This is briefly the whole history of British enterprise in that part of Borneo lying north of the equator, and it reflects little credit on the part played by our countrymen in Eastern affairs in those days.
We have shown that Bruni early in the fourteenth century possessed a population of at least 100,000. According to Sir Hugh Low, two hundred years after Pigafetta's visit, the population was estimated at 40,000, with a Chinese population in its neighbourhood of 30,000, engaged in planting pepper.[58] In 1809, the city had shrunk to 3000 houses with a population of 15,000.[59] In 1847, Low placed the population at 12,000; the Chinese had then disappeared, excepting a few who had been reduced to slavery. The population, still diminishing, is now under 8000.
On the picturesque hills that surround the town are still to be found traces of thriving plantations which formerly existed there, and which extended for many miles into the interior. These have totally disappeared, with the population which cultivated them. In 1291, two centuries before the first European vessel rounded the Cape,[60] Ser Marco Polo visited the Archipelago. He gives us the first narrative we possess of the Chinese junk trade to the westward, and mentions a great and profitable traffic carried on by the Chinese with Borneo,[61] and this trade throve for many years afterwards; even in 1776 the commerce with China was considerable,[62] though then it must have been declining, for it had ceased before the close of that century. Hunt records that in his time there were still to be seen at Bruni old docks capable of berthing vessels of from 500-600 tons. Now the most striking feature of the place is its profound poverty. Nothing remains of its past glory and prosperity but its ancient dynasty.
Sir Hugh Low tells us that these old Malay kingdoms appear to have risen to their zenith of power and prosperity two hundred years after their conversion to Islam, and then their decline commenced, but he should have added half a century to this epoch. The late Rajah was of opinion that perhaps the introduction of Muhammadanism may have been the cause of their deterioration. Two hundred and fifty years after the conversion of the Malays to Muhammadanism, and under the ægis of this religion, all the Malayan States attained their zenith. This period was coetaneous with the appearance of what may fairly be described as their _white peril_, and the introduction of Muhammadanism, a religion which Christians, in their ignorance of its true precepts, are too apt wholly to condemn, brought with it the pernicious sherips, the pests of the Archipelago. The decay of the old Malayan kingdoms was due primarily to the rapacious and oppressive policy adopted by Europeans in their early dealings with these States, which was continued in a more modified form until within recent times. How this was brought about, and how the sherips contributed to it, is in the sequel.