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The river is shallow, narrow, extremely serpentine, and constantly running down with great rapidity. The country around is a paradise in comparison with Pontiana. It is upon an elevated site, and, wherever the eye reaches, it is clear of jungle, and of fine rich mold, susceptible of the highest culture.
They had it in contemplation, in 1795, to take repossession of Sambas, and wrote to Abdul Ramman as to the preparatory measures requisite, when the English war, as before observed, obliged them to abandon Pontiana.
It might be that the narratives of Pontiana Tabor and the denials of Ramon Castillo were all just part of one little subsidiary plan in the German scheme which was to reach its achievement by putting an inconvenient Englishman out of the way for good in one of the dark, narrow side streets of Barcelona.
The locality of these Dyaks may be marked as follows: The Pontiana river, from its mouth, is traced into the interior toward the northward and westward, until it approaches at the farthest within 100 miles of the northwest coast; a line drawn in latitude 3° N. till it intersects the course of the Pontiana river will point out the limit of the country inhabited by the Dyak.
About Pontiana and Sambas they are called Dayers; at Benjarmasing, Biajus; at Borneo Proper, Moruts; farther northward, Orang Idan. Their original history is as much enveloped in obscurity as that of the Monocaboes of Malaya, the Rejangs and Battas of Sumatra, or the Togals of the Philippines.
This Abdul Ramman, the first sultan or chief of Pontiana, reigned thirty-five years, and died in 1807, leaving his eldest son, the present Sultan Kasim, now forty-six years of age, his successor; who has a second brother, called Pangeran Marko, aged thirty-eight, and Pangeran Hosman, thirty-six years, beside four sisters, one of whom married the present Rajah of Matan, and about seventy half brothers and sisters, the natural children of his father, with an extensive sub-progeny.
The fort and factory, if built at all at Pontiana, must hence be fixed in some detached place. The sultan is building a new palace and covering it with tiles; a novelty in this quarter. There is but a scanty supply of fowls and buffaloes, and the necessaries of life are scarce and dear.
About three days' journey from Pontiana lies the celebrated mountain of Landa, which, after Golconda, is the most valuable diamond mine in the world.
The quantity of gold that finds its way to Pontiana is annually from three to four piculs. The imports there consist of opium, iron, steel, salt, rice, hardware, cutlery, blue and white gurras, salampories, Java cloths, gunpowder, beside China produce of all possible descriptions.
All Pontiana came on board to see him when we arrived." Palm gives his height from the head to the heel as 49 inches.
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