that, like the ScillyIslanders, they subsist by washing each others clothes ; but the general dinginess of thecotton garments forbids this hypothesis. The Chinese are the chief traders in the city,and though roguish, and often worse, they are infinitely the best class of the inhabitants,energetic, reasonable, liberal in their household arrangements, and altogether differentpersonages from their countrymen at home. Many of them are intermarrying with thenatives, and as a result of these marriages a new race is arising in Borneo, and other ofthe Malay islands, though there are grounds for believing that at an earlier date there Illllil
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2(j-Z TIIE COINTKIES OF TllK \V(.)l;LD. were Chinese colonies as far south as the Malay Archipelago. But so bad is the governmentthat even the patient Celestials find it difiicult to live in Bruni. Crime, if committed by therelations or followers of a high noble, is unpunished, as no one will act against him from i\ai-of the enmity of his chief. Not long ago a noted thief lived quite unpunished in thecity, and was even received in good society, though his character was perfectly well known.AVhen in want of funds he made visits of inspection to the different shops, where he wastreated with a kind of familiar deference, though for days afterwards the Chinese livedin a state of nervous suspense until the cokjj came off. But this robber was a followerof the Prime Minister. Until comparatively recently money was unknown as a generalmedium of exchange. Ordinary transactions were carried on in pieces of grey shirtingsvalued at l~s. Gd., of nankeen at lOd., and bits of iron snipped off a rod,

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