Art. XI.—Sketch of the Island of Borneo

Extract

“Although Borneo is so large an island, and although some parts of the coast have been known for many years, very little information has been yet received respecting the interior of the country, and the different people who inhabit it. The Chairman of the Committee of Correspondence, conceiving that a knowledge of this island has become more than ever an object of importance to the British public, in consequence of the trade with China, and with the islands in the Eastern Sea, having been laid open to all British subjects, has taken measures for procuring translations into English of the different works upon the subject written in Dutch; and for collecting all the information relative to Borneo, which can be obtained from those persons who have visited the coasts of that island. Mr, Earl, who has acquired much knowledge relative to different parts of it, sent a paper to the Society, which was published in the third volume of this Journal; and we have now the pleasure to publish the following paper sent to Sir Alexander Johnston by the same gentleman, who, we hope, will soon have an opportunity of obtaining still further information upon the subject, by joining the expedition which is about to sail for the purpose of making a survey of the Eastern Seas; and which will afford him the means of completing those inquiries which he has already carried on, as appear by the papers we have published, with so much zeal and intelligence.”