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These rivers have since passed under the Government of the British North Borneo Company, and in Bundu, owing partly to the security now afforded to life and property and partly to the very high price which pepper at present realizes on account of the Dutch blockade of Achin Achin having been of late years the principal pepper-growing country the natives are again turning their attention to this article.
I may remark here that the people of Bundu claim and shew evidence of Chinese descent, and even set up in their houses the little altar and joss which one is accustomed to see in Chinamen's shops.
A few of the natives had, however, acquired the art of pepper cultivation, especially the Dusuns of Pappar, Kimanis and Bundu and when the Colony of Labuan was founded, 1846, there was still a small trade in pepper with those rivers. The Brunai Rájas, however, received their revenues and taxes in this commodity and their exhorbitant demands gradually led to the abandonment of its cultivation.
When I left North Borneo in 1887, their only station which appeared to show a prospect of success was one under Father PUNDLEIDER, amongst the semi-Chinese of Bundu, to whom reference has been made on a previous page. But these people, while permitting their children to be educated and baptized by the Father, did not think it worth their while to join the Church themselves.
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