civet-cat (HEMIGALE HOSEI); a deer (CERVUS BROOKII); the bearded pig
(SUS HARBATUS); the curious feather-tailed shrew (PTYLOCERCUS LOWII).

Reptiles are well represented by the crocodile, which abounds in all
the rivers, a long-snouted gavial, numerous tortoises and lizards
with several flying species, and more than seventy species of snakes,
of which some are poisonous, while the biggest, the python, attains
a length of thirty feet. The rivers abound in edible fish of many
species; insects are of course numerous and varied, and, aided by the
multitude of frogs, they fill the island each evening at sunset with
one vast chorus of sound.



CHAPTER 2

History of Borneo

The Pagan tribes of Borneo have no written records of their history
and only very vague traditions concerning events in the lives of their
ancestors of more than five or six generations ago. But the written
records of more cultured peoples of the Far East contain references to
Borneo which throw some small rays of light upon the past history and
present condition of its population. It has seemed to us worth while
to bring together in these pages these few historical notes. The later
history of Borneo, which is in the main the story of its occupation
by and division between the Dutch and English, and especially the
romantic history of the acquisition of the raj of Sarawak by its
first English rajah, Sir James Brooke, has often been told,[3] and
for this reason may be dismissed by us in a very few words.