Note 1 — Chapter VI · POPULATION.

The Chinese seem everywhere to preserve the same characteristics. The British Consul-General of Borneo writes to me:—“Chinese settlers cannot flourish under Malay rule. We have a few hundreds, but the country would absorb hundreds of thousands. In the interior I found among the aborigines a lively remembrance of the former Chinese pepper-growers; they have been all destroyed or driven away by civil dissensions. There remain a few of their descendants, who speak the language of their fathers, but they are not distinguishable from the natives. A Chinese merchant was speaking disparagingly of one of the chiefs, who turned round, and, much to the astonishment of the Chinaman, accosted him in very tolerable Fokien. The little pepper-growing that remains is partly conducted by the mixed races. The produce is slightly increasing, and a few Chinese with native wives are beginning to try it again.” ↑